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Hawkins' 'Own Native Land' a Merry Journey of Stories, Songs
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2016-03-21:6442157:BlogPost:186615
2016-03-21T19:30:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p><strong><span class="font-size-5"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84716608?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84716608?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="325"></img></a> I</span>nvite a seanchaí into your home . . . you will be glad that you did.</strong> With Jim Hawkins new CD, <em>My Own Native Land: Stories and Songs of Ireland</em>, that has never been easier. Hawkins’ debut album will carry you across the miles, over the waters and back in time.</p>
<p>When a colleague suggested that I review “My Own…</p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-5"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84716608?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="325" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84716608?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="325" class="align-left"/></a>I</span>nvite a seanchaí into your home . . . you will be glad that you did.</strong> With Jim Hawkins new CD, <em>My Own Native Land: Stories and Songs of Ireland</em>, that has never been easier. Hawkins’ debut album will carry you across the miles, over the waters and back in time.</p>
<p>When a colleague suggested that I review “My Own Native Land,” I hadn’t yet had the pleasure of either meeting Jim or hearing his work. I looked forward to the CD arriving in my post box. Its arrival took me on a merry journey of stories and songs.</p>
<p>I have traveled the length and breadth of Ireland, taking time to stop and talk to any elder I might encounter for as long as they wanted me to or time would allow. Each one would start off by saying: “You should’ve been here when the Seanchaí walked about. Now <em>they</em> could tell a story!”</p>
<p>It was their voices that I heard, in chorus, after my first listen to Jim’s album, affirming, “Now HE can tell a story!” Some of Jim’s songs and stories were familiar. They took me on a journey back to cozy kitchens and long summer evenings filled with laughter, singing and friendship. Such was the case with <em>Star of County Down</em>, <em>The Flower of Sweet Strabane</em> and <em>God & the Devil Dividing People</em>. I cannot say how many countless times and in how many regional accents I have heard these songs and story. Each time, Hawkins delivered his offerings — which included a number of songs — with a nuance not heard before.</p>
<p>Jim’s album is for listening to on a car trip, a long winter’s evening or any time that you have to — or want to — settle in and just listen. Like a good pint of the Black, it takes time to build a good story, to set the tone and paint a picture. I can see Jim as quite at home in those long-ago days, wandering about the countryside, sharing tales and songs for a “warm spot and a bite, and perhaps something to quench me thirst?” I can see the house filling up with family and neighbors, as word spread that he was weaving his spell of words.</p>
<p>Such is the mark of a true storyteller, a Seanchaí. They can make you feel things, see things that others cannot, whether physically in front of you or in simply lilting out of the speakers on your sound system. So grab Jim’s newest CD, pour yourself a cuppa, grab a slice, a few friends and your favorite pet and settle in for a magical, musical, story-filled hour … and some. You will be glad you did.</p>
<p>Enjoy the journey, mo chairde. I certainly did.</p>
'Hell Town': 'Whites' Battle Over Irish Orphans in Arizona
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2015-09-01:6442157:BlogPost:168769
2015-09-01T16:00:00.000Z
Bit Devine
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713352?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713352?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="501"></img></a></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-5">I</span> was just reading through some articles on another site</strong> regarding the dark history of the Orphan Trains and their arrival in Arizona. In doing further research, I came across this amazing article written by Margaret Regan.</p>
<p><br></br> Here is the article in its entirety, reproduced here with her kind permission. It…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713352?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="501" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713352?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="501" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-5">I</span> was just reading through some articles on another site</strong> regarding the dark history of the Orphan Trains and their arrival in Arizona. In doing further research, I came across this amazing article written by Margaret Regan.</p>
<p><br/> Here is the article in its entirety, reproduced here with her kind permission. It definitely speaks to the racial tensions of the day :</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713679?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="350" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713427?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350" class="align-left" style="padding: 10px;"/></a></strong></p>
<p><strong>The Irish Orphan Abduction</strong></p>
<p><strong>A tale of race, religion and lawlessness in turn-of-the-century Southern Arizona</strong></p>
<p><strong>By Margaret Regan</strong></p>
<p>On a summer day in 1900, July 14, to be exact, Jerome Shanley was born in New York City.</p>
<p>His birth was hardly joyous. His mother, her name unrecorded, delivered him in a home for unwed mothers, and then vanished into the city's teeming streets. Little Jerome was allowed to stay at the home for five weeks, but on Aug. 21, a nurse carried the abandoned infant to New York Foundling Hospital.</p>
<p>Katherine Fitzpatrick seemed to have slightly better prospects. She was born a year later, on Sept. 9, 1901, at Sloane Maternity Hospital. Though the birth took place in the "charity wards" designated for the city's poor, her mother didn't give her up, not at first, anyway. The woman, whose name is also lost to history, kept baby Katherine long enough to see her first smile, and her first golden curls coming in.</p>
<p>But when she was six months old, Katherine, too, was relinquished. The mother herself brought the child to Foundling, handing her over March 25, 1902. The date must have stung this Irish Catholic woman. It was the Feast of the Annunciation, when Catholics celebrate the pregnancy of the Virgin Mary.</p>
<p>Jerome and Katherine were only two of thousands abandoned to Foundling. Between 1869, the year it was founded by an Irish-American nun named Sister Mary Irene Fitzgibbon, and 1904, the institution took in some 35,000 babies, primarily offspring of the city's reviled, impoverished Irish.</p>
<p>Staggering numbers of Irish immigrants had flooded the city since the Great Famine of the late 1840s. Subject to discrimination, they earned pitiful wages and were crammed into unhealthful tenements. The Irish had come up in the world by the turn of the century, but they still accounted for a large percentage of the city's paupers.</p>
<p>Kids like Katherine and Jerome, born to single mothers, were "regarded by Irish and non-Irish alike as base, children of the underclass," writes historian Linda Gordon, who chronicles their tale in her book "The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction." Their futures looked bleak.</p>
<p>Nothing about either child suggested that they would become the subjects of a fierce custody battle or, even more preposterously, celebrity darlings in the early days of mass media, written about in papers from coast to coast.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713552?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="500" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713552?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p>But that's exactly what happened. The nuns managed to find permanent foster homes for about a third of the children in their care, and Jerome and Katherine, luckily or unluckily, won a spot in the faraway West. Nuns from the Foundling took them to Arizona in a group of 40 orphans in October 1904, when Katherine was 3 and Jerome was 4. All of the children were placed in Mexican Catholic homes in the Wild West mining towns of Clifton and Morenci. Katherine and Jerome were destined to become siblings in the home of Cornelio and Margarita Chacón.</p>
<p>But the towns' Anglos, primarily non-Catholics, became incensed at the sight of white toddlers handed over to brown-skinned Hispanics. Within hours of the orphans' arrival, outraged Anglos gathered in threatening mobs. Within 24 hours -- in a blinding monsoon, no less -- a posse of 25 vigilantes stormed the Mexican homes and, armed with pistols, kidnapped the children.</p>
<p>Within 72 hours, the young priest had been ridden out of town, one step ahead of a lynch mob, and a throng of white <a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713613?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="250" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713613?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250" class="align-right" style="padding: 10px;"/></a>"mothers" had picked out orphans to keep as their very own. The nuns managed to escape with 21 of the kids, but the rest stayed behind, permanently, with their new white, non-Catholic families.</p>
<p>The case made the papers all across the country, and the ensuing court case wended its way all the way up to the Arizona Supreme Court, but in every venue, the finding was the same: Mexicans were unfit in every possible way to raise white children.</p>
<p>But a funny thing had happened on the orphans' way to the West. Back East, Jerome and Katherine weren't even in the exalted racial category of "white." They were something different, and infinitely inferior: Irish. As Gordon remarks, the "train ride had transformed them from Irish to white."</p>
<p>Perched high in the mountains of Eastern Arizona, the tiny towns of Clifton and Morenci hardly seem like a dream home for orphans of any color. Cliffs loom on all sides of Clifton, and Chase Creek and the San Francisco River run through the narrow swathe of flat, buildable land. The rivers flood frequently, washing away houses and businesses. Everywhere, rising high overhead, tumbling down gulleys, are rusty-orange rocks, shot through with the copper that has long given the townsfolk their living.</p>
<p>In 1904, Morenci, 1,000 feet up from Clifton, was a shoot-'em-up place nicknamed Hell Town that went head to head with Tombstone for the title of toughest town in Arizona. Morenci was more camp than town, and Clifton had a bit more of a business district, but saloons and brothels flourished in both places.</p>
<p>Violence was routine. A squad of armed Arizona Rangers came in to settle a strike in 1903 that had pitted whites against Mexicans. Famed healer Teresita Urrea, the Saint of Cabora, lived in Clifton, and when she entered an abusive marriage in 1900, a posse of 200 men pursued her gun-toting husband and threw him in jail.</p>
<p>Health and sanitation were poor. Morenci had no sewer system, and a typhoid epidemic swept through in late October 1904, shortly after the orphan episode. Both towns had bad water and bad air, polluted by the smelter's sulfurous emissions. Gordon records high rates of infertility in the towns, accounting for large numbers of women with baby hunger. At least one of the white adoptive mothers blamed her infertility on the pollution.</p>
<p>Mexicans and Mexican Americans (called Mexicans no matter where they were born) were a majority in both towns--perhaps 60 percent in Clifton, 70 percent in Morenci -- but the copper mines enforced a rigid hierarchy in jobs and wages. It was a given that whites got the best jobs and the best pay. But "white" was more broadly defined here: It took in Americans of English descent, Scotsmen and, a notch down, Irish, Italians and Spaniards: anyone, in short, who wasn't Mexican or Chinese.</p>
<p>The local Anglos were not particularly religious -- in 1904, Clifton had only one Protestant church, Presbyterian -- but Mexicans were generally devout Catholics. The town's first Catholic church, Sacred Heart, had opened way back in 1882, but three successive church structures were destroyed by fire or deluge. Still, the faithful kept rebuilding.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>'I better get where I could see the babies good.'</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713616?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713616?profile=original" width="238" class="align-left" style="padding: 10px;"/></a>It was the Mexicans' religious faith that inspired the nuns to place Irish New Yorkers in an Arizona mining camp in the first place. The nuns held fiercely to the idea that Irish Catholics, no matter how poor, had a right to their own religion. For their immortal souls to be saved, the orphans had to be raised in the "one true church."</p>
<p>The nuns had reason to fear for the kids' souls. For decades, do-gooder Protestant social workers in New York had virtually kidnapped Irish Catholic urchins off the streets -- some of them orphans, some of them not -- and shipped them out West.</p>
<p>As historian Maureen Fitzgerald recounts in "Habits of Compassion: Irish Catholic Nuns and the Origins of New York's Welfare System, 1830-1920," Irish kids swarmed the sidewalks of New York. These "ulcers of society," as The New York Times called them, did what they could to put crumbs on the family table, begging, working, rag-picking, stealing.</p>
<p>The best remedy for this plague of disorderly young Papists, Protestant leaders agreed, was to transfer them "into Protestant homes outside the city."</p>
<p>The legal mechanism for snatching kids away was a truancy law, which permitted any child not in school during school hours to be arrested and brought to a private mission, invariably Protestant. Fitzgerald writes that mission workers had no legal obligation even to contact the parents. If the impoverished mothers and fathers -- many of them immigrants, not savvy to the ways of the city -- never found them, the children could be legally committed for their entire childhood to the jurisdiction of the agency.</p>
<p>Which is where the notorious orphan trains come in.</p>
<p>A Methodist minister by the name of Charles Loring Brace, founder of the Children's Aid Society, conceived of the trains as an ingenious--and inexpensive--alternative to orphanages for the wretched Irish refuse. Families in the fabled American countryside would take in the street urchins and put them to work in the wholesome outdoors.</p>
<p>"The demand (in the Midwest and West) for children's labor is practically unlimited," he enthused in 1880. "A child's place at the table of the farmer is always open; his food and cost to the family are of little account."</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713538?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713538?profile=original" width="175" class="align-left" style="padding: 10px;"/></a>Brace's trains duly rolled out with 1,000 "orphans" a year by 1864. By 1910, Gordon calculates, some 110,000 had been railroaded out of town. At their destinations, crowds attracted by newspaper ads inspected the children like cattle. To Catholics, the outward-bound shipments of mostly Irish-Catholic kids amounted to nothing less than cultural genocide.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-1"><strong>(Left: Charles Loring Brace, founder of the Children's Aid Society.)</strong></span></p>
<p>The Sisters of Charity set out to counteract them. The child of Irish famine refugees, Sister Mary Irene opened the order's first Foundling house in 1870. From the start, the nuns allowed poor mothers to drop off babies without censure, and gave them up to three years to reclaim them.</p>
<p>Like Brace, the Sisters of Charity also turned to placing out, but they followed strict guidelines. The ideal age was 3, when children were weaned but too young to be sought for their labor. Particular families were vetted and matched in advance to each tot: no cattle calls. Most importantly, the foster families had to be practicing Catholics who would raise the orphans in their ancient faith.</p>
<p>Clifton had a new priest. Father Constant Mandin, at 26 a freshly minted clergyman, had arrived in town in the spring of 1904. He was an outsider, a Frenchman, here on his first pastoral assignment. Early on, he received a letter from the Sisters of Charity in faraway New York. Would any of his parishioners be interested in taking in a foundling? Mandin ignored the request at first. But when he received a second letter, he read it aloud to his Sacred Heart congregation, as A. Blake Brophy reports in "Foundlings on the Frontier."</p>
<p>Sixty parishioners applied to take a child; most of the 33 Mandin picked were mining families with a father earning a "Mexican" wage of $1.50 to $2.50 a day. The childless Chacóns were probably the best off. Cornelio, a skimmer at the copper smelter, was at the top of the Mexican pay scale. Margarita, a schoolteacher, taught Mexican children in their home.</p>
<p>On Sept. 25, their future children set out by train from Grand Central Station. Sister Anna Michaella Bowen headed <a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713598?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713598?profile=original" width="350" class="align-right" style="padding: 10px;"/></a>the orphan brigade, assisted by Sister Ann Corsini Cross, an Irish immigrant; Sister Francis Liguori Keller, a French-born nun; four nurses; and placement agent George Swayne.</p>
<p>The children ranged in age from 2 to 6, and they were a decidedly Irish bunch; besides Shanley and Fitzpatrick, they had such names as Kane, Welsh, Corcoran, Doherty, Ryan, Mack. The runarounds, as the nuns called toddlers, must have been a handful, but their early excitement soon worn off. The journey cross-country to Arizona was longer than they could imagine. It was not until the 11th day, Saturday, Oct. 1, that the brigade pulled into Clifton in the early evening, one day behind schedule.</p>
<p>The nuns' first glimpse of the place was not propitious. Two smelters towered over the narrow town, and black smoke stained the air. The expected foster mothers were at the station, but word had spread that orphan children were coming to town. A knot of white women pushed their way to the front and peered into the train windows.</p>
<p>What they saw delighted them. The nuns and nurses had dressed each little girl in a new white dress and each little boy in a sailor suit. The girls' hair was curled and beribboned, and every child was laced up in a pair of shiny black boots.</p>
<p>Gordon relates that Louisa Gatti could barely restrain herself. As Louisa later described it: "I thought to myself, 'I better get where I could see the babies good.' So the car pulled up a little ahead, and I goes to work and climbs the box car ... and (I) gets a peak at the children and jumps down and goes up to the butcher shop and tells Mr. Gatti, 'Oh, but there is some lovely children in that car over there.'"</p>
<p>The children were taken to Father Mandin's house. The Mexican foster mothers lined up, and agent Swayne and the priest checked each woman's name against the tag sewn into each child's garments. Soon, the children were placed in the arms of their new mothers.</p>
<p>Sister Anna Michaella later testified that she began to object to the color mismatch between mothers and children. Father Mandin, the outsider, didn't understand the problem -- these were devout women of his parish, after all. So Sister Anna deferred to his priestly authority, reasoning that she could take the children back later if necessary.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>'Pretty little children were going to stay in the half-breed homes.'</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713544?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="400" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713544?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="400" class="align-left" style="padding: 10px;"/></a>In the midst of the confusion, Louisa Gatti marched in and asked for a child, and claimed later that a sexton told her he would see what he could do. When her husband, John, turned up, he spoke to the priest in French, and learned that no children were available. Distraught, Louisa left empty-handed. So did the other childless Anglo women, but not before seeing the Mexican women -- their social inferiors--walk out with white babies.</p>
<p>"They not only wanted the babies," Gordon reports, "they were beginning to think it wasn't right for the Mexicans to take the babies ... They were beginning to fume when one by one the Mexican women emptied the church of orphans."</p>
<p><span class="font-size-1"><strong>(Left: A Harper's Magazine cartoon from 1873 extolling the virtues of the orphan trains.)</strong></span></p>
<p>The women took their outrage back to town. The nuns, unaware, returned to the sleeping car to spend the night. Early the next morning, a Sunday, they loaded the 24 remaining children onto wagons and, with Mandin and Swayne, drove up the twisting road to Morenci, leaving nurse Marian Taylor behind. At Holy Cross Church, a nearly identical procedure unfolded. New parents lined up; lists were checked; Mexican families left with Irish children. This time, though, Sister Anna was more assertive. She rejected nine of the families.</p>
<p>The Foundling group then checked into the Morenci Hotel. But their actions had not escaped notice. Three men accosted Swayne, Brophy writes. Charles Mills, manager of Detroit Copper, along with a company doctor and another man, demanded an explanation: How could he place white children with Mexicans? Swayne curtly replied that it was none of their business.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, back in Clifton, the rumor mill was churning. Anglos were trading tales of shiftless Mexican men and immoral Mexican women. No better than Indians, these half-breeds had filthy homes, the talk went. They didn't know how to treat white children -- one claimed to have seen a new Mexican mother give beer to her child -- and would poison them with spicy Mexican food. And the priest was no better: He was selling babies to the highest bidder.</p>
<p>There were eight female ringleaders, Gordon writes, seven of whom would later get orphans. By early afternoon, they persuaded five men to take action: Sam and Jake Abraham, Mike Riordan, Tom Simpson and Harry Wright (who would adopt Katherine Fitzpatrick).</p>
<p>The men tracked down deputy sheriff Jeff Dunagan, but he coolly told them he could make no arrests without a warrant. Still, he agreed to go up to Morenci to find Mandin and Swayne, and bring them back to Clifton. Simpson, a railroad engineer, went with him.</p>
<p>The pair, both armed, found Sister Anna Michaella first, at the Morenci Hotel. She explained that she intended to stay and inspect the homes, and if any were inappropriate, she reserved the right to remove the children. Mills, the mine boss, was still nosing around, and he joined the men to confront Swayne in his room. The men reiterated the townsfolk's objections to the Mexican families. Mills explained that the Mexicans earned very little money at the mine -- a fact he was in a position to know, because he set their pitiful wages.</p>
