In 1984, Stephen lived on a small farm-holding tucked four miles from the nearest village, by the shores of Lough Derg, in a valley called Urra. Urra (from the Irish Iubhar" or Yew Tree) is still a place apart. Before reaching the end of the cul-de-sac road where Stephen's farmhouse is located, visitor Padraig O Flannabhra said that he came across himself (Stephen), who had just finished ploughing "the near field." Later he broke up the rough sod by means of a harrow and later refined this with a traditional cultivator -- all with his team of horses, two white mares. Alongside him was a white terrier dog, who walked up and down by his side as if he were some kind of authority on the ancient art of ploughing. By afternoon, the near field was ploughed and ready to sow some corn. But that was another day's work. Right now one of the mares was yoked to a cart and Stephen piled bales of hay in. When it was full, the haggard gate was opened and Stephen and the white mare t! rudged down the lane to fodder the cattle. The afternoon was warm and the Shannon air was rich and heavy. Long before the pair had reached Bun-na-Fuinse ("the low place of the ash-tree") the cattle saw their hay approaching and by the time the top hill was reached the small herd of Friesians had moved in the cart's direction. Even before Stephen had time to unload each bale of hay and scatter them at random around the field, the hungrier and less patient of the herd began to nibble at the wisps of hay from the tailboard of the cart. Luska Bay in the background formed a perfect setting, where the field swept down gently to the shore of the lake on the Shannon. Soon it would be m milking time. In the brightly decorated kitchen Stephen's wife Mary had baked a huge apple tart. Tea and large slices were polished off in comfort and ease. Through the back window of the kitchen, and between the bright leaves of a red geranium flower, the two white mares could be seen in the ! nearby hill field, chopping and grazing the sweet short grass. It's like that every day in this little cul-de-sac haven. Urra is a timeless place, and a unique state of mind to boot. They are still to be found here and there. "Sunset and silence! A man; around him earth savage, earth broken; ... And the plough that is twin to the sword, that is founder of cities!" -- Padraic Colum, "The Plougher" Excerpt's, "Ireland of the Welcomes" July-Aug 1984 Not sure if this location is Co. Tipperary or not, anyone know for sure?

THE PITCHFORK Of all implements, the pitchfork was the one That came near to an imagined perfection: When he tightened his raised hand and aimed with it, It felt like a javelin, accurate and light. So whether he played the warrior or the athlete Or worked in earnest in the chaff and sweat, He loved its grain of tapering, dark-flecked ash Grown satiny from its own natural polish. Riveted steel, turned timber, burnish, grain, Smoothness, straightness, roundness, length and sheen. Sweat-cured, sharpened, balanced, tested, fitted. The springiness, the clip and dart of it. And then when he thought of probes that reached the farthest, He would see the shaft of a pitchfork sailing past Evenly, imperturbably through space, Its prongs starlit and absolutely soundless -- But has learned at last to follow that simple lead Past its own aim, out to an other side Where perfection - or nearness to it - is imagined Not in the aiming but the opening hand. -- Seamus Heaney, born 1939, Mossbawn, Co. Derry

PERSONAL HELICON As a child, they could not keep me from wells And old pumps with buckets and windlasses. I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss. One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top. I savoured the rich crash when a bucket Plummeted down at the end of a rope. So deep you saw no reflection in it. A shallow one under a dry stone ditch Fructified like any aquarium. When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch A white face hovered over the bottom. Others had echoes, gave back your own call With a clean new music in it. And one Was scaresome for there, out of ferns and tall Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection. Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime. To stare big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme To see myself, to set the darkness echoing. -- Seamus Heaney

THE TROUT Flat on the bank I parted Rushes to ease my hands In the water without a ripple And tilt them slowly downstream To where he lay, light as a leaf, In his fluid sensual dream. Bodiless lord of creation I hung briefly above him Savouring my own absence Senses expanding in the slow Motion, the photographic calm That grows before action. As the curve of my hands Swung under his body He surged, with visible pleasure. I was so preternaturally close I could count every stipple But still cast no shadow, until The two palms crossed in a cage Under the lightly pulsing gills. Then (entering my own enlarged Shape, which rode on the water) I gripped. To this day I can Taste his terror on my hands. -- John Montague

SNIPPET: The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland was granted its charter on 11th February 1784. To mark their ancient association with the guild of barbers the two most junior members of the Council of the College carry red and white barber poles on ceremonial occasions. Two books on the subject are "The Royal College of Surgeons" by Eoin O'Brien (Eason and Son), and "Portrait Of Irish Medicine" (Ward River Press) by Dr. O'Brien, Dr. Anne Crookshank with Gordon Wolstenholme, per my old 1984 issue of "Ireland Of The Welcomes" magazine, the latter described as a "long-awaited and most splendid book." Perhaps you can find these in your library.

