John Anthony Brennan's Posts - The Wild Geese
2024-03-19T07:11:07Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
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Birth of a New Language: Triumph Against All Odds
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-06-16:6442157:BlogPost:172437
2022-06-16T13:30:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714144?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" height="328" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714144?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="666"></img></a> <strong><span class="font-size-5">O</span>ne morning, in late summer, a young boy set off eagerly</strong>, on his journey of life. Brimming with excitement, his eyes shone with innocent anticipation. He was going to school for the first time! He was going to learn new and wondrous things! The boy had dreamt and looked forward to this day for as long as he could remember, And…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714144?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714144?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="666" height="328"/></a><strong><span class="font-size-5">O</span>ne morning, in late summer, a young boy set off eagerly</strong>, on his journey of life. Brimming with excitement, his eyes shone with innocent anticipation. He was going to school for the first time! He was going to learn new and wondrous things! The boy had dreamt and looked forward to this day for as long as he could remember, And now, this day, the dream would come true.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714362?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714362?profile=original" width="250" height="145"/></a>Hand in hand with his mother, satchel on his shoulder, he hurried along the quiet country road, past the hawthorn hedges, past the cows and sheep grazing in the fields, past the fragrant honeysuckle and wild raspberry bushes that grew in profusion along both sides of the road. He walked fast, so fast, his mother had trouble keeping pace with him. Rounding a slow curve, the schoolhouse came into view, its gleaming white walls beckoning him.</p>
<p>There it is! On sight of the schoolhouse, the boy broke the hold of his mother’s hand and ran. When his mother caught up to him, he had already made his first new friend, another young boy, like him, eager and full of wonder.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714380?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714380?profile=original" width="146" height="163"/></a>Unfortunately, during his second day of school, the young boy was caught whispering to his new schoolmate in class during lessons. This infraction so incensed the schoolmaster that, in a fit of temper, he hit the two children's heads together with such force, it damaged the boy’s hearing for the rest of his life. The result of this violent act rendered him unfit to participate fully in school, and unable to understand his teachers. Fearing his father’s anger, the boy did not report the incident and his injury was not treated. With his hearing thus impaired, it ultimately led to the boy unnecessarily being perceived as dull or mentally challenged by his peers, teachers, and family. <br/> Was the dream over so soon?</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714408?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714408?profile=original" width="211"/></a>John Robert Gregg, was born on June 17, 1867, in Shantonagh, County Monaghan, Ireland. He was the youngest child of Robert and Margaret Gregg. In 1872 the family moved to Rockcorry, County Monaghan. Robert Gregg, a strict disciplinarian, was of Scottish ancestry, and held the position of station-master at the Bushford railway station in Rockcorry. Robert had an inventive, inquiring mind, and two of his children were considered brilliant. Great things were expected of the youngest Gregg when he started school at the age of five. Robert Gregg and his wife raised their children as strict Presbyterians, and sent their children to the village school in Rockcorry, which John Robert Gregg joined in 1872</p>
<p>In 1877, a journalist friend of Robert Gregg Sr. visited their village for a weekend. The journalist, being versed in Pitman shorthand, took notes of the sermon given by the local preacher at the Sunday service. Unbeknownst to anyone, the preacher had plagiarized the words of another famous preacher and when he saw that notes were being taken he started to sweat and stutter, fearing the journalist would publish his notes and therefore expose the plagiarism.</p>
<p><span>That same day, Robert Gregg Sr knew that shorthand was a powerful skill and insisted his children learn it thoroughly. John was not included as he was deemed "simple and a "slow learner." Undeterred and on his own, John learned a completely different system; a system developed by a man named Samuel Taylor. With grit and sheer determination, John taught himself the system fully, and as the new method did not require the ability to hear in order to learn, John picked it up rapidly. He also took an <span>interest in speed writing when he was 10 years old and despite having to leave school at age 13 to help support his family's finances, had by the age of 21, published <em>Light Line Phonography</em>, a 28-page booklet using a phonetic alphabet which he had invented. Gregg's alphabet was later translated into more than a dozen languages.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10577933677?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10577933677?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="220"/></a></span></span><span>John Gregg emigrated to the United States in 1893 and settled in Chicago.</span> He wrote and published several books on the subject of shorthand which are still in use today.</p>
<p>Read more here:</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Robert_Gregg&oldid=672376522">https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Robert_Gregg&oldid=672376522</a></p>
<p>Books for Sale at: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
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A Strange Encounter in St. Stephen's Green
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-06-09:6442157:BlogPost:301076
2022-06-09T14:30:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10550567879?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10550567879?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="750"></img></a></span></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">D</span>uring a nostalgic trip to Dublin City, Ireland in June 1971,</strong> I found myself in the delightful St. Stephen's Green, a welcome oasis in that bustling, cosmopolitan city. The park is sited not far from the Four Courts building, which sits on the north bank of…</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10550567879?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10550567879?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="750"/></a></span></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">D</span>uring a nostalgic trip to Dublin City, Ireland in June 1971,</strong> I found myself in the delightful St. Stephen's Green, a welcome oasis in that bustling, cosmopolitan city. The park is sited not far from the Four Courts building, which sits on the north bank of the River Liffey, and the last bastion for those brave, but sadly, doomed rebels of the 1916 rebellion against British rule. Earlier I had visited Glasnevin Cemetery, the final resting place for most of Ireland’s heroes, and decided to rest a while before moving on to Trinity College. Stopping off at Bewley’s Coffee house on Grafton Street for one of their delicious lattes, I remember remarking on the way everything seemed to sparkle and glow in the bright sunshine and how the feeling of contentment always enveloped me anytime I visited that magical city. The city truly had an aura all its own and gave off an almost surreal feeling of believing anything could be possible. Finishing my coffee I slowly walked the short distance to the park, entered through the wrought iron gates, approached a comfortable looking bench under an old linden tree and sat down.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10550570658?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10550570658?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="250"/></a></span>Sitting there admiring the rows of Georgian houses, the sharp sunlight reflecting off the window panes caused me to shade my eyes. Gazing at the granite, Greco/Roman facades, cut with masterful precision, I thought of the skilled masons, long departed, but leaving behind their wonderful creations for us to enjoy. As I looked at the solid entrance doors with their many ornate panels, and being a carpenter myself for many years, I thought of those talented craftsmen, whose hands had hewn the raw wood, fashioning it into superb works of art, a lasting testament to their ingenuity. Each door was painted in an array of reds, yellows, blues and blacks, their heavy, brass door knockers gleaming in the bright sunshine. <br/> <br/> Still thinking of those creative workmen, I slowly turned my head and noticed off to my left, beside a large, blue, flowering azalea, close to the fountain, a strange looking man feeding a small flock of finches from a red, velvet bag that hung from his wrist. He was sitting on what I can only describe as a cane with a fold-out seat, but it was his hat that really caught my attention, a large, black fedora with a red feather in the band, which stuck up in the air at a jaunty angle. That’s odd, I thought, he wasn’t there before. I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed him, but no, everyone else carried on with their meanderings, chatting and taking no notice whatsoever. As my gaze returned to the peculiar looking man, it struck me as even more bizarre that he wore a long, royal blue-colored, velvet cloak over a black sateen coat, which had a bright, red carnation sprouting from the lapel. <em>He must be an actor on a break,</em> I reasoned, and looked around expecting to see a crew in attendance. I failed to see anything that could be construed as belonging to a film set and turned to look at him once more. He was standing up by then, folding his cane. A tall man, more than six feet, he had an air of other worldliness about him. <em>Maybe he's wearing heels,</em> I mused, glancing at his feet.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10550571479?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10550571479?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="200"/></a></span>As I looked, I stood up, blinked twice in surprise when I noticed that the strange looking man was wearing a pair of black and white spats over his glossy, patent leather shoes. Bringing my gaze upward, slowly absorbing his strange attire, I noticed his grey pin-striped trousers had razor sharp creases. As my eyes came level with his I was startled to find him looking directly at me with a haughty expression on his pale, fleshy face. His unblinking eyes stared at me with an intensity that sent a shiver throughout my body.</p>
<p>"Don't you know that it's rude to stare, dear boy," he intoned in a deep voice.</p>
<p>"Me?" I said as I looked around to make sure it was me he was addressing.</p>
<p>“Yes, you! I don't see anyone else close by, do you?" he snapped.</p>
<p>With a dramatic sweep of his outstretched arm, the red lining of his cloak flashing like a matador’s cape as it billowed wildly, reminded me of a mainsail on one of the schooners in Dublin Bay. <em>He must be an actor</em>, I thought, or <em>maybe he’s a foreigner visiting from the continent.</em></p>
<p>"People nowadays … no manners! It was so much more genteel in my time," he sniffed.<br/> <br/> As he talked, I looked more closely at him and although he seemed peculiarly familiar, I couldn't, for the life of me remember where I had seen his face before. I knew that I was aware of who he was but it was like my mind had blanked out his identity. It was the strangest feeling of not knowing something that I was convinced I did know but couldn’t recall.</p>
<p>"Are you from around here?" I queried.</p>
<p>He stared at me with what I can only describe as a look of pure disgust and sneered,</p>
<p>"Obviously you are ill-bred and have no manners. You, my dear boy, are a boor."</p>
<p>I was about to voice my indignation when, with another flamboyant gesture, he intoned, "This whole city once worshipped me, until I encountered the bloody begrudgers and the incessant naysayers."</p>
<p>Then with another majestic sweep of his arm, in an almost complete circle, he continued,</p>
<p>"This city was mine, all mine ‘til I was forced to abandon her."</p>
<p><em>Who is this man?</em></p>
<p>As I looked closer at him, I was reminded of those figures you see on display in a wax museum. He just didn’t seem to be real, he had the palest skin I've ever seen, and appeared to shimmer in the afternoon sun. A sudden, frightening thought caused me to shudder.</p>
<p><em>He's not real! This man looks like a ghost!</em></p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10550572293?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10550572293?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="200" class="align-left"/></a>With that thought, I turned, and hurried toward the exit. As I neared the gate, I glanced warily over my shoulder only to find him right behind me, so close I almost collided with him. He appeared much taller than before and I could clearly see his unblinking, blue-grey eyes peering at me intently. It was then I noticed the large yellow diamond set in the gold pin which fastened his red, silk cravat. I stood rooted to the spot and was drawn to stare at it, dazzled by its intense, hypnotic brilliance. Then everything started to fade. …</p>
<p>I don’t know how long I stood there transfixed, but I was suddenly roused from my stupor when I heard him say in a deep baritone voice, “Mr. Brennan, do come visit my friends and me the next time you are in Paris. I reside in Pere Lachaise and will be getting a new neighbor soon. His name is Jim Morrison and he will be moving in in July." It was then that it struck me, this man was the famous author and playwright Oscar Wilde! But how could that be? Oscar Wilde died many years earlier, in 1900, and <em>how did he know my name?</em> I'm positive that I never mentioned it. Unnerved, and with his loud laughter ringing in my ears, I ran out onto Grafton Street, my heart pounding.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10550573487?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10550573487?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="200" class="align-right"/></a>Two weeks later, imagine my shock when the news broke that Jim Morrison, the lead singer with the Los Angeles rock band ‘The Doors’ was found dead in a bathtub in his hotel in Paris on July 3, 1971, and his funeral took place in Pere Lachaise Cemetery, close to Oscar Wilde’s winged tomb.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10550574488?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10550574488?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="150"/></a></p>
Beaufort: The Navan Native Who Charted the Oceans
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-05-27:6442157:BlogPost:171275
2022-05-27T17:16:50.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714318?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" height="347" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714318?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="664"></img></a> <strong><span class="font-size-5">I</span>n France, during the reign of King Henry IV (1589-1610)</strong>, a series of recurring religious conflicts erupted and grew so violent they became known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Wars_of_Religion" title="French Wars of Religion">Wars of Religion</a>. The war was between the ruling Catholics and a…</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714318?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714318?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="664" height="347"/></a><strong><span class="font-size-5">I</span>n France, during the reign of King Henry IV (1589-1610)</strong>, a series of recurring religious conflicts erupted and grew so violent they became known as the <a title="French Wars of Religion" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Wars_of_Religion">Wars of Religion</a>. The war was between the ruling Catholics and a group of French Protestant reformers, who became known as Huguenots.</p>
<p>The Huguenots, adhering to the tenets laid down by Protestant reformer John Calvin, demanded equal rights, political and military autonomy and tolerance of their religion. As they grew in numbers, and became more insistent, the French government issued the <a title="Edict of Nantes" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Nantes">Edict of Nantes</a>. The edict granted their demands and the conflicts subsided.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714403?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714403?profile=original" width="200" height="230"/></a>During the reign of King Louis XIV (1643-1715), renewed religious warfare prompted the abolishment of the political and military privileges of the Huguenots. Louis progressively increased persecution of them until he issued the <a title="Edict of Fontainebleau" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Fontainebleau">Edict of Fontainebleau</a> (1685), which abolished all legal recognition of Protestantism in France, and forced the Huguenots to convert. While nearly three-quarters eventually were killed or submitted, roughly 500,000 Huguenots had fled France by the early 18th century.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714470?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714470?profile=original" width="227" height="132"/></a>In 1788, a young boy, the son of a Huguenot family who had fled the conflicts in France, left school at age 14 and ran off to sea. On one of his voyages, the ship ran aground and sank due to incorrect guidance information. Many of the sailors drowned, and the survivors, including the young boy, were shipwrecked. This life-altering incident left the boy with a keen, and lifelong, awareness of the value of accurate maps and charts for those risking their lives traveling the open seas, and prompted him to devote the greater part of his life to compiling detailed maps and charts still in use today.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714494?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714494?profile=original" width="288" height="179"/></a>Francis Beaufort was born at Navan, County Meath, on May 27, 1774. His father, Daniel Augustus Beaufort was a Protestant, from Navan, County Meath, and a member of the learned Royal Irish Academy. His mother, Mary, was the daughter and co-heiress of William Waller, of Allenstown House. He had an older brother, William Louis Beaufort and two sisters, Frances and Harriet.</p>
<p>Read more here:</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Francis_Beaufort&oldid=676820365">https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Francis_Beaufort&oldid=676820365</a></p>
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The History of the Troscad: Requiem for Bobby
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-05-05:6442157:BlogPost:216552
2022-05-05T05:00:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8943267683?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8943267683?profile=RESIZE_710x" style="padding: 10px;" width="400"></img></a><p></p>
<p>On this day 5<sup>th</sup> May 1981 a daring political statement was made when a young man died while adhering to the ancient Irish Brehon law of “Troscad.” </p>
<p>The phenomenon known as <strong>‘troscad’</strong> (translated as ‘hunger strike’) is nothing new in Irish society. It predates Christianity, which swept Ireland in the mid-5<sup>th…</sup></p>
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<p>On this day 5<sup>th</sup> May 1981 a daring political statement was made when a young man died while adhering to the ancient Irish Brehon law of “Troscad.” </p>
<p>The phenomenon known as <strong>‘troscad’</strong> (translated as ‘hunger strike’) is nothing new in Irish society. It predates Christianity, which swept Ireland in the mid-5<sup>th</sup> Century and has been recorded as being used by the Druids. As a custom, according to the ancient Brehon Law, it was available to all members of Irish society as a legal way to air grievances. It is believed that it was inspired by the ancient Hindu custom of <strong>‘dbarna’</strong> meaning ‘waiting for death.’ The <strong>‘troscad’</strong> was the means of compelling justice and establishing one’s rights. Under law, the person wishing to compel justice had to notify the person they were complaining against and then would sit on their doorstep and refuse to eat until the perceived wrongdoer accepted the administration or arbitration of Justice by a Brehon (lawgiver).</p>
<p>The ‘troscad’ is referred to in the Irish sagas as well as laws and when Christianity displaced the pagan religion, the <strong>‘troscad’</strong> continued. We find St. Calmin fasting against Guaire the Hospitable, St; Ronan fasting against Diarmuld, even St. Patrick himself fasting against several persons to compel them to Justice. Some people even fasted against the saints themselves to get them to give justice and wives also fasted against their erring husbands. It is fascinating, as well as sad, that in the long centuries of England’s sorry relationship with Ireland, the Irish have continued a tradition of the <strong>‘troscad’</strong> which has become the political hunger strike. One of the most notable Irish political hunger strikes was that of the Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, also an elected Member of Parliament, who was arrested by the English administration in Cork City Hall and forcibly removed from Ireland to London’s Brixton Prison. He died in Brixton on 24 October 1920, on the seventy-fourth day of his hunger strike. He was, of course, not the first Irish political prisoner to die on hunger strike during this period.</p>
<p>Thomas Ashe died as a result of forcible feeding on 25 September 1917. MacSwiney’s sacrifice was said to have inspired Mahatma Gandhi to revive the custom of 'dbarna' in India as a moral political weapon. In recent times, and perhaps better known, came the hunger strikes in Long Kesh prison camp, when in 1981, ten Irish political prisoners died on hunger strike in an attempt to force the administration to restore their rights as political prisoners, taken away from them in 1974. Among them was Bobby Sands, elected Member of the British Parliament, and Kieran Doherty, elected Member of the Irish Parliament. But these ten Irish prisoners were not the first to resort to the continuing tradition of the <strong>'troscad</strong>' in an attempt to assert their rights during the current struggle in the north of Ireland, nor the first to die on hunger strike. Frank Stagg, for example, died after a sixty day hunger strike in Wakefield Prison on 12 February 1976, trying to compel the reinstatement of recognition of special status withdrawn in 1974. The <strong>‘troscad’</strong> was never entered into lightly and always with full knowledge of the seriousness of the final intent.</p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-5">T</span>his is my personal tribute to a kindred spirit, writer, poet, musician, soldier and far, far braver man </strong>than I could ever hope to be. While adhering to the ancient Irish Brehon Law of <strong>'troscad'</strong> Bobby Sands took no food or water for sixty-six days in pursuit of his quest for freedom, equality, honor and justice for all. In the final analysis, when this period in Irish history is recounted, I believe that most will agree that despite Bobby's political convictions and the fact that many may have disagreed with them, they must admire the mans' bravery, self-sacrifice and willingness to die for a cause. Bobby Sands took his last breath on May 5th 1981, he was just 27 years old.</p>
<p>The 1981 Irish hunger strike started with Bobby refusing food on March 1st. 1981. Other prisoners would join the strike at staggered intervals to maximize publicity, with prisoners steadily deteriorating successively over several months. The hunger strike centered on five demands:</p>
<p><strong>1. The right to not wear a prison uniform.</strong><br/> <strong>2. The right to not do prison work.</strong><br/>
<strong>3. The right of free association with other prisoners.</strong><br/>
<strong>4. The right to one visit, one letter, and one parcel per week.</strong><br/>
<strong>5. Full restoration of remission lost through the protest.</strong></p>
<p><strong>What is Hunger?</strong></p>
<p>Hunger is the physical sensation of desire.<br/> A desire for sustenance to nourish the body.<br/>
If this desire is not fulfilled the body will die.<br/>
It will die a slow, agonizing death.<br/>
The body will become a cannibal.<br/>
It will consume itself from within.<br/>
Then it will die.</p>
<p><strong>Sands the Writer</strong></p>
<p>The writer, when the compulsion to write gnaws at his very marrow, and invades his senses with that unforgiving, ruthless relentlessness, will write. Nothing or no-one will deter him. He will retreat and seek solitude in the forest shadows or he will climb the summit of the nearest crag or he will huddle, cold and wet, in a stone hut on the bleak moor. No matter what his immediate surroundings be, he will write. He must write. He can’t not write. Even confinement in a prison cell, wrapped in nothing but a blanket, will not stop him. He will write on anything available to him; walls, slate, clay tablets, animal skin, tree bark and the palm of his own hand. Bobby Sands sometimes used cigarette papers as his parchment, then smuggled them out of prison for the world to read.</p>
<p><strong>Bobby O</strong></p>
<p>A cold stone slab bruised hungry bones<br/> as he lay on the floor all alone.<br/>
His life ebbed nigh, but his spirit held high<br/>
for soon he would feast with his own.</p>
<p>The visions he saw, the hope that he felt<br/> would never be taken by force.<br/>
His will was complete, his heart one last beat<br/>
now the way He would lead to the source.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Asking, “Why, Oh Why did you have to die<br/> on this accursed foreigner’s floor?”<br/>
Saying, “It has to be me, so it will not be you,<br/>
now I’ll go and throw open the door.”</p>
<p>A piper’s lament was heard in wide space<br/> as the warrior was laid in his grave.<br/>
The lark soared high in a sorrowful sky<br/>
when Bobby left us and joined with the brave.</p>
<p>Sources:</p>
<p>Many thanks to the Ancient Laws of Ireland</p>
<p>Uraicect Becc</p>
<p>Other Selected Brehon Law Tracts by William Mansell Hennessy</p>
<p>If you found this article informative please feel free to Share.</p>
<p>© John A. Brennan 2022. All Rights Reserved.<br/> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
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The Bonfires of Beltaine (May Eve)
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-04-30:6442157:BlogPost:231160
2022-04-30T21:00:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84722432?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84722432?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a> <a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84722432?profile=original" target="_self"></a></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">O</span>n the Hill of Uisneach, in a portion of land taken from the province of Connaught,</strong> a fortress was erected by High King Tuathal Teachthmar. Uisneach, believed to be the geographical center of Ireland, was, until…</p>
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<p><strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">O</span>n the Hill of Uisneach, in a portion of land taken from the province of Connaught,</strong> a fortress was erected by High King Tuathal Teachthmar. Uisneach, believed to be the geographical center of Ireland, was, until the reign of Tuathal, the place where all kings were crowned, and the ceremonial site of the celebrations of Beltaine (May Day). Beltaine marked the beginning of summer, the time when the animals were driven out to the summer pastures. Rituals were performed to protect the cattle, crops and people, and to encourage growth. Special bonfires were kindled, and their flames, smoke and ashes were deemed to have protective powers.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84722487?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84722487?profile=RESIZE_320x320" class="align-right" width="225"/></a>It is believed that the Nemedian Druid, named Midhe, lit the first fire there. Countrywide, all household fires would be doused and then relit from the Beltaine bonfire. These gatherings would be accompanied by a feast, and some of the food and drink would be offered to the aos sí (fairies) to ensure a year of good luck and prosperity. In the province of Ulster, Beltaine was known as Lammas, and a fair has been held in Ballycastle, County Antrim, uninterrupted for more than 300 years.</p>
<p>Today, Uisneach consists of a set of monuments and earthworks spread over 2 square kilometers. Around and upon the hill there are the remains of circular enclosures, barrows, cairns, a holy well and two ancient roads. On the southwest side of the hill is a large, oddly shaped limestone rock inside a circular enclosure. It is almost 20 feet tall and thought to weigh over 30 tons. In Gaelic it is called the Ail na Míreann (stone of the divisions,) and it is said to have been the place where the borders of all the provinces met.</p>
<p>Beltane</p>
<p>Beltane is the Gaelic May Day festival. Most commonly it is held on 1 May, or about halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice. Historically, it was widely observed throughout Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. It is one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals along with Samhain, Imbolc and Lughnasadh. The earliest mention of Beltane is in Old Irish literature from Gaelic Ireland. According to the early medieval texts Sanas Cormaic (written by Cormac mac Cuilennáin) and Tochmarc Emire, Beltane was held on 1 May and marked the beginning of summer. The texts say that, to protect cattle from disease, the druids would make two fires "with great incantations" and drive the cattle between them.</p>
<p>Beltane is mentioned in some of the earliest Irish literature and is associated with important events in Irish mythology. Also known as ‘Cétshamhain’ meaning the ‘first of summer’ when cattle and sheep were driven out to the summer pastures. Rituals were performed to protect the animals, crops and people, and to encourage growth. Special bonfires were kindled, and their flames, smoke and ashes were deemed to have protective powers. The people and their cattle would walk around or between bonfires, and sometimes leap over the flames or embers. All household fires would be doused and then re-lit from the Beltane bonfire. These gatherings would be accompanied by a feast, and some of the food and drink would be offered to the ‘aos sí’ (fairies.) Doors, windows, byres and livestock would be decorated with white or yellow May flowers, perhaps because they evoked fire. In parts of Ireland, people would make a May Bush which was usually a thorn bush or branch decorated with flowers, ribbons, bright shells and rushlights. Holy wells were also visited, while Beltane dew was thought to bring beauty and maintain youthfulness. Many of these customs were part of May Day or Midsummer festivals in other parts of Great Britain and Europe.</p>
<p>According to 17th-century historian Geoffrey Keating, there was a great gathering at the hill of Uisneach each Beltane in medieval Ireland, where a sacrifice was made to a god named Beil. Keating wrote that two bonfires would be lit in every district of Ireland, and cattle would be driven between them to protect them from disease. There is no reference to such a gathering in the annals, but the medieval Dindsenchas includes a tale of a hero lighting a holy fire on Uisneach that blazed for seven years. Ronald Hutton writes that this may "preserve a tradition of Beltane ceremonies there” but adds "Keating or his source may simply have conflated this legend with the information in Sanas Chormaic to produce a piece of pseudo-history." Nevertheless, excavations at Uisneach in the 20th century found evidence of large fires and charred bones, showing it to have been ritually significant</p>
<p>Bonfires continued to be a key part of the festival in the modern era. All hearth fires and candles would be doused before the bonfire was lit, generally on a mountain or hill. Ronald Hutton writes that "to increase the potency of the holy flames, in Britain at least they were often kindled by the most primitive of all means, of friction between wood." In the 19th century, for example, John Ramsay described Scottish Highlanders kindling a need-fire or force-fire at Beltane. Such a fire was deemed sacred. In the 19th century, the ritual of driving cattle between two fires as described in Sanas Cormaic almost 1000 years before was still practised across most of Ireland and in parts of Scotland. Sometimes the cattle would be driven "around" a bonfire or be made to leap over flames or embers. The people themselves would do likewise.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10446967876?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10446967876?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="250"/></a>In the Isle of Man, people ensured that the smoke blew over them and their cattle. When the bonfire had died down, people would daub themselves with its ashes and sprinkle it over their crops and livestock. Burning torches from the bonfire would be taken home, where they would be carried around the house or boundary of the farmstead and would be used to re-light the hearth. From these rituals, it is clear that the fire was seen as having protective powers. Similar rituals were part of May Day, Midsummer or Easter customs in other parts of the British Isles and mainland Europe. According to Frazer, the fire rituals are a kind of imitative or sympathetic magic. According to one theory, they were meant to mimic the Sun and to "ensure a needful supply of sunshine for men, animals, and plants". According to another, they were meant to symbolically "burn up and destroy all harmful influences."</p>
<p>Food was also cooked at the bonfire and there were rituals involving it. Alexander Carmichael wrote that there was a feast featuring lamb, and that formerly this lamb was sacrificed. In 1769, Thomas Pennant wrote that, in Perthshire, a caudle made from eggs, butter, oatmeal and milk was cooked on the bonfire. Some of the mixture was poured on the ground as a libation. Everyone present would then take an oatmeal cake, called the bannoch Bealltainn or "Beltane bannock". A bit of it was offered to the spirits to protect their livestock (one bit to protect the horses, one bit to protect the sheep, and so forth) and a bit was offered to each of the animals that might harm their livestock (one to the fox, one to the eagle, and so forth). Afterwards, they would drink the caudle.</p>
<p>White and yellow flowers such as primrose, rowan, hawthorn, gorse, hazel, and marsh marigold are traditionally placed at doorways and windows; this is documented in 19th century Ireland, Scotland and Mann. Sometimes loose flowers were strewn at the doors and windows and sometimes they were made into bouquets, garlands or crosses and fastened to them. They would also be fastened to cows and equipment for milking and butter making. It is likely that such flowers were used because they evoked fire. Similar May Day customs are found across Europe. The May Bush or May Bough was popular in parts of Ireland until the late 19th century. This was a small tree or branch, typically hawthorn, rowan, holly or sycamore, decorated with bright flowers, ribbons, painted shells, eggshells from Easter Sunday and so forth. The tree would either be decorated where it stood, or branches would be decorated and placed inside or outside the house (particularly above windows and doors, on the roof, and on barns).</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10449240872?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10449240872?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="250"/></a>It was generally the responsibility of the oldest person of the house to decorate the May Bush, and the tree would remain up until May 31st. The tree may also be decorated with candles or rushlights. Sometimes a May Bush would be paraded through the town. In parts of southern Ireland, gold and silver hurling balls known as May Balls would be hung on these May Bushes and handed out to children or given to the winners of a hurling match. In Dublin and Belfast, May Bushes were brought into town from the countryside and decorated by the whole neighbourhood. Each neighbourhood vied for the most handsome tree and, sometimes, residents of one would try to steal the May Bush of another. This led to the May Bush being outlawed in Victorian times. In some places, it was customary to sing and dance around the May Bush, and at the end of the festivities it may be burnt in the bonfire. In some areas the May Bush or Bough has also been called the "May Pole", but it is the bush or tree described above, and not the more commonly-known European maypole.</p>