<p>News had spread around the mining camp that the "pretty little children were going to stay in the half-breed homes," <a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713548?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713548?profile=original" width="400" class="align-right" style="padding: 10px;"/></a>Brophy writes. A mob grew outside the hotel, and people were shouting they'd take the children themselves.</p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-1">(Right: Orphan children on their way to Canada.)</span></strong></p>
<p>Their rumblings gave Mills new ammunition. He sternly lectured all the outsiders about the niceties of racial discrimination in the Southwest. Mills might not have known that the Irish children ranked several steps below white in New York, but he did know that in Arizona, their placement with Mexicans "violated some of the deepest feelings and strongest convictions of the Americans in the community," Brophy writes. (To Mills and the others, "Americans" meant "whites.")</p>
<p>The Morenci multitude -- some 400 in a town of only 700 whites -- began to push into the hotel, shouting out threats to tar and feather the priest and agent. One of the nuns later described the scene to a Tucson Citizen reporter:</p>
<p>"In the street a sheriff sat on horseback, with a revolver, like the other men. Women called us vile names, and some of them put pistols to our heads. They said there was no law in that town, that they made their own laws."</p>
<p>The New Yorkers knew defeat when they saw it. Sister Anna ordered Swayne to go retrieve the kids in Morenci, just a few short hours after they had been taken to their new homes. Later, he was to get the others in Clifton.</p>
<p>To make the evening even more cataclysmic, the first lightning flashes of a gathering monsoon blazed along the canyon walls, and "when the rains came, they slapped the town in wind-driven sheets," Brophy writes. Mandin and Swayne set out in the torrent for the Mexican homes and told the new parents to bring the children to the hotel immediately, storm or no storm. The first soaked families started showing up around 7:30 p.m., and the last about 10 p.m.</p>
<p>As each family came in, mine boss Mills contemptuously read aloud the amount of each father's wages, Gordon reports, "to show how little they earned."</p>
<p>Unbeknownst to the Foundling group up in Morenci, it was already too late to retrieve the Clifton orphans. All day, the Clifton crowd had been growing bigger and angrier by the hour. They had learned midafternoon in a phone call from Dunagan that Swayne would not yield. Muriel Wright, future mother of Katherine, urged "the good citizens of the town ... (to) rescue these babies."</p>
<p>Twenty-five men formed a posse, a group they would later describe in court as a benign "committee." The squad included two deputy sheriffs and George Frazer, a superintendent at the smelter, who would later adopt orphan Hannah Kane.</p>
<p>They set out after dark, through the crashing rain, in dirt streets turned to muddy soup, armed with rifles and Colts. Neville Leggatt, a deliveryman for the Arizona Copper Company store, knew most of the houses. He would later call the foster parents, his faithful customers, "half Indians of the lowest kind."</p>
<p>The posse stormed house after house, loudly knocking on doors, demanding each orphan in the name of the citizens of Clifton. But when they got to the home of Margarita Chacón, even Leggatt would confess later to being ashamed. He conceded to the court that the Chacóns were "honest people." But the posse had agreed on a single, one-size-fits-all plan: All Mexicans were bad, and all children were to be seized.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>'People began literally fighting over (the Irish) children'</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713550?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="400" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713550?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="400" class="align-left" style="padding: 10px;"/></a>Jerome and Katherine were rousted from their new beds, grabbed by strange men from Margarita's arms, and taken out into the night.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><strong><span class="font-size-1">(Left: A group of orphan train children at an unknown location.)</span></strong></p>
<p>By midnight, all 16 of the Clifton orphans were back at the hotel. Wet, chilled and exhausted, some of the children were sick to their stomachs. A clutch of Anglo women put them to bed in blankets on the floor, but they didn't settle down, understandably, until 2 a.m. One child, Josephine Corcoran, 2 1/2, sang hysterically until she fell asleep, Gordon recounts.</p>
<p>When Swayne and Mandin got back to town around midnight, intending to round up the children Monday morning, they learned that the abduction had taken place. Even with the children retrieved, the rabble's rage was unabated. They demanded that Swayne wire the Foundling for permission for Anglo families to take the children, and when Swayne refused, Sam Abraham barred the agent and the priest from his hotel. Dunagan took them over to a Mexican boardinghouse. Dunagan and Simpson spent the night with them -- if the men were not exactly under arrest, they were in protective custody.</p>
<p>Monday morning, Oct. 3, nurse Marian Taylor came downstairs to find 16 of her former charges scurrying around the hotel lobby. When she protested, Brophy writes, Abraham told her that since "the sisters had given them to the Mexicans ... (they) had lost all right to them."</p>
<p>And the Anglo women were already divvying them up.</p>
<p>"People began literally fighting over children," Gordon relates. "The children were being dickered over as if at a bazaar."</p>
<p>A Mrs. Pascoe claimed Jerome Shanley, and Muriel Wright took Katherine Fitzpatrick, ending the children's short-lived siblingship. Mrs. Jake Abraham took singing Josephine, and Laura Abraham, wife of Sam, helped herself to the youngest, Elizabeth Kane, who would turn 2 on Oct. 5. Pushy Louisa Gatti walked off with William Norton, age 3.</p>
<p>The Anglos hoped to legitimize these putative adoptions that evening, when P.C. Little, a probate judge from Solomonville, arrived on the evening train. But he said, correctly, that he couldn't sign adoption papers without the authorization of the Foundling, the legal guardian. But he also refused to restore the children to the custody of the Foundling's reps. By default, the children would stay where they were.</p>
<p>When the mob heard the bad news about the adoptions, they exploded and chased Swayne and Mandin into the streets. The two hid out in the rear room of a saloon until the coast was clear, and then hightailed it back to Morenci with Dunagan. But a grim announcement awaited.</p>
<p>Deputy Gus Hobbs informed them that the whites of Morenci intended to follow Clifton's suit. They planned to grab the kids from the nuns and hand them out to Anglos. Hobbs further ordered the whole New York group -- and the priest -- to get out of town the next morning, Tuesday, Oct. 4, on the 7 a.m. train.</p>
<p>Sister Anna Michaella declared that she, her nuns and nurses would stay behind with the children and face down any kidnappers. But Swayne and Mandin did not need too much persuading, and they hopped the morning train, throngs jeering in their wake. His first pastoral ministry in tatters, Mandin headed for Tucson and the protection of his bishop, Henri Granjon. Swayne went to El Paso, Texas, to wait for the sisters.</p>
<p>"The seven women were to face the mob alone," Gordon writes.</p>
<p>But Dunagan played a couple of unexpected cards. First, he told the women that they would never be able to take the children from town, because the engineer had vowed he wouldn't allow them on the train. Second, he revealed that Swayne had promised him two children in return for keeping the agent safe.</p>
<p>Defeated, Sister Anna allowed him his pick. He chose Hannah Kane, 3 1/2, and Edward Cummiskey, 4 1/2. But Dunagan didn't want the tots for himself. He would hand Hannah over to Clifton smelter boss George Frazer, perhaps seeking to gain favor with a higher-up, and Edward to a J.T. Kelly.</p>
<p>The fire sale was on. Charles Mills, the Morenci mine boss, turned up next. It seemed his friend, a Dr. W.F. Davis, a Clifton physician now living in Los Angeles, had asked Mills to pick out a child for him. Sister Anna permitted this, too, and he selected a little girl.</p>
<p>Even these concessions did not endear the nuns to the circling mobs.</p>
<p>"The Morenci crowd ... turned its fury on the sisters, and Tuesday became the most terrifying day of all," Gordon writes. Men with guns invaded the nuns' hotel rooms, trailed by women calling them slave traders and worse.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-1"><strong>(Below: An orphan train in Michigan, year unknown.)</strong></span></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713703?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="680" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84713703?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="680" class="align-right"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Lambasted for selling 'white American babies' to "squalid, half-civilized Mexicans'</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left;">Sister Anna managed to slip out and track down Mills. Mollified now that he'd gotten a child for his friend, perhaps, the mine boss ordered the hotel to eject the crowds. And he promised to put his company guards on watch, and even allow the whole party to leave town the next day -- nuns, nurses, kids and all.</span></p>
<p>Next morning, Wednesday, Oct. 5, the guards escorted the baby brigade to Morenci station. They got out of Hell Town on the 7 a.m. train, leaving 19 souls behind.</p>
<p>The nuns never got Jerome or Katherine or the other children back. In New York, where the work of the Foundling was well known, the New York Daily News slammed Morenci and Clifton as the most "debased localities (that) can be found on the entire southern tier of States ... . The beseeching nuns were beaten off and the sobbing little ones were distributed among the vilest haunts of the two towns ..."</p>
<p>But the Western papers replayed timeworn anti-Catholic and anti-Mexican slurs. The Arizona Bulletin condemned Catholics for selling "sweet, innocent, white American babies" to "squalid, half-civilized Mexicans of the lowest class."</p>
<p>Even President Theodore Roosevelt got involved. In New York, the Ancient Order of Hibernians complained about the kidnapping to the president, who obliged by directing the U.S. Attorney in Phoenix to file a friend-of-the-court brief for the nuns. William Henry Brophy, a wealthy Bisbee businessman born in Ireland, helped fund their suit, and he recommended a top Tucson attorney, Eugene Ives.</p>
<p>No criminal charges were ever filed against the vigilantes. When the Graham County Probate Court certified the Anglo parents as legal guardians in November, Ives filed an appeal with the Arizona Supreme Court for the return of the children. Turning their backs on the Mexican Catholics who took in strangers, the nuns conceded during the January 1905 trial that the homes were not well-chosen. The blame was placed squarely on Father Mandin, a foreigner who didn't understand Americans' complicated racial calibrations.</p>
<p>But attorney Ives argued the law. The territory of Arizona was bound to comply with New York state custody laws and return the children to the Foundling.</p>
<p>Cliftonian after Cliftonian answered his logic with the most racist testimony possible, repeating the slanders that their Mexican neighbors were prostitutes, low-lifes, vermin. Still, the Anglos' best argument was their newly constituted families. The new parents came en masse to the trial in Phoenix, their lovely young orphans in tow. Paraded around town and in the courtroom, the children became media darlings. Journalists reported their every gesture, every cute saying.</p>
<p>On Jan. 17, the Arizona Republican gushed over little Katherine. Perched on a desk in the courtroom, "She turned her attention to the justices, laughed and waved her little hand at the court en banc" and pretty much put a stop to the judges' efforts to keep the courtroom quiet.</p>
<p>Writing the unanimous decision upholding the Anglos' guardianship, Justice Edward Kent praised the parents.</p>
<p>"With humanitarian impulse ... (they) assisted in the rescue of these little children from the evil into which they had fallen. ... We feel that is for their (children's) best interests that no change be made in their custody."</p>
<p>Nowhere did the judge mention posses or lynch mobs. Instead, he lauded the "Americans" who staged "community meetings" and "volunteer actions" to remove children from "degraded half-breed Indians."</p>
<p>Some of the adoptive parents had claimed to be Catholic, Gordon writes, but none were practicing, and in any case, the court hardly addressed the nuns' central concern: the right of the Irish children to be raised in their ancestral faith. For the courts, race trumped religion.</p>
<p>The Foundling appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in December 1906, the highest court ruled it lacked jurisdiction. The lower court finding stood, and the Clifton white parents legally adopted the children. Their homecoming merited a festival among the white residents, but the sensational case hardened the racial barriers in the twin mining camps.</p>
<p>Father Mandin never returned. He became the longtime priest in Bisbee, where, ironically, he served a community of Irish-born miners, and built St. Patrick's, an elaborate church that still stands. Sacred Heart Church washed away again in a flood in 1905. Margarita Chacón told a census taker in 1910 that she had only one living baby, after losing six others. Sister Anna Michaella became leader of the Sisters of Charity in 1917.</p>
<p>And the children? A 1906 photo pictures golden-haired Katherine Wright, formerly Fitzpatrick, swathed in a white dress, lounging in the lap of her adoptive aunt, Mae Wright Simpson, the very picture of respectability.</p>
<p>Little singing Josephine, adopted by the Abrahams, didn't fare as well. She died of pneumonia in December 1904; she'd been sick ever since her untimely outing in the October storm. Sadie Green, renamed Gladys Freeman, was raised in Los Angeles, where she was raped and impregnated by a grocer at the age of 13, according to files unearthed by Gordon.</p>
<p>In a history master's thesis for the UA, James Patton wrote in 1945 that none of the orphans still lived in Clifton. Another writer, William R. Ridgway, claimed in 1955 to have found a grown orphan in Clifton devotedly tending to her aged, adoptive mother. As for the rest, they vanished as surely as their Irish names were erased.</p>
<p>But according to writer Elena Díaz Bjórkquist, who grew up in Morenci in the 1940s and '50s, a legend persisted in the Mexican community that one of the orphans escaped the vigilantes, fleeing with her new family into the stormy night. When the family returned after some years, they had a pale-skinned daughter in tow, and her hair was flaming red.</p>
<p><strong>Margaret Regan based this story on information drawn from the following published works: <i>Foundlings on the Frontier: Racial and Religious Conflict in Arizona Territory, 1904-1905</i> by A. Blake Brophy (University of Arizona Press, 1972); <i>Habits of Compassion: Irish Catholic Nuns and the Origins of New York's Welfare System, 1830-1920</i> by Maureen Fitzgerald (University of Illinois Press, 2006); <i>The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction</i> by Linda Gordon (Harvard University Press, 1999); <i>Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America</i> by Kerby A. Miller (Oxford University Press, 1985); and "New York Foundlings at Clifton-Morenci: Social Justice in Arizona Territory 1904-1905," an article by Raymond A. Mulligan in the journal <i>Arizona and the West</i> (Summer 1964), pages 104 to 119. Regan gratefully acknowledges their work.</strong></p>
<p><strong>The Irish Orphan Abduction</strong> <strong>by Margaret Regan</strong></p>
<p><strong>© Margaret Regan. All rights reserved. </strong></p>
<p><strong>Originally published in the Tucson Weekly on March 15, 2007</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/the-irish-orphan-abduction/Content?oid=1087070" target="_blank">http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/the-irish-orphan-abduction/Content?oid=1087070</a></p>
<p><strong>Author Margaret Regan is a Philadelphia native, is a longtime journalist in Tucson and the author of two nonfiction books on immigration: "The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories of the Arizona Borderlands" (2010) and "Detained and Deported: Stories of Immigrant Families Under Fire" (2015), both from Beacon Press. For more information, see her website, <a href="http://www.margaret-regan.com" target="_blank">www.margaret-regan.com</a>.</strong></p>
Byways & Backroads of Eire: A New Decade Begins
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2015-05-29:6442157:BlogPost:159233
2015-05-29T16:00:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84712250?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84712250?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a> <span class="font-size-1">Lovely Loophead ~ ©2011 C.E. Devine</span></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">T</span>en years!</strong> My how the time has flown, it seems like that was just a few months ago.</p>
<p>It all started quite unexpectedly. In autumn of 2005, I was approached by friends who…</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84712250?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84712250?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-center"/></a><span class="font-size-1">Lovely Loophead ~ ©2011 C.E. Devine</span></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">T</span>en years!</strong> My how the time has flown, it seems like that was just a few months ago.</p>
<p>It all started quite unexpectedly. In autumn of 2005, I was approached by friends who wanted some help in planning their “perfect” Irish experience. They just knew that I was the one who would make their trip magical and unforgettable. Upon their return, they began telling everyone about their trip, how well suited it was for them and passing out my phone number to others wanting to plan their own Irish sojourn. This was the beginning of the grand adventure called <a href="http://www.bywaysbackroadsofeire.com/" target="_blank">Byways & Backroads of Eire</a>.</p>
<p>Over the past ten years, I have helped many couples, families and singles explore the off-the-beaten track spots in Ireland. In the beginning, I worked with large tour companies to offer adventure tours but that went by the wayside the past five years, as individual tours became my mainstay. Thanks to the wonders of internet, face-time and email, my clients hail from across the United States and Canada. The range from those traveling over for their first time to experienced travelers looking for something they haven't seen yet.</p>
<p>I have never been a huge fan of the "Around Ireland in 8 Days" whirlwind tours. After several inquiries from elder travelers and hesitant travelers, I began looking for small, Ireland based companies who could provide a more uniquely Irish experience for my clients who didn't want to drive on their own. One of those companies I am looking forward to adding to my list is our very own Wild West of Ireland. I look forward to sending clients to them.</p>
<p>I personally have stayed in or inspected ninety-five percent of all the lodgings which I offer up to my clients. The other five percent comes from trusted friends who are also in the Travel Planning business. Those people have mentored me every step of the way. </p>
<p>I keep files of every B&B, Hotel and Self-catering that I offer to my clients. I rely on their feedback upon returning from or sometimes during their trip to keep my lists updated and rotated. One bad client experience may not get you rotated to the "C" list but three complaints will and a fourth will see you in my "Not until my return stay" file. I am good at communicating back to my hosts/hostesses any and all feedback, both positive and negative. Their response to my feedback also moves them up or down in my rotation.</p>
<p>My full service clients receive a personalised binder filled with daily driving routes in what has been referred to as “Big Blue Crayon – Never Fail” style, a laminated map and either day trip suggestions or fully plotted day trips, depending on what they’ve requested. Along with that comes my assistance in booking your car, lodgings and airfare. If you just want a route drawn up, you still get my big blue crayon routing and lodging suggestions but the rest of the research is up to you. I rarely have anyone take the lesser option, most prefer to leave it to me to make Magic happen.<br/> <br/> My clients have returned to me for many reasons but the one constant reason is that I am always accessible during their travels. Whether they’ve a problem and need a solution or just want to share their joyous discoveries, I am available via email or text to assist or celebrate. A recent returning client told me that it was so nice to not have everything cookie cutter and that she felt truly listened to when she told me her want list.</p>
<p>I have learned much from my clients and I have seen the heart of all of them. Whatever their niche, I will try to accommodate it.</p>
<p>From the father who was approaching eighty who wanted to show his son, approaching middle-age, the Ireland of his Grandmother, I learned the art of patience and acceptance. That lesson came in a frantic phone call from the son. It was his first time traveling abroad and the airlines had lost their luggage. I could hear the elder man in the background making his own call, “yes, well, they’ve lost our suitcases. It’s a good thing I have a wallet full of credit…Time to take the Boy shopping!” Their luggage finally showed up a week later during their Dingle stay. The father quite cheerily texted me: “After an extended tour of the continent, our luggage has decided to join us!” I think that is the best travel attitude to have, humour and tolerance.</p>
<p>From my Vegan clients, I learned that there is a much larger tolerance and acceptance of Vegans in Ireland than I had thought. My one contact in Cork who got them sussed in their B&B and then gave me contacts for each of the rest of their stops, taught me that there truly is a place for everyone in Ireland. The delightful hosts of a favorite B&B up in Donegal, who hadn’t ever hosted Vegans before, taught me flexibility with their “We’ve got six months to perfect some delicious Vegan recipes! Don’t you worry about a thing!” From the clients themselves, I learned that life really can be a bright place as long as you embrace each new experience wholeheartedly: “Never driven on the other side of the road before but there’s a first time for everything!”</p>