THE FISHERMAN Although I can see him still, The freckled man who goes To a grey place on a hill In grey Connemara clothes At dawn to cast his flies, It's long since I began To call up to the eyes This wise and simple man. All day I'd look in the face What I had hoped 'twould be To write for my own race And the reality; The living men that I hate, The dead man that I loved, The craven man in his seat, The insolent unreproved, And no knave brought to book Who had won a drunken cheer, The witty man and his joke Aimed at the commonest ear, The clever man who cries The catch-cries of the clown, The beating down of the wise And great Art beaten down. Maybe a twelvemonth since Suddenly I began In scorn of this audience, Imagining a man, And his sun-freckled face, And grey Connemara cloth, Climbing up to a place Where stone is dark under froth, And the down-turn of his wrist When the flies drop in the stream; A man who does not exist, A man who is but a dream; And cried, "Before I am old I shall have written him one Poem maybe as cold And passionate as the dawn." -- William Butler Yeats (1916) Note - Connemara is an area in Co. Galway, Connemara cloth is a rough tweed.

William Butler Yeats was born in 1865 at Georgeville, Sandymouth Avenue, Dublin, and was the first child of John Butler Yeats and Susan Mary Pollenfex Yeats. The Yeats family produced many family member who distinguished themselves in the arts including his William's artist father, his well-known artist brother, John Butler Jr. (Jack), and and his sisters whose fine embroidery has survived. The Yeats family was often in Co. Sligo, where William's maternal grandparents lived. William loved to hear the old stories and superstitions such as the dreaded fear of fairies stealing away children if their parents were not vigilent. The Yeats family later moved to London. In 1923, William Butler Yeats won the Nobel Prize for literature. Although William died in the south of France in 1939, his body was reinterred at Drumcliff, Co. Sligo, as per his wishes, where he and his siblings had spent many happy hours in the beautiful west of Ireland. This poem is about the Glencar waterfall of Co. Leitrim, a county which borders Co. Sligo. THE STOLEN CHILD Where dips the rocky highland Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, There lies a leafy island Where flapping herons wake The drowsy water-rats; There we've hid our faery vats, Full of berries And of reddest stolen cherries. "Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand." Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim grey sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances, Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And is anxious in its sleep. "Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand." Where the wandering water gushes >From the hills above Glen-Car, In pools among the rushes that scarce could bathe a star, We seek for slumbering trout And whispering in their ears Give them unquiet dreams; Leaning softly out >From ferns that drop their tears Over the young streams. "Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand." Away with us he's going, The solemn-eyed; He'll hear no more the lowing Of the calves on the warm hillside Or the kettle on the hob Sing peace into his breast, Or see the brown mice bob Round and round the oatmeal-chest. "For he comes, the human child, To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, >From a world more full of weeping than he can understand." -- William Butler Yeats, 1889

THE AGRICULTURAL IRISH GIRL If all the women in the town were bundled up together, I know a girl could beat them all, in any kind of weather; The rain can't wash the powder off, because she does not wear it. Her face and figure's all her own: it's true, for I declare it! For she's a big stout, strong lump of an agricultural Irish girl She neither paints nor powders and her figure is all her own. And she can strike that hard that you'd think that you'd been struck by the kick of a mule, Its "The full of the house" of Irish love is Mary Ann Malone. She was only seventeen last grass, and still improving greatly; I wonder what she'll be at when her bones are set completely, You'd think your hand was in a vice the moment that she shakes it. And if there's any cake around, it's Mary Ann that takes it! -- Anonymous

O YOU AMONG WOMEN When pails empty the last brightness Of the well, at twilight-time, And you are there among women -- O mouth of silence, Will you come to me, when I sign, To the far green wood, that fences A lake inlaid with light? To be there, O, lost in each other, While day melts in airy water, And the drake-headed pike -- a shade In the waves' pale stir! For love is there, under the breath, As a coy star is there in the quiet Of the wood's blue eye. -- F. R. Higgins ( 1896-1941)