<p>Thorn trees are traditionally seen as special trees, associated with the aos sí. Frazer believes the customs of decorating trees or poles in the springtime are a relic of tree worship and writes: "The intention of these customs is to bring home to the village, and to each house, the blessings which the tree-spirit has in its power to bestow." Emyr Estyn Evans suggests that the May Bush custom may have come to Ireland from England, because it seemed to be found in areas with strong English influence and because the Irish saw it as unlucky to damage certain thorn trees. However, "lucky" and "unlucky" trees varied by region, and it has been suggested that Beltane was the only time when cutting thorn trees was allowed. The practice of bedecking a May Bush with flowers, ribbons, garlands and bright shells is found among the Gaelic diaspora, most notably in Newfoundland, and in some Easter traditions on the East Coast of the United States.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10446968278?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10446968278?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="250"/></a>Many Beltane practices were designed to ward off or appease the fairies and prevent them from stealing dairy products. For example, three black coals were placed under a butter churn to ensure the fairies did not steal the butter, and may poles were tied to milk pails, the tails of cattle or hung in the barns to ensure the cattle's milk was not stolen. Flowers were also used to decorate the horns of cattle, which was believed to bring good fortune. Food was left or milk poured at the doorstep or places associated with the aos sí, such as 'fairy trees', as an offering. However, milk was never given to a neighbor on May Day because it was feared that the milk would be transferred to the neighbor's cow. In Ireland, cattle would be brought to 'fairy forts', where a small amount of their blood would be collected. The owners would then pour it into the earth with prayers for the herd's safety. Sometimes the blood would be left to dry and then be burnt.</p>
<p>It was thought that dairy products were especially at risk from harmful spirits. To protect farm produce and encourage fertility, farmers would lead a procession around the boundaries of their farm. They would "carry with them seeds of grain, implements of husbandry, the first well water, and the herb vervain (or rowan as a substitute). The procession generally stopped at the four cardinal points of the compass, beginning in the east, and rituals were performed in each of the four directions." People made the sign of the cross with milk for good luck on Beltane, and the sign of the cross was also made on the back sides of cattle.</p>
<p>Holy wells were often visited at Beltane, and at the other Gaelic festivals of Imbolc and Lughnasadh. Visitors to holy wells would pray for health while walking sunwise (moving from east to west) around the well. They would then leave offerings; typically coins or clooties (see clootie well). The first water drawn from a well on Beltane was seen as being especially potent, and would bring good luck to person who drew it. Beltane morning dew was also a source of good luck and health. At dawn or before sunrise on Beltane, maidens would roll in the dew or wash their faces with it. The dew was collected in a jar, left in the sunlight, and then filtered. The dew was thought to increase sexual attractiveness, maintain youthfulness, protect from sun damage (particularly freckles and sunburn) and help with skin ailments for the ensuing year. Additionally, a man who washes his face with soap and water on Beltane will grow a long whisker on his face.</p>
<p>It was widely believed that no one should light a fire on May Day morning until she saw smoke rising from a neighbor's house. It was also believed to be bad luck to put out ashes or clothes on May Day, and to give away a coal or ashes would cause the giver difficulty in lighting a fire for the next year. Also, if the family owned a white horse, it should remain in the barn all day, and if any other horse was owned, a red rag should be tied to its tail. Additionally, any foal born on May Day was fated to kill a man, and any cow that calved on May Day would die. Any birth or marriage on May Day was generally believed to be ill-fated. On May Night a cake and a jug were left on the table, because it was believed that the Irish who had died abroad would return on May Day to their ancestral homes, and it was also a general belief that the dead returned on May Day to visit their friends. A robin that flew into the house on Beltane was believed to portend the death of a household member.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10446976094?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10446976094?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="250"/></a>As a festival, Beltane had largely died out by the mid-20th century, although some of its customs continued and in some places it has been revived as a cultural event. In Ireland, Beltane fires were common until the mid-20th century, but the custom seems to have lasted to the present day only in County Limerick (especially in Limerick itself) and in Arklow, County Wicklow. However, the custom has been revived in some parts of the country. Some cultural groups have sought to revive the custom at Uisneach and perhaps at the Hill of Tara. The lighting of a community Beltane fire from which each hearth fire is then relit is observed today in some parts of the Gaelic diaspora, though in most of these cases it is a cultural revival rather than an unbroken survival of the ancient tradition. In some areas of Newfoundland, the custom of decorating the May Bush is also still extant.</p>
<p>There are a number of place names in Ireland containing the word Bealtaine, indicating places where Bealtaine festivities were once held. It is often anglicised as Beltany. There are three Beltanys in County Donegal, including the Beltany stone circle, and two in County Tyrone. In County Armagh there is a place called Tamnaghvelton/Tamhnach Bhealtaine ('the Beltane field'). Lisbalting/Lios Bealtaine ('the Beltane ringfort') is in County Tipperary, while Glasheennabaultina/Glaisín na Bealtaine ('the Beltane stream') is the name of a stream joining the River Galey in County Limerick.</p>
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<p>Sources:</p>
<p>Sanas Cormaic</p>
<p>Tochmarc Emire</p>
<p>Keating’s History of Ireland</p>
<p>Ronald Hutton</p>
<p>Emyr Estyn Evans</p>
<p>Images courtesy of Pinterest. </p>
<p>© John A. Brennan 2022. All Rights Reserved.</p>
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The Poet
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-04-18:6442157:BlogPost:152303
2022-04-18T00:52:30.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><em><span><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8750062489?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8750062489?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="750"></img></a></span></em> <em><b>On Easter Monday, April 24 1916 one of the most important events in the long, tortuous history of Ireland took place. The event, so shocking and bold, is still debated and analyzed until this very day.…</b></em></p>
<p><em><span><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8750062489?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8750062489?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="750"/></a></span></em><em><b>On Easter Monday, April 24 1916 one of the most important events in the long, tortuous history of Ireland took place. The event, so shocking and bold, is still debated and analyzed until this very day. <span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql lr9zc1uh a8c37x1j fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v b1v8xokw oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto">The Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the aim of establishing an independent Irish Republic while the United Kingdom was fighting the First World War. It was the most significant uprising in Ireland since the rebellion of 1798 and the first armed conflict of the Irish revolutionary period. Sixteen of the Rising's leaders were executed from May 1916. The nature of the executions, and subsequent political developments, ultimately contributed to an increase in popular support for Irish independence.</span></b></em></p>
<p><em><b>T</b></em><em><b>his is a personal tribute to that handful of dreamers and visionaries, the brave men and women of Ireland, the poet and the grocer, the tobacconist and the piper, the counter clerk and the Countess, the union man and the sculptor, the wives and girlfriends and the countless other ordinary individuals, who, 105 years ago, against the advice and clarion calls from the mainstream, against the advice of some within their own ranks, against the advice of the church of Rome and with full knowledge and acceptance of the possibility of failure, excommunication and certain death, still made the hard decision to stand on the edge of the cliff and together, take that fateful step out into the vast, unknown void.</b></em> <b><em>To each and every one of them we owe our respect and gratitude. We should always remember that each one of them, both collectively and individually, did the best they could with what little was available to them at that time. If more had been available, I feel sure that they could and would have done so much more.</em></b></p>
<p><b><em><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10237938296?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10237938296?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="250"/></a></em></b><em><b>"As down the glen one Easter morn, to a city fair rode I..."</b></em></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-5">I</span>f you were one of the inquisitive onlookers in Dublin</strong> on a remarkable day in April 1916, and if you were close enough, you couldn’t fail to see the lone figure, silhouetted by the light of the still raging pyre that was once the splendid edifice, the General Post Office. There, between two of the large, bullet shattered, Ionic columns that supported the Greco/Roman pediment above the entrance, his broad brimmed fedora set at an angle over his brow, his greatcoat, dusty, torn, and bloodstained, right there stood a poet. You would be forgiven if you were not aware that the poet was about to complete his final stanza and immortalize a centuries old dream. If you looked closer still you would have been struck by the fact that although gaunt, disheveled, and shell-shocked, the poet’s eyes still shone with the fierce brilliance of determination.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2045840275?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2045840275?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="220"/></a><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711379?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711379?profile=original" width="223" height="173"/></a>Adjusting his hat, and straightening his holster, he looked across the rubble strewn street and focused on the imposing figure of the Admiral, high atop the tall, granite pillar. ‘<i>Ah. Horatio</i>, <i>I fear</i> <i>I’ll be joining you soon.’</i></p>
<p><span>Then turning, he let his thoughts linger for the last time on the memory of the ancient warrior, Cu Chulainn, one of the poet’s mythical Irish heroes and source of inspiration. Cu Chulainn, who in his final battle was tied to a pillar, at his own request, slumped in mortal agony, his head hung in glorious defeat, the shield falling from his grasp, yet still, his sword is clutched tightly in his right hand. A raven, with talons gripping the flesh on his shoulder, mirrored the poets deepening sense of foreboding.</span></p>
<p><i>‘The hounds have cornered me too, Setanta.’</i></p>
<p><i><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711480?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711480?profile=original" width="205" height="210"/></a></i>Turning toward the street once more, he scanned the faces of the assembled throng. <i>How many of them will remember. "Will they one day understand that we did it for them? Or will they simply forget?"</i> Then began the lonely walk to the barricade at Moore Street, nurse O'Farrell in step. Angry locals, some of whom he knew in his other life as a teacher and barrister, threw stones, spat at him and taunted him with shouts of, “Bloody rebel! Traitor! Fenian bastard! Shoot him! Shoot them all!” The soldiers forming the cordon, their bayonets fixed, stared at him with unbridled, snarling contempt. He waited calmly for the uproar to subside, then, when it was silent, the poet stepped forward, removed his Sam Browne belt and holster and handed them to the British officer.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711491?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711491?profile=original" width="295" height="199"/></a>If you happened to be there six days earlier, on Easter Monday, you would have observed the same poet standing on the same spot, the marble columns, gleaming in the noonday sun, forming a perfect frame around him. You would have seen that his uniform was clean and neatly pressed the night before. His long greatcoat, with the sunlight reflecting off the two rows of brass buttons, dazzled the spectators, and forced those nearest him to shade their eyes. His revolver, holstered on a broad belt around his slim waist, was loaded and tested. You would have been mesmerized by the look in his eyes as they flashed with fervor in the knowledge that he was about to make history.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711496?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711496?profile=original" width="274" height="203"/></a>In his right hand he held a rolled up parchment, his nation’s destiny. Stepping forward, he opened the document and began to read. If you were still there and listened, really listened, you would have been awed by the poet’s passion and conviction. The poet’s name was Patrick Henry Pearse and what he dared to read was the “Proclamation of the Irish Republic.” At four minutes past noon on Easter Monday 1916, in a steady, forceful voice, and calling on his ancestors for courage and strength, he proclaimed, once, and for all time, freedom for his country and its people.</p>
<p>And thus it began, and the terrible beauty was born...</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711559?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711559?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"/></a></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711565?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84711565?profile=original" width="581" height="189"/></a></p>
<p>From "The Journey: A Nomad Reflects."</p>
<p>For Sale at: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
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The Story of the Gallowglasses
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-04-15:6442157:BlogPost:300779
2022-04-15T21:00:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10392497087?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10392497087?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="750"></img></a></span> <span style="font-size: 12pt;">The ‘Gallowglass’ as they were called, were elite mercenary warriors and members of the Gaelic clans of Scotland. They came to prominence between the mid 13th century and late 16th century. As Gaels, they shared a common background and language with the Irish, but as they had intermarried…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10392497087?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10392497087?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="750"/></a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The ‘Gallowglass’ as they were called, were elite mercenary warriors and members of the Gaelic clans of Scotland. They came to prominence between the mid 13th century and late 16th century. As Gaels, they shared a common background and language with the Irish, but as they had intermarried with the Vikings, the Irish Gaels nicknamed them ‘Gall Gaeil’ meaning ‘foreign Gaels.’ The gallowglass came from the western coast of Scotland, principally Argyll and the Western Isles although some could be found in the Norse settlements in Ulster as well.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10392497885?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10392497885?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="250"/></a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Large numbers of gallowglass settled in Ireland after losing their land and property during the Scottish Independence wars. Many of the Irish Chieftains gave them shelter and land in exchange for their promise of future military service. An early family of gallowglasses was the MacSweeneys, settled by the O'Donnells in north Donegal. These were followed by MacDonnells, MacCabes and several other groups settled by powerful Irish nobles in different areas. The gallowglasses were a heavily armored, trained infantry to be relied upon as a strong defence for holding a position, unlike most Irish foot soldiers, who were less well armored than the typical Irish noble who fought as cavalry. Soon most gallowglasses were native Irish, and the term came to mean a type of warrior, rather than any ethnic designation. They were a significant part of Irish infantry before the advent of gunpowder and depended upon seasonal service with Irish chieftains. A military leader would often choose a gallowglass to serve as his personal aide and bodyguard because, as a foreigner, the gallowglass would be less subject to local feuds and influences.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10392498501?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10392498501?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="250"/></a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">They were a well-trained, well-armed and disciplined infantry and had always proven themselves to be strong defenders of their positions, and utterly fearless. In battle they used the two handed sparth axe, a claymore, several throwing spears and at least one dagger. Each warrior had two young squires in attendance to carry provisions and maintain weapons. They wore iron helmets and body armor that consisted of chain mail on top of heavy, padded jackets. They formed in groups of one hundred men called ‘Corrughadh’, similar to the system employed by the Roman legions.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The first record of gallowglass service was in 1259, when Aedh Ó Conchobair, King of Connacht, received a dowry of 160 Scottish warriors from the daughter of Dubhghall mac Ruaidhri, the King of the Hebrides. With the aid of companies of gallowglass, an uprising in Ireland in 1261 defeated the Normans in Kerry and with their assistance in 1270 the O’Connor clan routed the Normans from Connaught. In 1274 Wicklow had also been recaptured and by the beginning of the fourteenth century many areas of the country were once again in the hands of the Irish noblemen. In 1296, the Norman king, Edward 1st of England, in an unprecedented move, invaded Scotland. After a series of violent and savage battles, his armies took control and eventually ruled Scotland for ten years. Edward further incurred the wrath of the Scottish people when he removed and brought the ‘Stone of Scone’ back to England. The ancient stone, the seat and symbol of Scottish power, was used in the coronation ceremonies of all Scottish kings, and considered a treasure of the Scottish Royal family. It was kept by England for seven hundred years and only returned in 1996. The theft of the ‘Stone of Scone’ was the last straw and set in motion a plot to regain Scottish independence. When Edward Bruce came to Ireland to claim Kingship in 1315 he was accompanied by a great force of the Gallowglasses. The other Irish kings also started to hire the fierce Scottish warriors who spoke their language and shared similar customs. Not only would the Irish Kings use the Gallowglasses in battles against the Norman English but they also used them in feuds against other Irish Kings.<br/></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10392500297?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10392500297?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="250"/></a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In 1569, Turlough Luineach O'Neill (the O'Neill) married Lady Agnes Campbell, daughter of Colin Campbell, 3rd Earl of Argyll, and widow of James MacDonald, 6th of Dunnyveg. Her dowry consisted of at least 1,200 gallowglass fighters. Along with two young men as support and friends on top to assist or fight this could easily have numbered over 5,000 current and future gallowglasses coming into the area. By 1512, there were reported to be fifty-nine groups throughout the country under the control of the Irish nobility. Though initially they were mercenaries, over time they settled and their ranks became filled with both Scots-Norse and many native Irish men. A military leader would often choose a gallowglass to serve as his personal aide and bodyguard because, as a foreigner, the gallowglass would be less subject to local feuds and influences.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The importation of gallowglasses into Ireland was a major factor in containing the Anglo-Norman invasion of the 12th century, as their ranks stiffened the resistance of the Irish lordships. Throughout the Middle Ages in Ireland, gallowglass troops were maintained by Gaelic Irish and Hiberno-Norman lords alike. Even the English Lord Deputy of Ireland usually kept a company of them in his service. In return for military service, gallowglass contingents were given land and settled in Irish lordships, where they were entitled to receive supplies from the local population. They were noted for wielding the massive two-handed sparth axe (a custom noted by Geraldus Cambrensis, to have derived from their Norse heritage) and broadsword or claymore ("claidheamh mór"). For amour, the gallowglass wore a mail shirt over a padded jacket and an iron helmet; he was usually accompanied by two boys (like a knight's squires), one of whom carried his throwing spears while the other carried his provisions.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10392500488?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10392500488?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="250"/></a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In a paper entitled "A Description of the Power of Irishmen", written early in the 16th century, the Irish forces of Leinster are numbered at 522 horse, five battalions of gallowglass and 1,432 ‘kern’ (a light-armed Irish foot soldier) and those of the other provinces were in like proportion. Mac Cárthaigh Mór commanded 40 horse, two battalions of gallowglass, and 2,000 ‘kern’; the Earl of Desmond 400 horse, three battalions of gallowglass, and 3,000 ‘kern’, besides a battalion of crossbowmen and gunners, the smaller chieftains supplying each their quota of men. Every ‘kern’ had a bow, a ‘skieve’ or quiver full of arrows, three spears, a sword, and a skene (dagger) each two of them having a lad to carry their weapons. The horsemen had two horses apiece, some three, the second bearing the ‘knave’ or his attendant.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The 16th century in Ireland saw an escalation in military conflict, caused by the Tudor conquest. Gallowglass fighters were joined by native Irish mercenaries called ‘buanadha’ meaning quartered men and by newer Scottish mercenaries known as ‘redshanks’ so named because of the untanned deer leather buckskins they wore which had a reddish tint. Eventually, the flow of mercenaries into Ireland was such a threat to English occupation that Queen Elizabeth I took steps against them when she had around 700 of them were executed after the first of the Desmond Rebellions.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10392501292?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10392501292?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="250"/></a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Despite the increased use of firearms in the 1600’s in Irish warfare, gallowglasses remained an important part of Hugh Ó Neill's forces in the Nine Years' War. After the combined Irish defeat at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, recruitment of gallowglasses waned, although Scottish Highland mercenaries continued to come to Ireland until the 1640s (notably Alasdair Mac Colla). They fought under the Irish general Eoin Roe O'Neill at the Battle of Benburb when O'Neill had an overwhelming victory in 1646. The gallowglasses of the Mac Cárthaigh Riabhaigh are recorded as having attacked Mallow in County Cork as late as 1645. Images of gallowglasses fighting as mercenaries in European mainland armies were sketched by the artist Dürer in 1521 and later by French and Dutch artists. Gallowglasses served in the Dutch Blue Guards, Swiss Guard, the French Scottish Guard, and the forces of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in his invasion of Livonia during the Thirty Years' War.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Images courtesy of Pinterest.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Sources:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/gallowglass-0013378">https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/gallowglass-0013378</a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.enjoy-irish-culture.com/gallowglass.html">https://www.enjoy-irish-culture.com/gallowglass.html</a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallowglass">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallowglass</a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">© John A. Brennan 2022. All Rights Reserved.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></span></p>
<p><a href="https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blog/list?user=3pjaj8hc8rq9a"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blog/list?user=3pjaj8hc8rq9a</span></a></p>
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<p> </p>
The Navigator
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-04-04:6442157:BlogPost:300450
2022-04-04T00:00:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10259683882?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10259683882?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="750"></img></a> <strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">O</span>ne of the myriad of exceptional qualities that we Irish are blessed with</strong> is our ability to drop everything and sail out into the unknown completely unafraid. We have the uncanny ability to travel to the furthest reaches and, as they say, ‘become more native than the natives themselves.’ This ability has…</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10259683882?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10259683882?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="750"/></a><strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">O</span>ne of the myriad of exceptional qualities that we Irish are blessed with</strong> is our ability to drop everything and sail out into the unknown completely unafraid. We have the uncanny ability to travel to the furthest reaches and, as they say, ‘become more native than the natives themselves.’ This ability has enabled us to both bring to and receive from other cultures, knowledge which enriches and educates. Early examples of this are the Irish holy men and monks who, in the 4<sup>th</sup> and 5<sup>th</sup> centuries AD, traveled from Ireland armed with nothing more than their fertile minds and otherworldly information, passing it on to whomever they met along the way. In return they absorbed new knowledge about the different cultures they lived among and eventually brought this new knowledge back to Ireland. There, they passed it on to their brothers the ‘scribes’ who wrote it all down for the future generations to read. Some believe that Irish scholars may have even visited the Great Library of Alexandria in Egypt before it was burned by Julius Caesar. Even today our quest for giving and receiving knowledge continues un-abated.</p>
<p>Many of the old annals tell us that an Irish monk named Brendan made a voyage to America in the 5th. century AD, and this astonishing claim was not just a wild fairy tale. This claim is a recurrent theme based on authentic and well-researched Latin texts which date back to at least 800 AD. The ancient texts told how St. Brendan and a party of monks had sailed to a land far across the ocean in a boat (curragh) made with a framework of wicker and covered in cow or ox hides. Of course, if the claim was true, then St. Brendan would have reached America almost a thousand years before Columbus and four hundred years before the Vikings.</p>
<p>Brendan was born in AD 484 in Tralee, County Kerry, in the province of Munster, in the south-west of Ireland. He was born among the 'Altraige' an Irish clan originally centered around Tralee Bay, to parents called Finnlug and Cara in the Kilfenora/Fenit area on the North side of the bay. He was baptised at Tubrid, near Ardfert by Erc, the Bishop of Slane, and was originally to be called "Mobhí" but signs and portents seen around the time of his birth and baptism led to him being christened 'Broen-finn' or 'fair-drop'. For five years he was both educated and given in fosterage to St. Ite of Killeedy, "The Brigid of Munster" and when he was six he was sent to Jarlath's monastery school at Tuam in Galway to further his education. Brendan is considered one of the "Twelve Apostles of Ireland", one of those said to have been tutored by the great teacher, Finnian of Clonard.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10259684654?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10259684654?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="250"/></a>At the age of twenty-six, Brendan was ordained a priest by Bishop Erc after which he founded a number of monasteries. His first voyage took him to the Aran Islands, where he founded a monastery. He also visited Hinba (Argyll), an island off Scotland where he is said to have met Columcille. On the same voyage he traveled to Wales and finally to Brittany, on the northern coast of France. Between AD 512 and 530 he built monastic cells at Ardfert, and Shanakeel at the foot of Mount Brandon. From there he is supposed to have embarked on his famous voyage of 7 years in his search for Paradise. Brendan is primarily renowned for his legendary journey to the Isle of the Blessed as described in the 'Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis' (Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot). Many versions exist that narrate how he set out on the Atlantic Ocean with sixteen monks (although other versions record fourteen monks and three unbelievers who joined in the last minute) to search for the Garden of Eden.</p>
<p>The voyage is dated to AD 512–530, before his travels to the island of Great Britain. On his trip, Brendan is supposed to have seen Saint Brendan's Island, a blessed island covered with vegetation. He also encountered a sea monster, an adventure he shared with his contemporary Columcille. In author Tim Severin’s book, 'The Brendan Voyage' there's a remarkable account of an even more remarkable event that started in May 1976. As he writes in his book, Tim found himself and his three-man crew sailing out of Brandon Creek, and within 30 miles off the Kerry coast they were heading into a rising gale, aboard a craft that looked like a floating banana, and was made of leather. “Her hull was nothing more than 49 ox hides stitched together to form a patchwork quilt and stretched over a wooden frame...Why on earth were my crew and I sailing such an improbable vessel in face of a rising gale? The answer lay in name of our strange craft: she was called Brendan in honor of great Irish missionary, St. Brendan. The obvious way of checking the truth of this remarkable story was to build a boat in a similar fashion (as described in texts) and then see if it would sail the Atlantic. So there we were, my crew and I, out in the ocean to test whether St. Brendan and the Irish monks could have made an ocean voyage in a boat made of leather.”</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10259684897?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10259684897?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="250"/></a>After fifty days at sea, described in brilliant detail in Tim’s book, Brendan made landfall in the New World, on an island northwest of St. Johns in Newfoundland. News went around the globe: St. Brendan could well have made the same voyage. An interesting footnote: one of the islands described in 'Navigatio' could well be in the Bahamas – the same group of islands where Columbus made his most northerly landfall on his first trip. The bold Christopher made four transatlantic trips in all, and never set foot on North American mainland; instead, he landed in Cuba, Central America, and South America.</p>
<p>Brendan traveled to Wales and the holy island of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland; returning to Ireland, he founded a monastery in Annaghdown, where he spent the rest of his life.He also founded a convent at Annaghdown for his sister Briga. Having established the bishopric of Ardfert, Brendan proceeded to Thomond, and founded a monastery at Inis-da-druim (currently Coney Island), in the present parish of Killadysert, County Clare, in AD 550. He then journeyed to Wales and studied under Gildas at Llancarfan, and then he traveled to Iona. After a mission of three years in Britain he returned to Ireland, and evangelized further in various parts of Leinster, especially at Dysart, County Kilkenny, Killeney near Durrow and Brandon Hill. He established churches at Inchiquin, County Galway, and Inishglora, County Mayo, and founded Clonfert in Galway in AD 557. Brendan died in AD 577 in Annaghdown, while visiting his sister Briga. Fearing that after his death his devotees might take his remains as relics, Brendan had previously arranged to have his body secretly returned to the monastery he founded in Clonfert, concealed in a luggage cart. He was interred in Clonfert Cathedral.</p>
<p>Brendan was recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church and his feast day is celebrated on 16 May. As the legend of the seven years voyage spread, crowds of pilgrims and students flocked to Ardfert. Religious houses were formed at Gallerus, Kilmalchedor, Brandon Hill, and the Blasket Islands, to meet the wants of those who came for spiritual guidance from Brendan who is also known as the patron saint of sailors and travelers. At the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, a large stained glass window commemorates Brendan's achievements. At Fenit Harbour, Tralee, a substantial bronze sculpture by Tighe O'Donoghue/Ross was erected to honor the memory of Brendan. The project, including a Heritage Park and the Slí Bhreanainn (the Brendan way) was headed by Fr. Gearóid Ó Donnchadha and completed through the work of the St. Brendan Committee.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10259685100?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10259685100?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="250"/></a>In the Sicilian town of Bronte there is a church dedicated to Saint Brendan, whose name in the local dialect is "San Brandanu." Since 1574, the "Chiesa di San Blandano" ("Church of Saint Brendan") replaced a chapel that existed previously in the same location with Brendan’s name. The reasons for dedicating a church to Saint Brendan are still unknown and probably untraceable. The Normans and the many settlers that followed the Norman invasion brought into Sicily the tradition of Saint Brendan; there are very old papers of the 13th century written in Sicily that refer to him; in 1799 the countryside surrounding Brontë became the British "Duchy of Horatio Nelson". The town of Drogheda in Ireland is twinned with Bronte.</p>
<p><strong>Sources:</strong></p>
<p> Complete Annotated Bibliography on the Voyage of St Brendan and the Life of St Brendan</p>
<p> "Navigatio sancti Brendani abbatis" in (Latin) "Voyage Of St Brendan The Abbot" in (English)</p>
<p> Betha Brénnain (Life of Brenainn) translated into English from the Book of Lismore.</p>
<p> Betha Brénnain (Life of Brenainn) in (Old Irish) from the Book of Lismore</p>
<p> Wall Street Journal: "Of Sainted Memory" </p>
<p>© John A. Brennan 2022. All Rights Reserved.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
<p><a href="https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blog/list">https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blog/list</a>... </p>
Back Home to Derry.