<p>A more personal planning came when I arranged to bring FLANO’s family over to Ireland for two weeks in what would be his brother’s final trip and his nieces’ very first. Those were different challenges, finding medical equipment rentals for his brother, locating hospitals close at hand “just in case”, dealing with adolescent American girl attitudes in a very culturally different country… “No you cannot wear camisoles and hot pants here, you are only 9!”… “No, we are NOT eating every meal at McDonalds and Burger King”. The laughter and good memories are mixed in with some darker humour moments and more than a few tears but it was a great way to trace family roots, create a sense of belong in his nieces, fulfill a promise of returning their Father to the earth of Clare and to send his brother off on his own long journey the following April with a knowing that he had fulfilled a promise to his girls and his mum.</p>
<p>This year has been a busy one; a couple fulfilling a lifelong dream to spend a month in Ireland is now in the final days of their trip and texting me that they don’t want it to end. Another couple will make their sojourn to the Wild Atlantic Way and the Coastal roads of Antrim in September, a beautiful time to experience the North of it all! Yet another family journeying over to set their daughter up for her studies at Maynooth, also in September.</p>
<p>In amongst all of that, FLANO asked if it might be possible to offer a Centennial tour through our Celtic shop here in Tucson. It had been a while since I had planned a group tour. I knew that I didn’t want it to be large scale. In order to allow for the best Centennial Celebration experience in Dublin, it had to be small and intimate. I had made friends about nine months prior with Mary O’Grady who operates a tour planning service based in Ireland. She had expressed a desire to work with me “one of these days” and so off went an email to see what she thought of the timing, too short or just enough? Back and forth the emails flew as we two honed the tour and what it could be. It took close to twelve emails back and forth before Mary finally really understood that when I say “off the beaten” and “unique experience” that is truly what I mean. Eighty-one emails later and Centennial Sojourn has been launched.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84712394?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84712394?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a>An eleven night/twelve day sojourn through five counties: Dublin, Cork, Kerry, Clare and Galway, that isn’t your ordinary tour. I am looking forward to introducing my tour guests to the Beautiful Beara, Sheepshead, Dingle, Loophead Peninsula, Kilkee cliff walk, Doolin, Inis Oirr, Clonmacnoise & Fore. Our stopovers will be lovely hotels & B&Bs in Baltimore, County Cork, Dingle, County Kerry, Doolin, County Clare, Galway, County Galway and of course Dublin, city centre to bookend it all.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84712499?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84712499?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a><span class="font-size-1">The Navigator ~ Cobh Harbour ©2011 C.E Devine</span></p>
<p>Ten years since the launching of Byways & Backroads of Eire and it is time for us to evolve. I will be investing in classes and certifications to advance my skill set and knowledge in order to provide even better quality service for my clients. As I have expanded my travels to include Scotland and Wales, so too has my itinerary planning evolved to include both of those Celtic lands, as well. So it has come to the time when “Of Eire” isn’t the end, rather it is now “of Eire & Beyond”… To borrow from Dr. Seuss, “Oh the places we shall go!”</p>
<p>It has opened up a whole fresh avenue for Byways & Backroads and will lay the groundwork for my retirement plan in five years. The goal is two tours of Ireland per year and a single tour to either Scotland or Wales. That should keep me hopping in my retirement years!</p>
<p>Along the way, I have met some wonderful people, established lifelong friendships with a wide cross-section of folks, from former Irish presidents to wandering “minstrels”, and come to the realization that I may never truly find ALL of the hidden treasures Ireland might have. I certainly will give it my best shot though!</p>
<p>Here’s to the next great adventure! Wherever the wild road might lead, I’m ready, are you?</p>
<p></p>
His-Story of Irish Music - A Review of Larry Kirwan’s Latest Book
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2015-05-22:6442157:BlogPost:158227
2015-05-22T21:30:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84712205?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84712205?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">I</span> was asked to write a review</strong> on the latest offering by Larry Kirwan, "<i>A History of Irish Music</i>." As a scholar of Celtic music, I looked forward to reading his take on Irish music. I will say that what I expected to read and what I read, whilst they meshed on some…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84712205?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84712205?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">I</span> was asked to write a review</strong> on the latest offering by Larry Kirwan, "<i>A History of Irish Music</i>." As a scholar of Celtic music, I looked forward to reading his take on Irish music. I will say that what I expected to read and what I read, whilst they meshed on some levels, were two very different species.</p>
<p>Larry Kirwan crafted his story within the history of the evolving yet sometimes destructuring Irish music of modern times. He gives us an insight into not only the Irish genre that we most recognize -- Makem, Clancy, and Molloy -- but also an insider’s view of how that dovetails with other genres to become today’s Irish rock -- Black 47, Dropkick Murphys, Saw Doctors et al. </p>
<p>Along the way, we are given an insight into how a young boy from Wexford grew into his voice as the front man for Black 47. Each chapter begins and ends with snippets of lyrics, those he penned himself and songs we label as “traditional”, which are guaranteed to have the jukebox in your brain short-circuiting and running in a continuous loop. <i>Patriot Game</i>, <i>The Island</i>, <i>Wexford Town</i>, <i>Whistles the Wind</i> and others that he mentions throughout the book now flit in and out of my day like faeries on the wind. I find myself humming a tune and realizing that it is one of those he had mentioned. </p>
<p>As he introduces us to the musicians and their music, he is also introducing us to his own family, the Wexford of his childhood, his teen years and the Wexford of today. A nod to how well his writing draws a picture, I could “hear” the people as I read -- Miss Codd, his grandfather, uncle Paddy and the cadre of musicians, too long a list to name here.</p>
<p>Perhaps it is because I have spoken with some of the musicians of whom he writes, I find myself nodding in agreement with his statements of them. I found myself wishing that I could’ve been in the shadows of places like O’Donoghue’s, the Coffee Kitchen or the Universal experiencing first hand all of the music that reverberated off the walls.<br/> <br/> <iframe width="750" height="563" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/482RwpkuHiY?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<p></p>
<p>In Hhs writing, Larry speaks of groups like Emmet-Spiceland and I have a need to know more about them. He talks of their harmonies and I want to <em>HEAR</em> those harmonies for myself. Thankfully, through the modern gift/curse that is YouTube, I can.</p>
<p></p>
<p><iframe width="750" height="422" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5JIGgu_1zFA?list=RD4lSYk4v1wk0&wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<p>It is in his off stage encounters with the likes of performers such as Rory Gallagher and Ronnie Drew, that he provides a human quality. He speaks of Van Morrison and I recall an encounter with Van on a quiet, grey day near Grey Abbey. He isn’t a man of many words. As we crossed paths, I said “Hello” and he smiled. I said that he reminded me of Van Morrison and he replied, “I am he,” and strolled on without so much as another word or backwards glance. I was also there one night to witness him walk offstage shortly into his performance because someone in the audience wouldn’t quit talking. They are not gods but humans, with all the hungers, foibles and quirks that we all have. Larry reminds of this often throughout his writings.</p>
<p>He speaks of how the Irish carried their music with them, a tangible reminder of home. Here, I find common ground as this is a point that I make in my Celtic–Cowboy music lectures. Music not only gives you wings it also roots you to a place and gives you a sense of belonging, He speaks of his own returns back home to Wexford after emigrating to New York, and I hear echoes of others who, having left, come home to see things through a different eye.</p>
<p>Even though Irish music today is an amalgam of many other genres, it has never lost sight of its heart, its roots. It has stretched the boundaries, stomped along the razor edge in worker boots and spikes but it still returns to the phrasing and rhythms that identifies it as Irish.<br/> <br/> <iframe width="750" height="422" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WjXINI3ujgg?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<br/> <br/>In this book, Larry carries us along that edge, sometimes at the leisure pace of a bicycle ride down a small boreen and at other times breakneck.</p>
<p>I wholeheartedly recommend this book for anyone who is a consummate fan of Irish music and those who wish to become fans. Along the way, you will also become a fan of the one and only Larry Kirwan, himself a prolific writer of stories and song.</p>
<p></p>
A Flocking of Geese in NYC
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2015-05-22:6442157:BlogPost:158159
2015-05-22T21:20:09.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p>On April 18th, Ger Regan, his better half, my better half and I ventured into St ANdrew's Pub in Times Square to listen to one of our Wild Geese members, Mary Courtney</p>
<p></p>
<p>What a grand time was had! We enjoyed the music, of course. However, it was the antics of the two Princeton boys next two us which made us laugh.</p>
<p>They had decided to order Haggis... but when it came, they picked up their forks and, very hesitantly, began to poke at it... this went on for about four or…</p>
<p>On April 18th, Ger Regan, his better half, my better half and I ventured into St ANdrew's Pub in Times Square to listen to one of our Wild Geese members, Mary Courtney</p>
<p></p>
<p>What a grand time was had! We enjoyed the music, of course. However, it was the antics of the two Princeton boys next two us which made us laugh.</p>
<p>They had decided to order Haggis... but when it came, they picked up their forks and, very hesitantly, began to poke at it... this went on for about four or five minutes before I just couldn't take it any longer and asked why they were so hesitant... They offered my a taste and I declined... However after their waitress... having taken them up on their "would you like a taste?" query... freaked them out with her facial expressions... I put on my "Mom" face and took a forkful myself... I declared it most tasty and they were satisfied then that it was edible... <br/><br/>The most interesting thing wasn't their hesitance with the Haggis... I do find that understandable... The most interesting thing was that the two Princeton "boys" were Pakistani and totally into the Celtic culture... One of them was even teaching himself to play the banjo so that he could play Celtic music... THe other kept asking me where to buy "plaid pants" ...to which I would reply "Tartan Troosers?"...</p>
<p>Here are a couple of photos from the evening:</p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84712084?profile=original"><img width="250" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84712084?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250"/></a><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84712225?profile=original"><img width="250" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84712225?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250"/></a></p>
The Sounds of the Wild Atlantic Way
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2015-04-09:6442157:BlogPost:152485
2015-04-09T17:30:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p>This is a most interesting endeavor... I hope you enjoy it</p>
<p><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/f-pOj_xRl_k?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe>
</p>
<p>This is a most interesting endeavor... I hope you enjoy it</p>
<p><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/f-pOj_xRl_k?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe>
</p>
Here's to Shanachie, Weavers of Rhythm and Rhyme
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2015-03-23:6442157:BlogPost:150842
2015-03-23T18:00:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711099?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711099?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="375"></img></a></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">G</span>rowing up I was told,</strong> "Listen to the Story tellers, the weavers of dreams and history, legends and traditions. The Seanchaí will take you places you may only touch or see through the magic of their words." I listened and absorbed. I became a loom on which they built each…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711099?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="375" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711099?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="375" class="align-left"/></a></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">G</span>rowing up I was told,</strong> "Listen to the Story tellers, the weavers of dreams and history, legends and traditions. The Seanchaí will take you places you may only touch or see through the magic of their words." I listened and absorbed. I became a loom on which they built each warp and weft, word, rhythm, rhyme. Music was a form of storytelling that took me even deeper, farther, into a vast realm of colour and texture that I am still, 45 years later exploring. On my 16th birthday, I received a package in the mail , within it a card, unsigned, that simply said "Enjoy the music of the Seanchaí" and four record albums: <em>Caledonia's Hardy Sons</em>, <em>Tommy Makem & Liam Clancy</em>, <em>The Wheels of the World,</em> and <em>The Noah's Ark Trap.</em></p>
<p>That was my introduction to Shanachie Records and their amazing, eclectic artists. The next birthday, another box, another four albums -- Planxty, De Dannan, The Chieftains and Clannad -- all found a home in my growing collection. The accompanying note, "Find your strength in the dance of the Seanchaí,” was still unsigned and ever cryptic. On my 18th birthday, another box, another set of albums and the message, "Now you will become the Seanchaí."</p>
<p>It wasn't until many years later, in going through the personal belongings of my late mother-in-law, that I learned who had sent my mystery packages. She understood my love of music, all kinds of music, better than most.</p>
<p>Shanachie fed that love, nourished my soul like rain on a parched field, with their ever-growing discography and cadre of singers, songwriters and musicians. Each artist in a wide range of genres, were indeed following in the footsteps of the Seanchaí. I often drank from the Shanachie well, and my collection has grown as rapidly and as variedly. Shanachie Records introduced me to reggae artists, blues artists, jazz artists and with each addition my soul soared to new heights.</p>
<p>I always returned though to the music that spoke to my core and roots. Celtic. When I took on that mantle and became a Seanchaí, it was these albums and later CDs to which I would turn for inspiration, for reassurance and for the warp and weft to flesh out my repertoire.</p>
<p>Shanachie Records was always the well to which I returned. As the flavours of that well spring blended and grew from fiddle and Celtic to funk, blues and reggae, so too did rhythms and beats of my own life tapestry brighten ... becoming more vivid and rich.</p>
<p><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711162?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-right"/></p>
<p>Shanachie gave me Makem, Clancy, Clannad and Planxty. Through them, I found Silly Wizard and because of Silly Wizard, Andy M. Stewart joined the rest in enlightening my life with music. They also gave me an avenue into some Celtic artists who were lesser known here in the States: Dolores Keane, Seamus Egan, and the Silly Sisters (Maggie Prior and June Tabor) among them.</p>
<p>Listen to the storytellers, the Seanchaí, for they will bring colour into your life that you couldn't begin to imagine. How glad I am that I have heeded that advise all of my days. Indeed, I seek out the storytellers, the Seanchaí, where ever my journey takes me. For storytellers are found in every corner of the world, in back streets, forest lanes, desert trails and city streets. Each one adds their texture and tone, rhythm and rhyme to the tapestry that is my life.</p>
<p></p>
Athbhliain faoi Mhaise Duibh
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2015-01-05:6442157:BlogPost:136550
2015-01-05T17:55:45.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p>To All of the Flock...where ever you might call home</p>
<p>Athbhliain faoi Mhaise Duibh!<br/><br/><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84709418?profile=original"><img width="250" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84709418?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250"/></a></p>
<p>May all good things find their way to your door in the coming year.... And may all things bad get lost on their way</p>
<p>To All of the Flock...where ever you might call home</p>
<p>Athbhliain faoi Mhaise Duibh!<br/><br/><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84709418?profile=original"><img width="250" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84709418?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250"/></a></p>
<p>May all good things find their way to your door in the coming year.... And may all things bad get lost on their way</p>
Freedom's Sons
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2015-01-05:6442157:BlogPost:136279
2015-01-05T17:52:34.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p>This is one of my favorite versions...<br/><br/><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/muur8bbhYEw?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<p>This is one of my favorite versions...<br/><br/><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/muur8bbhYEw?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
Wren Day Festivities
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-12-26:6442157:BlogPost:134959
2014-12-26T18:11:16.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p>A wee bit of a Wren Day celebration in my home ground... Armagh..<br/><br/><iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/8837jEbbTQE?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<p>A wee bit of a Wren Day celebration in my home ground... Armagh..<br/><br/><iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/8837jEbbTQE?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
On This Day - December 23, 1920
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-12-23:6442157:BlogPost:134915
2014-12-23T23:38:39.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p>On this day 23rd December,1920-<br></br><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84709066?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84709066?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="322"></img></a> <br></br> The Government of Ireland Act enforces Partition-26 Counties become The Irish Free State while Britain splits the northern 6 Counties from the rest of Ireland.…</p>
<p></p>
<p>On this day 23rd December,1920-<br/><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84709066?profile=original"><img width="322" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84709066?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="322"/></a><br/> The Government of Ireland Act enforces Partition-26 Counties become The Irish Free State while Britain splits the northern 6 Counties from the rest of Ireland.</p>
<p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/r-zMd7ub4zE?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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Irish Fireside is the Cure - Chasing away the Pangs of Eire-Sickness
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-12-17:6442157:BlogPost:133454
2014-12-17T20:30:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84709173?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84709173?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">I</span> awoke this morning</strong> to the sound of rain beating down on a tin roof. I was hoping that somehow, in my dream time hours, the faeries had come and carried me home.</p>
<p>Sadly, I opened my eyes, looked out my window and saw ... cactus. It's a soft day here in the Old…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84709173?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84709173?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">I</span> awoke this morning</strong> to the sound of rain beating down on a tin roof. I was hoping that somehow, in my dream time hours, the faeries had come and carried me home.</p>
<p>Sadly, I opened my eyes, looked out my window and saw ... cactus. It's a soft day here in the Old Pueblo. Overcast, a chill breeze. Still, it is a far cry from Ireland.</p>
<p>And so, I have spent some time watching podcasts on <a href="http://irishfireside.com/category/podcast-2/" target="_blank">IrishFireside.com</a>. Just so that my heart won't hurt</p>
<p><iframe width="750" height="563" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/wrHNI7-1TWg?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<p></p>
<p><iframe width="750" height="422" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/P-jz_8jF2hk?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
Irish Genealogy News - Just Released
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-12-17:6442157:BlogPost:133535
2014-12-17T17:12:51.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p>Good morning,</p>
<p>Irish Genealogy just posted on their website that there are new items added to the Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives since the beginning of December. They've all been submitted by volunteers and they're free to view. -</p>
<p><a href="http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2014/12/latest-from-ireland-genealogy-archives.html" target="_blank">Irish Genealogy News…</a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"></p>
<p>Good morning,</p>
<p>Irish Genealogy just posted on their website that there are new items added to the Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives since the beginning of December. They've all been submitted by volunteers and they're free to view. -</p>
<p><a href="http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2014/12/latest-from-ireland-genealogy-archives.html" target="_blank">Irish Genealogy News</a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708959?profile=original"><img width="250" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708959?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250"/></a></p>