MEXICAN-AMERICAN WAR: The San Patricio Battalion of the Mexican Army was named for the emblem of its flag: St. Patrick, depicted with a harp and shamrock. The San Patricios were founded by John RILEY, a British Army veteran who deserted in April 1846 before war was declared. Although legend has it that the entire regiment comprised deserters like RILEY, recent research by historian Michael Hogan indicates that only about one third were deserters. Many of them had been enticed by the Mexican government's propaganda that claimed the war was a Protestant crusade against Catholicism and by its offer of land grants of 320 acres. Others were compelled by the harsh treatment meted out to Irish Catholics in American society in general, and in the U. S. Army in particular. The unit numbered slightly more than 200, with about half being Irish-born or Irish American with the remainder Mexican, German and American-born. The unit earned a reputation for fierce fighting, perhaps b! ecause they knew they faced certain execution for desertion if captured. Seventy-two San Patricios were captured when American forces overran the fortress of Churubusco. Eleven were whipped and branded with a "D," the punishment for deserting before the hostilities. Fifty others were quickly court-martialed and sentenced to hang. Twenty were hanged on 10 Sept. 1847, in the town of San Angel. The remaining 30 were scheduled to hang in the town of Mixcoac on 13th of September. Their scaffold was built on a hill overlooking Chapultepec, which was about to be attacked by the U. S. Army. The San Patricios were informed that they would live until the American flag flew over the fortress. The condemned men watched for a few hours as the Mexican defenders slowly succumbed to the American onslaught. All were hanged within an hour of Chapultepec's surrender. In 1959 the Mexican government unveiled a memorial to the San Patricios in the Plaza de San Jacinto in San Angel. The! inscription reads: "In memory of the Irish soldiers of the heroic San Patricio battalion, martyrs who gave their lives for the cause of Mexico during the unjust North American invasion of 1847." -- Excerpts, "1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History," E. T. O'Donnell (2002) - a very interesting book!

BIO: At one time, Mary Higgins Clark supported her five children as a widow by writing material for radio programs. Although she had a pile of 40 rejection slips, she continued to hold out the hope of becoming a successful novelist. Ms. Clark had a dramatic change of fortune when her 1976 suspense novel, "Where Are The Children," became a bestseller. Since that time, the inherited flavor of her immigrant father from Roscommon, and her grandparents, born in Cos. Mayo and Sligo, has permeated her writing. Her family emigrated circa 1900, the family name HIGGINS. Raised in The Bronx, close to her future alma mater, Fordham University, Clark grew up surrounded by Irish characters. "They spoke with great lyricism and directness," she recalled. "Their style has influenced the way I developed as a writer...I know these people to their very bones." With more than 17 bestsellers to her credit by mid-1998, Clark continues to write, while delighting in the successes of her daugher, Carol, who has followed in her mother's inspiring footsteps. -- Excerpt, "The World of Hibernia," Summer 1998

BIO: Per the summer 1998 issue of "The World of Hibernia" magazine, Senator Christopher Dodd entered the Senate office in 1981, the youngest man so elected from his state as well as the only Connecticut senator whose father once held the same position. Dodd has a third-generation connection to Ireland, the family having emigrated in the 1820s. Their families surnames were Murphy, Daley, Higgins and O'Sullivan, their counties of origin Clare, Kerry and Cork. "My father once said that public service gives one the greatest opportunity to help the greatest number of people," recalled Dodd, "I believe that." The son of Thomas and Grace Murphy Dodd, who was 54 in 1998, has paid more than lip service to that message. Beginning in 1966, he spent two years in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic, followed by six years in the U. S. Army Reserves. His passionate devotion to his Irish roots was never more apparent than when he proudly presented the North Irish Resolution to Congress in April of 1998 -- a moment of patriotism and cultural pride. Of interest, a portion of Senator Dodd's Washington's office was once the wine closet of Daniel Webster of NH (1782-1852) one of the best-known American orators, lawyers and statesmen of all times.

Listers, I am a new member to your site. I am looking for other people who are researching the KELSH and PRESTAGE surname, and any living relatives of these surnames. I hope to hear from you soon. Bill Chapman Sandpoint, Idaho USA

ANTRIM No spot on earth where men have so fiercely for ages of time Fought and survived and cancelled each other, Pict and Gael and Dane, McQuillan, Clandonnel, O'Neill, Savages, the Scot, the Norman, the English, Here in the narrow passage and the pitiless north, perpetual Betrayals, relentless resultless fighting. A random fury of dirks in the dark; a struggle for survival Of hungry blind cells of life in the womb. But now the womb has grown old, her strength has gone forth; a few red carts in a fog creak flax to the dubs, And sheep in the high heather cry hungrily that life is hard; a plaintive peace; shepherds and peasants. We have felt the blades meet in the flesh in a hundred ambushes And the groaning blood bubble in the throat; In a hundred battles the heavy axes bite the deep bone, The mountain suddenly stagger and be darkened. Generation on generation we have seen the blood of boys And heard the moaning of women massacred, The passionate flesh and nerves have flamed like pitchpine and fallen And lain in the earth softly dissolving. I have lain and been humbled in all these graves, and mixed new flesh with the old and filled the hollow of my mouth With maggots and rotten dust and ages of repose, I lie here and plot the agony of resurrection. -- Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)