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-03-22:6442157:BlogPost:298838
2022-03-22T02:00:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10227588496?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="750"></img></p>
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<p>It's hard to believe it's been five years already and whether or not you agree with Martin McGuinness' political beliefs and his subsequent decisions, taken in the face of mounting adversity, you must in all fairness admire the man’s courage in troubled times and always remember that when the darkness fell and all seemed lost, he was one of the first to take a stand and say ‘no more.’…</p>
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<p><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10227588496?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="750"/></p>
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<p>It's hard to believe it's been five years already and whether or not you agree with Martin McGuinness' political beliefs and his subsequent decisions, taken in the face of mounting adversity, you must in all fairness admire the man’s courage in troubled times and always remember that when the darkness fell and all seemed lost, he was one of the first to take a stand and say ‘no more.’</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10227589263?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10227589263?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="220"/></a> Martin. March 21, 2017</p>
<p>They carried him home that day, the boy who became a man of the streets. Back home to Derry, back home through the streets in the sleet and the icy, March rain. Back through the very same streets of childhood memory, the burned-out streets where the people cried out for equality, the streets where no man was equal. Streets where others ruled and persisted in their archaic beliefs. Back through the streets that cried out for a savior, a fighter, a leader, a ray of hope in the dark night of soulless indifference. And he came, and he stood, and he fought and did what many of us did not have the courage to do.</p>
<p><br/><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10227589287?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left"/> Fare thee well Martin. You were a truly brave man and one of a kind. Thank you for your contribution. © John A. Brennan 2022. All Rights Reserved. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
The Equinox: Sunrise in the Bru Na Boinne
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-03-18:6442157:BlogPost:200314
2022-03-18T19:30:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10219986689?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10219986689?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="750"></img></a> An equinox is an astronomical event in which the Earth's equator passes through the center of the Sun. When this happens, day and night are of equal length around the world. These were extremely important dates for the ancients who inhabited a region of…</div>
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<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10219986689?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10219986689?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="750"/></a>An equinox is an astronomical event in which the Earth's equator passes through the center of the Sun. When this happens, day and night are of equal length around the world. These were extremely important dates for the ancients who inhabited a region of Ireland still held sacred today.</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10219987089?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10219987089?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="220"/></a></div>
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<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Loch Craobh (Loughcrew) sits not far from Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland. It was erected approximately 3400 years ago and is older than Stonehenge and the pyramids in Egypt. It is a site of major importance and contains many megalithic burial mounds, passage tombs and cairns. Tombs on the site are aligned with the Equinox sunrise which occurs on March 20th this year.</div>
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<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Loughcrew is one of the four main passage tomb sites in Ireland (the others are Brú na Bóinne, Carrowkeel and Carrowmore). The site is spread across four hilltops: Carnbane East, Carnbane West, Carrickbrack and Patrickstown. These hills and the tombs themselves are together known as Slieve na Calliagh or Sliabh na Caillí, meaning "mountain of the Cailleach", the divine hag of Irish mythology. Legend has it that the monuments were created when a giant hag, striding across the land, dropped her cargo of large stones from her apron.</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10219987075?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10219987075?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="250"/></a></div>
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<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">In more recent centuries Loughcrew became the seat of a branch of the Norman-Irish Plunkett family, whose most famous member became the martyred St Oliver Plunkett. The family church stands in the grounds of Loughcrew Gardens. With its barren isolated location, Sliabh na Caillí became a critical meeting point throughout the Penal Laws for Roman Catholics. Even though the woods are now gone an excellent example of a Mass Rock can still be seen on the top of Sliabh na Caillí today. The Plunketts were involved in running the Irish Confederacy of the 1640s and were dispossessed in the Cromwellian Settlement of 1652.</div>
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<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">In 1980 Irish-American researcher Martin Brennan discovered that Cairn T in Carnbane East is directed to receive the beams of the rising sun on the spring and autumnal equinox - the light shining down the passage and illuminating the art on the backstone. Brennan also discovered alignments in Cairn L Knowth, and Dowth in the Boyne Valley. The Cairn T alignment is similar to the well-known illumination at the passage tomb at Brú na Bóinne (Newgrange), which is aligned to catch the rays of the winter solstice sunrise. There are about twenty-three tombs in the Loughcrew complex in addition to Cairn L and Cairn T, along with additional archeological sites.</div>
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<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Sunrise.</div>
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<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">From the stone of Fal on Tara high,</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">'cross the river that flows deep and slow,</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">the ancients all gather at this holy place</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">to catch the bright morning's warm glow.</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">In robes of pure white, they walk the ground</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">and wait for the rising sun.</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">In the heart of the mound, old souls can be found;</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">heaven bound, they now become one.</div>
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<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">The Master appears, an unearthly sight,</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">and raises his arms to the sky.</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">The people bow down, and kneel on the ground,</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">then chant with a joyful cry.</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">The rays creep across the hills and the glen,</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">and strike the box over the door.</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">They follow along to the chamber, and then,</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">the love there enshrined, proudly soars.</div>
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<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">It has always been done in this very way,</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">and for eons will last evermore.</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Their spirits will rise and fly every day,</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">and watch over our true heart's core.</div>
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<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">If you found this article informative please feel free to Share.</div>
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<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">© John A. Brennan 2022. All Rights Reserved.</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><span><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl gpro0wi8 py34i1dx" href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan?fbclid=IwAR1uWB4LkeOcPJi3afsfl_bUgrCTtwuCZGdLtpMXknk0KrK39fmWUutIu7E" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></span></div>
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Patricius the Roman
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-03-16:6442157:BlogPost:214629
2022-03-16T17:30:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84720156?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84720156?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a> <strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">M</span>arch is traditionally known as Irish Heritage month and</strong> this is highlighted on March 17th. with large parades in many towns and cities around the world. The parades are held in honor of a unique individual named Patricius, a Roman Briton, taken with his two sisters as hostages to Ireland by one of Ireland's greatest…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84720156?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84720156?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"/></a><strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">M</span>arch is traditionally known as Irish Heritage month and</strong> this is highlighted on March 17th. with large parades in many towns and cities around the world. The parades are held in honor of a unique individual named Patricius, a Roman Briton, taken with his two sisters as hostages to Ireland by one of Ireland's greatest warrior kings, Niall Noígíallach who became known as Niall of the Nine Hostages, during raids in Britain and France in the 5th century AD.</p>
<p><i>“<span class="font-size-5">C</span>ould I have come to Ireland without thought of God, merely in my own interest? Who was it made me come? For here I am a prisoner of the Spirit so that I may not see any of my family. Can it be out of the kindness of my heart that I carry out such a labor of mercy on a people who once captured me when they wrecked my father's house and carried off his servants? For by descent I was a freeman, born of a Decurion father; yet I have sold this nobility of mine, I am not ashamed, nor do I regret that it might have meant some advantage to others. In short, I am a slave in Christ to this faraway people for the indescribable glory of everlasting life which is in Jesus Christ our Lord."</i></p>
<p><i><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84720145?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84720145?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200"/></a></i>Above, Patricius, from his letter to the soldiers of Croticus. </p>
<p>In 403 AD, Patricius (Patrick) a young Roman boy of sixteen was taken hostage, together with his sisters Lupida and Darerca, by a raiding Celtic army led by the Irish warrior king Niall. Following a series of raids throughout Alba (Scotland) and Britain, Niall’s army, together with their hostages, crossed the English Channel and proceeded to Brittany in France where they fought with a tribe called the Morini. In France, Patricius became separated from his sisters and was brought to Ireland by the returning army. He was sold to a wealthy chieftain/druid named Milchu and traveled north to the province of Ulster where he became a sheep-herder on the slopes of Slemish, an extinct volcanic mountain in County Antrim. By his own account, for six years he lived a lonely life and wrote about his experiences later, in two letters that have survived. After his years in captivity, he managed to escape and traveled across country to Killala bay, County Mayo where he boarded a ship bound for Britain and eventually re-united with his family.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84720254?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84720254?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250"/></a>Patricius was born a citizen of the Roman Empire in 387 AD. His father Calpornius, was a deacon, his mother was a sister of Martin, the bishop of Tours in France, his grandfather Potitus, was a priest. Religion was in his blood and soon after his return to his family he was sent to Auxerre, France to study religion and theology. It is known that he spent several years at Marmoutier Abbey in Tours, France and was eventually ordained as a bishop by Germanus of Auxerre at Lérins Abbey. At his own request, Patricius was sent to Ireland in approximately 430 AD shortly after his appointment as a missionary, by Pope Celestine. Christianity, it is widely believed, had already taken a foothold in Ireland long before Patricius arrived. A tribe named the Attacotti are believed to have settled in the province of Leinster after arriving from Roman Gaul where, it is thought that they may have served in the Roman military in the mid-to-late 300s. They would have been exposed to early Christianity which was already making inroads in that region of France. A monk called Ciaran (the elder) had preached it in the late 4th Century AD and was the first bishop of Ossory (Kilkenny.) Pope Celestine, had sent a Bishop named Palladius to Ireland to minister to any that were already Christianized by that time, and had some success. Patricius, when he arrived, would have had many contacts already Christianized from which he could draw on for support. Coupled with the financial backing of the wealthy church of Rome, all made it unlikely that he would fail in his mission.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84720367?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84720367?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250"/></a>During his six years as sheep herder in County Antrim, Patricius acquired a good knowledge of the Celtic language and a broad understanding of local customs, all of which would be a great benefit to him during his mission of conversion. After several years of missionary work among the Morini people in France, Patricius eventually set sail for Ireland. Failing to land in County Wicklow, due to the hostility of the local population, Patricius and his followers sailed up the east coast and landed at a small island off the coast of Skerries, Dublin. After a short respite, they continued to sail north and landed safely at the mouth of Strangford Lough, near to the modern-day town of Downpatrick. A local Chieftain named Dichu gave him a small piece of land in the townland of Saul, near Strangford Lough in County Down on which Patricius built his first shrine. At the Feis of Tara in 431 AD, he met with the high king Laoghaire, the son of Niall who had taken him hostage many years earlier. He is credited with the conversion of Laoghaire from Paganism to Christianity making Laoghaire the first Christian king of Ireland.</p>
<p>As for banishing snakes, Patrick never did. Due to its climate, snakes were not native to Ireland. It is believed that references to snakes were meant as a metaphor for the two-legged variety.</p>
<p>Patrick did however use the shamrock as a symbol of the Trinity.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>To read the complete story please click the link below:</strong></span></p>
<p><a href="https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/the-feis-at-tara-part-one">https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/the-feis-at-tara-part-one</a></p>
<p>From :Out of the Ice: Ireland Then and Now."</p>
<p>© John A. Brennan 2018. All Rights Reserved.<br/> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
The Minstrel
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-03-14:6442157:BlogPost:298761
2022-03-14T19:00:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10209775889?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10209775889?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="750"></img></a><p></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I</span>n the ages past, the musician was and still is, a prominent figure</strong> in Irish society; whether he be a harpist, a fiddler or a multi-instrumentalist musician like Paddy Moloney, they all took their places in society, including the royal households of the Irish nobility. Centuries ago they called…</p>
<a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10209775889?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10209775889?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="750"/></a><p></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I</span>n the ages past, the musician was and still is, a prominent figure</strong> in Irish society; whether he be a harpist, a fiddler or a multi-instrumentalist musician like Paddy Moloney, they all took their places in society, including the royal households of the Irish nobility. Centuries ago they called them minstrels.</p>
<p>It is a widely accepted fact that the traditions of music and storytelling in Ireland are among the most original and earliest forms of communication in Europe. The one thing that has always united the many differing factions in Ireland is our love of and deep respect for music. Music unites, gladdens and crosses all of the invisible barriers; it knows no boundaries, borders or walls and is color blind and deaf to prejudice of all stripes. It transcends politics, war, fear, hatred, sectarianism and the many other ‘isms’ that attempt to divide humanity. The Irish connection with music started, with a race of people who inhabited Ireland in the ages past named the ‘Tuatha De Danann’ and who bequeathed us with the gift of poetry and song.</p>
<p>Irish musician Paddy Moloney personified the traits of the minstrel perfectly and his mission was solely to unite all. He lived and breathed music and wanted only to fill the world with his deep sense of pride as an Irishman through his music. This he did beautifully and continues to bring that sense of pride, not only to his own people, but to the whole, wide world. Paddy did more to unite Ireland with his gift of music, a gift he passed down to all future generations, more than a thousand wars could ever do.</p>
<p>More so than many other cultures, who use their music for listening pleasure only, music is hardwired in the Irish synapses, it’s embedded deep in our DNA. It is as much a part of us as the color of our eyes or the sound of our voice and coupled with its sister art of storytelling, has accompanied us on the never-ending journey worldwide, on our singular mission of unity. Whether it be a harp slung over the shoulder, a fiddle tucked under an arm, or a set of pipes leading us into battle, wherever we go, our music and song goes too and Paddy Moloney continues to lead the way.</p>
<p>Thank you Paddy, we owe you more than we can ever repay.</p>
<p>The old adage describing Ireland as the “Land of Saints and Scholars’ should, in my opinion, be amended to read “Land of Saints, Scholars and Minstrels.”</p>
<p>© John A. Brennan 2022. All Rights Reserved.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan?fbclid=IwAR1lP-GXC1SvQnmDId4EzB1CgFXk2D3TsAky8V4rSncWnCmVwFgi24aCl4w" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
The Magic of the Rowan Tree
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-03-05:6442157:BlogPost:298740
2022-03-05T21:00:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10172191052?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10172191052?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">O</span>ne of the many trees growing near to where we lived on the Creamery Road</strong> was an old rowan. It was perfect for climbing and in the summer when in full leaf, I could see for miles from my vantage point in the topmost branches, it was my favorite of all the trees in the area with a big oak next.…</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10172191052?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10172191052?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="750"/></a></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">O</span>ne of the many trees growing near to where we lived on the Creamery Road</strong> was an old rowan. It was perfect for climbing and in the summer when in full leaf, I could see for miles from my vantage point in the topmost branches, it was my favorite of all the trees in the area with a big oak next. When my sisters were outside, I would sometimes throw small twigs at them and laugh silently when they couldn’t see where the missiles were coming from. It was a great tree and a perfect hiding place. More than a hundred years old, all around the trunk were lots of carvings and heart shapes. I carved my initials one day with an old pocket knife my father had given me once when we were out fishing. I loved to climb, especially when I knew there was a bird’s nest hidden somewhere in the branches. One night my father told us a story about the rowan tree as we sat around the fire. It was the wintertime and snow covered everything in a pure, glistening white blanket. The wind howled outside but we were warmed by the blazing log fire in the open hearth. My mother had baked soda bread earlier that afternoon and as we sat with our cups of steaming cocoa and slices of the still warm bread smothered in melting butter, my father settled back in his armchair and began to tell the story.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10172257692?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10172257692?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="250"/></a>“There are several trees growing in Ireland that the Druids believed had very special powers. They believed that each one had its own specific place in the order of things and had medicinal qualities which could cure many ailments. The rowan tree was the most important one and the Druids revered it. In Ireland, it was planted near houses to protect them against evil spirits. The wood was used for stirring milk to prevent it from curdling, and as a pocket charm against rheumatism. When the Vikings invaded they used the wood from the rowan trees to make ‘runes’ which were worn as amulets for protection from sorcery and the evil eye. Much later the rowan wood was used to build cart wheels, boats and walking sticks, as a form of protection on a journey, and the bark of the rowan can be used as a powerful dye.”</p>
<p>“Who were the Druids?” I asked, puzzled.</p>
<p>“They were the sages and seers that guided the Celts, our ancestors,” he answered. </p>
<p>“What are sages and seers,” I inquired.</p>
<p>“They were wise men and were very, very powerful.”</p>
<p>He explained that the Druids were a priestly sect who accompanied the Celts as they migrated across Europe.</p>
<p>“Was there someone chasing them?”</p>
<p>“Yes. The Roman army was after them and wished to stamp them out.”</p>
<p>“Why, didn’t the Romans like them?”</p>
<p>“It wasn’t a matter of liking them, they feared them. Now, let’s get on with the story.”</p>
<p>He rolled a cigarette from his tobacco tin, lit it and continued,</p>
<p>“The Druids used rowan branches on funeral pyres as a symbol of death and rebirth and rowan trees planted in cemeteries were believed to protect the dead from evil spirits. It was also one of the nine sacred trees to be burned in the Beltane fires to symbolize new beginnings. Rowans were often planted near gates and doorways to protect against evil spirits and misfortune. The twigs of the Rowan were placed in barns and above doorways for this same purpose, similar to the Cross of St Brigid, who is associated with the rowan according to Celtic folklore.” </p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10172258468?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10172258468?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="250"/></a>I looked over at my mother who was sitting in her chair knitting and saw her smiling. She was listening to the story too. My sisters were playing with her cat in the hallway, but I don’t think they were listening. My father stretched toward the log box, picked out a fat log and placed in on the now dwindling embers. As he did, a rush of brightly colored sparks crackled and rushed up the chimney, carried aloft by the thick plumes of smoke. The cat, which had just sauntered in the room at that moment froze in her tracks and with a loud frightened ‘meowww’ jumped on my mothers’ lap for comfort and safety.</p>
<p>When all of this commotion died down my father continued the story,</p>
<p>"Rowan berries are bitter but not poisonous and the Druids used them to make wine and medicinal potions and remedies for cleansing the blood. In Irish mythology the first human women was created from the rowan tree. It is a tree said to belong to the fairy folk who can be seen dancing in circles surrounded by rowan trees when the moon is full. The rowan is also known as the traveler’s tree, and anyone going on a journey would always carry a sprig to protect them and ensure that they would arrive safely at their destination.”</p>
<p>“Like a lucky penny?”</p>
<p>“Yes, but more powerful than a lucky penny.”</p>
<p>“The Druid always carried a long staff which he would cut from a rowan tree as he believed it had magical powers.”</p>
<p>“Like a magic wand!” I asked excitedly.</p>
<p>“Not quite, a magic wand is short, a staff is a lot longer.”</p>
<p>“In fact,” he added, almost as if he had just remembered it,</p>
<p>“Saint Patrick, when he returned to Ireland as a newly appointed Bishop, went to the nearest rowan tree and cut his first staff from it.” </p>
<p>I was still trying to visualize the difference between a wand and a staff and was very confused.</p>
<p>“A dowsing rod would also be cut from the rowan tree,” continued my father.</p>
<p>Now I was completely baffled.</p>
<p>“Dowsing rod?” I queried, lost. “Who, St. Patrick?”</p>
<p>I was trying to visualize St. Patrick climbing a rowan tree and wondered aloud,</p>
<p>“Was St. Patrick a Druid?”</p>
<p>“What are you talking about?”</p>
<p>Now my father appeared as puzzled as I was.</p>
<p>“You said he cut his dowsing rod from the rowan tree,” I answered, totally bewildered.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10172260500?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10172260500?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="220"/></a>My mother was laughing loudly now, and I could hear my sisters sniggering in the hallway. They were always sniggering! So they were listening after all!</p>
<p>“No, not St. Patrick. I meant that the Druid cut his dowsing rod from the tree. Saint Patrick cut his staff from it.”</p>
<p>“Oh. I see,” I said, embarrassed.</p>
<p>My sisters were giggling like silly idiots by then and when my father wasn’t looking I stuck my tongue out and glared at them and resolved to throw lots of twigs at them the next time I climbed the tree. Even the stupid cat seemed to be grinning.</p>
<p>“Now, where was I?”</p>
<p>“The dowsing rod, Mal,” hinted my mother.</p>
<p>“What’s a dowsing rod? I queried again, still puzzled. </p>
<p>“The Druid used a dowsing rod for many purposes. For example, if he wanted to find the perfect place to set up a new village he would dowse the area until he found the ley lines. Or to find the place to use as a sacred spot for worship, it’s also used to find water underground,” he explained.</p>
<p>I glanced over at my mother looking for clues, but she was intent on her knitting.</p>
<p>“What are ley lines?”</p>
<p>“Ley lines are underground energy sources.”</p>
<p>He got up, went into the hallway and returned holding a slender branch that looked like a large letter Y. Holding the Y shaped branch aloft he announced,</p>
<p>“This, is a dowsing rod.”</p>
<p>Then holding a leg of the branch in each hand and pointing the other end straight ahead, he walked back and forth across the floor. </p>
<p>“When any source of energy, including water is detected, the rod will move and point downward showing you where the source is. So you see, the rowan tree is very special.”</p>