<div style="xg-p: absolute; top: -1999px; left: -1988px;" id="stcpDiv">he following items have been added to the Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives since the beginning of December. They've all been submitted by volunteers and they're free to view. - See more at: <a href="http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2014/12/latest-from-ireland-genealogy-archives.html#sthash.TzZyXF2s.dpuf">http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2014/12/latest-from-ireland-genealogy-archives.html#sthash.TzZyXF2s.dpuf</a><p>items added to the Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives since the beginning of December. They've all been submitted by volunteers and they're free to view. - See more at: <a href="http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2014/12/latest-from-ireland-genealogy-archives.html#sthash.TzZyXF2s.dpuf">http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2014/12/latest-from-ireland-genealogy-archives.html#sthash.TzZyXF2s.dpuf</a></p>
</div>
On the Path of Druids - Winter Solstice
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-12-12:6442157:BlogPost:132321
2014-12-12T18:00:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708841?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708841?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">L</span>ong before the Christians</strong> walked the Isle of Eire, there were those who celebrated the passing of the seasons: Winter, spring, summer, fall</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">While the Solstices were not as important to…</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708841?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708841?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">L</span>ong before the Christians</strong> walked the Isle of Eire, there were those who celebrated the passing of the seasons: Winter, spring, summer, fall</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">While the Solstices were not as important to the ancient Irish as the major fire festivals; Lughnasadh (August 1); Beltane (May Day, May 1); Imbolc (February 1- Bridgit); and Samhain (November 1, Halloween), they were none the less celebrated. Of the Solstices and Equinoxes, the Winter Solstice was the most important, since it marked the rebirth of the sun after the shortest day. Many cultures celebrated this time to commemorate the birth of various gods. The Winter Solstice falls between two major fire festivals Samhain (sow-an) or Halloween and Imbolc.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Samhain passes and Peith, the next to last month of the year, is devoted to necessary repair of house, outbuildings and fences. Roofs are newly rethatched. Cattle are herded closer in to the palisade of the tuatha for easier care and protection during the harsh winter coming. Animals are butchered, the flesh salted or dried to provide the winters meat. Harvested grains, dried fruit, vegetables are tightly stored.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">As the Peith gives way to Ruis (the final month of the year) outside chores are finished, attention is shifted to the interior, especially the houses. The family is brought tightly together, except for those members who have wandered for fame and fortune. All is cleaned and refurbished; furnishings, cooking utensils, even the hearth and chimney are scoured and repaired as needed. Then as Nollaíg draws near, the cooking begins and the final decorating is begun.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Yule is that winter's eve when the dark half of the year relinquishes to the light half. Starting the next morning at sunrise, the sun climbs just a little higher and stays a little longer in the sky each day. Known as Solstice Night, or the longest night of the year, the sun's "rebirth" was celebrated with much joy. On this night, our ancestors celebrated the rebirth of the Oak King, the Sun King, the Giver of Life that warmed the frozen Earth. From this day forward, the days would become longer.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Bonfires were lit in the fields, and crops and trees were "wassailed" with toasts of spiced cider. Children were escorted from house to house with gifts of clove spiked apples and oranges which were laid in baskets of evergreen boughs and wheat stalks dusted with flour. The apples and oranges represented the sun. The boughs were symbolic of immortality (evergreens were sacred to the Celts because they did not "die" thereby representing the eternal aspect of the Divine). The wheat stalks portrayed the harvest, and the flour was accomplishment of triumph, light, and life. Holly and ivy not only decorated the outside, but also the inside of homes, in hopes Nature Sprites would come and join the celebration.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">In ancient times, the Druids held a special ceremony five days after the new moon following the Winter Solstice, in which they cut the boughs of the Mistletoe from the sacred Oak tree with a golden sickle. It was important that branches did not touch the ground and become contaminated. Then the priests divided up the boughs into sprigs and distributed them among the people who believed the Mistletoe protected them from storms and evil spirits.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The Mistletoe is a sacred plant in the religion of the Druids. It was believed to have all sorts of miraculous qualities: the power of healing diseases, making poisons harmless, giving fertility to humans and animals, protecting from witchcraft, banning evil spirits, bringing good luck and great blessings. In fact, it was considered so sacred that even enemies who happened to meet beneath a Mistletoe in the forest would lay down their arms, exchange a friendly greeting, and keep a truce until the following day. From this old custom grew the practice of suspending Mistletoe over a doorway or in a room as a token of good will and peace to all comers</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Oíche Nollaíg, the day (literally night) before, preparations come to an end. Now all is near ready. Groaning tables are laden with the feast which will last for days. Puncheons of Mead and Ale are tapped. Bright decorations add their cheery note. The beacon fire is lit at sunset to call the scattered ones and light the way of that last missing family member. Now the celebration of survival of one year and the anticipation of the next begins. Feasting, accompanied by music, dancing and storytelling last into the night.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">In those ancient times, festivals generally were celebrated over a five-day period. During such time, days were likely more devoted to out-of-door activities including physical activities including racing, and games of skill and strength. Night was more conducive to the less robust, but equally enjoyed music, singing, dancing and story-telling. Whatever the time, the mounds of food and puncheons were always inviting.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708944?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708944?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a>The Druids began the tradition of the yule log. It was either harvested from one's own lands or given as a gift. Once it was dragged into the home, it was decorated in seasonal greenery, doused with cider or ale, and dusted with flour before set afire with a piece from the last year's log, which had been kept in a special spot. The log would burn throughout the night, then smolder for 12 days after before being ceremonially put out. It was thought that the sun stood still for twelve days in the middle of winter and during this time a log was lit to conquer the darkness, banish evil spirits and bring luck for the coming year. Ash is the traditional wood of the Yule log.</p>
<p>Decorating the Yule tree was also originally a Pagan custom; brightly colored decorations would be hung on the tree, usually an evergreen, to symbolize the various stellar objects,the sun, moon, and stars, which were of importance. These decorations also represented the souls of those who had died in the previous year. The modern practice of giving gifts evolved from the Pagan tradition of hanging gifts on the Yule tree as offerings to the various Pagan Gods and Goddesses.</p>
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<p><a href="http://thewildgeese.com/group/the-wild-geese-presents-an-irish-christmas/page/2014-irish-christmas-headquarters" target="_self"><img width="375" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84702500?profile=RESIZE_480x480" class="align-center" width="375"/></a></p>
An Irish Cowboy Christmas Poem
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-12-10:6442157:BlogPost:131936
2014-12-10T22:30:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708861?profile=RESIZE_320x320" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708861?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300"></img></a></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>I'll Sing You All Home With Me</strong></span></p>
<p>It's Christmas in Montana, to be sure, draped in her mantle of white<br></br> Though I am here with the rest of the crew, my heart is lonely tonight<br></br> The rancher & his wife they take good care of the rest of the crew & me<br></br> The wife, she prepared a great…</p>
<p><a width="250" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708861?profile=RESIZE_320x320" target="_self"><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708861?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>I'll Sing You All Home With Me</strong></span></p>
<p>It's Christmas in Montana, to be sure, draped in her mantle of white<br/> Though I am here with the rest of the crew, my heart is lonely tonight<br/> The rancher & his wife they take good care of the rest of the crew & me<br/> The wife, she prepared a great feast & there are presents under the tree</p>
<p>The rancher, he gave us a bonus; he said the year had ended fat<br/> Though I sing along with the Carols, my notes seem hollow & flat<br/> Then the Cook he pulls out a fiddle & bow, tunes it up all in key<br/> "Sing us a song from home, Ronan", the rancher asks of me</p>
<p>I'll sing you home with me tonight<br/> To Galway Bay & the old Hook Light<br/> "O'Carolan's Lament" sung in harmony<br/> I will sing you all home with me</p>
<p>The fiddle played sweet and the crew they all had a smile<br/> For they knew how I longed to be home on that Emerald Isle<br/> We lifted the rafters with our music and then hit our bunks for a rest<br/> All of us hands would slip off to dream, with heavy heart in each chest</p>
<p>For we've all a place that we've longed for as down the long trail we roam<br/> Be it Joplin, Jalisco or Houston, at Christmas we all think of home<br/> At our loved ones' sides by a glowing fire with laughter and old friends<br/> Still, Montana is a far cry from Kilkenny and I'll ne'er go back again</p>
<p>I'll sing you home with me tonight<br/> to Galway Bay & the old Hook Light<br/> "O'Carolan's Lament" sung in harmony<br/> I will sing you all home with me</p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-1"><em>Catherine Lilbit Devine © December 5, 2006</em></span></p>
Book Review: 'Christmas at the House on an Irish Hillside'
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-12-05:6442157:BlogPost:130951
2014-12-05T21:00:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708764?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708764?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="375"></img></a> Book Review</strong><br></br> <strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PY4FTZ8/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00PY4FTZ8&linkCode=as2&tag=thewildgeeset-20&linkId=KHP6BX5VP3L2YSKI"><strong>Christmas at the House on an Irish Hillside</strong></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thewildgeeset-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00PY4FTZ8" style="margin: 0px !important; border: currentColor !important;" width="1"></img> (available only in e-book format) by Felicity…</strong></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708764?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="375" class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708764?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="375"/></a>Book Review</strong><br/> <strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PY4FTZ8/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00PY4FTZ8&linkCode=as2&tag=thewildgeeset-20&linkId=KHP6BX5VP3L2YSKI"><strong>Christmas at the House on an Irish Hillside</strong></a><img style="margin: 0px !important; border: currentColor !important;" alt="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thewildgeeset-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00PY4FTZ8" border="0" height="1" width="1"/> (available only in e-book format) by Felicity Hayes-McCoy</strong><br/> <strong>Reviewed by Catherine “Bit” Devine</strong></p>
<p></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;" class="font-size-7">I</span>n the footsteps of the Seanchaí,</strong> Felicity Hayes-McCoy’s latest book well upholds the tradition of the storytellers of old. She skillfully weaves ancient legends, Irish traditions and the everyday happenings of life on the Dingle. I found myself hearing the story more than reading it, as Felicity writes in the manner of Irish speech. Each thread, each sentence, exclusive of the story itself but weaving you into and through the story, as a whole.</p>
<p>I appreciated her use of the Irish language and the thought she gives the reader in providing pronunciation. Her level of craft and care shows in the vividness with which she paints her scenes, whether lore or local. Even though I have oft heard the story of Oisín & Niamh, Felicity, like all good Seanchaí before her, has a way of making it fresh. As with every telling, I found myself holding my breath upon Oisín’s return, waiting and hoping that the ending would change this time and heartbroken when it did not.</p>
<p>From the very first line, I was transported, not just to that house on an Irish hillside but to the winter hearth of my own Gran. I not only read about the cold stone floors, I experienced the feel of them as if I was standing beside her in stocking feet.</p>
<p>“A clutch of eggs was hatched in straw under the press or a newborn calf was tied up by the settle to keep him warm at night”, Felicity writes and I am transported to Farm houses in the Armagh hills where that was a common place occurrence, as well. She speaks of long, cold winter nights, the solitude and the gatherings of friends to break that monotonous silence. I know well those long, cold nights and the raising of rafters in song and laughter. She speaks of a Candle in the front window of each house and I recall the flicker of light in each house along the Barr Road and of my own candle in the window here in Arizona. That candle, a simple beacon, a promise that the door to home will always be open in welcome and, so to every house along the path home.</p>
<p>When Felicity speaks of the shores of the Dingle and of the Irish people’s connection to the ocean:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Life here on the Dingle peninsula is dominated by the presence of the ocean. There are blazing red-gold sunsets and dawn skies that shimmer like mother of pearl. The light constantly changes as the water responds to the moving patterns of the clouds. Sometimes the horizon’s a silver streak in an ocean of polished pewter. Sometimes it’s lost in swirling, shifting mist. For millennia it’s been a magnet drawing the brave, the curious and the hopeful towards the promise of new lands.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You feel the pull of it just as strongly as if you were standing on its shores, yourself.</p>
<p>In her description of the house on the hillside, she says “the stones of which it’s built belong to the<br/> mountain and they’d already been raised, knocked down and reused by many hands” and I find myself wondering what stories those “many hands” before Neillí had to tell.</p>
<p>I found myself wishing I, too, had known Neillí and Paddy in their time. Then came the realization that I knew of folks like them, salt of the earth, hardworking, finding joy in the small things and humor in the all times, whether dark or light. Neillí and Paddy could just as well have been my Gran’s Aunt Mary and her husband Michael or own my Gran & Granda. My Gran used to say that the Irish laughed not because they hadn’t known hard times but because they had.</p>
<p>If you’ve not yet found your way to "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PY4FTZ8/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00PY4FTZ8&linkCode=as2&tag=thewildgeeset-20&linkId=67RBQG3EJWMZQISX">Christmas at the House on an Irish Hillside</a><img style="margin: 0px !important; border: currentColor !important;" alt="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=thewildgeeset-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00PY4FTZ8" border="0" height="1" width="1"/> ," do yourself a favor and make your way there now. To be sure, there will be a candle burning, lighting your path.</p>
<p>*** As a reminder, as you will see when you click on the Hyper-linked Title above, Christmas at the House on an Irish Hillside is available ONLY as an E-book download.... ***</p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
Update: New York City Horse-Drawn Carriages
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-11-20:6442157:BlogPost:128832
2014-11-20T17:30:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708236?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708236?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a> Well intentioned, perhaps. Educated, definitely not.</p>
<p>An NYC tradition since 1858, the carriage horses are regulated and well cared for. Out of the 220 Horses licensed and registered to operate, only 68 can be working at one time. This builds in rest time for all of the horses and assures that none are overworked.</p>
<p>Are there unscrupulous and uncaring Carriage…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708236?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708236?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a>Well intentioned, perhaps. Educated, definitely not.</p>
<p>An NYC tradition since 1858, the carriage horses are regulated and well cared for. Out of the 220 Horses licensed and registered to operate, only 68 can be working at one time. This builds in rest time for all of the horses and assures that none are overworked.</p>
<p>Are there unscrupulous and uncaring Carriage owners? Of that you can be sure; but they are a small percent and when found out, they stand to lose their licensing and livelihood.</p>
<p>Take a tour with me:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/clip/9912269/stable-tour">http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/clip/9912269/stable-tour</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/story/24890501/inside-a-nyc-horse-carriage-stable" target="_blank">http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/story/24890501/inside-a-nyc-horse-carriage-stable</a></p>
<p></p>
Patsaí Dan Mac Ruaidhrí
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-10-23:6442157:BlogPost:124332
2014-10-23T17:08:22.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/CqLm09naQE4?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/CqLm09naQE4?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
Exploring the Music of Ireland's Islands - Achill
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-10-23:6442157:BlogPost:124271
2014-10-23T17:00:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p>This is from a series of programmes released in 2009.<br/> <br/> This programme is about Achill Island where music was an integral part of island life. "You get serious goosebumps as you march into into the Church if your band is going well," Piper Conal Mc Namara states, as he describes playing with an Achill pipe band on St Patrick's day.</p>
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/5mbKZ_-71S8?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<p></p>
<p>This is from a series of programmes released in 2009.<br/> <br/> This programme is about Achill Island where music was an integral part of island life. "You get serious goosebumps as you march into into the Church if your band is going well," Piper Conal Mc Namara states, as he describes playing with an Achill pipe band on St Patrick's day.</p>
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/5mbKZ_-71S8?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<p></p>
Exploring the Music of Ireland's Islands - Tory
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-10-23:6442157:BlogPost:124269
2014-10-23T17:00:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p>In keeping with the Tory Island theme ...</p>
<p>This is a video on the Musical culture of Tory. It's part of a series of programmes released in 2009 exploring the rich musical culture of Ireland's islands.</p>
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/5OwPPxjuxE0?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<p>In keeping with the Tory Island theme ...</p>
<p>This is a video on the Musical culture of Tory. It's part of a series of programmes released in 2009 exploring the rich musical culture of Ireland's islands.</p>
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/5OwPPxjuxE0?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
A Thatchie of My Own
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-10-16:6442157:BlogPost:123185
2014-10-16T19:30:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p>At the end of next month, I will celebrate 18 years as an employee of the City of Tucson. I spent nine years on Patrol with the Police department and now work in clerical for the Fire Department.</p>
<p>I just spent time in the retirement office, looking at retirement payouts and end dates. I have Five years, two and a half months and 15 days.</p>
<p>I will retire at 56...and then it is off to Ireland six months out of the year...and a thatchie of my own, hopefully…</p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p>At the end of next month, I will celebrate 18 years as an employee of the City of Tucson. I spent nine years on Patrol with the Police department and now work in clerical for the Fire Department.</p>
<p>I just spent time in the retirement office, looking at retirement payouts and end dates. I have Five years, two and a half months and 15 days.</p>
<p>I will retire at 56...and then it is off to Ireland six months out of the year...and a thatchie of my own, hopefully</p>
<p></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708151?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708151?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a>So imagine my sadness when this perfect Thatchie was just posted up <a href="http://www.sherryfitz.ie/residential/for-sale/35842" target="_blank">for sale</a>... Five years too early. It is in Ballyvaughan, on the west coast with a view that takes in Galway Bay</p>
<p>Himself would be pleased, as the West Coast is home ground...</p>
<p>Though it is far too early for me to think of purchasing a home... It gives me hope that the Thatchies still exist... and do come up for sale once in while...</p>
<p>What is your dream of an Irish home?</p>
<p></p>
Cuimhin Linn - Nos Acordamos - Vivan Los San Patricios!