The American Civil War provided the Irish with a superb, if grim, opportunity to disprove the nativist claim that they would never make loyal, patriotic citizens. More than 144,000 Irish-born served in the Union Army while others fought for the Confederacy. Tens of thousands of American-born Irish also served in the war and thousands ended up giving their lives. Eighty-nine Irish-born soldiers would earn Congressional Medals of Honor for their bravery! One reason for many Irish serving in the war was their relative poverty. Many immigrants stepped off ships in America and were immediately confronted by Union Army recruiters offering two to three hundred dollar cash bonuses for enlistment. For penniless immigrants with no specialized skills, this offer (equal to a year's pay at the beginning of the war) was too good for them to refuse. Another inducement to enlistment was an appeal to nationalism. Many regiments were formed under ethnic names Like Milligan's Brigade and Corcoran's Legion. The recruiting posters often made clear that England, Ireland's historic oppressor, was sympathetic to the Confederacy. Some hoped to gain military experience that they could later use in an uprising in Ireland against British rule. Indeed, many of the most ardent Fenians of the late 1860s were veterans of the Union Army.

THE WEARIN' OF THE GREEN O Paddy dear, an' did ye hear the news that's goin' round? The shamrock is by law forbid to grow on Irish ground! No more Saint Patrick's Day we'll keep, his colour can't be seen, For there's a cruel law agin the wearin' o' the Green! I met wid Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand, And he said, "How's poor ould Ireland, and how does she stand?" She's the most disthressful country that iver yet was seen, For they're hangin' men an' women there for the wearin' o' the Green. And if the colour we must wear is England's cruel Red, Let it remind us of the blood that Ireland has shed; Then pull the shamrock from your hat, and throw it on the sod, And never fear, 'twill take root there, tho' under foot 'tis trod! When law can stop the blades of grass from growin' as they grow, And when the leaves in summer-time their colour dare not show, Then I will change the colour, too, I wear in my caubeen, But till that day, plase God, I'll stick to wearin' o' the Green. But if at last our colour should be torn from Ireland's heart, Her sons with shame and sorrow from the dear old isle will part; I've heard a whisper of a country that lies beyond the sea, Where rich and poor stand equal in the light of freedom's day. O Erin, must we leave you, driven by a tyrant's hand? Must we ask a mother's blessing from a strange and distant land? Where the cruel cross of England shall nevermore be seen And where, please God, we'll live and die still wearin' o' the Green. -- The last stanza of this anonymous, circa 1798 song was added by Dion Boucicault (1822-1890). Napper Tandy was a leader of the "United Irishmen."

THREE CHILDREN NEAR CLONMEL I met three children on the road -- The hawthorn trees were sweet with rain The hills had drawn their white blinds down -- Three children on the road from town. Their wealthy eyes in splendour mocked Their faded rags and bare wet feet, The King had sent his daughters out To play at peasants in the street. I could not see the palace walls; The avenues were dumb with mist; Perhaps a queen would watch and weep For lips that she had borne and kissed -- And lost about the lonely world, With treasury of hair and eye The tigers of the world would spring, The merchants of the world would buy. And one will sell her eyes for gold, And one will barter them for bread, And one will watch their glory fade Beside the looking-glass unwed. A hundred years will softly pass, Yet on the Tipperary hills The shadows of a king and queen Will darken on the daffodils. -- Eileen Shanahan (born 1901)

THREE CHILDREN NEAR CLONMEL I met three children on the road -- The hawthorn trees were sweet with rain The hills had drawn their white blinds down -- Three children on the road from town. Their wealthy eyes in splendour mocked Their faded rags and bare wet feet, The King had sent his daughters out To play at peasants in the street. I could not see the palace walls; The avenues were dumb with mist; Perhaps a queen would watch and weep For lips that she had borne and kissed -- And lost about the lonely world, With treasury of hair and eye The tigers of the world would spring, The merchants of the world would buy. And one will sell her eyes for gold, And one will barter them for bread, And one will watch their glory fade Beside the looking-glass unwed. A hundred years will softly pass, Yet on the Tipperary hills The shadows of a king and queen Will darken on the daffodils. -- Eileen Shanahan (born 1901)