<p>“And,” he quipped, “a good magician always cut his wand from a rowan tree.”</p>
<p>My mother got up then, put the knitting in her basket, set the cat on the floor, smoothed her dress and said,</p>
<p>“Bedtime girls and boys, school in the morning.”</p>
<p></p>
<p>© John A. Brennan 2022. All Rights Reserved.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
The Great Assembly at Tara (Part 1)
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-03-01:6442157:BlogPost:213483
2022-03-01T00:00:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8533780899?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8533780899?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="750"></img></a> <strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">M</span>arch is traditionally known as Irish Heritage month and this is highlighted on March 17th.</strong> <strong>with large parades in many towns and cities around the world. The parades are held in honor of a unique individual named Patricius, a Roman Briton, taken with his two sisters as hostages to Ireland by one…</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8533780899?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8533780899?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="750"/></a><strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">M</span>arch is traditionally known as Irish Heritage month and this is highlighted on March 17th.</strong> <strong>with large parades in many towns and cities around the world. The parades are held in honor of a unique individual named Patricius, a Roman Briton, taken with his two sisters as hostages to Ireland by one of Ireland's greatest warrior kings, Niall Noígíallach who became known as Niall of the Nine Hostages, during raids in Britain and France in the 5th. century AD. This is the remarkable story of how a sixteen-year-old sheepherder became one of the most important figures in Irish history and how despite all of the efforts of King Niall Noígíallach, his son Laoghaire, his lawmakers the Brehons and his chief Druid Lochra, to stop him, including several murder attempts, Patrick as he became known, withstood it all. The story begins at Tara in the fifth province of Ireland called Midhe...</strong></p>
<p><strong>The Great Hall at Tara.</strong></p>
<p>In 431 A.D. and three days after the festival of Lughnasagh, a lone figure stood, head bowed in contemplation, next to one of five carefully positioned chairs, in the Great Assembly Hall at Tara in the province of Royal Midhe. Four of the chairs laid out to mirror the points of the compass faced the fifth chair which sat directly in the center of the hall. The fifth chair, with intricately carved armrests and a high-back, was adorned with inlaid ivory, fashioned from the tusks of a wild boar, and would seat the man destined to become the ard ri, the absolute ruler of the land. The hall, part of a sprawling, fortified hilltop complex constructed on an east-west axis, three hundred feet long, thirty feet high, sixty feet wide, had fourteen doors and on that occasion, waited in patient silence in readiness for the important gathering scheduled to take place later in the afternoon. Several other large buildings erected around the Great hall included residences for each of four provincial kings, a large smokehouse, where all food was prepared, a house for holding the hostages belonging to the high king, a house for the Brehons and Bards, and a house, the 'grianan na nInghean' for the wives, children, and servants of the provincial kings. Together with its stables, storehouses and warrior’s quarters, all surrounded by deep earthen ditches and earthworks, and reinforced by a solid wooden palisade, made Tara a secure, imposing stronghold that dominated the landscape and could be seen from many miles distant.</p>
<p>The sole occupant of the Great Hall on that day was no ordinary mortal and anyone observing him would have been struck by his stature and regal mien. Long-haired, full-bearded, and standing almost six feet tall, his long-sleeved <em>leine</em> (tunic) fashioned by skilled weavers from gleaned flax plants, was colored bright green and reached down well below his knees. A broad leather <em>crios</em> (belt) circled his waist, held his wand of office, a dagger, a small pouch, and helped keep his <em>leine</em> in place. His four folded, richly embroidered woolen <em>brat</em> (cloak) had the five colors of the nobility, was trimmed with fox fur, reached almost to the floor, and pinned with an ornate golden broach at his right shoulder. Around his neck hung the gold <em>nasc niadh</em> (chain of valor) that he had inherited from his father, signifying his status as a warrior. His hand-stitched sandals, tanned from the soft hide of a fallow deer were dyed purple, denoting his rank, wrapped around his ankles and were held together with strings of leather.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84720103?profile=original" target="_self"><font size="3" face="Calibri"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84720103?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250"/></font></a>Laoghaire Mac Neill, whose journey to the kingship of Ireland would follow a convoluted and unorthodox path, was a younger son of the celebrated late fourth-century warrior king Niall Noígíallach who from the beginning of his reign in 379 AD had set out on a campaign of subjugation, starting in the southern province of Munster. He soon overwhelmed the other three provinces in quick succession and then after crossing the Irish sea, led raids against the Britons, Picts, Saxons and Dalriads. His imposing army, comprised of Irish, Scoti, Picts, and Britons, crossed the English Channel and proceeded to Brittany where they fought and defeated the Morini tribe. As was the custom after each victory <em>eiric</em> (tribute) including livestock and hostages, were taken and returned to Ireland with the conquering army. Among the many captives taken during the raids in Britain, Alba (Scotland) and France was a sixteen-year-old Roman boy named Patricius, (who would ironically have a long and far-reaching effect on Ireland and its people later in the fifth century.) When the hostages were eventually apportioned, Patricius, by then the property of a local Chieftain and druid named Milchu, went north to the province of Ulster where he became a sheep-herder on the slopes of Slemish, an extinct volcanic mountain in County Antrim. After six years in captivity, he managed to escape and traveled across country to Killala Bay, County Mayo where he boarded a ship bound for Britain and eventually re-united with his family.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84720122?profile=original" target="_self"><font size="3" face="Calibri"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84720122?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="244"/></font></a>Niall of the Nine Hostages, as he became known, led his last military campaign in France in an effort to free a local Celtic tribe from Roman oppression. As he and his army were encamped on the banks of the river Liane near the commune of Boulogne-Sur-Mer, an archer in Niall’s army, a vengeful son of Eochaidh, the king of Leinster, shot an arrow which pierced Niall’s heart, killing him instantly. The bad blood between Eochaidh and Niall arose when Eochaidh attempted to illegally claim the kingship of Ireland. After a brief skirmish, Niall routed the pretender and banished him and his followers to Alba (Scotland.) On the death of Niall, a son of Fiachra named Dathi was crowned as king and ruled Ireland until his death from a bolt of lightning while on a military campaign in the French Alps. Dathi has the distinction of being the last pagan king of Ireland before the coming of Christianity. After his death, Ireland was once again without a king and the road to Tara was opened for Laoghaire.</p>
<p>In 428 A.D., after a reading of the ‘Instruction for Kings,’ written many centuries earlier by the high king Cormac, and in which was inscribed a summary of the customs and laws of the country, Laoghaire Mac Neill was presented with the white <em>slat na ríghe</em> (rod of kingship) during a joyous coronation ceremony held at the stone of Fal on the hill of Tara. The white rod, usually cut from a hazel tree, chosen specifically for its color and straightness, was blemish-free and signified truth, justice, and integrity. Attending the coronation were the four provincial Kings, all of their wives and children, Nobles, Brehons (judges,) Ard Ollams (scribes,) Harpists, Bards, chief Druids (priests,) and Chieftains. When the coronation ceremony ended, Laoghaire would be known as Ard ri (high king) of all Ireland. Everyone returned to Tara in August 431 AD as requested, to attend and participate in the Feis (assembly) which Laoghaire had convened. The Feis of Tara, one of three general assemblies held in Ireland, included the Feis of Eamhain, in the province of Ulster and the Feis of Cruachain, in the province of Connaught. Both of those assemblies were primarily concerned with choosing master craftsmen, including Blacksmiths, Woodworkers, and Stoneworkers who, when selected, were sent to each of the provinces to do their work. The more important Feis of Tara, held every third year, was an official assembly of the leading men of the whole island and not a meeting of all classes of society. Its constitution and place of meeting were fixed, and the times of meeting regular.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84720167?profile=original" target="_self"><font size="3" face="Calibri"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84720167?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="236"/></font></a>The primary purpose of the Feis of Tara was the reaffirmation of national unity and security, but among the other duties performed was the establishment of new laws and customs. Any disputes regarding title to rank, property, and privilege would be settled by the lawmakers, the Brehons, and all annals and records would be carefully noted and entered by the Ard Ollams in the official records. Any previous law, custom, or record not included, was deemed to be false and irrelevant. As Laoghaire stood waiting in the hall, all of these matters were of great concern to him knowing as he did that his decisions would have long-lasting and far-reaching effects on the country. But on that day another more serious development weighed heavily on his mind, compounding the already tense situation. …</p>
<p><strong>From "Out of the Ice: Ireland Past and Present."</strong><br/> <strong>Escribe Publishing Inc.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Available at: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://thewildgeese.irish/xn/detail/6442157:BlogPost:213483"><b>The Great Assembly at Tara (Part 1 of 4)</b></a></p>
<p><a href="http://thewildgeese.irish/xn/detail/6442157:BlogPost:213496"><b>The Great Assembly at Tara (Part 2 of 4)</b></a></p>
<p><a href="http://thewildgeese.irish/xn/detail/6442157:BlogPost:214233"><b>The Great Assembly at Tara (Part 3 or 4)</b></a></p>
<p><a href="http://thewildgeese.irish/xn/detail/6442157:BlogPost:215241"><b>The Great Assembly at Tara (Part 4 of 4)</b></a></p>
<p>Much of the information in my articles comes from a variety of diverse sources. Among them are many of the ancient annals written by a variety of narrators of the historical accounts of both the oral and written history of Ireland.</p>
<p>Below is a list of some of the sources I accessed:</p>
<p>The Book of Invasions</p>
<p>The Annals of the Four Masters</p>
<p>Keating’s History of Ireland</p>
<p>The Book of Leinster</p>
<p>The Annals of Ireland</p>
<p>Annals of Ulster</p>
<p>Annals of Boyle</p>
<p>Annals of Connacht</p>
<p>Annals of Inisfallen</p>
<p>Annals of Tigernach</p>
<p>Wikipedia</p>
<p></p>
County Clare's John Phillip Holland and The Fenian Ram
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-02-24:6442157:BlogPost:170989
2022-02-24T17:49:04.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714121?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" height="296" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714121?profile=original" width="679"></img></a> <span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql lr9zc1uh a8c37x1j fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v b1v8xokw oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto">On this day, February 24, 1841, we remember with pride the birth of a unique Irishman, a man whose fertile mind far surpassed the greatest minds…</span></strong></span></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714121?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714121?profile=original" width="679" height="296"/></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql lr9zc1uh a8c37x1j fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v b1v8xokw oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto">On this day, February 24, 1841, we remember with pride the birth of a unique Irishman, a man whose fertile mind far surpassed the greatest minds of his day.</span></strong></span></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-5">T</span>he Battle of Hampton Roads, often referred to</strong> as either the Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack (or Virginia) or the Battle of Ironclads, was the most noted and arguably most important naval battle of the American Civil War from the standpoint of the development of navies. It was fought March 8–9, 1862, in Hampton Roads, a roadstead in Virginia where the Elizabeth and Nansemond Rivers meet the James River just before it enters Chesapeake Bay, adjacent to the city of Norfolk. The battle was a part of the effort of the Confederacy to break the Union blockade, which had cut off Virginia's largest cities, Norfolk and Richmond, from international trade.</p>
<p><em>Pictured, Fenian Ram, the world's first workable submarine</em></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714133?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714133?profile=original" width="346" height="199"/></a>The major significance of the battle is that it was the first meeting in combat, of ironclad warships, the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia. The Confederate fleet consisted of the ironclad ram Virginia (built from the remnants of the USS Merrimack) and several supporting vessels. On the first day of battle, they were opposed by several conventional, wooden-hulled ships of the Union Navy. On that day, the Virginia was able to destroy two ships of the Federal flotilla, USS Congress and USS Cumberland, and was about to attack a third, USS Minnesota, which had run aground.</p>
<p>In Ireland, an observant teacher, his fertile mind always hungry for news of world events, had read the accounts of the battle in local newspapers. He had also read the Jules Verne novel, a fictional work titled “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” In the book, Verne wrote about a ship that could travel underwater and thus escape detection.<img class="align-left" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/JohnPhilipHolland.jpg?width=278" width="278"/></p>
<p>The more he pondered this idea, the teacher became convinced that all naval warfare of the future would be won by the first country to use underwater vessels to get close to iron-clad battleships and attack at point-blank range, undetected. He realized that the best way to attack such ships would be from beneath the waterline.</p>
<p>John Philip Holland Jr., the second of four siblings, all boys, was born in a British coastguard cottage in Liscannor, County Clare, on February 24, 1841. His father, John Holland Sr., was a member of the Coastguard. His mother, a native Irish speaker from Liscannor, Máire Ní Scannláin (Mary Scanlon), was John Holland Sr.’s second wife. Holland moved to the United States in 1873 and was Initially employed with an engineering firm. He eventually returned to teaching for a further six years in a parochial high school in Paterson, New Jersey, where much of his initial design work was completed. </p>
<p><span>Not long after his arrival in the United States, he slipped and fell on an icy Boston street and broke a leg. While recuperating from the injury in a hospital, he used his time to refine his submarine designs and was encouraged by Isaac Whelan, a local priest. In 1875, his first submarine designs were submitted for consideration by the US Navy, but turned down as unworkable. </span>Holland’s idea was to construct a submarine to hold three men. It would be carried aboard a harmless-looking merchant ship which would come close to a British warship. The sub would then slip out a door underneath the water, attack the warship and then return to base. </p>
<p>In 1876, Fenians Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa and Patrick Ford publicized details of a “Skirmishing Fund” in The Irish World Newspaper. The fund, administered by John Devoy, was set up to finance the continuing war against the British. Holland’s brother Michael introduced him to the Fenians soon after his design for a submarine had been rejected by the U.S. Navy. The secretary of the Navy called Holland’s idea, “a fantastic scheme of a civilian landsman.” Holland’s idea was to construct a submarine to hold three men. It would be carried aboard a harmless-looking merchant ship which would come close to a British warship. The submarine would then slip out a door underneath the water, attack the warship and then return to base. The Skirmishing Fund's administrators allowed $6,000 as an initial payment toward development. The Fenians continued to fund Holland's research and development expenses at a level that allowed him to resign from his teaching post. In 1881, the world's first working submarine, the Fenian Ram was launched, but soon after, Holland and the Fenians parted company on bad terms over the issue of payment within the Fenian organisation, and between the Fenians and Holland.The submarine is now preserved and on display at Paterson Museum, New Jersey.</p>
<p>Holland continued to improve his designs and worked on several experimental boats, prior to his successful efforts with a privately built type, launched on 17 May 1897. This was the first submarine having power to run submerged for any considerable distance, and the first to combine electric motors for submerged travel and gasoline engines for use on the surface. She was purchased by the US Navy, on 11 April 1900, after rigorous tests and was commissioned on 12 October 1900 as USS Holland. Six more of her type were ordered and built at the Crescent Shipyard in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The company that emerged from under these developments was called The Electric Boat Company, founded on 7 February 1899. Isaac Leopold Rice became the company's first President with Elihu B. Frost acting as vice-president and chief financial officer. This company eventually evolved into the major defence contractor General Dynamics.</p>
<p>The USS Holland design was also adopted by others, including the British Royal Navy in developing the Holland-class submarine. The Imperial Japanese Navy employed a modified version of the basic design for their first five submarines, although these submarines were at least 10 feet longer at about 63 feet. These submarines were also developed at the Fore River Ship and Engine Company in Quincy, Massachusetts. Holland also designed the Holland II and Holland III prototypes. The Royal Navy 'Holland 1' is on display at the Submarine Museum, Gosport, England.</p>
<p>After spending 56 of his 73 years working with submersibles, John Philip Holland died on 12 August 1914 in Newark, New Jersey. He is interred at the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Totowa, New Jersey.</p>
<p>A monument stands at the gates of Scholars Townhouse Hotel, Drogheda (the former building of the Christian Brothers school where Holland taught) in commemoration of his work. It was unveiled in a ceremony on 14 June 2014 as part of the Irish Maritime Festival. The ceremony was attended by Drogheda Town Council as well as representatives of the US, British and Japanese governments.St. John's Catholic School, where Mr. Holland once taught, has been renamed and operates as John P. Holland Charter School in Paterson, New Jersey.</p>
<p>Books for Sale:</p>
<p><font size="3" face="Calibri">Don’t Die with Regrets: Ireland and the Lessons my Father Taught Me.</font></p>
<p><span><a title="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0615975860" href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0615975860"><span>http://www.amazon.com/dp/0615975860</span></a></span></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Calibri">The Journey: A Nomad Reflects.</font></p>
<p><span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692500944/ref=rdr_ext_tmb"><font color="#0563C1">https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692500944/ref=rdr_ext_tmb</font></a></span></p>
St. Valentine and the Irish Connection
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-02-12:6442157:BlogPost:298342
2022-02-12T19:30:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10095324275?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10095324275?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="750"></img></a> Saint Valentine</p>
<p>Born: 226 AD, Terni, Italy</p>
<p>Died: February 14, 269 AD, Rome, Italy</p>
<p>Full name: Valentine of Terni </p>
<p>Valentine was a Christian priest who had also worked as a doctor and ministered to persecuted Christians and Romans alike. He lived in Italy during the third century AD and served as a priest in Rome. Historians don’t…</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10095324275?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10095324275?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="750"/></a>Saint Valentine</p>
<p>Born: 226 AD, Terni, Italy</p>
<p>Died: February 14, 269 AD, Rome, Italy</p>
<p>Full name: Valentine of Terni </p>
<p>Valentine was a Christian priest who had also worked as a doctor and ministered to persecuted Christians and Romans alike. He lived in Italy during the third century AD and served as a priest in Rome. Historians don’t know much about Valentine’s early life and they pick up the story after he began working as a priest.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10095325680?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10095325680?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="250"/></a>Roman religion at the beginning of the Roman Empire (27 BC - 476 AD) was polytheistic and local. Each city worshipped its own set of gods and goddesses that had originally been derived from ancient Greece and become Romanized. In Rome, citizens were expected to demonstrate their loyalty to Rome by participating in the rites of the state religion which had numerous feast days, processions and offerings to their many idols throughout the year. Christians, who worshipped only one God, could not worship idols, and so were seen as belonging to an illicit religion that was anti-social and subversive. The persecution of Christians occurred throughout the Roman Empire, beginning in the 1st century AD and ending in the 4th century AD. Emperor Nero blamed Christians for the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, and after this event the persecution of Christians began with mass imprisonment and executions all over the Roman Empire. Some stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons, from where they were conscripted into the military and were often beaten and tortured.</p>
<p>Valentine also became famous for marrying couples who were in love but couldn’t get legally married in Rome during the reign of Emperor Claudius II, who had outlawed weddings. Claudius wanted to recruit large numbers of men as centurions in the army and thought that marriage would be an obstacle to recruiting new soldiers. He also wanted to prevent his existing soldiers from getting married because he thought that marriage would distract them from their work. When Emperor Claudius discovered that Valentine was performing weddings, he sent Valentine to jail. Valentine used his time in jail to continue to reach out to people with the love that he said Jesus Christ gave him for others.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10095326677?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10095326677?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="250"/></a>Another story tells that in order to remind these men of their vows and God’s love, Valentine is said to have cut heart shapes from parchment, giving them to persecuted Christians, a possible origin of the widespread use of hearts on St. Valentine's Day. He befriended his jailer, Asterious, who became so impressed with Valentine’s wisdom that he asked Valentine to help his daughter, Julia, with her lessons. Julia was blind and needed someone to read material for her to learn it. Valentine became friends with Julia through his work with her when she came to visit him in jail. Emperor Claudius also came to like Valentine and offered to pardon him and set him free if Valentine would renounce his Christian faith and agree to worship the Roman gods. Not only did Valentine refuse to leave his faith, he also encouraged Emperor Claudius to place his trust in Christ. Valentine’s faithful choices cost him his life. Claudius was so enraged at Valentine’s response that he sentenced him to death.</p>
<p>Before he was killed, Valentine wrote a last note to encourage Julia to stay close to Jesus and to thank her for being his friend. He signed the note: “From your Valentine.” That note inspired people to begin writing their own loving messages to people on Valentine’s Feast Day, February 14th, which is celebrated on the same day on which Valentine was martyred. The most famous miracle attributed to Valentine involved the farewell note that he sent to Julia. Believers say that God miraculously cured Julia of her blindness so that she could personally read Valentine’s note, rather than just have someone else read it to her. Throughout the years since Valentine died, people have prayed for him to intercede for them before God about their romantic lives. Numerous couples have reported experiencing miraculous improvements in their relationships with boyfriends, girlfriends, and spouses after praying for help from Valentine.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10095335085?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10095335085?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="250"/></a>Valentine was beaten, stoned, and beheaded on February 14, 270 AD. People who remembered his loving service to many young couples began celebrating his life, and he came to be regarded as a saint through whom God had worked to help people in miraculous ways. After he was martyred his body was buried at a Christian cemetery on the Via Flaminia on February 14, which has been observed as the Feast of Saint Valentine (Saint Valentine's Day) since 496 AD when Pope Gelasius designated February 14th as Valentine’s official feast day.</p>
<p>While some believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial, which probably occurred around 270 AD others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to Christianize the pagan celebration of ‘Lupercalia.’ Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, ‘Lupercalia’ was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10095328063?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10095328063?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="250"/></a>To begin the festival, members of the ‘Luperci’ an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the goat’s hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman.</p>
<p>After his death, relics of Valentine were kept in the Church and Catacombs of San Valentino in Rome, which remained an important pilgrim site throughout the Middle Ages. Later the relics were transferred to the church of Santa Prassede during the pontificate of Nicholas IV. His skull, crowned with flowers, is exhibited in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome. Many years later, an Irish priest was granted permission to exhume Valentine’s remains. In 1835 Fr. John Spratt, used his Irish charm to convince Pope Gregory XVI to exhume Valentine’s remains and allow them to be taken to Ireland as a gift to his fellow Irishmen and women. Ever since then, some of Valentine’s skeleton lies under the altar of Whitefriar Church in Dublin where it attracts visitors from around the world every Valentine’s Day.</p>
<p>Many thanks to Wikipedia and History.com for some of the info used in this article.</p>
<p><em>Images courtesy of Wikimedia</em></p>
<p>© John A. Brennan 2022. All Rights Reserved.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
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<p> </p>
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Behan: An Irish Rebel.