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-09-08:6442157:BlogPost:117065
2014-09-08T17:00:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707185?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707185?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a> <strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">E</span>ach year, on September 12,</strong> Mexico pays tribute to the San Patricios at San Jacinto Plaza.in Mexico City. A Memorial Plaque was installed back in 1959 on the wall facing the plaza. The plaque was designed by Lorenzo Rafael, son of Patricio Cox, who wrote the first book, a novel in…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707185?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707185?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" class="align-full" width="750"/></a><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">E</span>ach year, on September 12,</strong> Mexico pays tribute to the San Patricios at San Jacinto Plaza.in Mexico City. A Memorial Plaque was installed back in 1959 on the wall facing the plaza. The plaque was designed by Lorenzo Rafael, son of Patricio Cox, who wrote the first book, a novel in Spanish, about the San Patricios. The escutcheon at the top of the plaque depicts a Celtic cross protected by the outstretched wings of the Aztec eagle. The inscription on the plaque reads: "In memory of the Irish soldiers of the heroic San Patricio Battalion, martyrs who gave their lives for the cause of Mexico during the unjust US invasion of 1847". At the bottom of the plaque another inscription reads: "With the gratitude of Mexico, 112 years after their holocaust".</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707368?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="350" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707368?profile=RESIZE_480x480" class="align-left" width="350"/></a></p>
<p><br/> The San Patricios were a Battalion in the Mexican Army made up of Irish and German Immigrants that deserted from the American Armed Forces to fight on the Mexican side. In those days the Irish immigrants were heavily persecuted for being Catholic. While fighting on the U.S. side they witnessed atrocities like rape, plunder and desecration of Catholic churches in Texas this is why many eventually deserted.</p>
<p><br/> Not all the San Patricios were deserters from the U..S army. Their number also included Irish and other Europeans already settled in Mexico, and some historians use Mexican army records as a basis to state that the majority were not deserters. The San Patricios did, however, have a distinctly Irish identity since their name-sake, St. Patrick, is the patron saint of the Irish people. The groups banner displayed an Irish harp surrounded by the Mexican coat-of-arms with a scroll reading, Freedom for the Mexican Republic and underneath the harp was the motto in Gaelic "Erin go Brágh" (Ireland for Ever). </p>
<p>On the other side of the banner Saint Patrick was depicted holding a pastoral staff resting on a serpent.</p>
<p></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707392?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="350" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707392?profile=RESIZE_480x480" class="align-left" width="350"/></a>In June 1847, Santa Anna created a foreign legion as part of the Mexican army, and the San Patricios were transferred from the artillery branch to the infantry and merged into the Foreign Legion. They then became known as the First and Second Militia Infantry Companies of San Patricio. Colonel Francisco R. Moreno was made commander, with Captain John O'Reilly in charge of the First Company and Captain Santiago 0'Leary of the Second. The companies were also referred to as "The Foreign Legion of San Patricio".</p>
<p>As members of the Mexican Army, they served with distinction, fighting fiercely. Captain John Riley, a Galway man, led this band of soldiers. There were two major battles in the year 1847 for which they are most remembered, the Battle of Buena Vista (near Saltillo) on February 23-24 and the battle at the convent of Churubusco on the outskirts of Mexico City on August 19-20.</p>
<p>After Churubusco, eighty-four San Patricios were captured by General Winfield Scott's Army. Swift courts-martial led to the execution by hanging of fifty men, reduced charges for fifteen and the pardoning of five. On 10 September 1847, 16 of the condemned San Patricios were hanged at the San Jacinto Plaza, San Ángel, and 14 others received 59 lashes on their bare backs. At the San Ángel hangings all prisoners were executed without incident except for Patrick Dalton, who, as an American captain described, was "literally choked to death".Dalton had previously voiced concerns regarding his treatment.</p>
<p>By order of Gen. Winfield Scott, 30 San Patricios were to be executed at Chapultepec in full view of the two armies who had fought there, at the precise moment that the flag of the U.S. replaced the flag of Mexico atop the citadel.</p>
<p>This order was carried out by Col. William Harney. One of those hung at Chapultapec, Francis O'Connor, had just the day prior had both legs amputated. When the army surgeon informed the colonel that the absent soldier had lost both his legs in battle, Harney replied "Bring the damned son of a bitch out! My order was to hang 30 and by God I'll do it!"</p>
<p>The U.S. flag appeared on the flagpole at 9.30 a.m. The Mexican flag had been taken, according to legend, by cadet Juan Escutia to his death after leaping with it from Chapultepec Castle to deny the Americans the honor of capturing it. In a final act of defiance, the men about to be hanged cheered the Mexican flag, as one onlooker remarked; "Hands tied, feet tied, their voices still free".</p>
<p>The Mexican government described the hangings as “a cruel death or horrible torments, improper in a civilized age, and [ironic] for a people who aspire to the title of illustrious and humane”,</p>
<p>Michael Hogan, a New Wild Geese Member, authored <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Irish-Soldiers-Mexico-Michael-Hogan/dp/1463502451" target="_blank">Irish Soldiers of Mexico</a>, a detailed, well-documented account of the heroic defence of the "convento" (monastery) at Churubusco when it was attacked by the invading US forces on 20 August 1847.</p>
<p><br/> <strong>Cuimhin linn - Nos Acordamos - Vivan Los San Patricios!</strong></p>
<p><strong>We Remember ~ We Remember ~ Long Live the San Patricios!</strong></p>
<p></p>
Meet the Faces of IrishFireside.com
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-08-28:6442157:BlogPost:115256
2014-08-28T21:00:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707192?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707192?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a> <strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">I</span>f you haven't had the chance</strong> to get to know New Wild Geese members <a href="http://thenewwildgeese.com/profile/IrishFireside?xg_source=profiles_memberList" target="_self">Corey & Liam</a>, drop on over and say hello!</p>
<p><strong>Liam Hughes</strong> is a Jewelry designer who…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707192?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707192?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" class="align-full" width="750"/></a><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">I</span>f you haven't had the chance</strong> to get to know New Wild Geese members <a href="http://thenewwildgeese.com/profile/IrishFireside?xg_source=profiles_memberList" target="_self">Corey & Liam</a>, drop on over and say hello!</p>
<p><strong>Liam Hughes</strong> is a Jewelry designer who was reusing and recycling long before it became the thing to do. He takes shards of discarded, broken china and pottery dishes and works them into stunning pieces of <a href="http://www.liamshardjewelry.com/" target="_blank">wearable art</a>. He creates these pieces in both his Michigan based studio and at his County Tipperary Guesthouse, <a href="http://knockahopple.com/" target="_blank">Knockahopple Cottage</a>. If you want the most unique Ireland experience, book in with Liam and Corey. It is an experience like none other. </p>
<p><a width="250" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707375?profile=RESIZE_320x320" target="_self"><img width="225" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707375?profile=RESIZE_320x320" class="align-left" width="225"/></a></p>
<p>As if jewelry designing and Knockahopple don't keep him busy enough, Liam is also an extremely talented singer/musician. You can find his CD, Lemon Twist, on <a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/liamhughes" target="_blank">CDbaby.com</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Corey Taratuta</strong> is a <a href="http://coreytaratuta.com/" target="_blank">freelance graphic designer, blog creator</a> and App creator. He has created <a href="http://www.irelandtravelkit.com/" target="_blank">Ireland Travel Kit ,</a>which is a community of Irish travel experts and enthusiasts who share their favorite off-beat and unique locations.</p>
<p>I have the pleasure of calling these two wonderful guys my friends. We 'met" whilst helping out in travel forums on two Irish travel websites, <a href="http://irelandyes.com" target="_blank">IrelandYes.com</a> and Irelandexpert.com.</p>
<p>Together Liam and Corey are Irishfireside.com. On <a href="http://www.IrishFireside.com" target="_blank">IrishFireside.com</a>, you will find delightful blogs, podcasts and photos that speak of the Irish culture and the diaspora.</p>
<p>In January and February of 2009, Liam and Corey set off on a Irish-American Roadtrip in their wee RV they dubbed Ita. I had the pleasure of being their guide during their time in Southern Arizona. We journeyed down to Ajo, Arizona in search of a friend of Liam's father. In a small roadside Cafe in Ajo, we chanced upon the most delightful pair:<br/> <br/> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/dNAryF7pmBI?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<p>For 40 days, they traveled the United States in search of the Irish-American story. You can check out all of their vlogs, blogs, photos and podcasts <a href="http://irishfireside.com/2009/04/12/roadtrip-details/" target="_blank">here</a>. You might even see someone one you know. ;-)</p>
<p></p>
Leanaí Lir - Children of Lir
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-08-15:6442157:BlogPost:113427
2014-08-15T21:00:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707175?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707175?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p><em>Ger, a chara...Just for you:</em></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">L</span>ong ago when the Tuatha De Danaan lived in Ireland</strong> there was a great King called Lir. He had four children--Fionnuala, Aodh, Fiacra, and Conn. Fionnuala was the eldest and she was as beautiful as sunshine in blossomed branches;…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707175?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84707175?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p><em>Ger, a chara...Just for you:</em></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">L</span>ong ago when the Tuatha De Danaan lived in Ireland</strong> there was a great King called Lir. He had four children--Fionnuala, Aodh, Fiacra, and Conn. Fionnuala was the eldest and she was as beautiful as sunshine in blossomed branches; Aodh was like a young eagle in the blue of the sky; and his two brothers, Fiacra and Conn, were as beautiful as running water.</p>
<p>In those days sorrow was not known in Ireland: the mountains were crowned with light, and the lakes and rivers had strange starlike flowers that shook a rain of jewelled dust on the white horses of the De Danaans when they came down to drink. The horses were swifter than any horses that are living now and they could go over the waves of the sea and under deep lake-water without hurt to themselves. Lir's four children had each one a white horse and two hounds that were whiter than snow.</p>
<p>Every one in Lir's kingdom loved Fionnuala, and Aodh, and Fiacra, and Conn, except their step-mother, Aoifa. She hated them, and her hatred pursued them as a wolf pursues a wounded fawn. She sought to harm them by spells and witchcraft. She took them in her chariot to the Lake of Darvra in Westmeath. She made them bathe in the lake and when they were coming out of the water she struck them with a rod of enchantment and turned them into four white swans.</p>
<p>Swim as wild swans on this lake," she said, "for three hundred years, and when that time is ended swim three hundred years on the narrow sea of the Moyle, and when that time is ended swim three hundred years on the Western Sea that has no bounds but the sky."</p>
<p>Then Fionnuala, that was a swan, said:</p>
<p>"O Wicked Woman, a doom will come upon you heavier than the doom you have put on us and you will be more sorrowful than we are to-day. And if you would win any pity in the hour of your calamity tell us now how we may know when the doom will end for us."</p>
<p>"The doom will end when a king from the North weds a queen from the South; when a druid with a shaven crown comes over the seas; when you hear the sound of a little bell that rings for prayers."</p>
<p>The swans spread their wings and flew away over the lake. They made a very sorrowful singing as they went, lamenting for themselves.</p>
<p>When the Great King, their father, knew the sorrow that had come to him, he hastened down to the shore of the lake and called his children.</p>
<p>They came flying to him, four white swans, and he said:</p>
<p>"Come to me, Fionnuala; come Aodh; come Conn; come Fiacra." He put his hands on them and caressed them and said: " I cannot give you back your shapes till the doom that is laid on you is ended, but come back now to the house that is mine and yours, White Children of my Heart."</p>
<p>Then Fionnuala answered him:</p>
<p>"The shadow of the woman who ensnared us lies on the threshold of your door: we cannot cross it."</p>
<p>And Lir said:</p>
<p>"The woman who ensnared you is far from any home this night. She is herself ensnared, and fierce winds drive her into all the restless places of the earth. She has lost her beauty and become terrible; she is a Demon of the Air, and must wander desolate to the end of time--but for you there is the firelight of home. Come back with me."</p>
<p>Then Conn said:</p>
<p>"May good fortune be on the threshold of your door from this time and for ever, but we cannot cross it, for we have the hearts of wild swans and we must fly in the dusk and feel the water moving under our bodies; we must hear the lonesome cries of the night. We have the voices only of the children you knew; we have the songs you taught us--that is all. Gold crowns are red in the firelight, but redder and fairer is dawn."</p>
<p>Lir stretched out his hands and blessed his children. He said:</p>
<p>"May all beautiful things grow henceforth more beautiful to you, and may the song you have be melody in the heart of whoever hears it. May your wings winnow joy for you out of the air, and your feet be glad in the water-ways. My blessing be on you till the sea loses its saltness and the trees forget to bud in springtime. And farewell, Fionnuala, my white blossom; and farewell Aodh, that was the red flame of my heart; and farewell, Conn, that brought me gladness; and farewell, Fiacra, my treasure. Lonesome it is for you, flying far off in places strange to you; lonesome it is for me without you. Bitter it is to say farewell, and farewell, and nothing else but farewell."</p>
<p>Lir covered his face with his mantle and sorrow was heavy on him, but the swans rose into the air and flew away calling to each other. They called with the voices of children, but in their heart was the gladness of swans when they feel the air beneath them and stretch their necks to the freedom of the sky.</p>
<p>Three hundred years they flew over Lake Darvra and swam on its waters. Often their father came to the lake and called them to him and caressed them; often their kinsfolk came to talk with them; often harpers and musicians came to listen to the wonder of their singing. When three hundred years were ended the swans rose suddenly and flew far and far away. Their father sought them, and their kinsfolk sought them, but the swans never touched earth or rested once till they came to the narrow Sea of the Moyle that flows between Ireland and Scotland. A cold stormy sea it was, and lonely. The swans had no one to listen to their singing, and little heart for singing amid the green curling bitter waves. The storm-wind beat roughly on them, and often they were separated and calling to one another without hope of an answer. Then Fionnuala, for she was the wisest, said:</p>
<p>"Let us choose a place of meeting, so that when we are separated and lost and wandering each one will know where to wait for the others.</p>
<p>The swans, her brothers, said it was a good thought; they agreed to meet together in one place, and the place they chose was Carraig-na-Ron, the Rock of the Seals. And it was well they made that choice, for a great storm came on them one night and scattered them far out over the sea. Their voices were drowned in the tempest and they were driven hither and thither in the darkness.</p>
<p>In the pale morning Fionnuala came to the Rock of the Seals. Her feathers were broken with the wind and draggled with the saitness of the sea and she was lamenting and calling on Aodh and Fiacra and Conn.</p>
<p>"O Conn, that I sheltered under my feathers, come to me! O Fiacra, come to me! O Aodh, Aodh, Aodh, come to me!"</p>
<p>And when she did not see them, and no voice answered, she made a sore lamentation and said:</p>
<p>"O bitter night that was blacker than the doom of Aoifa at the first to us! O three that I loved! O three that I loved! The waves are over your heads and I am desolate!"</p>
<p>She saw the red sun rising, and when the redness touched the waters, Conn came flying to her. His feathers were broken with the wind and draggled with the saltness of the sea. Fionnuala gathered him under her wings and comforted him, and she said:</p>
<p>"The day would not seem bitter to me now if only Aodh and Fiacra were come."</p>
<p>In a little while Fiacra came to her over the rough sea. She sheltered and comforted him with her wings, and she cried over the waters:</p>
<p>"O Aodh, Aodh, Aodh, come to me!"</p>
<p>The sun was high in the heavens when Aodh came, and he came with his feathers bright and shining and no trace of the bitter storm on him.</p>
<p>"O where have you been, Aodh?" said Fionnuala and Fiacra and Conn to him.</p>