Old books and newspapers are a seldom used but very interesting resource. I happen to have a copy of a December 1800 issue of "The Gentleman's Magazine," ed. Sylvanus Urban, Gentleman, and printed by Nichols and Son, Cicero's Head, Red-Lion Passage, Fleet-Street, London. Under "News From Ireland" it reads - "Oct 20, At Carlow, as several tradesmen, labourers, &c. were finishing an angle of the new Court house, on a high scaffolding erected for that purpose, they quarrelled amongst each other, which occasioned the planks to give way, when they precipitately fell to the ground; nine were killed on the spot, and the remainder dangerously hurt. It is supposed these unfortunate men were intoxicated." Archival librariy resources include: Newspapers - 1845-1848: The Achill Missionary Herald; Advocate (Dublin); American Celt (NY); Boston Advertiser; Carrick's Morning Post (Dublin); Commercial Advertiser (NY); Cork Constitution; Cork Examiner; Cork Southern Reporter; Daily Tribune (NY); Dublin Daily Express; Dublin Evening Mail; Dublin Evening Packet; Dublin Evening Post; Evening Freeman (Dublin); Evening Post (NY); Farmer's Gazette (Dublin); Freeman's Journal (Dublin); Galway Free Press; Galway Vindicator and Connaught Advertiser; Herald (NY); Illustrated London News; Irish American (NY); Sligo Journal; Southern Reporter; Sun (NY); Sunday Observer (London); The Times (London); Tipperary Vindicator; Tuam Herald (Galway); Waterford Mail; Waterford Mirror; World (Dublin). Contemporaneous Periodicals & Journals: Gardiner's Chronicle (Ireland); Irish Farmer's Gazette (Ireland); Irish Miscellany (NY); The Lancet (London); Post Office Directories (NY); Punch (London); Quarterly Review (London); Shamrock (NY); Tablet (NY); Thom's Directories (NY); The Truth Teller (NY). Emigrant Guides: Author "A Citizen," "Thoughts on Emigration, Education, etc., in a Letter Addressed to the Right Honorable Lord John Russell, Prime Minister of England. London, 1847. William Cobbett, "The Emigrant's Guide - Containing Information Necessary to Persons about to Emigrate," London, 1829. Vere Foster: "Work and Wages or The Penny Emigrant's Guide," London, 1854. John O'Hanlon, "The Emigrants Guide to the United States," Boston, 1851. Patrick O'Kelly, "Advice and Guide to Emigrants Going to the U.S.A." Alexander J. Peyton, "The Emigrant's Friend, or Hints on Emigration to the United States of America, Addressed to the People of Ireland," Cork, 1853. Shamrock Society of New York, "Hints to Irishmen," pub. Dublin, 1817. Thomas Sutton, "The Emigrant's Guide by an Experienced Traveler," NY, 1848. Catherine P. Traill, "The Female Emigrant's Guide," London, 1854. Wiley & Putnam, "The Emigrant's True Guide to the United Sates, comprising advice and instruction in every state of the Voyage to America," pub. London, 1845.

In 1998, the Tipperary South Riding County Museum was hosting a fascinating exhibition of old postcard scenes from around the county, providing an invaluable insight into life throughout the county at the turn of the century. Also told was the story of the postcard from its simple beginnings as a plain pre-stamped card, through the "golden age" of postcards at the beginning of the 20th century, to its rapid decline afer WWI. Themes included WWI, novelty and commemorative postcards, together with detailed information on important postcard publishers such as LAWRENCE, VALENTINE and John HINDE.. Also represented was the work of Robert A. "Sonny" CASH, one of the most prolific postcard producers in South Tipperary. Cash, partially crippled in his youth, grew up hump-backed. He took to photography as a teenager and from his father's shop on Main Street, Carrick-on-Suir, travelled the surrounding countryside in a side-car building up a large collection of photographs, some of which he reproduced as postcards. He died in a fire at his home above the studio in Carrick and all his glass negatives were destroyed. The postcards are all that remain of this important historical record. The earliest Cash postcard on display was postmarked 1904, taken then Sonny was only 15. Enquires at that time could be directed to Fiona Flynn or Anna Meehan, Tipperary SR County Museum, Parnell Street, Clonmel. -- Excerpt, "History Ireland" periodical, pub. Dublin - E-mail (1998) historyireland@connect.ie This periodical is very in-depth, for serious students of Ireland's history. I found it too difficult, but there might be some "brains" out there who would enjoy this magazine. I enjoy "Ireland of the Welcomes" (gorgeous photos, stories about the towns, history) and "Irish Roots," no colored photos but very interesting genealogy information as well. Jean