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-02-09:6442157:BlogPost:298331
2022-02-09T22:00:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10084489259?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10084489259?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p>Brendan Francis Aidan Behan, born on February 9 1923 was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright who wrote in both English and Irish. He was named by Irish Central as one of the greatest Irish writers of all time. He was an Irish republican and a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army, and was born in Dublin into a staunchly…</p>
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<p>Brendan Francis Aidan Behan, born on February 9 1923 was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright who wrote in both English and Irish. He was named by Irish Central as one of the greatest Irish writers of all time. He was an Irish republican and a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army, and was born in Dublin into a staunchly republican family becoming a member of the IRA's youth organisation Fianna Éireann at the age of fourteen. There was also a strong emphasis on Irish history and culture in the home, which meant he was steeped in literature and patriotic ballads from an early age. Brendan eventually joined the IRA at sixteen, which led to his serving time in a borstal youth prison in the United Kingdom and he was also imprisoned in Ireland. During this time, he took it upon himself to study and he became a fluent speaker of the Irish language. Released from prison as part of a general amnesty given by the Fianna Fáil government in 1946, he moved between homes in Dublin, Kerry, and Connemara, and also resided in Paris for a time. </p>
<p>In 1954, Brendan's first play ‘The Quare Fellow’ was produced in Dublin and was well received but it was the 1956 production at Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop in Stratford, London, that gained him a wider reputation. This was helped by a famous drunken interview on BBC television with interviewer Malcolm Muggeridge. In 1958, his play in the Irish language ‘An Giall’ had its debut at Dublin's Damer Theatre. Later, ‘The Hostage’ his English-language adaptation of ‘An Giall’ met with great success internationally. His autobiographical novel, ‘Borstal Boy’ was published the same year and became a worldwide best-seller. By the early 1960s, Brendan reached the peak of his fame and he spent increasing amounts of time in New York City, famously declaring, "To America, my new found land: The man that hates you hates the human race." By this point, Brendan began spending time with people including Harpo Marx and Arthur Miller and was followed by a young Bob Dylan. However, this newfound fame did nothing to aid his health or his work, with his alcoholism and diabetic medical condition continuing to deteriorate his ‘New York’ and ‘Confessions of an Irish Rebel’ received little praise. He briefly attempted to combat this by a dry stretch while staying at the Chelsea Hotel in New York, and in 1961 was admitted to Sunnyside Private Hospital, an institution for the treatment of alcoholism in Toronto, but he once again turned back to alcohol and relapsed.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10084489463?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10084489463?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="250"/></a>Behan was born in the inner city of Dublin at Holles Street Hospital on February 9 1923 into an educated working-class family. His mother had two sons, Sean Furlong and Rory (Roger Casement Furlong) from her first marriage to compositor Jack Furlong. After Brendan was born she had three more sons and a daughter: Seamus, Brian, Dominic, and Carmel. They lived in a house on Russell Street near Mountjoy Square owned by his grandmother, Christine English, who owned a number of properties in the area. Brendan's father Stephen Behan, a house painter who had been active in the Irish War of Independence, read classic literature to the children at bedtime from sources including the works of Zola, Galsworthy, and Maupassant; his mother, Kathleen, took them on literary tours of the city. She remained politically active all her life and was a personal friend of the Irish republican Michael Collins. Brendan wrote a lament to Collins, ‘The Laughing Boy’ at the age of thirteen. The title was from the affectionate nickname Mrs Behan gave to Collins. Kathleen published her autobiography, ‘Mother of All The Behans’ a collaboration with her son Brian, in 1984.</p>
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<p>Behan's uncle Peadar Kearney wrote the Irish national anthem ‘The Soldier's Song’ and his brother Dominic, also a renowned songwriter, wrote the song ‘The Patriot Game’ among others. Another brother Brian, was a prominent radical political activist and public speaker, actor, author, and playwright. A biographer, Ulick O'Connor, recounts that one day, at age eight, Brendan was returning home with his granny and a crony from a drinking session. A passer-by remarked, "Oh, my! Isn't it terrible, ma'am, to see such a beautiful child deformed?" "How dare you," said his granny. "He's not deformed; he's just drunk!" Brendan left school at 13 to follow in his father's footsteps as a house painter working on lighthouses. During this period, he was employed by the Commissioners of Irish Lights, where one lighthouse keeper, recommending Brendan’s dismissal, described him as “the worst specimen” he had met in 30 years of service, adding that he showed "careless indifference" and "no respect for property". Thankfully for us, Brendan put the paintbrush aside and instead adopted the pen.</p>
<p>Brendan became a member of Fianna Éireann, the youth organisation of the Anti-Treaty IRA. He published his first poems and prose in the organization’s magazine, ‘Fianna: the Voice of Young Ireland’. In 1931 he also became the youngest contributor to be published in The Irish Press with his poem ‘Reply of Young Boy to Pro-English verses.’ At 16, he joined the IRA and embarked on an unauthorised solo mission to England to set off a bomb at the Liverpool docks. He was arrested by British law enforcement and found in possession of explosives. As he was only 16 at the time of his arrest, British prosecutors tried to convince him to testify against his IRA superiors and offered in return to relocate him under a new name to Canada or another faraway colony of the British Empire. Refusing to be turned, Brendan was sentenced to three years in a borstal (Hollesley Bay, once under the care of Cyril Joyce and did not return to Ireland until 1941. He wrote about the experience in the memoir ‘Borstal Boy.’ In 1942, during the wartime state of emergency declared by Irish Taoiseach Eamonn De Valera, Behan was arrested by the Garda Síochána and put on trial for conspiracy to murder and the attempted murder of two Garda Detectives, which the IRA had planned for during a Dublin commemoration ceremony for Theobald Wolfe Tone. He was found guilty and sentenced to 14 years in jail. He was first incarcerated in Mountjoy Prison in Dublin and then interned both with other IRA men and with Allied and German airmen at the Curragh Camp in County Kildare. He later related his experiences there in his memoir ‘Confessions of an Irish Rebel.’ Released under a general amnesty for IRA prisoners and internees in 1946, his active IRA career was largely over by the age of 23. Aside from a short prison sentence in 1947 for trying to break an imprisoned IRA man out of prison in Manchester, Brendan effectively left the organisation but remained friends with Cathal Goulding. Behan's prison experiences were central to his future writing career. In Mountjoy, he wrote his first play, ‘The Landlady’, and also began to write short stories and other prose. It was a literary magazine called Envoy (A Review of Literature and Art), founded by John Ryan, that first published Behan's short stories and his first poem. Some of his early work was also published in ‘The Bell,’ the leading Irish literary magazine of the time.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10084490475?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10084490475?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="250"/></a>He left Ireland and all its perceived social pressures to live in Paris in the early 1950s. There, he felt he could lose himself and release the artist within. Although he still drank heavily, he managed to earn a living, supposedly by writing pornography. He returned to Dublin and began to write seriously, and to be published in serious papers such as The Irish Times, for which he wrote In 1953, drawing on his extensive knowledge of criminal activity in Dublin and Paris, he wrote a serial, that was later published as ‘The Scarperer.’ Throughout the rest of his writing career, he would rise at seven in the morning and work until noon, when the pubs opened. He began to write for radio, and his play ‘The Leaving Party’ was broadcast. Literary Ireland in the 1950s was a place where people drank and Brendan cultivated a reputation as carouser-in-chief and swayed shoulder-to-shoulder with other literati of the day who used the pub McDaid's as their base: Flann O'Brien, Patrick Kavanagh, Patrick Swift, Anthony Cronin, John Jordan, J. P. Donleavy and artist Desmond MacNamara whose bust of Behan is on display at the National Writers Museum. Behan fell out with the obstreperous Kavanagh, who reportedly would visibly shudder at the mention of Behan's name and who referred to Brendan as "evil incarnate".</p>
<p> Behan's fortunes changed in 1954, with the appearance of his play ‘The Quare Fellow.’ Originally called ‘The Twisting of Another Rope’ and influenced by his time spent in jail, it chronicles the vicissitudes of prison life leading up to the execution of ‘The quare fellow’ a character who is never actually seen. The prison dialogue is vivid and laced with satire but reveals to the reader the human detritus that surrounds capital punishment. Produced in the Pike Theatre, in Dublin, the play ran for six months. In May 1956, ‘The Quare Fellow’ opened in the Theatre Royal Stratford East, in a production by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop. Subsequently, it transferred to the West End where Brendan generated immense publicity for ‘The Quare Fellow’ as a result of a drunken appearance on the Malcolm Muggeridge TV show. The English, relatively unaccustomed to public drunkenness in authors, took him to their hearts. A fellow guest on the show, Irish American actor Jackie Gleason, reportedly said about the incident: "It wasn't an act of God, but an act of Guinness!" Behan and Gleason went on to forge a friendship. Brendan loved the story of how, walking along the street in London shortly after this episode, a Cockney approached him and exclaimed that he understood every word he had said—drunk or not—but had not a clue what "that bugger Muggeridge was on about!" While addled, Brendan would clamber on stage and recite the play's signature song, ‘The Auld Triangle.’ The transfer of the play to Broadway provided Behan with international recognition. Rumours still abound that Littlewood contributed much of the text of ‘The Quare Fellow’ and led to the saying, "Dylan Thomas wrote ‘Under Milk Wood’, Brendan Behan wrote under Littlewood". Littlewood remained a supporter, visiting him in Dublin in 1960.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10084490875?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10084490875?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="250"/></a>In 1958, his Irish-language play ‘An Giall:The Hostage’ opened in the Damer Theatre, Dublin. Reminiscent of Frank O'Connor's ‘Guests of the Nation’, it portrays the detention in a teeming Dublin house in the late 1950s of a British conscript soldier, seized by the IRA as a hostage pending the scheduled execution in the North of Ireland of an imprisoned IRA volunteer. The hostage falls in love with an Irish convent girl, Teresa, working as a maid in the house. Their innocent world of love is incongruous among their surroundings since the house also serves as a brothel. In the end, the hostage dies accidentally during a bungled police raid, revealing the human cost of war, universal suffering. The subsequent English-language version ‘The Hostage’ (1958), reflecting Brendan's own translation from the Irish but also much influenced by Joan Littlewood during a troubled collaboration with him, is a bawdy, slapstick play that adds a number of flamboyantly gay characters and bears only a limited resemblance to the original version.</p>
<p> His autobiographical novel ‘Borstal Boy’ followed in 1958. In the vivid memoir of his time in St Andrews House, Hollesley Bay Colony Borstal, near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England. The site of St Andrews House is now a Category D men's prison and Young Offenders Institution. The language is both acerbic and delicate, the portrayal of inmates and "screws" cerebral. For a Republican, though, it is not a vitriolic attack on Britain; it delineates Brendan’s move away from violence. In one account, an inmate strives to entice him into chanting political slogans with him but Brendan curses and damns him in his mind, hoping that he would cease his rantings-hardly the sign of a troublesome prisoner. By the end, the idealistic boy rebel emerges as a realistic young man, who recognises the truth: violence, especially political violence, is futile. The 1950s literary critic Kenneth Tynan said: "If the English hoard words like misers, Behan sends them out on a spree, ribald, flushed, and spoiling for a fight." He was now established as one of the leading Irish writers of his generation. He revered the memory of Father William Doyle, a Dublin priest of the Society of Jesus, who served as military chaplain to the Royal Dublin Fusiliers as they fought in the trenches of the Western Front. Father Doyle was killed in action while running to the aid of wounded soldiers from his regiment during the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917. Brendan expressed his affection for Father Doyle's memory in the memoir ‘Borstal Boy.’ Alfred O'Rahilly's 1920 biography of the fallen chaplain was one of Brendan's favorite books.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10084492063?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10084492063?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="220"/></a>Brendan married horticultural illustrator for The Irish Times, Beatrice ffrench Salkeld, daughter of the painter Cecil ffrench Salkeld, in February 1955. Dublin wits nicknamed the family the French Behans. A daughter, Blanaid, was born in 1963, shortly before Brendan’s death. He had a one-night stand in 1961 with Valerie Danby-Smith, who was Ernest Hemingway's personal assistant and later married his son, Dr Gregory Hemingway. Nine months later, Valerie gave birth to a son she named Brendan and he died two years later, having never met his son. Brendan found fame difficult, he had long been a heavy drinker describing himself, on one occasion, as "a drinker with a writing problem" and claimed, "I only drink on two occasions—when I'm thirsty and when I'm not" and he developed diabetes in the early 1950s but was not diagnosed until 1956. As his fame grew, so too did his alcohol addiction. This combination resulted in a series of famously drunken public appearances, on both stage and television. His favourite drink was champagne and sherry. The public wanted the witty, iconoclastic, genial "broth of a boy", and he gave that to them in abundance, once exclaiming: "There's no bad publicity except an obituary." His health suffered, with diabetic comas and seizures occurring regularly. The public who once extended their arms now closed ranks against him; publicans flung him from their premises. His books, ‘Brendan Behan's Island’, ‘Brendan Behan's New York’ and ‘Confessions of an Irish Rebel’, published in 1962 and 1964, were dictated into a tape recorder because he was no longer able to write or type for long enough to be able to finish them.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10084496865?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10084496865?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="250"/></a>Brendan Behan died on 20 March 1964 after collapsing at the Harbour Lights bar (now Harkin's Harbour Bar) in Echlin Street, Dublin. He was transferred to the Meath Hospital in central Dublin, where he died, aged 41. At his funeral, he was given a full IRA guard of honour, which escorted his coffin. It was described by several newspapers as the biggest Irish funeral of all time after those of Michael Collins and Charles Stewart Parnell. Following his death, his widow had a son, Paudge Behan, with Cathal Goulding, Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army and the Official IRA.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Plays </p>
<p> The Quare Fellow (1954)</p>
<p> An Giall (The Hostage) (1958)</p>
<p> Behan wrote the play in Irish, and translated it to English.</p>
<p> Richard's Cork Leg (1972)</p>
<p> Moving Out (one-act play, commissioned for radio)</p>
<p> A Garden Party (one-act play, commissioned for radio)</p>
<p> The Big House (1957, one-act play, commissioned for radio)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Books </p>
<p> Borstal Boy (1958)</p>
<p> Brendan Behan's Island (1962)</p>
<p> Hold Your Hour and Have Another (1963)</p>
<p> Brendan Behan's New York (1964)</p>
<p> Confessions of an Irish Rebel (1965)</p>
<p> The Scarperer (1963)</p>
<p> After The Wake </p>
<p>Many thanks to Wikipedia for some of the info used in this article.</p>
<p>Images courtesy of Wikimedia. </p>
<p>© John A. Brennan 2022. All Rights Reserved.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
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The Pagan and The Saint
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-01-31:6442157:BlogPost:228604
2022-01-31T20:00:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84723180?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84723180?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a> <strong><span style="font-size: 14pt;">B</span>ack in the mists of time, long before the Milesians arrived from Egypt</strong>, and even longer before the Celtic tribes came and settled, another ancient tribe inhabited the island of Ireland. The ‘Tuatha De Dannan,’ translated as ‘people of the Goddess Danu,’ were a supernatural race who came to Ireland with the intention of…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84723180?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84723180?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"/></a><strong><span style="font-size: 14pt;">B</span>ack in the mists of time, long before the Milesians arrived from Egypt</strong>, and even longer before the Celtic tribes came and settled, another ancient tribe inhabited the island of Ireland. The ‘Tuatha De Dannan,’ translated as ‘people of the Goddess Danu,’ were a supernatural race who came to Ireland with the intention of removing the evil Fomorians, a race that already inhabited the island and who caused widespread destruction and mayhem. The ‘Tuatha’ were divided into three tribes: the tribe of ‘Tuatha,’ the nobility: the tribe of ‘De,’ the priests, and the tribe of ‘Danann,’ the bards, storytellers and minstrels. Their patriarch, the Dagda, associated with fertility, agriculture, magic, druidry and wisdom, had a daughter called Brigid. Like her father, Brigid was also associated with the spring season, fertility, healing, poetry and smith craft.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10060679871?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10060679871?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="220"/></a>A Feis (gathering) was originally convened by her father, the Dagda, to celebrate the day of Brigid’s birth, which coincided with the first day of spring. Known as ‘Imbolc,’ it was a time of feasting and celebration and has been observed annually since then, in her honor. Imbolc has traditionally been celebrated on 1 February but because the day was deemed to begin and end at sunset, the celebrations would start on 31 January. It has also been argued that the timing of the festival was originally more fluid and based on seasonal changes. It has been associated with the onset of the lambing season, which could vary by as much as two weeks before or after 1 February, and with the blooming of the revered blackthorn trees.</p>
<p>The Feis was a festival of the hearth and home, and a celebration of the lengthening days and the early signs of spring. Celebrations often involved hearth fires, special foods, divination and watching for omens. Torches and bonfires were lit as fire and purification were an important part of the festival. The lighting of torches and fires represented the return of warmth and the increasing power of the Sun over the coming months. Through time, Brigid came to be revered as the goddess of all things of high dimension, such as rising flames, highlands, hill-forts and upland areas, and of activities and states conceived as psychologically lofty and elevated, such as wisdom, excellence, perfection, high intelligence, poetic eloquence, craftsmanship, healing ability, druidic knowledge and skill in warfare.<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84723282?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84723282?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250"/></a></p>
<p>In 453 AD, a daughter was born at Faughart in County Louth, to Dubhthach, a pagan Chieftain of Leinster and one of his servants, a girl called Brocca. Brocca was a Pict and former slave who had been converted to a new religion sweeping the country, by a man called Patricius. The newborn, despite being born into slavery, from an early age exhibited signs of a kind and charitable nature. When Dubhthach's wife discovered Brocca was pregnant, she was sold to a Druid landowner. When she was about ten-years-old, Brigid, as she was named, returned to her father's home, as he was her legal master. According to one tale, as a child, she once gave away her mother's entire store of butter to hungry people in the area. Another story tells of how she gave some of her father’s belongings to many of the less fortunate, such was her caring nature.</p>
<p>Eventually, Dubhthach became tired of Bridget’s giving nature and took her to the king of Leinster, with the intention of selling her. As he spoke to the king, Brigid gave his jeweled sword to a beggar, so he could barter it for food for his family. When the king, who was a Christian, saw this, he recognized her kindness and convinced Dubhthach to grant her freedom by saying, "her merit before God is greater than ours." After being freed, Brigid returned to the Druid and her mother, who was in charge of the Druid's dairy. Brigid took over as dairy maid and often gave away milk, but the dairy prospered despite the charitable practice, and the Druid eventually freed Brocca. Brigid then returned to Dubhthach, who, in her absence, had arranged for her to marry a bard, but she refused and made a vow to always be chaste. Many stories of Brigid's purity followed her childhood and she was unable to keep from feeding the poor and healing them. Legend has it Brigid prayed that her beauty be taken so no one would want to marry her, and the prayer was granted. It was not until after she made her final vows that her beauty was restored.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84723321?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84723321?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="214"/></a> Little is known about Brigid's life after she entered the Church, but it is accepted that she founded a monastery in Kildare, called the ‘Church of the Oak.’ It was built above a pagan shrine to the Celtic goddess Brigid, which was sited beneath a large oak tree. Brigid and seven friends organized communal consecrated religious life for women in Ireland and she founded two monastic institutions, one for men and one for women. Brigid invited a hermit called Conleth to help her in Kildare as a spiritual pastor and to govern the church along with herself. She later founded a school of art that included metalwork and illumination, which Conleth led as well. It was at this school that the Book of Kildare, which the historian Gerald of Wales praised as "the work of angelic, and not human skill," was beautifully illuminated, but sadly, was lost three centuries ago.</p>
<p>The presence of the Brigid's cross in Ireland is far older than Christianity and dates to the time of the goddess Brigid. It was a three-armed, pagan symbol made from rushes and used to protect a home from fire. It was also hung above byre and stable doors as a protection for the animals. The Christian Brigid and her four-armed cross are linked together by a story about her weaving this form of cross at the death bed of a pagan chieftain from a neighborhood in Kildare. Christians in his household sent for Brigid to talk to him about Christ and when she arrived, the chieftain was in a state of incoherence and raving. As it was impossible to instruct the delirious man, hopes for his conversion seemed doubtful, but nevertheless, Brigid sat down at his bedside and began consoling him. As was customary, the dirt floor was strewn with rushes both for warmth and cleanliness and Brigid stooped down, gathered a handful and started to weave them into a cross, fastening the points together. The sick man asked what she was doing, and she began to explain the meaning of the cross. As she talked, his delirium quieted, and he questioned her with growing interest. Through her gentle persuasion and intricate weaving, he converted and was baptized at the point of death. Since then, the four-armed cross, made of rushes, has existed in Ireland.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84723327?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84723327?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250"/></a> Today, Brigid is associated with perpetual, sacred flames, such as the one maintained by 19 nuns at her sanctuary in Kildare, Ireland. The sacred flame at Kildare was said by Giraldus Cambrensis and other chroniclers, to have been surrounded by a hedge, which no man could cross. Men who attempted to cross the hedge were said to have been cursed to go insane, die or be crippled. Both the goddess and saint are also associated with holy wells, at Kildare and many other sites in the Celtic lands.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Customs associated with Brigid:</strong></span></p>
<p>On St. Brigids eve it was generally believed that the saint traveled around the countryside, bestowing blessings on the people and livestock. A common practice entailed the placing of a cake or pieces of bread and butter on the window-sill outside.</p>
<p>Often a sheaf of corn was placed beside the cake as a refreshment for the saint’s favourite cow who accompanied her.</p>
<p>Other households placed a bundle of straw or fresh rushes on the threshold on which the saint may kneel to bless the house or on which she could wipe her feet before entering.</p>
<p>Further traditions include that dishes of water, salt, pieces of meat or butter being left outdoors as an offering for the saint, after she had passed by these would have acquired medicinal properties and were used to ward off illness.</p>
<p>Another custom is to leave a cloth or scarf outside to be blessed by the saint as she passes. Known as a 'Bratog Bride' in Irish folklore, this special garment can then be used as a cure for headaches or sore throats.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10060679883?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10060679883?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="220"/></a>There is evidence that Brigid was a good friend of Saint Patrick's and that the ‘Trias Thaumaturga,’a hagiography of the Irish saints claimed, "between St. Patrick and Brigid, the pillars of the Irish people, there was so great a friendship of charity that they had but one heart and one mind. Through him and through her Christ performed many great works." Brigid helped many people in her lifetime, and on February 1, 525 AD, she passed away of natural causes. Her body was initially kept to the right of the high altar of Kildare Cathedral, in a tomb "adorned with gems, precious stones and crowns of gold and silver." In 878 AD, during the Viking raids, her relics were moved to the tomb of Patrick and Columcille for safety.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10060680263?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10060680263?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="220"/></a>Another site with which both Brigid the Saint and Brigit the Goddess are associated, is at the Hill of Uisneach. According to tradition, St Brigid received the veil there at the sacred and mythical centre of Ireland, with some texts saying that it was St Patrick who bestowed it upon her. There are a number of holy wells and churches in the area that are associated with St Brigid. Located at the western base of the Hill of Uisneach lies the peaceful tranquility of St Brigid’s Well, an ancient site that may have been a place of ritual long before the coming of Christianity to Ireland. Even today one can visit the well and see this beautiful space is celebrated by all.</p>
<p>Today, all three lie at rest together in the graveyard of Saul Church near Downpatrick Cathedral in Co. Down, the site of the first church built by Patrick in Ireland.</p>
<p>Many thanks to Wikipedia for some of the info used in this article.</p>
<p>Photos courtesy of Pinterest.</p>
<p>© John A. Brennan 2022. All Rights Reserved.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
<p><a href="https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blog/list?user=3pjaj8hc8rq9a">https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blog/list?user=3pjaj8hc8rq9a</a></p>
'The Night Owls'
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-01-28:6442157:BlogPost:298501
2022-01-28T18:00:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10053378695?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10053378695?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><strong>Photos courtesy of Independent.ie</strong></span></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">E</span>ighty-three years ago, on this date, January 28, 1939,</strong> one of the foremost voices in Irish Literature, William Butler Yeats, drew his last breath at the Hôtel Idéal Séjour, in Menton on the French…</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10053378695?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10053378695?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="750"/></a></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><strong>Photos courtesy of Independent.ie</strong></span></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">E</span>ighty-three years ago, on this date, January 28, 1939,</strong> one of the foremost voices in Irish Literature, William Butler Yeats, drew his last breath at the Hôtel Idéal Séjour, in Menton on the French Riviera.</p>
<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">I remember being taught and later reciting the poetry of William Butler Yeats in school in Crossmaglen, County Armagh, a lifetime ago. I owe those teachers much more than I could ever express. This is for them and William.</div>
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<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">We still love and miss you. Thanks for the joy and inspiration.</div>
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<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>The Night Owls</em></div>
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<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10053392470?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10053392470?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="100"/></a></div>
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<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>I went down to the cool, dark woods,</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>when night owls were on the wing.</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>On earthly ghosts and raging floods</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>embraced my lonely pondering.</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>Moss clung fast to an olden tree,</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>near bank of river flowing slow</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>Salmon leap I smiled to see,</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>in silence, with a young moons' glow.</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10053392864?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10053392864?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="100"/></a></em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>Fawn eyes bright, shone out at me,</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>from in the depths, and to and fro.</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>She licked my hand, while nestling free,</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>her tale to tell of the long ago</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>She told to me, through cool night air</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>that time and space are here and now.</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>Spoke to me of a maid so fair,</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>with haunted look on her pale brow.</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10053393701?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10053393701?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="150"/></a></em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>An apple blossom in her hair,</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>she haunts the woods in search of him.</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>To heal her heart and her love fair,</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>and cease the lonely wanderin’.</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>All at once near a white oak tree,</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>a girl in shimmering bright light,</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>came out and gently called to me.</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><em>Then both did meld, into the night.</em></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">In an ironic twist, as all great Irish stories must have, the son of Yeat's lifetime rival-in-love Major John McBride accompanied the coffin on its final journey. Sean McBride, son of Yeat's great love Maud Gonne, in his capacity as minister for external affairs, represented the Irish government.</div>
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<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10053395496?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10053395496?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="150"/></a></div>
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<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Finally, in another ironic twist, it has been suggested that it is NOT Yeats who is buried in Sligo after all. There is contentious debate surrounding this claim.</div>
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<div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">© John A. Brennan 2022. All Rights Reserved.<span><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl gpro0wi8 py34i1dx" href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan?fbclid=IwAR35hcOsBFJLqUJKdeWi6dipxOAPOw-tSRZGof2juYXxvk3I9gLZOeEX-Rg" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a></span></div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><span><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl gpro0wi8 py34i1dx" href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan?fbclid=IwAR35hcOsBFJLqUJKdeWi6dipxOAPOw-tSRZGof2juYXxvk3I9gLZOeEX-Rg" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></span></div>