<p>"I have been flying where I got sight of our kinsfolk. I have seen the white steeds that are swifter than the winds of March, and the riders that were comrades to us when we had Our own shapes. I have seen Aodh and Fergus, the two sons of Bove Dearg."</p>
<p>"O tell us, Aodh, where we may get sight of them!" said the swans.</p>
<p>"They are at the river mouth of the Ban," said Aodh, "Let us go there, and we may see them though we cannot leave the Moyle."</p>
<p>So much gladness came on all the swans that they forgot their weariness and the grievous buffeting of the storm and they rose and flew to the river mouth of the Bann. They saw their kinsfolk, the beautiful company of the Faery Host, shining with every colour under heaven and joyous as the wind in Springtime.</p>
<p>"O tell us, dear kinsfolk," said the swans, " how it is with our father?"</p>
<p>"The Great King has wrapped his robes of beauty about him, and feasts with those from whom age cannot take youth and light-hearted-ness," said Fergus.</p>
<p>"Ah," said Fionnuala, " he feasts and it is well with him! The joy-flame on his hearth cannot quench itself in ashes. He cannot hear us calling through the night--the wild swans, the wanderers, the lost children."</p>
<p>The Faery Host was troubled, seeing the piteous plight of the swans, but Aodh, that was a swan said to Fergus, his kinsman and comrade:</p>
<p>"Do not cloud your face for us, Fergus; the horse you ride is white, but I ride a whiter--the cold curling white wave of the sea."</p>
<p>Then Fiacra said:</p>
<p>"O Fergus, does my own white horse forget me, now that I am here in the cold Moyle?"</p>
<p>And Conn said:</p>
<p>"O Fergus, tell my two hounds that I will come back to them some day."</p>
<p>The memory of all beautiful things came on the swans, and they were sorrowful, and Fionnuala said:</p>
<p>"O beautiful comrades, I never thought that beauty could bring sorrow: now the sight of it breaks my heart," and she said to her brothers:</p>
<p>"Let us go before our hearts are melted utterly." The swans went over the Moyle then, and they were lamenting, and Fionnuala said:</p>
<p>"There is joy and feasting in the house of Lir to-night, but his four children are without a roof to cover them."</p>
<p>"It is a poor garment our feathers make when the wind blows through them: often we had the purple of kings' children on us.</p>
<p>"We are cold to-night, and it is a cold bed the sea makes: often we had beds of down with broidered coverings.</p>
<p>"Often we drank mead from gold cups in the house of our father; now we have the bitterness of the sea and the harshness of sand in our mouths.</p>
<p>"It is weariness--O a great weariness--to be flying over the Moyle; without rest, without cornpanions, without comfort.</p>
<p>"I am thinking of Angus to-night: he has the laughter of joy about him for ever.</p>
<p>"I am thinking to-night of Mananaun, and of white blossoms on silver branches.</p>
<p>"O swans, my brothers, I am thinking of beauty, and we are flying away from it for ever."</p>
<p>The swans did not see the company of the Faery Host again. They swam on the cold stormy sea of the Moyle, and they were there till three hundred years were ended.</p>
<p>"It is time for us to go," said Fionnuala, "we must seek the Western Sea."</p>
<p>The swans shook the water of the Moyle from their feathers and stretched out their wings to fly.</p>
<p>When they were come to the Western Sea there was sorrow on them, for the sea was wilder and colder and more terrible than the Moyle. The swans were on that sea and flying over it for three hundred years, and all that time they had no comfort, and never once did they hear the foot-fall of hound or horse or see their faery kinsfolk.</p>
<p>When the time was ended, the swans rose out of the water and cried joyfully to each other:</p>
<p>"Let us go home now, the time is ended!"</p>
<p>They flew swiftly, and yet they were all day flying before they came to the place where Lir had his dwelling; when they looked down they saw no light in the house, they heard no music, no sound of voices. The many-coloured house was desolate and all the beauty was gone from it; the white hounds and the brightmaned horses were gone, and all the beautiful glad-hearted folk of the Sidhe.</p>
<p>"Every place is dark to us!" said Conn. "Look at the hills!"</p>
<p>The swans looked at the hills they had known, and every hill and mountain they could see was dark and sorrowful: not one had a star-heart of light, not one had a flame-crown, not one had music pulsing through it like a great breath.</p>
<p>"O Aodh, and Conn, and Fiacra," said Fionnuala, "beauty is gone from the earth: we have no home now!"</p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/cwt/img/65.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/cwt/img/65.jpg" class="align-left"/></a></p>
<p> The swans hid themselves in the long dank grass, till morning. They did not speak to each other; they did not make a lamentation; they were silent with heaviness of grief. When they felt the light of morning they rose in the air and flew in wide circles seeking their kinsfolk. They saw the dwellings of strangers, and a strange people tending flocks and sowing corn on plains where the Tuatha De Danaan had hunted white stags with horns of silver.</p>
<p>"The grief of all griefs has come upon us!" said Fionnuala. "It is no matter now whether we have the green earth under us or bitter sea-waves: it is little to us now that we are in swans' bodies."</p>
<p>Her brothers had no words to answer her; they were dumb with grief till Aodh said:</p>
<p>"Let us fly far from the desolate house and the dead hills. Let us go where we can hear the thunder of the Western Sea."</p>
<p>The swans spread their wings and flew westward till they came to a little reedy lake, and they alit there and sheltered themselves, for they had no heart to go farther.</p>
<p>They took no notice of the days and often they did not know whether it was the moon or the sun that was in the sky, but they sang to each other, and that was all the comfort they had.</p>
<p>One day, while Fionnuala was singing, a man of the stranger-race drew near to listen. He had the aspect of one who had endured much hardship. His garments were poor and ragged. His hair was bleached by sun and rain. As he listened to the song a light came into his eyes and his whole face grew beautiful. When the song ended he bowed himself before the swans and said:</p>
<p>"White Swans of the Wilderness, ye have flown over many lands. Tell me, have ye seen aught of Tir-nan-Oge, where no one loses youth; or Tir-na-Moe, where all that is beautiful lives for ever; or Moy-Mell, that is so honey-sweet with blossom?"</p>
<p>"Have we seen Tir-nan-Oge? It is our own country! We are the children of Lir the King of it."</p>
<p>"Where is that country? How may one reach it? Tell me! "</p>
<p>"Ochone! It is not anywhere on the ridge of the world. Our father's house is desolate! "</p>
<p>"Ye are lying, to make sport for yourselves! Tir-nan-Oge cannot perish--rather would the whole world fall to ruin!</p>
<p>"O would we had anything but the bitterness of truth on our tongues!" said Aodh. "Would we could see even one leaf from those trees with shining branches where the many-coloured birds used to sing! Ochone! Ochone! for all the beauty that has perished with Tir-nan-Oge!"</p>
<p>The stranger cried out a loud sorrowful cry and threw himself on the ground. His fingers tore at the roots of the grass. His body writhed and trembled with grief.</p>
<p>The children of Lir wondered at him, and Aodh said:</p>
<p>"Put away this fierceness of grief and take consolation to yourself. We, with so much heavier sorrow, have not lamented after this fashion."</p>
<p>The stranger raised himself: his eyes blazed like the eyes of a hunted animal when it turns on the hunters.</p>
<p>"How could your sorrow be equal to mine? Ye have dwelt in Tir-nan-Oge; ye have ridden horses whiter than the snow of one night and swifter than the storm-wind; ye have gathered flowers in the Plain of Honey. But I have never seen it--never once! Look at me! I was born a king! I have become an outcast, the laughing stock of slaves! I am Aibric the wanderer!--I have given all--all, for the hope of finding that country. It is gone now--it is not anywhere on the round of the world!"</p>
<p>"Stay with us," said Fiacra, "and we will sing for you, and tell you stories of Tir-nan-Oge."</p>
<p>"I cannot stay with you! I cannot listen to your songs! I must go on seeking; seeking;</p>
<p>seeking while I live. When I am dead my dreams will not torment me. I shall have my fill of quietness then."</p>
<p>"Can you not believe us when we tell you that Tir-nan-Oge is gone like the white mists of morning? It is nowhere."</p>
<p>"It is in my heart, and in my mind, and in my soul! It burns like fire! It drives me like a tireless wind! I am going. Farewell!</p>
<p>"Stay!" cried Aodh, "we will go with you. There is nothing anywhere for us now but brown earth and drifting clouds and wan waters. Why should we not go from place to place as the wind goes, and see each day new fields of reeds, new forest trees, new mountains? O, we shall never see the star-heart in any mountain again! "</p>
<p>"The mountains are dead," said Conn.</p>
<p>"The mountains are not dead," said Aibric. "They are dark and silent, but they are not dead. I know. I have cried to them in the night and laid my forehead against theirs and felt the beating of their mighty hearts. They are wiser than the wisest druid, more tender than the tenderest mother. It is they who keep the world alive."</p>
<p>"O," said Fionnuala, " if the mountains are indeed alive let us go to them; let us tell them our sorrowful story. They will pity us and we shall not be utterly desolate."</p>
<p>Aibric and the swans journeyed together, and at dusk they came to a tall beautiful mountain--the mountain that is called Nephin, in the West.</p>
<p>It looked dark and sombre against the fading sky, and. the sight of it, discrowned and silent, struck chill to the hearts of our wild swans: they turned away their heads to hide the tears in their eyes. But Aibric stretched his hands to the mountain and cried out:</p>
<p>"O beautiful glorious Comrade, pity us! Tir-nan-Oge is no more, and Moy-Mell is lost for ever! Welcome the children of Lir, for we have nothing left but you and the earth of Ireland!"</p>
<p>Then a wonder happened.</p>
<p>The star-heart of Nephin shone out--magnificent--tremulous--coloured like a pale amethyst.</p>
<p>The swans cried out to each other:</p>
<p>"The mountain is alive! Beauty has come again to the earth! Aibric, you have given us back the Land of Youth!"</p>
<p>A delicate faery music trembled and died away and was born again in the still evening air, and more and more the radiance deepened in the heart of Nephin. The swans began to sing most sweetly and joyously, and at the sound of that singing the star-heart showed in mountain after mountain till every mountain in Ireland pulsed and shone.</p>
<p>"Crown yourselves, mountains!" said Aodh, "that we may know the De Danaans are still alive and Lir's house is builded now where old age cannot wither it! "</p>
<p>The mountains sent up great jewelled rays of light so that each one was crowned with a rainbow; and when the Children of Lir saw that splendour they had no more thought of the years they had spent over dark troublous waters, and they said to each other:</p>
<p>"Would we could hear the sound of the little bell that rings for prayers, and feel our swan-bodies fall from us!"</p>
<p>"I know the sound of a bell that rings for prayers," said Aibric, " and I will bring you where you can hear it. I will bring you to Saint Kemoc and you will hear the sound of his bell."</p>
<p>"Let us go," said the swans, and Aibric brought them to the Saint. The Saint held up his hands and blessed God when he saw them, and he besought them to remain a while and to tell him the story of their wanderings. He brought them into his little church and they were there with him in peace and happiness relating to him the wonders of the Land of Youth. It came to pass then that word reached the wife of King Largnen concerning the swans: she asked the king to get them for her, and because she demanded them with vehemence, the king journeyed to the Church of Saint Kemoc to get the swans.</p>
<p>When he was come, Saint Kemoc refused to give him the swans and Largnen forced his way into the church to take them. Now, he was a king of the North, and his wife was a queen of the South, and it was ordained that such a king should put an end to the power of Aoifa's spell.</p>
<p>He came to the altar, and the swans were close to it. He put his hands on the swans to take them by force. When he touched them the swan-feathers dwindled and shrivelled and became as fine dust, and the bodies of Lir's children became as a handful of dust, but their spirits attained to freedom and joined their kinsfolk in the Land-of-the-Ever-Living.</p>
<p>It was Aibric who remembered the story of the children of Lir, because he loved them. He told the story to the people of Ireland, and they were so fond of the story and had such pity for Lir's children that they made a law that no one was to hurt a wild swan, and when they saw a swan flying they would say:</p>
<p>"My blessing with you, white swan, for the sake of Lir's children!"</p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/cwt/img/66.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/cwt/img/66.jpg?width=750" width="750" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://thewildgeese.irish/page/focus-on-irish-myths-legends" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84701955?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a></p>
100 Years - Some Gave All
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-08-04:6442157:BlogPost:110624
2014-08-04T17:30:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706591?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706591?profile=original" width="683"></img></a> <em><span class="font-size-1">Lance Corporal William Devine, 5th Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers</span></em></p>
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<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: book antiqua,palatino;">T</span>he 5th Battalion, The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers</strong> was raised at Omagh in August 1914, part of Kitchener's First New Army.…</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706591?profile=original"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706591?profile=original" width="683"/></a><em><span class="font-size-1">Lance Corporal William Devine, 5th Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers</span></em></p>
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<p><strong><span style="font-family: book antiqua,palatino;" class="font-size-7">T</span>he 5th Battalion, The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers</strong> was raised at Omagh in August 1914, part of Kitchener's First New Army. They joined 31st Brigade, 10th (Irish) Division and moved to Dublin for training then on to Kildare by early 1915. In April 1915, they moved to Basingstoke, England for final training. They departed from Liverpool on the 9th of July for Lemnos and landed at Sulva Bay on the 7th of August 1915 and made an attack on Chocolate Hill on the 7th and 8th. They were withdrawn from Gallipoli on the 29th of September 1915</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706666?profile=original"><img width="750" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706666?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"/></a><em><span class="font-size-1">1st Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers landing on the beaches at Gallipoli, 25th. April 1915.</span></em></p>
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<p>31st Inf Bde War Diary (actually the personal diary of Brig Gen Hill comd 31st Inf Bde) and 5th Royal Inniskilling Fus War Diary for 15th-16th August....Along with the 6th R Innis Fus which includes the battle orders for that day</p>
<p>31st Inf Bde (Gen Hill)</p>
<p>15th Aug 15. : SUVLA BAY: 1130. 30th and 31st BDE and 65th and 66th FD COY RE were placed under comd of Brig Gen HILL for an attack on a position known as KIDNEY HILL in accordance with attached operation order marked G - the 162nd INF BDE of the 54th Div: to cooperate on the right flank and the movement to be covered by the Artillery of the 10th Div: - as will be seen these orders recd at 1130 gave very little time for arrangements to be made. Units were occupying positions from 135 P 1 117 D 9. The 162nd INF BDE being about 117 J 6 - The position of the Artillery was not known but a Mountain Battery arrived at 135 Y 3 early in the action and rendered good service.........Orders were issued by GOC 31st INF BDE for the attack by troops place under his Comd /vide operation order marked H. The 5th Bn R INNIS FUS moved out for the attack at 1315 & quickly came under rifle fire from concealed trenches about 135 U 9 and alond the spur running due south pushing on however with great gallantry the Bn was early held up by heavy rifle fire and Artillery fire from the direction of KIDNEY HILL. It was soon discovered that the 162nd INF BDE was not cooperating in the attack and an urgent message was sent to GOC of that BDE. A reply was received to the effect that the BDE was waiting for the advance of the 5th R IRISH FUS holding a position near 117 D 9. Further delay occurred in explaining that this Bn was holding its present position in accordance with operation orders. It was about 1400 when the 162nd INF BDE commenced to move. The Turks in the meantime had reinforcements along the Southern slopes of KIDNEY HILL and the 162nd INF BDE failing to press home the attack on the right flank it became enfiladed. The 5th R INNIS FUS with a loss of 6 Officers killed and 14 wounded and very heavy losses among R&F effected a retirement on to the main position. The OC 5th R INNIS FUS Lt Col VANRENEN was among the killed, Capt VERNON was killed while gallantly leading his Company......1700 in the meantime the 6th R MUSNTER FUS and 6th R DUBLIN FUS pushed on along the Northern slopes and crest of KIRETCH TEPE SIRT in line and beyond the position occupied by the 5th R INNIS FUS and the 6th R DUBLIN FUS and at about 1700 charged over the crest at the BENCH MARK near the T in KIRETCH TEPE SIRT and att that spot caused the Turks to evacuate their trenches but the success was only momentary as a heavy fire was opened on them from KIDNEY HILL. With the assistance of the 7th R DUBLIN FUS from the Reserve the forward position was held but no further progress could be made as owing to the failure of the 162nd INF BDE to cooperate in the right the Turks had transferred troops to this area. .....The 7th R MUNSTER FUS were also held up in their advance towards point 103 by a Bn of Turks entrenched on the salient at 135 p 5..</p>