</div>
Press Release for 'Turn Out The Light'
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-01-27:6442157:BlogPost:218512
2022-01-27T00:30:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84721210?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84721210?profile=original" width="313"></img></a> <strong>Pleased to see my book "Turn Out the Light' was chosen as a finalist in the Eric Hoffer 2018 Book Awards.</strong></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-5"><span style="font-size: 13px;">"</span>I</span>f music be the food of love, play on,</strong></p>
<p>give me excess of it that surfeiting, the</p>
<p>appetite may sicken, and so die.”</p>
<p> …</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84721210?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84721210?profile=original" width="313"/></a><strong>Pleased to see my book "Turn Out the Light' was chosen as a finalist in the Eric Hoffer 2018 Book Awards.</strong></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-5"><span style="font-size: 13px;">"</span>I</span>f music be the food of love, play on,</strong></p>
<p>give me excess of it that surfeiting, the</p>
<p>appetite may sicken, and so die.”</p>
<p> -- William Shakespeare</p>
<p>“One good thing about music, when it hits, you feel no pain.”</p>
<p> -- Bob Marley</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10049096689?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10049096689?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="225"/></a> “Music, the ‘art of the muses,’ with its magical combinations of a handful of singular notes, can exalt, enthrall, inspire, thrill and exhilarate the senses. It can soothe the savage beast, console the dispirited and gladden a weary heart.” -- John A. Brennan</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84721225?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84721225?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200"/></a>In his latest book titled “Turn out the Light,” Irish Author and Poet John Anthony Brennan takes us on a nostalgic magic carpet ride that begins in Ireland with ‘Radio Caroline’ and the pirate ships afloat on the North Sea, all the way to the heady heights of the birth of the ‘rock-n-roll’ revolution in ‘swinging’ London, just as the world was about to change forever. </p>
<p>“Turn out the Light” is a selection of tributes to the musicians who died while still young, many of whom the author met briefly, during the seminal days of the late sixties-early seventies in London. In “Turn out the Light,” Brennan, whose “Don’t Die with Regrets” was chosen as best memoir in the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, pays homage to the music and the musicians who healed his mind and saved his soul, with his unique combination of free-verse narrative and poetic musings. </p>
<p><span class="cr-widget-FocalReviews"><span class="a-size-base review-text"><span>John A. Brennan opens this excellent book of poetry, "Turn Out The Light," with an introduction sharing his personal joy and investment in the book's subject matter: music. He does the reader an enormous favor in that regard on page five with the heading Back Then. As a result, what stunning prose is delivered for the reader from pages five through seven. His beautiful, scintillating writing abounds: makes word-magic for what will eventually captivate us: the book's charming, well conceived poems.Brennan has chosen to write about the blues and rock and roll world of the Rolling Stones, Beatles, The Doors, Robert LeroyJohnson; and its iconic legion of genius practitioners Hendrix, Morrison, Joplin, Lennon, Alan (blind owl) Wilson, et cetera. Before each poem, there's a tribute to the artist, and then a poem of reverence, accomplishment, and deeds.<br/></span></span></span><span class="cr-widget-FocalReviews"><span class="a-size-base review-text"><span><br/> This book solidifies each artist's place in musical history through form and memory.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span class="cr-widget-FocalReviews"><span class="a-size-base review-text"><span>A great read.</span></span></span></p>
<p>Turn out the Light” is for sale at:<font face="Calibri"> </font></p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan"><font face="Calibri">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</font></a></p>
The Scribes
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-01-24:6442157:BlogPost:112881
2022-01-24T19:00:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706804?profile=original" target="_self"><strong><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706804?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="700"></img></strong></a> <strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706748?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706748?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300"></img></a> <span style="font-size: 18pt;">I</span>n A.D. 406 during a particularly harsh winter,</strong> the river Rhine froze over. Across this temporary land bridge poured hordes of Germanic tribes led by the charismatic Aleric, King of the…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706804?profile=original" target="_self"><strong><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706804?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="700"/></strong></a><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706748?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84706748?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300"/></a><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I</span>n A.D. 406 during a particularly harsh winter,</strong> the river Rhine froze over. Across this temporary land bridge poured hordes of Germanic tribes led by the charismatic Aleric, King of the Visigoths. This singular event precipitated the fall of the Roman Empire. The <i>dark ages</i> had begun with a vengeance. With the fall, Europe descended into chaos and darkness. All scholarship ceased, books were burned and learned men were rounded up, imprisoned and executed. The blackboard was being erased.</p>
<p>Ireland being an insular island escaped all of this mayhem and actually blossomed intellectually during this period due in large part to the foresight, dedication and tenacity of a handful of scholar monks. Those brave men travelled far and wide across the then, known world, and collected as much of the written history that had not already been destroyed. They brought the written words back to Ireland and passed them on to their brothers, the scribes.</p>
<p>I can, if I close my eyes and it is very still, conjure up the vision of a monk alone in his cold, stone cell, isolated in a dark monastery, the silence shrouding him as he pored over those ancient scrolls by candlelight, his eyes bright with wonder. Then, word for word, reveal, translate and write down with a quill he fashioned from a reed, or perhaps a goose feather and ink that he himself mixed. In the deep silence you would hear the scratch of the nib as he wrote on the stiff parchment. For him, at that time, it must have been a sacred and painstaking task. It amazes me when I think of the time, patience and dedication those men had in order to ensure that future generations would come to know and marvel at their revelations.</p>
<p>For the most part, they were of good cheer and never lost their sense of humor. If you look closely at any of their works, you will notice, in the margins, their scribbled jokes, usually at the expense of a fellow scribe. I have often wondered where those monks got their knowledge of the Greek, Hebrew and Latin languages and the ability to translate them, this being an era when all formal education had been eradicated. I have pondered this riddle for the longest time and an odd idea kept crossing my mind.</p>
<p>What if that singular man from Galilee really was who he claimed to be? What if everything that has been said about him is true? Could he really have instilled in his disciples the supernatural ability to speak and understand all tongues, then send them forth to teach whomever they encountered? If so, for me that would explain those monks ability and their tireless drive. In the final analysis, to all of them we owe a huge debt. The most fitting way to repay their sacrifice is for us to follow their example and just keep on writing.</p>
<p>© John A. Brennan 2014. All Rights Reserved.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
<p></p>
'The Journey: A Nomad Reflects'
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-01-21:6442157:BlogPost:202534
2022-01-21T23:30:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718893?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718893?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="700"></img></a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Irish Author John A. Brennan's “The Journey: A Nomad Reflects”</strong><br></br> <strong>Escribe Publishing</strong><br></br> <strong>New York</strong></p>
<p><em>From ancient Ireland to the majesty of the Egyptian pyramids, author and poet John A. Brennan tells his life's journey in a series of melodic rhapsodies. He is a quintessential traveler,…</em></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718893?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718893?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="700"/></a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Irish Author John A. Brennan's “The Journey: A Nomad Reflects”</strong><br/> <strong>Escribe Publishing</strong><br/> <strong>New York</strong></p>
<p><em>From ancient Ireland to the majesty of the Egyptian pyramids, author and poet John A. Brennan tells his life's journey in a series of melodic rhapsodies. He is a quintessential traveler, philosopher and composer of rhythmic narrative. Through his poetry, the reader gets to accompany John on an amazing journey through time as he pays homage to the likes of Caesar, Yeats, Patrick Pearse, and Bobby Sands. John is the winner of the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Award for his book "Don't Die with Regrets, Lessons My Father Taught Me."</em></p>
<p><strong>New York, N.Y., Oct. 22, 2015 (News-Wire) </strong></p>
<p><em>The Journey represents Brennan’s second book, and like last year’s “Don’t Die with Regrets” which was chosen as best memoir in the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, reflects a spiritual sojourn that begins with homage to the author’s Irish roots. However, while ancient Ireland sets the stage for Brennan’s combination of narrative and poetic wanderings, such ancient and mystical locales as the Boyne Valley, Chaco Canyon, Rameses Temple, Nubia and the Mayan ruins also become part of the reader’s itinerary. </em><span class="font-size-3"><strong><br/> <br/></strong></span> <strong>About the Author</strong><span class="font-size-3"><strong><br/></strong></span></p>
<p>John Anthony Brennan is a native of Crossmaglen, a small town in County Armagh, Ireland. He left his beloved, sacred green isle many moons ago to see the world and has been island hopping ever since. He once lived on another island called Manhattan, which he calls the largest open-air lunatic asylum on the planet. He finally escaped to the sanctuary of the Long Island just in time to save his sanity, or so he thought. He was trained as a master carpenter but soon after arriving in New York, he changed career and studied to become a building manager. He managed a residential property on prestigious Park Avenue for many years and another multi family dwelling in Garden City, Long Island. The urge to travel and explore the cultures and sacred places of the ancient peoples has always been his driving force. Starting in 1993, he was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do just that. He spent seven years traveling and absorbed the energies he believes emanates from all sacred sites. From Newgrange in the Boyne Valley in Ireland, Stonehenge in England, the Mayan and Aztec temples scattered throughout South America and the colossal pyramids in Egypt. John has visited them all, and is convinced that a common thread connects us in ways we did not think possible. John incorporates his experiences in his works and some of his writing expresses a spiritual dimension.</p>
<p>Delighted and Honored to have my second book recognized.</p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84719048?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84719048?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="550"/></a></strong></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>© John A. Brennan 2016. All Rights Reserved.</strong></span><br/> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a><br/> <a href="https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blog/list?user=3pjaj8hc8rq9a">https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blog/list?user=3pjaj8hc8rq9a</a></p>
Agnes Mary Clerke: From Skibbereen to the Moon
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-01-20:6442157:BlogPost:172001
2022-01-20T06:00:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84715053?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84715053?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-5">T</span>he next time you look up at the full moon</strong> <strong>to make your wish</strong>, direct your gaze toward the southeast portion and locate the area known as the <i>Mare Serenitatis</i> (Sea of Serenity). There you will observe the valley where Apollo 17, the last in a series of lunar missions, landed Dec. 10, 1972. Nearby,…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84715053?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84715053?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"/></a></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-5">T</span>he next time you look up at the full moon</strong> <strong>to make your wish</strong>, direct your gaze toward the southeast portion and locate the area known as the <i>Mare Serenitatis</i> (Sea of Serenity). There you will observe the valley where Apollo 17, the last in a series of lunar missions, landed Dec. 10, 1972. Nearby, and slightly to the west of the Apollo landing zone, you will notice a small circular, cup-shaped crater, on the eastern edge of <i>Mare Serenitatis</i>. This is called the <i>Clerke</i> crater and was dedicated to the memory of a great Irishwoman, a singular woman born ahead of her time, a woman who received a strong education at home in modern languages, music and the classics, a woman who was largely self-taught in mathematics and science. A woman who dreamed and then made those dreams manifest.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84715057?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84715057?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="253" height="153"/></a>Forever curious and hungry for knowledge, this woman turned her gaze skywards, and in so doing chronicled the turbulent leading edge of astronomical research. Her authoritative accounts and assessments of solar and stellar science captured the attention of the leading astronomers of her day and are essential sources for historians today.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84715016?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84715016?profile=original" width="210" height="224"/></a>Agnes Mary Clerke (10 February 1842–20 January 1907) was an astronomer and writer, mainly in the field of astronomy. She was born in Skibbereen, County Cork, Ireland, to John William Clerke (c. 1814–1890) and his wife Catherine Mary Deasy (born c. 1819). Her father was a judge's registrar.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Mary_Clerke#cite_note-9"></a> She had two siblings; her older sister, Ellen, was born February 10, 1842 and her younger brother, Aubrey St. John, was born in 1843.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Mary_Clerke#cite_note-Routledge:_New_York_and_London-10"></a> All of the Clerke children were entirely home- schooled. <u><sup><br/></sup></u></p>
<p>At the age of 25, partly for health reasons, she and her elder sister Ellen, went to Italy where she stayed until 1877, chiefly at Florence, studying science, languages, and other subjects that would be useful in their later lives. In 1877 she returned and settled in London where she was able to get two articles, <i>Brigandage in Sicily</i> and <i>Copernicus in Italy,</i> written while she had been in Italy, published in the Edinburgh Review edition of October 1877. This led to her being asked by the publishers of the <i>Review</i>, who also published the <i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>, to write biographies of a number of famous scientists for the ninth edition of the encyclopedia.This work let to a number of other commissions, including the publication of the article on astronomy for the <i>Catholic Encyclopedia</i>.</p>
<p>In 1885, she published her best-known work ‘A Popular History of Astronomy during the Nineteenth Century’ which has received recognition beyond the time it was written. Clerke was not a practical astronomer, instead collating, interpreting and summarizing the results of astronomical research. In 1888 she spent three months at the Cape Observatory as the guest of the director, Sir David Gill, and his wife, and there became sufficiently familiar with spectroscopic work to be able to write about this newer branch of the science with increased clearness and confidence. In 1892 she was awarded the Actonian Prize of 100 guineas by the Royal Institution. As a member of the British Astronomical Association she attended its meetings regularly, as well as those of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1903, with Lady Huggins, she was elected an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society, a rank previously held only by two other women, Caroline Herschel and Mary Somerville. Her sister, Ellen Mary Clerke, also wrote about astronomy.<br/> In 2002, the retired astronomy lecturer Mary Brück wrote a book on her, ‘Agnes Mary Clerke and the Rise of Astrophysics’. Agnes Mary Clerke died on 20 January 1907.</p>
<p>During her career she wrote reviews of many books, including some written in French, German, Greek, or Italian. This at a time when women were not permitted to be at the forefront. </p>
<p>Read more here:</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Agnes_Mary_Clerke&oldid=680733207">https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Agnes_Mary_Clerke&oldid=680733207</a></p>
<p>Books for Sale:</p>
<p><font size="3" face="Calibri">Don’t Die with Regrets: Ireland and the Lessons My Father Taught Me</font></p>
<p><span><a title="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0615975860" href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0615975860"><span>http://www.amazon.com/dp/0615975860</span></a></span></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Calibri">The Journey: A Nomad Reflects</font></p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692500944/ref=rdr_ext_tmb"><font size="3" face="Calibri" color="#0563C1">https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692500944/ref=rdr_ext_tmb</font></a></p>
The Headcutter's Stone
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-01-13:6442157:BlogPost:258964
2022-01-13T20:00:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8127866455?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8127866455?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="750"></img></a> <em>In an old peat bog at Ummericam, sits the cruel headcutter's stone,</em></p>
<p><em>stained with the blood and fused with the ghosts, of men who are now long gone.</em></p>
<p><em>In the gorse and the furze their cries could be heard, when Johnston was out on the roam</em></p>
<p><em>their fates soon sealed with the headhunters wield, and where red still…</em></p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8127866455?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8127866455?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="750"/></a><em>In an old peat bog at Ummericam, sits the cruel headcutter's stone,</em></p>
<p><em>stained with the blood and fused with the ghosts, of men who are now long gone.</em></p>
<p><em>In the gorse and the furze their cries could be heard, when Johnston was out on the roam</em></p>
<p><em>their fates soon sealed with the headhunters wield, and where red still stains the loam. </em></p>
<p><em>The shadows and echoes permeate the land, where O'Hanlon's ghost holds sway</em></p>
<p><em>in old Aughanduff behind the school, at the foot of the steep Pike's brae.</em></p>
<p><em>From the feared black bank the land was controlled, with no escape for innocent men,</em></p>
<p><em>where the brutish Keenan did his work, on the road, in the fields and the glen.</em></p>
<p></p>
<p><em>Fleet horse hooves spark the road, from Armagh to Dundalk town</em></p>
<p><em>When MacMurphy ran with his band of men, and fooled both a king and his crown</em></p>
<p><em>From Silverbridge to the Beardies brae, and on down into Forkhill fair,</em></p>
<p><em>to Mullaghbawn round the crooked lake, and the Flagstaffs clean, fresh air. </em></p>
<p><em>From Newtown down the cursed black road, all the way to McDackers’ den</em></p>
<p><em>The poets ran for Gullions’ slopes when chased by Johnstons’ men.</em></p>
<p><em>From Dunreavey woods and Cashel lake, to Carnally and Ravensdale,</em></p>
<p><em>to Dorsey and its ramparts, along the road to old Creggan vale.<br/> <br/></em></p>
<p><em>In the old churchyard beneath the trees, the prince and the poet both sleep,</em></p>
<p><em>the headhunter’s bones lie cold in the ground, his cursed mortal soul to keep.</em></p>
<p><em>But late at night they rise from the grave, with the sound of the clock’s loud chime,</em></p>
<p><em>once hunted in life and forever in death, they still ride on the cold winds of time. </em></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I</span>n 1740 a rumor swept across the countryside of the troubled area</strong> in South Armagh known as the "Fews." The area, once held as the bastion of the ruling O'Neil dynasty, the Lords of the Fews, was under increasing pressure from the English crown who desired full control and from the rapidly increasing influx of English and Scottish settlers. The rumor, whispered in shebeens, farmsteads and cottages, soon spread like wildfire throughout the entire countryside. Word had come that the Catholic pretender to the English, Scottish and ultimately, the Irish thrones had assembled a large Jacobite army and was planning another rebellion against the English crown forces. Charles Edward Stewart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) was widely supported by many highland clans, both Catholic and Protestant and had a large following in Ireland, particularly in South Armagh. Charles hoped for a warm welcome from these supporters and for his plans to begin an insurgency throughout the British Isles. He raised his father's flag at Glenfinnan and gathered a force large enough to begin marching on the city of Edinburgh. If his rebellion was successful it would have far-reaching, positive repercussions for the downtrodden people that occupied South Armagh.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8127789084?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8127789084?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="275"/></a>During the late 1600s and early 1700s, the area in south Armagh called the ‘Fews’ acted as a refuge and hideout for anyone deemed to be ‘enemies of the state.’ Catholic clergy were despised and hunted down relentlessly as the Penal Laws began to take effect. During those dark, frightful days two types of large, flat rocks were utilized. One type, usually taken from the rubble of a demolished church, was used as a makeshift altar as a mass rock where Catholics gathered in secret to pray and the other type was used for the barbaric act of beheading an individual.</p>
<p>In 1701 a regiment of English foot-soldiers had their headquarters at the Black Bank Barracks which was sited 4 miles north of the town of Newtownhamilton, approximately halfway between the towns of Dundalk and Armagh on the main thoroughfare. After a violent year, culminating with a series of killings which included the English Captain Groves and ten of his men, the new barracks was planned and built by Sir William Robinson in around 1695. It's primary purpose was to guard and make safe the 20 miles of what was then referred to as the 'Black road.' In 1710 an individual new to the area named John Johnston, was sworn in as Constable of the Fews and by the time he finished his years of tenure, South Armagh, and in particular, the outlaw poet MacMurphy and his band of rapparees, would forever remember and curse his name. Johnston, known locally as 'The Scourge of the Fews', was born in Scotland in 1684, the son of John Johnston and Sarah Graham. He had a deep hatred of Catholics especially those who supported the Jacobite cause, which he believed was treasonous and from the outset he pursued them with a vengeance. He was carefully chosen for the task at hand because of his ruthless streak and the fact that he spoke Gaelic fluently and therefore could properly interrogate the locals.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8127795098?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8127795098?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="275"/></a>Johnston wasted no time and began his campaign by ordering his Sergeant Wilde and six men, out into the countryside with instructions to destroy the houses, burn the possessions and whip the locals who supported the 'popish pretender.' In Dundalk he had two men beheaded, put their heads on pikes and displayed them on the gates of the jail as a warning to the populace. His fee for that barbarous act was 20 pounds, a huge sum of money at the time and head cutting became a lucrative business for Johnston who pursued it with relish. Johnston was hostile to the Catholics and their religion but he had no love for Englishmen either. When Lord John Kerr's Regiment of Dragoons set up their garrison at the Black Bank Barracks in 1724, Johnston wrote to Dublin Castle: "Thank the Lord at last I have Scottish soldiers instead of those damned English swine, to guard the Fews." Johnston, though a member of the established Protestant Church, was partial to the Presbyterians because of their Scots origins and he encouraged the local landlords to take presbyterian settlers from Down and Antrim onto their estates around Creggan in 1734-5. He evicted the Catholic tenants to make room for the newcomers which resulted in a bitter, bloody feud between the native Irish and the planters, and not long after a new presbyterian meeting house was built, it was burned down.</p>
<p>Johnston soon turned his attention to MacMurphy and his followers and his relentless pursuit of them became an obsession. He targeted Peadar O'Doirnin's school at Kilcurry, razed it to the ground, burned every book and drove O'Doirnin into the hills where he joined up with MacMurphy's men. Johnston described O'Doirnin as "a person ill-disposed to the King, a favourite of the Pretender, who stirs up the people to rebel by his treasonable compositions," a reference to O'Doirnin's poetry. This wanton act of destruction propelled MacMurphy and O'Doirnin into action and in 1744, they organized a meeting on the top of Slieve Gullion and invited all the Catholic clergy, the prominent and more wealthy Catholics, and particularly the poets. It appears that soon after the meeting ended the fuse was lit and an air of open rebellion ensued. When news of the meeting reached Johnston he became incensed and re-doubled his efforts to bring MacMurphy and his 'rapparees' to justice, dead or alive. Bounties were set on their heads and of anyone who ran with them and anyone offering aid and shelter.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8127797876?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8127797876?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="275"/></a><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8127798666?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8127798666?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="200"/></a>Johnston, Constable of the Fews from 1710 onwards, had his headquarters at the ‘Black Bank Barracks’ at Roxborough, not far from the border of the townland of Aughanduff, and within easy view of it. Just beyond the boundary of the townland, in an old peat bog in an area called Umerican, lies Pulkowen or Pikegowen, a well-known rock outcrop that sits behind old Aughanduff School on Pike's Brae. In Gaelic ‘Iomaire Cam’ means, ‘the crooked ridge’ and has the unique distinction of being the only townland in Ireland with that name.</p>
<p>The outcrop is believed to have been used as a "heading stone" by the Johnston's and their agents in the 1700s and is considered by some to be haunted. Collecting records of the county in the 1930s, local historian T.G.F. Patterson recorded the following with respect to that stone:</p>
<p> "In the old days when the Johnston’s were at Roxborough, this was one of their beheading-stones. And the bloodstains are upon it till this very day, and it's few people would pass it at night because of the ghosts that still linger there. Five pounds a head they had for all that went till Dublin. And the head of many a decent man went up instead of a Tory, and Keenan was worse than the Johnstons.”</p>
<p>Several deeds in the Dublin Registry record the townland being passed between various Ascendancy figures. The earliest of these remaining is that between Abraham and Florina Ball of Darver Castle, County Louth and John Vaughan of Dublin of 11 May 1716. A number of these deeds survive and detail changes in interests in the district between then and its being purchased by its last landlords, the MacGeoughs, in 1803. In 1771, the area's last symbolic ties with O’Hanlon overlordship were severed when Aughanduff, in addition to eleven other townlands, were split from the Parish of Loughgilly (location of Castle O’Hanlon) and united into the newly formed parish of Forkhill.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8127799854?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8127799854?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="275"/></a>Cormac Keenan was employed as ‘headsman’ for Johnston of the Fews and hunted Priests, Raparees and anyone else suspected of being a supporter of the Jacobite cause. This fervor for the bounty set on each head collected led to both guilty and innocent being butchered. It’s told that he chopped off the head of many a man that was innocent, solely for the money. Keenan was despised more than his employer Johnston which attests to his utter cruelty as Johnston of The Fews was detested and feared by all. Keenan lived in the townland of Tullyvallen but like all men he was only a mortal and had to die like others. It is said that as he lay on his deathbed a drop of blood began to drip from the ceiling down on to his bed. Every time the position of the bed was changed the blood followed and continued to drip until he died.’ The people of Tullyvallen can still identify the execution rock used by Cormac Keenan.</p>
<p>© John A. Brennan 2020. All Rights Reserved.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
<p><a href="https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blog/list?user=3pjaj8hc8rq9a">https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blog/list?user=3pjaj8hc8rq9a</a></p>
The Link Between Ned Kelly and South Armagh
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-01-10:6442157:BlogPost:298069
2022-01-10T01:30:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9994614091?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9994614091?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="750"></img></a> <strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">O</span>n this day January 7, 1841, John "Red" Kelly</strong>, the father of the infamous Australian outlaw Ned Kelly, was sentenced to seven years transportation for stealing two pigs in an effort to feed his starving family. The judge handed down the harsh sentence at the Cashel quarter sessions in County Tipperary. He…</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9994614091?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9994614091?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="750"/></a><strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">O</span>n this day January 7, 1841, John "Red" Kelly</strong>, the father of the infamous Australian outlaw Ned Kelly, was sentenced to seven years transportation for stealing two pigs in an effort to feed his starving family. The judge handed down the harsh sentence at the Cashel quarter sessions in County Tipperary. He was held prisoner there and was eventually taken to Dublin on the 31st of July.<a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9994616093?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9994616093?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="250"/></a></p>
<p>There he was placed on board the transport ship named the ‘Prince Regent,’ which sailed for Hobart, Australia, on the 7th of August with 180 prisoners arriving at Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land (now the state of Tasmania, Australia) on 2 January 1842. Red Kelly was born in 1820 at Clonbrogan, near Moyglas, County Tipperary, Ireland. His son Ned went on to become one of the greatest thorns in the side of the English crown and was hunted relentlessly.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9994616678?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9994616678?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="250"/></a>Ned was hanged on November 11, 1880, in Old Melbourne Gaol. In the condemned cell, the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church were administered to him by Father Thomas Donaghy, the Dean of Melbourne. Father Donaghy was born in Lisleitrim, not far from Cullyhanna, South Armagh.</p>
<p>Pictured is Ned Kelly, c. 1880.</p>
<p>Many thanks again to Michael McShane and Creggan Historical Society.</p>
<p>Thanks to Paddy Crilly for the inspiration.</p>
<p>Read the full story by clicking the link below.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjQierjsqX1AhX_lYkEHRiLC_wQFnoECAUQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FNed_Kelly&usg=AOvVaw3-hVlUaXvFrpx2d5Gm4dS9">https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjQierjsqX1AhX_lYkEHRiLC_wQFnoECAUQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FNed_Kelly&usg=AOvVaw3-hVlUaXvFrpx2d5Gm4dS9</a></p>
<p>© John A. Brennan 2022. All Rights Reserved.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
<p><a href="https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blog/list?user=3pjaj8hc8rq9a">https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blog/list?user=3pjaj8hc8rq9a</a></p>
A Brief History of Poetry in Ireland
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-01-07:6442157:BlogPost:199497
2022-01-07T19:30:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718141?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718141?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a> <span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql lr9zc1uh a8c37x1j fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v b1v8xokw oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto">I<strong>f as an Irishman/Irishwoman you've ever wondered where you got your love of the spoken word, your love of storytelling, your love of long winded conversation, the following…</strong></span></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718141?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718141?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"/></a><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql lr9zc1uh a8c37x1j fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v b1v8xokw oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto">I<strong>f as an Irishman/Irishwoman you've ever wondered where you got your love of the spoken word, your love of storytelling, your love of long winded conversation, the following article should help to explain.</strong></span></p>
<p><em>And there are among them composers of verses whom they call Bards; these singing to instruments similar to a lyre, applaud some, while they vituperate others.</em> -- <b>Diodorus Siculus, 8 BCE</b></p>
<p><span style="color: #333333;"><strong><span class="font-size-5">A</span>ll poets have the uncanny ability to tap into the realm of spirit</strong>. It is a gift that enables us to transcend the mundane, and experience the world as we see and feel it, and know how it should be. We have the ability to turn what to most people, are chaotic thoughts and feelings, into beautiful and meaningful works of art. We are blessed with the grace that enables us to never stray far from our original nature, despite having to live and survive in the material world. We poets pass on what we have learned through our words, which are the manifestation of our collective knowledge. It is a shamanistic quality which we possess. If we believe as I do that we are gifted and if we further believe that a gift only works when we give it away willingly, then it is our duty to pass it on. All cultures revere their poets, none more so than my own, the Irish. We call them Seanacchie (shan-a-key) meaning the storytellers, the bards and the minstrels.</span></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718149?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718149?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200"/></a></p>
<p>It is widely accepted that both the oral tradition of storytelling, and the early written works of ancient Ireland are among the most original and earliest forms of communication in Europe. Poetry in Ireland has survived the ravages of time for two main reasons. Firstly, Ireland sits in the Atlantic Ocean, on the westernmost edge of Europe and thus insulated from much of the happenings elsewhere on the continent. From the end of the last ice-age until the 4th century it enjoyed relative peace and solitude. It remained unscathed even when the violent legions of the Roman empire swept across the world conquering towns and villages and imposing Roman law.</p>
<p>Secondly, prior to the 4th century, writing had not yet been developed in Ireland and all important information such as history and lore was memorized and passed down orally through the generations by master storytellers, and from father to son. Even after literacy took hold in the 4th century, and much was written down by scribes and monks in the monasteries, the old tradition was kept alive and is still used today. The thinking at that time may have been that if you put your words on paper you run the risk of them being lost or destroyed. This did actually happen when the Saxons raided Ireland in 686 AD and again when Viking marauders struck in 798 AD. </p>
<p>The first mention of the storytelling tradition in Ireland, is found in the one of the old annals called the ‘Book of Invasions.’ The tradition begins with the <i>Tuatha De Dannan</i>, a race of people who inhabited Ireland well before the beginning of western civilization, and has been handed down ever since through each successive generation. The name <i>Tuatha De Dannan</i> means “people of the goddess Danu.” They were a supernatural race who came to Ireland with the intention of removing the evil <i>Fomorians,</i> a race that already inhabited the island and who caused destruction and mayhem. The <i>Tuatha</i> were divided into three tribes, the tribe of <i>Tuatha</i> who were the nobility, the tribe of <i>De</i>, the priests and the tribe of <i>Danann</i>, the <i>bards</i> and storytellers.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718261?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718261?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200"/></a></p>
<p>In medieval Ireland, there was a distinct hierarchy in the poetic tradition. Two groups of Poets existed, the <em>Ollamh</em> and the <em>Bard,</em> and each group took their respective places side by side, in the recounting of all important Irish affairs. A poet in Irish society was revered, held a privileged position and was granted special rights regarding property and immunity from many legal issues.</p>
<p></p>
<p><b>The Filid</b> </p>
<p>The name <em>Filid</em> comes from the same root as the Welsh word meaning “to see.” It is believed that originally they were all powerful, holding high office as magicians, lawgivers, judges, advisors to the kings, composers and poets. Later, after a fundamental change occurred, the <i>Brehons</i> took over the position of lawmakers, and all other legal matters. Another group, the <i>Druids</i> took over as priests and handled all supernatural matters. <i>Filid</i> then became the master poets and philosophers, being mostly concerned with language, and court poetry. They held a very prestigious social position in Celtic Ireland and worked side by side with and in support of the <i>Druids</i> as they carried out their duties.</p>
<p>There were seven grades of <i>Filid</i>, the most important being the <em>Ollam</em> (pronounced olav) and the lowest position taken by the <em>Bard</em>. An <em>Ollam</em> had to devote as many as twelve years of his life to studying and learning and by the end of his apprenticeship he would have memorized more than three hundred different meters, at least two hundred main stories and about one hundred lesser stories. The apprenticeship employed the use of sensory deprivation and the novice would spend long periods of time alone in a dark cell with nothing but his own mind for company. It was believed that in this way only, could the higher realm be accessed, the place where all inspiration emanates. When his learning period was complete, the <em>Filid</em> was then allowed to wear the coveted ’cloak of crimson bird feathers' and carry a wand of office. The most widely used form of poem used by the <em>Filid</em> was known as the <em>Deibide</em>, which means “cut in half,” and was a quatrain made up of two couplets joined by rhyming one stressed syllable and one syllable not stressed.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718227?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718227?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200"/></a></p>
<p>The <em>Filid</em> were made up of a large, aristocratic class and as professional poets, could and did command payment. Some charged large fees for their services and made good use of what was known as the ‘Poet’s curse’ to ensure their continued power and of course, employment. It was firmly believed that a well composed verse could ruin a person’s reputation and cause harm and even hasten the death of an individual. Of course as with all matters pertaining to the human condition, some <em>Filid</em> overstepped the boundaries and were taken to task for their infractions. In the latter half of the 6th century the ‘Synod of Drumceta’ was convened. During the Synod, many of the <em>Filid</em> were indeed accused of abusing their power and influence with the nobility in efforts to further their own aims.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718339?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718339?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="230"/></a></p>
<p>Fortunately, one of their major defenders at the Synod was Colmcille (St. Columba) the 6th century Irish scholar monk. Colmcille was the dominant figure in early Christian Ireland, active in all affairs, was a revered scholar and a force to be reckoned with. Even though a <em>Filid</em> could be penalized for abusing his position, belief in the “Poet’s Curse” was so widespread and powerful, few were rarely punished, and their legacy has survived right up to modern times. Another asset in their arsenal was the fact that they were closely aligned with monasteries, which were the seats of learning, and with Colmcille’s blessing, they survived the inquisition and prospered. </p>
<p><em>Filid</em> held a very responsible position in Ireland and among their many official duties they were obligated to teach the residents of their respective area in all aspects of literature, folklore and the history of the country. These small schools would later become the <em>Bardic</em> colleges. By the 12th century <em>Filid</em> were writing nature poetry and poems of a personal nature, in praise of their benefactors more human attributes rather than their skills in battle and heroic deeds. By the 13th century the schism between the <em>Filid</em> and the <em>Bard</em> was complete and the <em>Bard</em> became the sole, recognized poet of the land.</p>
<p>Read more Here: <font color="#006D21">https://</font><strong><a href="http://www.britannica.com"><font color="#006D21">www.britannica.com</font></a></strong><font color="#006D21">/art/</font><strong><font color="#006D21">fili</font></strong><font color="#006D21">-ancient-Gaelic-poets</font><a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=filid&FORM=EDGEND#"></a></p>
<p><b>The Ollam</b></p>
<p>The term <em>Ollam</em> was a title given to the highest ranking member of the <em>Filid</em>, and set him apart from the others, signifying a “person of great learning.” It is a term also used to refer to the highest member of any group, so for example, an <em>Ollam brithem</em> would be the highest rank of judge and an <em>Ollam Rí</em> would be the highest rank of king. Typically, a 'Chief <em>Ollam</em> of Poetry’ was considered equal to the king and could therefore wear the six colors worn by the nobility. He sat at the King’s table and even ate from the same dishes as the king denoting his stature and importance. One of the most famous <em>Ollams</em> was a poet named Ollav Fala, the eighteenth descendant of Érimón who lived around 1000 BC.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718346?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718346?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200"/></a>An <em>Ollam Ri</em> ('most high') was the chief poet of literature and history. Each province had its own <em>Ollam Ri</em> and would be employed by the local chieftain or noble. The <em>Ollam Ri</em> would be in charge of all other Ollams in his province. He had his own ‘great house’ and could have as many as thirty <em>Ollams</em> under his charge. In our modern society, the title, <em>Ollam Ri</em> is equivalent to a combination of today’s Minister of Education and Culture and Poet Laureate. His father, and probably his grandfather too, would have held the same position, making it a hereditary post, handed down. Prior to the 6th century, the <em>Ollam Ri</em> was appointed by the king but after that date elections were held in which the other <em>Ollams</em> of the province voted him into office. </p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Ollam_of_Ireland">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Ollam_of_Ireland</a></p>
<p><b>The Bard</b></p>
<p>The <em>Bard</em> was a professional poet and musician, trained in the ‘<em>Bardic</em> Schools of Ireland’ and was employed by a king, chieftain or nobleman. His role was to compose poems and songs to glorify the virtues of his employer and family. As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed a number of official roles. <em>Bards</em> were considered lesser than the <em>Filid</em> but were renowned performers and entertainers, and were also revered as teachers. Both <em>Bards</em> and <em>Filids</em> used meter and rhyme as a way of memorizing their words. The <em>Bard</em> memorized and preserved the history and traditions of their clan and country, as well as the technical requirements of the various poetic forms, such as syllabic, assonance, half rhyme and alliteration. Both <em>Filid</em> and <em>Bard</em> would also be required to study, understand and be fully versed with the <em>Ogham</em> tree-alphabet when it arrived later on In Ireland. </p>
<p>The <em>Bard</em> would be familiar with the history of the royal family, his own clan members and the country and would compose eulogies. They were chroniclers and satirists whose job it was to praise their employers and curse anyone who dared to anger them. It was believed that a well-aimed poem, could cause blisters to break out on the face of its target, so sharp and direct were the words. It has been recorded that Bards had the power to settle arguments and even intervene in violent confrontations, and using their words, defuse the situation.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718286?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718286?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="230"/></a>It has been speculated that the differences between <em>Filid</em> and Bards may have originated when Christianity gained a foothold in the 5th century. One theory, widely believed, is that the <em>Filid</em> were more in line with the new church and composed many prayers and hymns. Although <em>Bards</em> were seen as somewhat lesser than the <em>Filid</em>, their influence has endured as modern Ireland continues the age old tradition of storytelling.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bard">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bard</a></p>
<p>Below is an example of a poem written by a <em>Bard</em> and translated from the Gaelic by the scholar Osborn Bergin.</p>
<p> </p>
<p></p>
<p>Consolations</p>
<p>Flled with sharp dart-like pens</p>
<p>Limber tipped and firm, newly trimmed</p>
<p>Paper cushioned under my hand</p>
<p>Percolating upon the smooth slope</p>
<p>The leaf a fine and uniform script</p>
<p>A book of verse in ennobling Goidelic.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I learnt the roots of each tale, branch</p>
<p>Of valor and the fair knowledge,</p>
<p>That I may recite in learned lays</p>
<p>Of clear kindred stock and each person's</p>
<p>Family tree, exploits of wonder</p>
<p>Travel and musical branch</p>
<p>Soft voiced, sweet and slumberous</p>
<p>A lullaby to the heart.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Grant me the gladsome gyre, loud</p>
<p>Brilliant, passionate and polished</p>
<p>Rushing in swift frenzy, like a blue edged</p>
<p>Bright, sharp-pointed spear</p>
<p>In a sheath tightly corded;</p>
<p>The cause itself worthy to contain.</p>
<p>Anonymous</p>
<p><b>The Limerick</b></p>
<p>Croom, County Limerick is a small 4th century village located on the banks of the River Maigue. Although now having a tidal flow only to the town of Adare, in ancient times the river had a tidal flow past Croom, making it a convenient route for the Viking ships sailing inland from the River Shannon, during the 9th and 10th centuries. Contacts made along the Maigue River between those marauders and the clan O’Donovan provides us with details of the alliance between the two groups, in the late 10th century.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718244?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718244?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="230"/></a>An important school of poetry was born in Croom in the early 18th century, and the poets who met there wrote and recited their works in Gaelic. A new form of verse was also founded in Croom by two notable bards who grew up together and were lifelong friends. This new form became known as the Limerick, named after the County of Limerick.</p>
<p>The two founders of the Limerick, were Maigue Poets Sean O’ Tuama and his friend Andrias MacRaith. Both men grew up and were educated together near the small town of Kilmallock, Co. Limerick. A large part of their education came from local Hedgemasters.</p>
<p><b>Aindrias MacCraith 1710-1795</b></p>
<p>Born near Croom, County Limerick, MacCraith was a poet and wandering minstrel known as ‘The Wandering Peddler’. He was one of the leading poets of the Maigue school. Like many of these Gaelic poets, they supported the Jacobean cause and, like so many others, got into trouble with the authorities and were forced to leave the neighborhood. One of MacCraith’s most famous works was the eulogy he composed in honor of his fellow poet Seán Ó Tuama. Aindrias MacCraith is buried in County Limerick.</p>
<p><b>Seán Ó Tuama c. 1706-1775</b></p>
<p>Born near Kilmallock, County Limerick, O'Tuama was a school teacher and a leading member of the Poets of the Maigue. He also ran an inn that became a well-known meeting place for the local poets. The inn is opposite the church where he is buried. His best known poem is ‘A Chuisle na hÉigse’. After the two men had a falling out (probably over a woman), they began castigating each other in rhyme.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croom,_County_Limerick">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croom,_County_Limerick</a></p>
<p>Below are believed to be the first Limericks ever written and predate Edward Lear by almost one hundred years. O’ Tuama is buried in Croom, Co. Limerick.</p>
<p>O’Tuama wrote: </p>
<p>“I sell the best Brandy and Sherry</p>
<p>to make all my customers merry.</p>
<p>But at times their finances</p>
<p>run short as it chances.</p>
<p>And then I feel sad, very very.”</p>
<p></p>
<p>MacCraith replied: </p>
<p> “O’Tuama, you boast yourself handy,</p>
<p>at selling good ale and bright Brandy,</p>
<p>But the fact is your liquor</p>
<p>makes everyone sicker</p>
<p>I tell you this I, your good friend Andy.”</p>
<p><b>Ogham</b><b> </b></p>
<p><em>Ogham</em> is a Medieval alphabet which was used to write on trees and stone and was an early Irish language widely used <br/> until about the 9th century. One possible origin of the word <em>ogham</em> is from the Irish <em>og-úaim</em> 'point-seam', referring to the seam made by the point of a sharp weapon as it carved on wood and stone. According to many of the ancient manuscripts, <em>Ogham</em> was first invented soon after the fall of the Tower of Babel, along with the Gaelic language, by the legendary Scythian king, Fenius Farsa. The story goes that Fenius journeyed from Scythia together with Goídel mac Ethéoir, and a following of seventy-two scholars.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718247?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718247?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="230"/></a>They came to the dusty plain of Shinar to study the babbling languages spoken at Nimrod's tower, which was also known as the Tower of Babel. Finding that the languages had already been distributed, Fenius sent his scholars far and wide, to study them. Fenius stayed behind at the tower, and awaited their eventual return. After ten years had elapsed, the investigations were complete, and Fenius created "the chosen language", by taking the best of each of the confusing tongues, putting them together and creating a new form which he called 'Goídelc.' He also created <em>Ogham</em> as a perfected writing system for his languages. The names he gave to the letters of his alphabet were those of his 25 best scholars.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718402?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718402?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="230"/></a>Another story tells of the ‘<em>Ogham</em> Tract’ and credits an individual named Ogma with the script's invention. Ogma was skilled in speech and poetry, and is said to have created the system for those who had some literacy. The first message reputedly written in <em>Ogham</em> were seven letter ‘b's’ carved on a birch tree. It was a warning to a local chieftain, deciphered as meaning: "your wife will be carried away seven times to the otherworld unless the birch protects her".</p>
<p>For this reason, the letter ‘b’ is said to be named after the birch tree. Even after it ceased to be used as an everyday alphabet for writing, <em>Ogham</em> continued to be used as the basis for teaching grammar and the rules and metrics of poetry in the Gaelic language. The medieval book, ‘The Scholar's Primer’ set out the basics for writing poetry in the Irish language for the trainee Bard or Filid, and used Ogham as a guide. The <em>ogham</em> alphabet was felt to be peculiarly suited to the needs of the Irish language.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogham">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogham</a></p>
<p>Below is a poem written in the 8th century by a monk about his cat.</p>
<p>Gaelic:</p>
<p>Messe ocus Pangur Bán,</p>
<p>cechtar nathar fri saindán:</p>
<p>bíth a menma-sam fri seilgg,</p>
<p>mu menma céin im saincheirdd</p>
<p>English:</p>
<p>Myself and White Pangur,</p>
<p>each of us two at his own art:</p>
<p>his mind on hunting,</p>
<p>mine on my reading.</p>
<p><b>The Decline</b><b> </b></p>
<p>Christianity came to Ireland in the 5th century and almost immediately set out to convert the whole island. One side effect of this conversion was the strain it put on the coffers of the Chiefs and Noblemen. As more and more monasteries and later churches, sprung up and the new religion took a firm hold, the nobility were expected to provide land and titles for the church leaders. In the 6th century, already stretched to the limit with the ever increasing costs of frequent inter-tribal conflicts, a far reaching decision was made to cut the number of <em>Filid</em> employed by many of the clans, in an effort to curb expenditure. Not a popular decision among the wordsmiths I am sure, but sadly, at the time it was deemed a necessity. </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718406?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718406?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="230"/></a>From the 12th century onwards Celtic culture suffered a rapid decline as a direct result of the invasion by the Normans. The new invaders were fully literate and preferred the written word as opposed to the oral tradition. This so called high society lasted right up to the time of the reign of Elizabeth 1. Eventually, the new form of literature replaced the old familiar style used for centuries by the ancient <em>Filid</em> and <em>Bards</em>. In spite of all of this upheaval, the old system lasted until the middle of the 17th century, but rapidly declined during the time of the Tudor re-conquest.</p>
<p>After their defeat at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, and the end of the Nine Years' War in Ulster in 1603, Hugh O’Neill, the Earl of Tyrone and Rory O’Donnell, the Earl of Tyrconnell together with many other noblemen were forced into exile by the English government who now ruled Ireland, under the leadership of Lord Mountjoy. The land had been laid to waste due to the violent destruction and a countrywide famine devastated the population. For many, the end of the world had finally arrived.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718387?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718387?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="320"/></a>On September 14, 1607 the Earls and their many followers left Ireland for Spain. Their plan was to enlist a new army in France and Spain and return to Ireland to oust the English settlers who had taken their titles and lands. Unfortunately, O’Neil and O’Donnell both died in exile and the planned return to Ireland and subsequent rebellion, never took place. This singular event was the death knell for the age old tradition of the <em>Filid</em> and their centuries old connection with the Irish nobility.</p>
<p><b>Art McCooey: The Last Ollam.</b></p>
<p> “In Creggan graveyard I slept last night in despair.</p>
<p>With the rising of the morning a woman came to me with a kiss.</p>
<p>Bright burning were her cheeks and her hair shone like gold.</p>
<p>It would be medicine to the world to behold that young Queen. “</p>
<p>Those words are from the poem “Creggan Graveyard” written by Ollam Art McCooey, the last one of the five Gaelic poets of the province of south east Ulster. He was also known as “Art of the Songs” and was the chief <em>Ollam</em> attached to the royal household of the O’Neill clan, the rulers of a barony in south Armagh called “The Fews.”</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718394?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718394?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="235"/></a>Art McCooey was born sometime in the early 1700’s, in a townland close to my hometown of Crossmaglen. The area known today as Mounthill, sits near to the old church at Creggan, and what remains of a castle at Glassdrummond, both built by Henry Og O’Neill, the Lord of the Fews.</p>
<p>He died on January 7, 1773 and is buried in Creggan graveyard, close to the O’Neill family vault.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creggan,_County_Armagh">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creggan,_County_Armagh</a></p>
<p>Creggan Graveyard</p>
<p>In Creggan graveyard I slept last night in despair</p>
<p>With the rising of the morning a woman came to me with a kiss</p>
<p>Bright burning were her cheeks and her hair shone like gold</p>
<p>It would be medicine to the world to behold that young queen</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Good generous man, be not consumed in clouds of sorrow</p>
<p>But rise up now and come with me, westward on the road</p>
<p>To a good land of honey, yet untouched by the stranger</p>
<p>There will be pleasant melody in our halls when you play your music"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>'Righteous queen, are you Helen from Troy</p>
<p>Or one of the nine women of Parnassus, taking on this form</p>
<p>What land of the world has raised you, queen without peers?</p>
<p>With your wish for the likes of me to conspire with, out on the road?'</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Do not ask me why I sleep on this side of the Boyne</p>
<p>I am a child of the sidhe, brought up beside Grainne the young</p>
<p>In the true fort of the Ollams, I openly strike up the music</p>
<p>In the night I am at Tara, in the morning in the middle of Tyrone"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>'And it is My sharp-cutting fervor to be wanted by the Gaels of Tyrone</p>
<p>And the joyless scions of The Beeches, deteriorating in their inheritance</p>
<p>That the clean-colored heirs of Neil Frasaigh would not forsake song</p>
<p>And give clothing at Christmas to the Ollams who are loyal to them'</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Since the plowing of the tribes in Eachroim and—alas! -- beneath the Boyne</p>
<p>The signs are that the powers will bring pressure to every druid, without battle</p>
<p>Would you not rather be in the fairy rath, with me by your side every day</p>
<p>Than have the archers of Clan Volley pierce your heart through and through?"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>'I would not forsake you for all the gold in the world</p>
<p>But it would be cowardly to leave my friends yet in this land</p>
<p>I’ve a wife, her that I wooed when she was young</p>
<p>If I abandon her and go with you will she not be in sorrow?'</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I think that you have no friends left among your living kin</p>
<p>You are bare, without possessions poor, barren, aimless, without goods</p>
<p>Wouldn’t you rather be off with a hot blooded maiden</p>
<p>Than in this land where there is mocking under every tuft of grass for your songs?"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>'O, righteous queen, you have persuaded me with your treasures</p>
<p>Let us go as you promise me in the morning on the road</p>
<p>If I die below the Shannon, In Mannannan’s land, or in Great Egypt</p>
<p>In fragrant Creggan Graveyard lay me in the clay below the sod'</p>
<p><b>*This poem is a conversation between the poet and a goddess or woman of the otherworld. She convinces him to forsake the tribe that did not take care of him.</b></p>
<p><b>*Note</b></p>
<p><b>The old tradition however, was not obliterated completely thanks to the birth of Hedge Schools in the 17th century. Today, modern Ireland continues the age old tradition with the worldwide popularity of a plethora of celebrated Irish poets, musicians and playwrights. (JAB)</b></p>
<p><b>Hedge Schools</b></p>
<p>In 1603 James VI of Scotland ascended to both the English and Irish thrones. He became known as James I of Ireland and immediately a series of repressive new laws were enacted. These new laws became known as the Penal Laws. From 1607, Catholics were barred from holding public office or serving in the Irish Army. All Catholic churches were brought under the control of the Anglican church, which was considered to be the true church. Catholic priests were tolerated for a short period, but bishops were forced to operate in secret. Later, more repressive laws outlawed the Priests as well and the dreaded <i>Priest Hunters</i> scoured the land in search of the hidden Priests, who now had a bounty on their heads.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718478?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718478?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200"/></a>Schools were not permitted to teach the Irish language or history and were strictly controlled. The new monarch’s aim was to eradicate Catholicism in one generation. Out of all of this mayhem the Hedge Schools were born, purely in retaliation to the harsh Penal Laws. The first of those laws stipulated that “no person of the popish religion shall publicly or in private houses teach school, or instruct youth in learning within this realm..."</p>
<p>The English government did set up Charter schools but the Catholic population refused to use them as they were seen as an attempt to Anglicize the children. Those who could afford the Hedgemaster's fees sent their children to Hedge Schools where Brehons, <em>Bards</em>, storytellers and musicians secretly taught Irish history, tradition, poetry, and told tales of their ancestors. Mathematics, geography, world history along with all other subjects taught in the state sponsored schools, were taught in the Hedge Schools too.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718430?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84718430?profile=RESIZE_180x180" width="170"/></a></p>
<p>In the beginning, both adults and children would meet secretly in old dilapidated buildings, behind old walls or in ditches along the roadside. Some lessons were actually taught in the hedgerows, giving rise to the name Hedge School. Other schools met in old barns and outhouses. In this way, despite the efforts of the English government to wipe the slate clean of all things Irish, we as a people survived. In the final analysis, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to those brave <i>Hedgemasters,</i> who, at great risk to their own lives, kept the culture alive.</p>
<p>Read more Here:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.irish-society.org/.../groups-organizations/">www.irish-society.org/.../groups-organizations/</a><strong>the-hedge-schools</strong></p>
<p></p>
<p><b>List of major Irish Poetry Forms </b></p>
<p><b>Ae Freslighe</b>: (ay fresh lee)</p>
<p>Each stanza is a quatrain of seven syllables. Lines one and three rhyme with a triple (three syllable) rhyme and two and four use a double (two syllable) rhyme. As was stated earlier. the poem should end with the first syllable word or the complete line that it began with.</p>
<p><b>Casbairdne:</b> (koss buyer dne)</p>
<p>Each stanza is a quatrain of seven syllables. Lines two and four rhyme and lines one and three consonate with them. There are at least two cross-rhymes in each couplet. In the first couplet, this isn't necessarily exact. The final syllable of line four alliterates with the preceding stressed word.</p>
<p><b>Deibhidhe</b>: (jay vee)</p>
<p>Each stanza is a quatrain of seven syllables. Light rhyming in couplets. Alliteration between two words in each line, the final word of line four alliterating with the preceding stressed word. There are at least two cross-rhymes between three and four.</p>
<p><b>Droighneach</b>: (dra eye nach) </p>
<p>A loose stanza form. Each line can have from nine to thirteen syllables, and it always ends in a tri-syllabic word. There is rhyming between lines one and three, two and four, etc. Stanzas can have any number of quatrains. There are at least two cross-rhymes in each couplet and alliteration in each line; usually the final word of the line alliterates with the preceding stressed word, and this is always true of the last line.</p>
<p><b>Rannaicheacht Bheag</b>: (ron a yach viog)</p>
<p>Similar to Rannaicheacht Mhor except lines one and three have eight syllables and two and four have six syllables.</p>
<p><b>Rannaicheacht Ghairid</b>: (ron a yach char rid)</p>
<p>A quatrain stanza with uneven lines. The first line has three syllables, the other three have seven. The stanza rhymes aaba, with a cross-rhyme between three and four.</p>
<p><b>Rannaicheacht Mhor</b>: (ron -a yach voor)</p>
<p>A quatrain stanza of heptasyllabic lines consonating abab. There are at least two cross-rhymes in each couplet and the final word of line three rhymes with a word in the interior of line four. In the second couplet, the rhymes must be exact, but the first couplet need only consonate.</p>
<p><b>Rionnaird Tri-Nard</b>: (run ard tree nard) </p>
<p>A quatrain stanza of hexasyllabic lines with disyllabic endings. Lines two and four rhyme, and three consonates with them. There are two cross rhymes in the second couplet, none in the first. There is alliteration in each line, and the last syllable of line one alliterates with the first accented word of line two. There are two cross-rhymes in the second couplet.</p>
<p><b>Séadna:</b> (shay nah)</p>
<p>A quatrain stanza of alternating octosyllabic lines with disyllabic endings and heptasyllabic lines with monosyllabic endings. Lines two and four rhyme, line three rhymes with the stressed word preceding the final word of line four. There are two cross-rhymes in the second couplet. There is alliteration in each line, the final word of line four alliterating with the preceding stressed word. The final syllable of line one alliterates with the first stressed word of line two.</p>
<p><b>Sneadhbhairdne:</b> (sna vuy erd ne)</p>
<p>A quatrain stanza of alternating eight syllable lines and four syllable lines with two syllable endings. Lines two and four rhyme, line three consonates with both. All words in the final line must rhyme, the final word of line four alliterating with the preceding stressed word.</p>
<p><b>List of Poetry forms courtesy of Terry Clitheroe's 'The Poet's Garret.'</b></p>
<p><a href="http://www.thepoetsgarret.com/celtic1.html">www.thepoetsgarret.com/celtic1.html</a></p>
<p><b>List of Names of Irish Poets:</b></p>
<p><b>Pre-history era Poets</b></p>
<p>Amergin Glúingel</p>
<p>Lugh Lámhfhada</p>
<p>Adna mac Uthidir, 1st century A.D.</p>
<p>Early Medieval Poets</p>
<p>Torna Éices, c. 400</p>
<p>Dubhthach moccu Lughair, c. 432</p>
<p>Dallán Forgaill, died 598</p>
<p>Senchán Torpéist, Chief Ollam from 598 A.D. to 647</p>
<p>Máel Muire Othain, died 887</p>
<p>Flann mac Lonáin, 896</p>
<p>Torpaid mac Taicthech, died 913</p>
<p>Óengus mac Óengusa, died 930</p>
<p>Bard Boinne, died 931</p>
<p>Uallach ingen Muinecháin, died 934</p>
<p>Cormacan Eigeas, died 946</p>
<p>Cinaedh Ua hArtagain, died 975</p>
<p>Eochaidh Ua Floinn, died 984 </p>
<p>Urard Mac Coise, died 990</p>
<p><b>High Medieval Era Poets</b></p>
<p>Clothna mac Aenghusa, died 1008</p>
<p>Muircheartach mac Cu Ceartach Mac Liag, died 1015</p>
<p>Cúán úa Lothcháin, died 1024</p>
<p>Cú Mara Mac Liac, died 1030</p>
<p>Mac Beathaidh mac Ainmire, died 1041</p>
<p>Ceaunfaeladh ua Cuill, died 1048</p>
<p>Flaithem Mac Mael Gaimrid, died 1058</p>
<p>Cellach húa Rúanada, died 1079</p>
<p>Mael Isa ua Máilgiric, died 1088</p>
<p>Cú Collchaille Ua Baígilláin, died 1119</p>
<p>Cú Connacht Ua Dálaigh, died 1139</p>
<p>Gillamaire Ua Conallta, died 1166</p>
<p>Tadhg Ua Dálaigh, died 1181</p>
<p>Máel Íosa Ua Dálaigh, died 1185</p>
<p><b>Late Medieval Era Poets</b></p>
<p>Giolla Ernain Ó Martain, died 1218</p>
<p>Gofraidh Fionn Ó Dálaigh, died 1387</p>
<p>Cearbhall mac Lochlainn Ó Dálaigh, died 1405</p>
<p>Sean mac Fergail Óic Ó hUiccinn, died 1490</p>
<p>Paidin Ó Maol Chonaire, died 1506</p>
<p>Seán mac Torna Ó Maol Chonaire, mid-16th century.</p>
<p>Art McCooey, Ollam to the O’Neills, died 1733</p>
<p>From: "Out of the Ice: Ireland Then and Now."</p>
<p>© John A. Brennan 2015. All Rights Reserved.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
Slaughter in the Murder Triangle.