<p>16th Aug 15. SUVLA BAY: During the night and all day on the 16th the situation was unchanged, our line being constantly attacked and bombed by the Turks who enfiladed our position from the high ground E of the BENCH MARK and the casulaties were very heavy. Units in the front line were relieved t dawn by those in reserve......At 2000 on the 15th Aug Brig GEn HILL took temporary command of the Div owing to the departure of Lt Gen Sir Bryan MAHON to IMBROS - but returned to the 31st INF BDE on the 19th Aug on the arrival of Maj Gen PEYTION.......at 0900 on the 16th it was reported to GOC 9th Corps that f the forward position on KIRETCH TEPE SIRT was to be held, reinforcements would be required - two Bns were promised but at 13000 the promised Bns not having arrived Brig Gen HILL telephoned to 9th Corps to the effect that if the promised Bns were not forthcoming he could not hold himself responsible for holding the forward position - at 1930 matters were in a precarious condition on the left of the line and Brig Gen NICOL who was in Comd at this spot decided to retire to the position held previusly on 15th. This he carried out. The promised reinforcements arrived too late. During these two days the troops of the 30th and 31st INF BDEs behaved with the most conspicuous gallantry - as was evidenced by their losses. Owing to the hard and rocky nature of the soil the digging of trenches even if picks and shovels had been available was practically impossible in the time at disposal and the troops were constantly much exposed. The Turks also were well supplied with bombs but none were available for our men who were forced to rely by throwing rocks and stones.......the heat too was terrific and the flies a plague while water was very scarce, one bottle a day being the alowance but this small allowance often failed owing to the Mule Convoys being stampeded by shellfire. Our Artillery cooperation was disappointing</p>
<p>5th R Innis Fus</p>
<p>15th Aug 1915. ANAFARTA SAGIR 135 U 7. The Bn received orders to move in an easterly direction and attack KIDNEY HILL (ANAFARTA 136 U 5) - Formation: A Coy on the left, D Coy on the right - B & C Coys in support. Our right to be connected up by the Territorial Force. The advance came under fire about 13:00. Fire at this hour (rifle fire) became very heavy and was kept up. The line advanced steadily. At this juncture enemy artillery fire was concentrated on the advance. About 15:00 Lt Col VANRENEN commanding the Bn was mortally wounded. About the same hour the Adjutant Maj BEST was wounded. At about 16:30 the second in command Maj OWEN was wounded - both these Officers having been put out of action. At this hour the line had advanced to 136 Q 4-5. Firing ceased at 19:15. Capt ADAMS OC D Coy received instructions at 20:00 from Gen HILL GOC 31st INF BDE to retire to the position held at noon, Capt ADAMS then being in command of the Bn as far as was known. At this juncture D Coy with parts of A & C Coys had entrenched themselves and were prepared to hold the line until such time as relief came up. Upon receiving instructions to retire, Capt ADAMS sent word back stating that he would retire when he had collected the wounded which were numerous in the vicinity. This was a difficult undertaking - there being no stretcher bearers at hand and to be attained. The collecting of the wounded being successfully carried out by the aid of an oil sheet. By 24:00 Capt ADAMS and Lt LINDSAY with the remainder of D Coy had collected the following wounded Officers: Maj OWEN, Capt SCOTT, Lt McWILLIAM, 2 Lt FALLS, 2 Lt DARLING and about 100 NCOs and men at a place where they could be conveniently reached by stretcher bearers. There being no possibility of stretcher bearers arriving before dawn Capt ADAMS decided to remove the whole some 600 yards to the rear under cover from the enemy's fire. At about 03:30 Maj HOLDEN RAMC arrived with stretcher bearers - the ground over which the advance was carried out was extremely undulated covered with rocks and thick bush - consisting of broken and irregular spurs from the hillside making advance very difficult and exposed to heavy fire. The following casualties amongst the Officers were reported: KILLED: Lt Col VANRENEN, Capt VERNON, Capt ROBINSON, Lt H H McCORMAC, Lt NELIS, 2 Lt GRUBB, WOUNDED: Maj OWEN, Maj F A D BEST, Capt SCOTT, Lt McWILLIAM, Lt STIGANT, Lt BALLANTYNE, Lt WHITSITT, 2 Lt KIRKPATRICK, 2 Lt FALLS, 2 Lt HALL, Lt HASTINGS, Lt F M McCORMAC, Lt VERSCOYLE 2 Lt DARLING. ORs: Killed: 28, Wounded 230, Missing 78.</p>
<p>16th Aug 15. ANAFARTA SAGIR 135 U 7. At daybreak Capt ADAMS retired with D and part of C and A Coys and some Territorials which had been collected and reported to BDE HQ, the Bn occupying the ground occupied by them preivous to the attacks. Capt ARMSTRONG with a party composed chiefly of A Coy did not return from the firing line until 11:30, this Officer and party having remained throughout the night 15th-16th Aug on the ground gained, joining the 7th R DUBLIN FUS at 5 a.m. on his left. At the request of the OC of that Bn he remained with them until 12:00. On his return he reported to BDE HQ and was placed in command of the Bn, which had then taken up its position in trenches on the east side of the ridge KIRETCH TEPE SIRT. Position on Map 135 Y 2. Lt LINDSAY was appointed acting Adjutant by Capt ARMSTRONG - Lt C N PETHERICK and 2 Lt CROMIN both of the 6th Bn R INNIS FUS were attached to the Bn for duty and reported themselves. The distribution of Officers was then as follows: - Commanding Battalion - Capt G A ARMSTRONG... Acting Adjutant Lt A P LINDSAY, Comd A Coy 2 Lt N CRONIN,... Comd B Coy Lt C N PETHERICK,......Comd C Coy 2 Lt V O'MALLEY,.... Comd D Coy - Capt A ADAMS..... MO (Temp) Capt BIND RAMC, ....QM Lt KENNEDY.</p>
<p>6th Bn R Innis Fus (parts slightly illegible in the original)</p>
<p>15th Aug 15. KIRETCH TEPE SIRT. 1115. Received the following orders from GOC 31st INF BDE.:</p>
<p>1. Turks hold 136 LQV and 135 PV eastern halves only. The line of reinforcement and retreat of Turks appears to be from Knoll on 136 Q called KIDNEY HILL to and from houses SE of it....</p>
<p>2. GOC 10 DIV intends to take posession of the line 135 V 5 north and to point 103 in square 136 L and establish himself on it connecting with the left of the 54th DIV i.e. 162nd INF BDE.</p>
<p>3. 30th and 31st INF BDEs and 65th and 66th Coys RE will move from present position 1 pm objective the line 136 V 5 to Pt 103.....</p>
<p>4. As soon as the line has been occupied it will at once be entrenched by the Reserve.......</p>
<p>5. R INNIS FUS will advance and occupy from 136 V1 to 135 Y? U? the 6th R MUNSTER FUS and 6th R IRISH FUS will support the movement and as soon as it is completed will advance to direction of Pt 103. ....</p>
<p>6. The 7th R DUBLIN FUS followed by 6th R IRISH FUS and Field Coys RE carrying picks and shovels will move along northern slope of KIRETCH TEPE SIRTS. this reserve will be under the comd of Brig Gen NICHOLL and will form the Reserve.....</p>
<p>7. The 6th R INNIS FUS and the 5th R IRISH FUS will remain in their present positions but must be ready to move at short notice....</p>
<p>8. The 162nd INF BDE (54th DIV) will cooperate on the right. It will be ready at 11 am near the 5th R IRISH FUS will move north up to squares 118A and 136 VQ against KIDNEY HILL. The CRA 10th DIV is arranging artillery support to commence at 12:30. Advance report centre ill be at MG trench 6th R INNIS FUS from 1 pm and subsequently near JEPHSON's POST.........1 pm.</p>
<p>Orders complied with as far as they affected the unit. The 5th R INNIS FUS made good Knoll beyond JEPHSON'S POST by 1700 suffering very heavy loss. The unit assisted with MG fire throughout attack throughout night. Lt PORTER wounded this day.</p>
<p>My great-Grandfather was killed on August 15, 1915, a mere 8 days after they landed. He was just thirty years on this earth. He left behind my Great-grandmother and 4 small children.</p>
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Caiseal a' Bhaoisgin -- Often Overlooked, Not To Be Missed
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-07-28:6442157:BlogPost:108519
2014-07-28T21:00:00.000Z
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<p><span class="font-size-2"><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">C</span>reevykeel Court Tomb is made up</strong> of a long, trapeze shaped cairn which encloses an oval court, and a burial chamber that is…</span></p>
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<p><span class="font-size-2"><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">C</span>reevykeel Court Tomb is made up</strong> of a long, trapeze shaped cairn which encloses an oval court, and a burial chamber that is made up of two compartments at the north west of the court. In the back of cairn there are three subsidiary chambers which are built into the cairn. Creevykeel's</span> earliest parts date from the Late Neolithic (c. 2500 BC). <span class="font-size-2">The old name for Creevykeel is Caiseal a' Bhaoisgin, the Fort of Bhaoisgin, Bhaoisgin being the well near the cairn.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">It was excavated between July 25 and September 4 1935 by the fourth Harvard archaeological mission, as part of the first scientific excavations in Ireland, and led by Hugh Hencken O'Neill. Twenty seven workers were involved in the dig, and the cairn material was removed entirely and then replaced.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">They found that the large structural chunks of sandstone are resting on the old ground surface, rather than placed in sockets. The excavation, dis-assembly and reassembly uncovered some interesting finds. These finds dated back to the original neolithic use and the early Christian period. Within the main chambers were four pits which had deposits of cremated bone - too few and fragmentary to say if they were a burial. A piece of worked flint was found in one of the pits. Between the dividing stones that seperate the large chamber,a polished stone axe was found. Other finds included a large flint knife, arrowheads, pot sherds, some quartz crystals, and more flint scrapers.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">In my lead-in Photo,which looks from the center of the court into the entrance of the megalithic chamber, you can see a smelting pit, the stones in the foreground, which are the remains of the Iron age or early Christian smelting pit. A smelting pit was where metal was worked. This addition would have been added perhaps 4,000 years after the original construction of the monument. The Iron age and early Christian metalworkers appear to have liked working in ancient sites and unusual places such as megaliths and crannogs, and megalithic sites seem to have perhaps held magical properties in relation to metalwork.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706891?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706891?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a> <em><span class="font-size-1">~</span> <span class="font-size-1">Hugh Hencken O'Neill's plan of the main chamber at Creevykeel ~</span></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"></p>
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<p>The standing stones around the court are quite massive chunks of local sandstone studded with pieces of quartz. They get larger approaching the opening at the rear of the court, which gives access to an inner chamber, now roofless but which was originally covered with massive corbels, making an artificial cave. At the end of the chamber is a large slab. There are three smaller chambers at the western end of the monument, two on the north side and one on the south side. The smaller chambers are thought to be a burial gallery of sorts.</p>
<p>In Wakeman's 1880 illustration of Creevykeel, below, you can see the entrance lintel standing upright over the doorway, creating a very imposing facade. By the time <span class="font-size-2">Hugh Hencken O'Neill</span> and his team arrived, the stone had fallen into the chamber, and he replaced the stone, but put it back in a horizontal position.</p>
<p>Creevykeel can be found outside of Cliffoney, Co Sligo at the foothills of Tievebaun Mountain. It is one of the easiest sites to visit, as it is right by the Sligo - Donegal N16 road, 1.5 km north of the village of Cliffoney and over the road from Gorevan's pub. There is a parking space signposted, but it is easy to miss.</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706940?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706940?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a> <em><span class="font-size-1">~ Creeveykeel, 1880 by William Wakeman. Copyright Sligo County Library. ~</span></em></p>
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<p><span class="font-size-1"><em>All photos other than top image © C.E. Devine 2009</em></span></p>
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Ever Irrepressible Mims Murphy
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-07-16:6442157:BlogPost:105534
2014-07-16T21:00:00.000Z
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<p style="text-align: left;"><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">M</span>ary Eileen "Mims" Murphy Walsh</strong> was born in County Longford in 1881. She was college educated and worked in Dublin. She married Patrick "Paddy" Walsh on July 29, 1913. They immigrated to the United States in 1915. To Mims, it was an exile that she…</p>
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<p style="text-align: left;"><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">M</span>ary Eileen "Mims" Murphy Walsh</strong> was born in County Longford in 1881. She was college educated and worked in Dublin. She married Patrick "Paddy" Walsh on July 29, 1913. They immigrated to the United States in 1915. To Mims, it was an exile that she never quite got over.</p>
<p>An inspiring or frustrated writer, depending on which account you read, she kept a diary beginning in 1913 after marriage and continuing, through numerous books, until her death in 1964.</p>
<p>They came to Arizona, first the mining town of Bisbee and then to Tucson, because of her husband's respiratory issues. He had been diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1914. Arizona was likely thought to be the best curative because it was hot and dry.</p>
<p>She and Paddy would end up being long-term residents of Tucson, my hometown. Her first impression of the Old Pueblo wasn't quite a shining one.</p>
<p>"Woke up in Arizona," she wrote in her diary of March 7, 1916, "bleak enough scenery, not as bad as the Colorado desert though. Got to Tucson at 10:30. Very hot, sleepy dusty town. Men lying asleep on (alleged) grass. ... Had an awful dinner and left at 2:30."</p>
<p>I can well imagine her dismay. Southern Arizona is desert land, dry, dust and, even in March, hotter than most other regions of the United States. It would have been very foreign to someone used to the green, cool clime of Ireland.</p>
<p>They never planned on making Arizona their permanent home. They thought that they would stay here a few years, 10 at most, and return to Ireland once Paddy had "taken the cure."</p>
<p>Mims would oft refer to herself as being "exiled from Ireland."</p>
<p>Mims focus, once they located to Tucson, was her many social and political activities. They settled just west of the University area, residing there from 1919 until Paddy's death at 77 in 1963, and Mim's death at 83 the following year. Their wee house on University Boulevard would become the hub for many a ceildh. Both were recorded singing Irish folk songs that are preserved at the Library of Congress. They hosted many a literary noteworthy, both American and Irish, including distinguished authors of the likes of Dubliner Oliver Gogarty.</p>
<p>To learn more about the Irrepressible Mims, check out this 2001 Tucson Weekly Article: <a href="http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/arizona-irish/Content?oid=1068039" target="_blank">Arizona Irish</a></p>
<p>Her diaries, thousands of hand-written pages, are to be the focus of a book written by Judy Nolte Temple, a professor within the University of Arizona Department of Gender and Women's Studies and the Department of English. The book will be tentatively titled "I Have Made My Choice."<br/> <br/> To learn more about Professor Temple and her research into Mims' diaries, checkout this 2013 U of A news article:</p>
<p><a href="http://uanews.org/story/ua-professor-delves-into-arizona-irishwoman-s-diaries" target="_blank">UA Professor Delves into Arizona Irishwoman's Diaries</a></p>
<p><span class="font-size-1"><em>Photo courtesy of Margaret O’Toole</em></span></p>
There’s Gold in Nellie Cashman
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-07-09:6442157:BlogPost:104925
2014-07-09T21:00:00.000Z
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<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">I</span><span class="font-size-2">n Tombstone, Arizona,</span></strong> the town too tough to die, Nellie Cashman, the Miners’ Angel, is legendary for her business skills, her philanthropy and her Irish grit. Her biographer once said, when asked to describe her, “Pretty as a…</p>
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<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">I</span><span class="font-size-2">n Tombstone, Arizona,</span></strong> the town too tough to die, Nellie Cashman, the Miners’ Angel, is legendary for her business skills, her philanthropy and her Irish grit. Her biographer once said, when asked to describe her, “Pretty as a Victorian cameo and, when necessary, tougher than two-penny nails." Nellie was oft praised by admirers who cited her Irish charm, calling her the "queen of the Irish miners" and praising her Celtic brogue and wit.</p>
<p>Ellen “Nellie” Cashman was born in Belvelly, near Cobh, County Cork, in or about 1845, immigrating to Boston, along with her sister, Frances (Fanny), and mother around 1850. They, like so many others, were fleeing from the Great Famine. As an adolescent, Cashman worked as a bellhop in a Boston hotel, which set her on her entrepreneurial course. In 1865 she and her family migrated to San Francisco, California.</p>
<p>Fanny married in 1870 and settled in to married life. Nellie & her mum, also Frances, headed for the silver boomtown of Pioche, Nevada. They opened a boardinghouse in Pinaca Flats, 10 miles from the Pioche mines. They did well for themselves expanding their boarding house in their second year. Oct. 17, 1873, she sold her boarding house, so newly and proudly renovated, and skedaddled back to San Francisco. She'd soon be in on that gold rush herself, carrying a new name: Pioche Nellie.</p>