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-01-04:6442157:BlogPost:227695
2022-01-04T00:30:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84722296?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84722296?profile=original" width="615"></img></a></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em><strong>On this day forty-six years ago, on January 4th. 1976, one of the more depraved acts of senseless and bloody savagery was directed against two innocent civilian families in an area known locally as the ‘murder triangle,’ in Counties Armagh and Down.</strong></em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">M</span>uch has been…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84722296?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84722296?profile=original" width="615"/></a></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em><strong>On this day forty-six years ago, on January 4th. 1976, one of the more depraved acts of senseless and bloody savagery was directed against two innocent civilian families in an area known locally as the ‘murder triangle,’ in Counties Armagh and Down.</strong></em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt;">M</span>uch has been written about the period of upheaval and violence that occurred in the province of Ulster in the north of Ireland in the 30 years between 1968 and 1998. Unless you were there and lived through the madness, it's likely that you have trouble actually understanding the effects of that terrible period in Irish history. What started as a peaceful civil rights march in 1968 soon escalated into full blown war that brought violence, bloodshed and death to every corner of the province. Following the 1969 'Battle of the Bogside' in Derry City and the violent pogroms in Beflast, Catholic families were forced to flee their burning homes and cross the border into the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Defence Forces had set up refugee camps in the Republic and at one point the Gormanston refugee camp held 6,000 refugees from the North of Ireland.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/7933871071?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/7933871071?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="275"/></a>The two year period between November 1974 and January 1976 was a particularly dark and frightening time especially around South Armagh and the immediate vicinity. I still remember vividly the fear and shock being felt around the area at that time when McArdles Bar in Crossmaglen was bombed in Nov. 74, leaving one dead and several seriously injured and there was a real threat that the gang of killers responsible for the attack would come back at will and repeat the killings. The attack on the Miami Showband, which killed three members of the band and left several seriously injured near the town of Newry, Co. Down on 31 July 1975 sent further shockwaves throughout the province. Kay's Bar in Dundalk, just over the border from Crossmaglen, was car bombed in Dec. 75. leaving two dead and 20 seriously injured. Also in Dec. 75 there was a bomb and gun attack on Donnelly's Bar and shop at Silverbridge, just outside Crossmaglen leaving three dead and three seriously injured. The killing quickly escalated to new heights of depravity when the Reavey and O'Dowd families were slaughtered at Whitecross, Co. Armagh and Gilford, Co. Down in Jan. 76 which prompted a deadly response the following day. This period of madness continued with the equally brutal attack on a work van in which 10 protestant workers were shot and killed at Kingsmill, near the village of Bessbrook in Co. Armagh. <span>Armagh. Responsibility was claimed by a group calling itself the "South Armagh Republican Action Force."</span></p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/7933882486?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/7933882486?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="275"/></a>In February 1975, the Provisional IRA and British Government entered into a truce and restarted negotiations. For the duration of the truce, the IRA agreed to halt its attacks on the British security forces, and the security forces mostly ended their raids and searches. However, there were dissenters on both sides. Some Provisionals wanted no part of the truce, while some British commanders resented being told to stop their operations against the IRA just when they claimed they had the Provisionals on the run. The security forces used the ‘down time’ to covertly boost their intelligence gathering offensive during the truce.</p>
<p>There was a sharp rise in sectarian killings during the truce, which 'officially' lasted until February 1976. Loyalists, fearing they were about to be forsaken by the British government and forced into a united Ireland, increased their attacks on Irish Catholics/Irish nationalists. Loyalists killed 120 Catholics in 1975, the vast majority civilians. They hoped to force the IRA to retaliate and thus end the truce. Some IRA units concentrated on tackling the loyalists. The fall-off of regular operations had caused unruliness within the IRA and some members, with or without permission from higher up, engaged in tit-for-tat killings. Most of the loyalist attacks in the County Armagh area have been linked to the "Glenanne gang" a secret alliance of loyalist militants, British soldiers, and rogue RUC police officers.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Murder in Whitecross. Co. Armagh.</strong></span></p>
<p>“My brother found the lads dead, he didn't speak for a year afterwards.”<br/> Eugene Reavey.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/7933874088?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/7933874088?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="275"/></a>Forty-six years ago, on a bleak night in January 1976, several members of a secret alliance comprised of British soldiers from the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), police officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), and members of the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) embarked on a senseless, brutal and bloody rampage directed against two innocent civilian families in an area known locally as the ‘murder triangle,’ in south Armagh.</p>
<p>The first to feel the wrath of the notorious ‘Glenanne Gang’ on that fateful night was the Reavey family, who lived in a small cottage near the village of Whitecross, Co. Armagh. Three of the eight brothers were at home on that quiet Sunday night watching television when three masked gunmen calmly entered through the unlocked front door and opened fire. John Martin (24) did not stand a chance and died in a hail of bullets where he was sitting. Brian (22) ran into another room, but fell into the fireplace, fatally shot in the back. Anthony (17) managed to reach a bedroom and hide under a bed. The gunmen riddled the mattress, then left, believing he too was dead. But although seriously wounded, he managed to crawl 200 yards to a neighbor's house to raise the alarm. Three weeks later, he died from his injuries.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3801836900?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3801836900?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="250"/></a>Neighbors of the Reaveys claimed there had been two Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) checkpoints set up, one at either end of the road, around the time of the attack. These checkpoints could have stopped passers-by seeing what was happening. The RUC denied having patrols in the area at the time, but said there could have been checkpoints manned by the British Army's Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR).</p>
<p>"It could have been worse," says Eugene Reavey. "Our entire family could have been wiped out. Normally on a Sunday, the 12 of us would have been home, but that night my mother took everybody, except John Martin, Brian and Anthony, out to visit my aunt. There were eight boys in our house and we grew up so close, sharing the one bedroom. It was my brother Oliver who arrived home first to find the lads dead. He was so overwhelmed by what he saw that he didn't speak for a year."</p>
<p>Forty-two years on, the cottage has been demolished. Yet every detail of that awful night remains etched on Eugene's mind. His eyes shine with pride as he speaks of his brothers. Young Anthony with his unruly mop of red hair who wrote poetry and was full of mischief. Brian, the carpenter and talented Gaelic football player, the good-looking one who was the best of craic. And John Martin, the bricklayer, the reliable one who could always be depended upon to drive his mother wherever she wanted, regardless of the hour.</p>
<p>"My mother missed those boys every minute of every day until she died," Eugene says. "She would run after young fellows with red hair on the street, thinking they could be Anthony. She'd look in the shops for a jumper that would suit John or a shirt for Brian. She still set the table at night for them. Three extra places - we could never talk her out of it."<br/> Eugene is haunted too: "I see my brothers in other people. I'll be at a Gaelic football game and I'll notice a player who reminds me of Brian - the way he catches a ball or shows a burst of speed."</p>
<p>Ten minutes after the attack on the Reaveys, other members of the same ‘Glenanne Gang’ burst into the O'Dowd home, 15 miles up the road in Gilford, Co Down. The family were gathered around the piano for a post-New Year sing-song. Four children were in the room. The gunmen killed Barry O'Dowd (24) his brother Declan (19) and their uncle Joe (61).</p>
<p>"A few days after the shooting, a Protestant publican in Markethill told daddy the names of the killers," Eugene says. "He kept those names to himself until he was on his death bed in 1981, and then he told me. In turn, I kept the names secret because I didn't want anybody taking the law into their own hands. Then, in 2006, I told the Historical Enquiries Team (HET)." The HET was the first State body to show any interest in the triple murder.</p>
<p>Eugene says: "In the three decades until then, nobody crossed our door. The police file on the killings was only a page-and-a-half long."</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3801838760?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3801838760?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="250"/></a>Human rights group the Pat Finucane Centre (PFC), along with the families of those killed, have stated their belief that the killings were part of "a security-force-inspired 'dirty war' aimed at terrorizing the Catholic/Nationalist community into isolating the IRA" and were "intended to provoke a bloody and ever escalating response" from the IRA. This would then bring about tougher measures against it from both governments, and/or "provoke a civil war".John Weir, a former member of the group who carried out the attacks, said they wanted to provoke a civil war, believing that if civil war erupted they could then "crush the other side".</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenanne_gang?fbclid=IwAR3zwclxxd95FU3nlFHHHZcxU-QMV7XGRD-j_kTysX8evBjT-DVSuyDoAFQ" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenanne_gang</a><br/> <a href="http://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2020/09/16/news/rte-one-to-broadcast-glenanne-gang-film-2068078/?fbclid=IwAR3zwclxxd95FU3nlFHHHZcxU-QMV7XGRD-j_kTysX8evBjT-DVSuyDoAFQ" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">http://www.irishnews.com/…/rte-one-to-broadcast-glenanne-…/…</a></p>
<p>© John A. Brennan 2020. All Rights Reserved.<br/> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
<p></p>
New Year in Ireland
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2022-01-02:6442157:BlogPost:297956
2022-01-02T02:30:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9974743099?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9974743099?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="750"></img></a> <strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">H</span>ome to some of the most unique superstitions in the world</strong> and a whole host of traditions dating back centuries, the arrival of a new year has always been a time of hope and excitement in Ireland.</p>
<p>Irish New Years Eve traditions in Ireland long ago were important in that they determined the luck of…</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9974743099?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9974743099?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="750"/></a><strong><span style="font-size: 18pt;">H</span>ome to some of the most unique superstitions in the world</strong> and a whole host of traditions dating back centuries, the arrival of a new year has always been a time of hope and excitement in Ireland.</p>
<p>Irish New Years Eve traditions in Ireland long ago were important in that they determined the luck of the house for the coming Year and many traditional Irish superstitions existed around this day. Anything that happened on this day was considered ominous for the future and the nearer to the midnight hour when the year actually began, the more significant. It was believed that there was only a certain amount of luck in the world and you had to do everything you could to make sure you got your share of it! At the stroke of midnight on December 31st, those seeking good luck in Ireland were recommended to enter their house through the front door and leave through the back.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9974746455?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9974746455?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-right" width="250"/></a>In Ireland long ago it was important to begin the New Year with a spotlessly clean house signifying a fresh start to the New Year. A popular new years eve traditional Irish belief was that the first person to enter the house after midnight should be black haired and also male to guarantee the luck of the house for the coming year. If it was anyone with red hair it would bring hardship and grief! To prevent this, families sometimes sent out a dark haired member of the family immediately after midnight and had them walk back in though the door. All dark haired neighborhood boys would visit the houses and be welcomed with gifts of sweets or money.</p>
<p>Also known as ‘the night of the big portion’ since people would eat a larger than normal meal to ensure food in plenty for the coming year. Another way of ensuring plenty was to make a cake which was then pounded against the door of the house three times while a prayer was said by the housewife . This would chase the bad luck out of the house and invite the good spirits in. In other areas the man of the house would take three bites out of the cake and then throw it against the front door, in the name of the Trinity and banish hunger from the house. After this the family would then gather up the fragments of the cake and eat it. Many farmers repeated this ceremony at the door of the byre to ensure plentiful fodder for the cows. People tried to ensure that no food was taken away from the house on new years eve and beggars knew better than to approach a house looking for food.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9974748072?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9974748072?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left" width="250"/></a>Another Irish superstition that’s passed the test of time involves banging on the doors and walls of the family home with Christmas bread. It might sound crazy, and probably is, but this one is all about chasing bad luck out of the house and inviting good spirits in before the start of the new year. Another simple yet enduring superstition involves which direction the wind might be blowing from. Should it come flying in from the west, then all of Ireland will be looking forward to a great year ahead. But say it comes from the east then something far worse could be on the cards. Another New Years Eve Irish tradition was that young girls put mistletoe, ivy and holly under their pillows on New Year’s Eve, in hopes of dreaming about their future husband.</p>
<p>On New Year’s Eve night, families would remember those who has passed away that year before by setting a place for them at the dinner table and leaving the door unlatched.Well into the evening on New Year eve in Ireland there would always be a small group gathered around the fireplace, laughing and joking. Sooner or later, the conversation would turn to reminiscing about Ireland. The old ones, well on their way with a few glasses of the hard stuff, would get all misty-eyed as they remembered times past and the stories would begin in the light of just the fire and candles burning in the windowsill.</p>
<p>Many thanks to Wikipedia for some of the info used in this article.</p>
<p>Images courtesy of Wikimedia.</p>
<p>© John A. Brennan 2022. All Rights Reserved.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan">https://www.amazon.com/author/johnabrennan</a></p>
<p><a href="https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blog/list?user=3pjaj8hc8rq9a">https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blog/list?user=3pjaj8hc8rq9a</a></p>
Hunting the Druid's Bird.
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2021-12-26:6442157:BlogPost:133684
2021-12-26T01:26:27.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><em><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708932?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708932?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="700"></img></a></em></p>
<p><em>“The wran, the wran, the king of all birds,</em><i><br></br> <em>on Stephen's day was caught in the furze.</em><br></br> <em>His body is little but his family is sweet</em><br></br> <em>so rise up landlady and give us a treat.</em><br></br> <em>And if your treat be of the best</em><br></br> <em>your soul in heaven can then find its rest.</em><br></br> <em>And if your treat be much…</em></i></p>
<p><em><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708932?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708932?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="700"/></a></em></p>
<p><em>“The wran, the wran, the king of all birds,</em><i><br/> <em>on Stephen's day was caught in the furze.</em><br/> <em>His body is little but his family is sweet</em><br/> <em>so rise up landlady and give us a treat.</em><br/> <em>And if your treat be of the best</em><br/> <em>your soul in heaven can then find its rest.</em><br/> <em>And if your treat be much too small</em><br/> <em>it will not please the wranboys at all.</em><br/> <em>A glass of fine whiskey and a bottle of beer</em><br/> <em>Merry Christmas to you and a happy New Year.</em><br/> <em>So up with the kettle and down with the pan</em><br/> <em>and give us a penny to bury the wran.”</em></i></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-7" style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">I</span>n Ireland in times long past,</strong> a small brown songbird called a wren, was hunted by groups of young men known as ‘wrenboys’. The hunt took place at dawn on St. Stephens’ day, December 26<sup>th</sup>, also known as ‘boxing’ day in the British Isles. The young men dressed in old clothes and straw hats and wearing colorful masks, they went from door to door singing, dancing and playing musical instruments. The wren (pronounced ‘wran’ in Ireland) was tied to a long staff carried by the leader of the group. The ‘wran’ song would then be sung and a hat or small, decorated wooden box would be presented to the homeowner. The object of the exercise was to collect enough money to have a pre-arranged ‘join’ or party at the home of one of the group. The proceeds of the nights’ festivities would usually be spent on a barrel of beer, bread, currant cake and wine for the ladies. A great night of sporting, singing and dancing would follow and last until dawn. </p>
<p>In some parts of Ireland, children go from door to door with a wren (a small bird) in a cage or a model wren on a stick. They may also sing, play music or perform traditional dances. In some areas, boys may dress as girls or women. Many hope to collect money for community or school projects or charity.<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708972?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708972?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="223"/></a></p>
<p>There is much speculation about the origin of this somewhat peculiar practice. One story tells of ‘Cliona the seductress’ a woman of the otherworld. It is said that she seduced young men to follow her to the seashore. After enticing them into the ocean she drowned them. Eventually, a magical charm was discovered which would protect young men from her wiles and could bring about her demise. As punishment for her many bad deeds, she was forced to become a wren every Christmas Day and die by human hand on ‘wren day.’ </p>
<p>In Christian belief, the myth most commonly told in Ireland to explain the festival is as follows; God wished to know who was the king of all birds so he set a challenge. The bird who flew highest and furthest would win. The birds all began together but they dropped out one by one until none were left but the great eagle. The eagle eventually grew tired and began to drop lower in the sky. At this point, the treacherous wren emerged from beneath the eagle's wing to soar higher and further than all the others.</p>
<p>Many people generally spend the day quietly with family members or close friends. Some Christians attend special church services to remember the Christian martyr, St Stephen's life. Other people may visit a theater to see a pantomime. Pantomimes are musical-comedy productions based on fairy tales and aimed at families. They incorporate audience participation, cross-dressing, double entendre and references to recent local events. Banks, post offices and many other businesses and organizations are closed on St Stephen's Day. However, stores and pubs are generally open, although they may open later and close earlier than usual. Public transport service schedules vary depending on where one lives and intends to travel. If a public holiday in Ireland falls on a Saturday or Sunday, many people get the following Monday off, although this is not guaranteed by law. Employers may also opt for alternative ways of compensating their workers, such as granting a paid day off within one month of the public holiday, an extra day of annual leave, or an additional day's pay.</p>
<p>Saint Stephen.</p>
<p>St Stephen is believed to be the first Christian martyr. He was stoned to death sometime around the year 33 CE. According to an Irish legend, he was betrayed by a wren while hiding from his enemies. Another legend tells of Viking raids on Ireland on St Stephen's Day sometime around the year 750 CE. Irish soldiers were approaching a Viking camp to drive out the intruders. However, a wren started eating crumbs from a drum and alerted the Vikings to the presence of the Irish soldiers. Hence, some people felt that wrens betrayed them and should be stoned to death, just as St Stephen was. Boys traditionally hunted a wren and threw stones at it. They tied it to a stick when it was dead and paraded it around the village. They did this to collect money for a dance or party for the whole village. Although the custom of killing wrens on December 26 died out around 1900, St Stephen's Day is still known as the Day of the Wren, particularly in rural areas.</p>
<p>Another tale tells of the betrayal of Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr, by a wren flapping its’ wings to reveal his hiding place to his pursuers. This telling may be an attempt by clerics in the middle ages, to discredit the reverence of the wren by the druidic belief system. In the Irish language the word for wren is ‘dreolin’ which is derived from ‘draoi ean’ and translated as ‘druid bird.’ </p>
<p>Another legendary account from the 17<sup>th</sup> century tells of an incident involving Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell and his ‘New Model Army’ had invaded Ireland in 1649 with the express intent of eradicating Catholicism. An Irish Catholic army had taken part in a rebellion in 1641 and continued to pose a threat to the English crown. This rebellion, although intended to be bloodless, was marked by massacres of English and Scottish Protestant settlers by an army made up of Irish, old English, and Highland Scot Catholics in Ireland. The settlers had been given lands seized from former, native Catholic owners to make way for the non-native Protestants. These factors contributed to the brutality of the Cromwell military campaign in Ireland. Once, when the Irish army were about to launch a surprise attack on Cromwell’s forces, it is said that a wren perched on one of the soldier’s drums and made enough noise to awaken the sentries and thereby foiled the plans The wren was seen as the symbol of a traitor from then on. <a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708980?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84708980?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="223"/></a></p>
<p>The hunting of the wren was popular in other countries also, including France, England and the Isle of Man. Different verses of songs would be used depending on the country where it was being practiced. Oddly enough this practice was never adopted in Scotland. In all of the areas where it was practiced it was considered unlucky to injure a wren at any other time of the year or disturb its nest.Finally, at the end of the festivities the wren was ceremoniously buried with a penny.</p>
<p>Watch and listen to the Wren at this link: <a href="http://youtu.be/W8wjCGQhhRI">http://youtu.be/W8wjCGQhhRI</a></p>
<p>© John A. Brennan 2021. All Rights Reserved.</p>
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The Maynooth Battery
tag:thewildgeese.irish,2021-12-23:6442157:BlogPost:171109
2021-12-23T18:30:00.000Z
John Anthony Brennan
https://thewildgeese.irish/profile/johnABrennan
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714129?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" height="336" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714129?profile=original" width="686"></img></a> <strong><span class="font-size-5">I</span>f you should someday find yourself in County Louth,</strong> Ireland, and if you have some time on your hands, it would be worthwhile if you visited the small village of Darver and the historic Darver Castle. The village is part of the …</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714129?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714129?profile=original" width="686" height="336"/></a><strong><span class="font-size-5">I</span>f you should someday find yourself in County Louth,</strong> Ireland, and if you have some time on your hands, it would be worthwhile if you visited the small village of Darver and the historic Darver Castle. The village is part of the <a title="Darver (page does not exist)" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Darver&action=edit&redlink=1">Darver</a> and Dromiskin parish, Dromiskin being a neighboring village. The parish is bounded by the Fane River on the north and by the Glyde River on the south and off to the east lies Dundalk Bay.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714148?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714148?profile=original" width="287" height="189"/></a>With rolling hills and open, pastoral expanses of arable land, this was the place where a wide eyed, inquisitive young man started out on his notable journey through life, a journey which would bring him to the pinnacle of worldwide renown. This young man’s story has its roots, firmly embedded in a dark, brutal period of Ireland’s tortured history.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714316?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714316?profile=original" width="177" height="176"/></a>After the second Norman Invasion of Ireland in 1171, led personally by Henry II, King of England, much of the land was divided and bequeathed to many individuals who enjoyed the King’s favor at that time. Among those favored was a man named Patrick Babe who was granted 500 acres as a gift for his tireless efforts in helping to subdue the local population.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714290?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714290?profile=original" width="180" height="202"/></a>Babe erected a fortified tower and enclosure, probably wooden, on a piece of high ground at Darver and settled in comfortably, on his new estate. The name Darver is derived from the Gaelic word ‘Dairbhe.’ meaning ‘Oakwood.” Later, in 1432 a stone built castle and round tower were erected replacing the original wooden structure.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714461?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/84714461?profile=original" width="187"/></a><b>Father Nicholas Joseph Callan</b> (1799–1864) was an Irish priest and scientist from Darver, County Louth, Ireland. He was Professor of Natural Philosophy in Maynooth College near Dublin from 1834, and is best known for his work on the induction coil and batteries.</p>
<p>He attended school at an academy in Dundalk. His local parish priest, Father Andrew Levins, then took him in hand as an altar boy and Mass server, and saw him start the priesthood at Navan seminary. He entered Maynooth College in 1816. In his third year at Maynooth, Callan studied natural and experimental philosophy under Dr. Cornelius Denvir. He introduced the experimental method into his teaching, and had an interest in electricity and magnetism.</p>
<p>Callan was ordained a priest in 1823 and went to Rome to study at Sapienza University, obtaining a doctorate in divinity in 1826. While in Rome he became acquainted with the work of the pioneers in electricity such as Luigi Galvani (1737–1798) who was a pioneer in modern obstetrics and Alessandro Volta (1745–1827) who is known especially for the development of the electric battery. In 1826, Callan returned to Maynooth as the new Professor of Natural Philosophy (now called physics), where he also began working with electricity in his basement laboratory at the college.</p>
<p>Influenced by William Sturgeon and Michael Faraday, Callan began work on the idea of the induction coil in 1834. He invented the first induction coil in 1836. An induction coil produces an intermittent high-voltage alternating current from a low-voltage direct current supply. It has a primary coil consisting of a few turns of thick wire wound around an iron core and subjected to a low voltage (usually from a battery). Wound on top of this is a secondary coil made up of many turns of thin wire. An iron armature and make-and-break mechanism repeatedly interrupts the current to the primary coil, producing a high-voltage, rapidly alternating current in the secondary circuit.</p>
<p>Callan invented the induction coil because he needed to generate a higher level of electricity than currently available. He took a bar of soft iron, about 2 feet (0.61 m) long, and wrapped it around with two lengths of copper wire, each about 200 feet (61 m) long. Callan connected the beginning of the first coil to the beginning of the second. Finally, he connected a battery, much smaller than the enormous contrivance just described, to the beginning and end of winding one. He found that when the battery contact was broken, a shock could be felt between the first terminal of the first coil and the second terminal of the second coil.Further experimentation showed how the coil device could bring the shock from a small battery up the strength level of a big battery. So, Callan tried making a bigger coil. With a battery of only 14 seven-inch (178 mm) plates, the device produced power enough for an electric shock "so strong that a person who took it felt the effects of it for several days." Callan thought of his creation as a kind of electromagnet; but what he actually made was a primitive induction transformer.</p>
<p>Callan's induction coil also used an interrupter that consisted of a rocking wire that repeatedly dipped into a small cup of mercury (similar to the interrupters used by Charles Page). Because of the action of the interrupter, which could make and break the current going into the coil, he called his device the "repeater." Actually, this device was the world's first transformer. Callan had induced a high voltage in the second wire, starting with a low voltage in the adjacent first wire. And the faster he interrupted the current, the bigger the spark. In 1837 he produced his giant induction machine: using a mechanism from a clock to interrupt the current 20 times a second, it generated 15-inch (380 mm) sparks, an estimated 60,000 volts and the largest artificial bolt of electricity then seen.</p>
<p>Callan experimented with designing batteries after he found the models available to him at the time to be insufficient for research in electromagnetism. The Year-book of Facts in Science and Art, published in 1849, has an article titled "The Maynooth Battery" which begins "We noticed this new and cheap Voltaic Battery in the Year-book of Facts, 1848, p. 14,5. The inventor, the Rev. D. Callan, Professor of Natural Philosophy in Maynooth College, has communicated to the Philosophical Magazine, No. 219, some additional experiments, comparing the power of a cast-iron (or Maynooth) battery with that of a Grove's of equal size." Some previous batteries had used rare metals such as platinum or unresponsive materials like carbon and zinc.Callan found that he could use inexpensive cast-iron instead of platinum or carbon. For his Maynooth battery he used iron casting for the outer casing and placed a zinc plate in a porous pot (a pot that had an inside and outside chamber for holding two different types of acid) in the centre. Using a single fluid cell he disposed of the porous pot and two different fluids.</p>
<p>To construct this battery, he joined together 577 individual batteries ("cells"), which used over 30 gallons of acid. Since instruments for measuring current or voltages had not yet been invented, Callan measured the strength of a battery by measuring how much weight his electromagnet could lift when powered by the battery. Using his giant battery, Callan's electromagnet lifted 2 tons. The Maynooth battery went into commercial production in London. Callan also discovered an early form of galvanisation to protect iron from rusting when he was experimenting on battery design, and he patented the idea.</p>
<p>Nicholas Callan died in 1864 and is buried in the cemetery in St. Patrick's College, Maynooth.</p>
<p>The Callan Building on the north campus of NUI Maynooth, a university which was part of St Patrick's College until 1997, was named in his honour. In addition, Callan Hall in the south campus, was used through the 1990s for first year science lectures including experimental and mathematical physics, chemistry and biology. The Nicholas Callan Memorial Prize is an annual prize awarded to the best final year student in Experimental Physics.</p>
<p>Many thanks for the invaluable information from this website.</p>
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<p>Read more here: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nicholas_Callan&redirect=no">https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nicholas_Callan&redirect=no</a></p>