<p>Nellie once said that the Great Hunger stuck with her and shaped her. Her father, Patrick, died during those hunger times. She said the hard lessons learned served her well throughout her very successful & colourful life:</p>
<blockquote><p>Work as hard as you can. <br/> Make as much money as you can. <br/> Share what you have with the desperate.<br/> And get the hell out of Dodge when the money dries up.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>~<>~</p>
<p>Following the onset of the Klondike Gold Rush, Cashman left her family home in 1874 for the Cassiar Mountains in British Columbia, Canada. A lifelong Catholic, she set up a boarding house for miners, asking for donations to the Sisters of St Anne in return for the services available at her boarding house. Along with operating the Boarding House, she also grubstaked or financed many miners who were developing claims.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9982168093?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9982168093?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="250" class="align-left" style="padding: 10px;"/></a>Tenacity by any other name is Nellie Cashman. She was traveling to Victoria to deliver 500 dollars to the Sisters of St. Anne when she heard that a snowstorm had descended on the Cassiar Mountains, stranding and injuring 26 miners, who were also suffering from scurvy. She took charge of a six-man search party and collected food and medicine to take to the stranded miners. Conditions in the Cassiar Mountains were so dangerous that the Canadian Army advised against attempting the rescue. Upon learning of Cashman's expedition, a commander sent his troops to locate her party and bring them to safety. An army trooper eventually found Cashman camped on the frozen surface of the Stikine River. Over tea, she convinced the trooper and his men that it was her will to continue, and that she would not head back without rescuing the miners.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><strong>(Left: Nellie in her finery.)</strong></span></p>
<p>After 77 days of harsh weather, Cashman and her party located the sick men, who numbered far more than 26. Some historical accounts credit Cashman with saving the lives of as many as 75 men. She administered a diet containing Vitamin C to restore the men to health. She was afterward fondly known in the region as the "Angel of the Cassiar".</p>
<p>When the Cassiar strike played out, Nellie headed for the silver fields of Arizona. She arrived in Tucson in 1879, where she opened the Delmonico Restaurant, the first business in town owned by a woman. The Delmonico was successful despite (or perhaps because of) her habit of feeding and caring for hapless miners.</p>
<p>In 1880, Nellie sold the Delmonico and, following the silver rush in the San Pedro Valley, moved to the new silver boomtown of Tombstone, just after the arrival of the Earp brothers. An 1881 Cochise County census found that the Irish made up the highest number of foreign-born people in Tombstone. There were 559 Irish-born and 2,880 Americans, including Irish-Americans like Wyatt Earp's enemy, the deputy sheriff Johnny Behan.</p>
<p>Her first business venture in Tombstone was the Nevada Boot and Shoe Store. She and her associate Joseph Pascholy co-owned and ran a restaurant and hotel in Tombstone called Russ House, now known as Nellie Cashman's. Russ House was named after the original in San Francisco, Nellie served 50-cent meals, advertising that "there are no cockroaches in my kitchen and the flour is clean." According to a popular legend, a client once complained about Cashman's cooking, and fellow diner Doc Holliday drew his pistol, asking the customer to repeat what he had said. Embarrassed, the client replied, "Best I ever ate."</p>
<p>Along with the Russ House, she also worked as a nurse at Cochise County Hospital. In addition to these business ventures, she invested in claims and partnered with miners to develop them.</p>
<p>In Tombstone, her philanthropy work was also evident. A lifelong, devout Catholic, Nellie convinced the owners of the Crystal Palace Saloon (one of whom was Wyatt Earp) to allow Sunday church services there until she had helped raise enough funds for construction of a Catholic Church. She then rallied the Catholic community and raised money to build the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, and committed herself to charity work with the Sisters of St. Joseph. She was also active in raising money for the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, the Miner's Hospital and amateur theatricals staged in Tombstone. She was famous for taking up collections to help those who had been injured or fallen on hard times, especially miners. Always the pragmatist, Nellie found the members of Tombstone's red-light district sympathetic and charitable to her causes, and relied on their generosity to help others in need.</p>
<p>During her six years in Tombstone—with outside forays here and there—the enterprising Nellie opened and closed businesses with dizzying speed, and changed partners with alacrity. She had a grocery called Tombstone Cash Store (slogan: "Fruits and Vegetables Received Daily from Los Angeles"), and the Arcade Restaurant and Chop House ("Better Meals than any House in Town").</p>
<p>At one point, she got rid of the Arcade and took off briefly for Bisbee, where copper was expected to boom any minute. She rented a hotel, but this time, her vaunted instincts were wrong: Bisbee's moment had not yet come, and when she left town months later, the hotel owner sued her for unpaid rent.</p>
<p>Her sister Fanny (Cashman) Cunningham was widowed in 1881, following the death of her husband Tom, a boot maker. Cashman arranged for Fanny and her five children to move to nearby Tucson, Arizona. Fanny died in 1884 of tuberculosis, leaving her children in Cashman's care. Honoring her sister's wishes, Cashman raised the children as her own. She never married, stating a man would tie her to “too many conventions”.</p>
<p>Cashman traveled to Baja California soon after her sister's death in 1884, after hearing rumors of untapped gold and silver deposits. She joined 21 men in a short-lived prospecting venture. Sixteen hours into the 100-mile journey, in conditions of extreme heat and drought, the group had already nearly depleted their water supplies, and most of the men were suffering from dehydration. They abandoned their venture.</p>
<p>The Bisbee Massacre took place in Tombstone, in December 1883, killing three innocent bystanders and wounding two others. Five men were convicted and sentenced to die by hanging on March 28, 1884. Many people were eager to make a spectacle of the execution. A local carpenter built a grandstand next to the hanging site, planning to charge for tickets. Cashman was outraged, feeling that no execution should be celebrated. She befriended the five convicts, visiting them to provide spiritual guidance. Cashman convinced the sheriff to set a curfew on the day of the hangings to prevent a crowd from forming. The night before the execution, Cashman and a crew of volunteers tore down the grandstand. The hangings proceeded as scheduled, but out of public view. When Cashman learned that a medical school planned to exhume the bodies of the convicts for study, she enlisted two prospectors to stand watch over the Boot Hill Cemetery for 10 days. The following year, when a group of miners attempted to lynch mine owner E.B. Gage during a labor dispute, Nellie drove her buggy into the mob and rescued Gage, spiriting him away to Benson, Arizona.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9982172861?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9982172861?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="400" class="align-right" style="padding: 10px;"/></a>Nell had the wanderlust in her blood, it was safe to say. She moved frequently, living in Kingston, New Mexico from 1887 to 1888 before she heard about a new mineral find in western Arizona, in the Centennial-Harrisburg vicinity of the Harqua Hala Mountains. Cashman bought claims there and sold supplies to miners, living there for a few years. During the early 1890s, she lived in other Arizona towns, including Jerome, Prescott, Globe, and Yuma where she opened up boarding houses & restaurants, as well.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><strong>(Right: Miners at Chilkoot Pass in the Yukon in 1898.)</strong></span></p>
<p>Wanderlust and prospecting fever continued, she left for Alaska in 1898 to strike it rich in Klondike. There she ran a restaurant, purchased claims and grubstaked many miners while also helping to establish St. Mary's Church and Hospital. Her prospecting ventures took her to Klondike, Fairbanks, and Nolan Creek. She later owned a store in Dawson City.</p>
<p>She settled in Koyukuk, along with other established miners. During the early twentieth century, she continued to operate businesses and travel, often by dog team. In 1923, Cashman set a record as the champion woman musher, traveling 750 miles in 17 days with her dog team, from Koyukuk to Seward, Alaska.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9982176286?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9982176286?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="400" class="align-left" style="padding: 10px;"/></a>Nellie Cashman finally gave up her wanderlust and settled in Victoria, British Columbia in 1923. When asked by a reporter for the Arizona Star why she never married, Nellie replied, "Why child, I haven't had time for marriage. Men are a nuisance anyhow, now aren't they? They're just boys grown up."</p>
<p>Nellie Cashman, the "Saint of the Sourdoughs," died in Victoria two years later, on January 25, 1925. Friends admitted her to the Sisters of St. Anne, the same hospital which she had helped to build fifty-one years earlier. She died and was interred at Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria, British Columbia.</p>
<p>Frontier Angel, the Saint of the Sourdoughs, the Miner's Angel, the Angel of the Cassair and the Angel of Tombstone, Nellie Cashman was all of this and something even harder to define.</p>
<p><strong>MORE ON THE IRISH IN THE AMERICAN WEST</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/meath-artist-john-mulvany-painting-the-last-stand" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Meath Artist John Mulvany: Painting the "Last Stand"</a></p>
<p><a rel="nofollow noopener" href="https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/billy-the-kid-the-wild-rapparee-of-lincoln-county" target="_blank">Billy the Kid: The Wild Rapparee of Lincoln County</a></p>
<p><a href="https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/valentine-trant-mcgillycuddy-wasicu-wakan-indian-agent-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Valentine Trant McGillycuddy: Crazy Horse's Friend</a></p>
<p><a href="https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/john-f-finerty-the-fighting-irish-pencil-pusher">John F. Finerty: 'The Fighting Irish Pencil-Pusher'</a></p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/legendary-mountain-man-john-colter-surviving-naked-and-afraid" target="_self">Legendary Mountain Man John Colter: Surviving 'Naked and Afraid'</a></p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/george-peg-leg-shannon-the-lost-boy-of-the-lewis-clark-expedition" target="_self">'Peg-Leg' Shannon: 'Lost Boy' of the Lewis & Clark Expedition</a></p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/mountain-man-thomas-fitzpatrick-the-legendary-broken-hand" target="_self">Mountain Man Thomas Fitzpatrick: Legendary 'Broken Hand'</a></p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/searching-fur-trader-robert-campbell-s-family-tree-for-my" target="_self">Searching Robert Campbell's Family Tree for Fortune</a> (Campbell, born in <span>Plumbridge, near Strabane in County Tyrone, trapped with Fitzpatrick in the 1820s and 30s)</span></p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/the-irish-in-the-american-west-john-j-healy-montana-pioneer" target="_self">Westward, Ho! John J. Healy, Montana Pioneer</a></p>
<p><a href="http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/there-s-gold-in-nellie-cashman" target="_self">There’s Gold in Nellie Cashman</a></p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/john-gregory-bourke-indian-fighter-ethnologist-and-champion-of-na" target="_self">John Gregory Bourke: Part 1 - Warrior Anthropologist</a></p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/buckey-o-neill-sheriff-mayor-rough-rider-american-hero" target="_self">Buckey O'Neill: Sheriff, Mayor, Rough Rider, American Hero</a></p>
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<p><span><a rel="nofollow" href="http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/custer-s-last-irishmen-the-irish-who-fought-at-the-battle-of-the" target="_self">Custer's Last Irishmen</a>: The Irish who fought at the Battle of the Little Bighorn </span></p>
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<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/bartholomew-masterson-irish-heritage" target="_self">Did 'Bat' Masterson have Irish Heritage?</a></p>
<p><a href="https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/scrappy-phil-sheridan-the-u-s-army-s-little-big-man" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Scrappy Phil Sheridan - The U.S. Army's Little Big Man</a><span> </span></p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/valentine-trant-mcgillycuddy-wasicu-wakan-indian-agent-2" target="_self">Valentine Trant McGillycuddy: "Ta-sunka Witko Kola", Crazy Horse's ...</a></p>
A Grand Time Indeed at O'Lunney's
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-05-09:6442157:BlogPost:92616
2014-05-09T07:00:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84705709?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84705709?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">J</span>ust thought I would post a few photographs</strong> from the gathering of The Wild Geese at O'Lunney's Times Square on April 26th, 2014.</p>
<p>There were 14 folks in all. Denis Dwyer and Alex Fegan brought their "Irish Pub" film for screening. There was much laughter and trading…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84705709?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84705709?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">J</span>ust thought I would post a few photographs</strong> from the gathering of The Wild Geese at O'Lunney's Times Square on April 26th, 2014.</p>
<p>There were 14 folks in all. Denis Dwyer and Alex Fegan brought their "Irish Pub" film for screening. There was much laughter and trading of stories.</p>
<p>Thanks to all who made it merry.</p>
<p> </p>
April 20-26, 2014: Cowboy Poetry Week - Hats Off to Irish Cowboys
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2014-04-25:6442157:BlogPost:90338
2014-04-25T05:30:00.000Z
Bit Devine
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/BitDevine
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84705440?profile=RESIZE_320x320" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84705440?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350"></img></a></p>
<p>April 20-26, 2014 is Cowboy Poetry Week. I thought I would share one of my own poems, written in 2007, a tribute to te Irish cowboy.</p>
<p><br></br> <br></br> <strong><em><span class="font-size-1">Right: Jeff Streeby, Cowboy Poet, in the dining room of Man of Aran Cottage, Inis Mor (</span><span style="font-size: 8pt;">©2005 C.E.Devine ~ Rincon Creek…</span></em></strong></p>
<p><a width="260" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84705440?profile=RESIZE_320x320" target="_self"><img width="350" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84705440?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350" class="align-right"/></a></p>
<p>April 20-26, 2014 is Cowboy Poetry Week. I thought I would share one of my own poems, written in 2007, a tribute to te Irish cowboy.</p>
<p><br/> <br/> <strong><em><span class="font-size-1">Right: Jeff Streeby, Cowboy Poet, in the dining room of Man of Aran Cottage, Inis Mor (</span><span style="font-size: 8pt;">©2005 C.E.Devine ~ Rincon Creek Studios)</span></em></strong></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-3">Hearth & Heart</span></strong></p>
<p>With a tin whistle in his pocket and a thousand songs tucked in his heart<br/> He was off that day, across the sea, to America and a brand new start<br/> Just seventeen and a day he was, a boy, and yet still a man full-grown<br/> He was leaving hearth and heart behind, as he faced the wide unknown.<br/> His Mam and sisters gone of a fever and his dad locked in a cold, dark cell<br/> He would make his success in America, though just how he couldn’t tell</p>
<p>So long blessed Ireland, your hills no more to roam<br/> Though I am here in America, my heart stays there at home<br/> My Soul sings out your memories, My heart beats out your tale<br/> As I hum a song of Ireland out here on this western trail</p>
<p>In a Conestoga pointed west, a babe at her knee and hope in her heart<br/> She was off that day, across the plains, to Oregon and a brand new start<br/> Just eighteen and a day she was, a girl, and yet a woman full-grown<br/> She left hearth and heart behind, as she faced the wide unknown<br/> She’d pledge her love to an Irish lad with a tin whistle and a grass rope<br/> They’d build their life at the end of the Oregon Trail, with hard work 'n hope</p>
<p>So long blessed Ireland, your hills no more to roam<br/> Though I am here in America, my heart stays there at home<br/> My Soul sings out your memories, My heart beats out your tale<br/> As I hum a song of Ireland out here on this western trail</p>
<p>On an airplane pointed east, a thousand ancient songs calling them home<br/> They were headed back, across the sea, her coasts and hills to roam<br/> Answering a voice in their memory that had taken root and wing in each soul<br/> They found the fire still burning in hearth and heart, once again felt whole<br/> Cowboy, Scholar, Bard, they followed the past from Cattle trail to Inis Mor<br/> And found the place the heart called home on her rugged West Coast shores</p>
<p>So long blessed Ireland, your hills again I long to roam<br/> Though I am here in America, my heart stays there at home<br/> My Soul sings out your memories, My heart beats out your tale<br/> As I hum a song of Ireland out here on this western trail.</p>
<p></p>
<p><em><span class="font-size-1">Catherine Lilbit Devine © October 12, 2007</span></em></p>