GRANDFATHER They brought him in on a stretcher from the world, Wounded but humorous; and he soon recovered. Boiler-rooms, row upon row of gantries rolled Away to reveal the landscape of a childhood Only he can recapture. Even on cold Mornings he is up at six with a block of wood Or a box of nails, discreetly up to no good Or banging round the house like a four-year-old -- Never there when you call. But after dark You hear his great boots thumping in the hall And in he comes, as cute as they come. Each night His shrewd eyes bolt the door and set the clock Against the future, then his light goes out. Nothing escapes him; he escapes us all. -- Derek Mahon, born Belfast 1941

SEEING THINGS Inishbofin Inishbofin on a Sunday morning. Sunlight, turfsmoke, seagulls, boatslip, diesel. One by one we were handed down Into a boat that dipped and shilly-shallied Scaresomely every time. We sat tight On short cross-benches, in nervous twos and threes, Obedient, newly close, nobody speaking Except the boatmen, as the gunwales sank And seemed they might ship water any minute. The sea was very calm but even so, When the engine kicked and our ferryman Swayed for balance, reaching for the tiller, I panicked at the shiftiness and heft Of the craft itself. What guaranteed us -- That quick response and buoyancy and swim -- Kept me in agony. All the time As we went sailing evenly across The deep, still, seeable-down-into-water, It was as if I looked from another boat Sailing through air, far up, and could see How riskily we fared into the morning. And loved in vain our bare, bowed, numbered heads. -- Seamus Heaney (b. Mossbawn, Co. Derry, 1939)

Having an interset in the region in which Parnell was born and lived, Avondale in the beautifull Vale Of Avoca, I have noted several notes of his involvement with the copper mines there, but never any detail. Does anyone know if he was in fact a mine owner or share holder and to what extent?

Marian a chara, The name of the movie about Charles Stewart Parnell starring Clark Gable was made in 1937 by MGM. Movie name - PARNELL. Slan go foill, Margaret > Thanks! I'll look forward to the book AND the movie! > > Marian in CA > > > > [Original Message] > > From: conaught2 <conaught2@charter.net> > >

Let me add my thanks, as well. Ordered on line last night. Michelle Wilson-VT. USA

As a follow up to Jean Rice's excellent article about Charles Stewart Parnell. - There is an excellent book written about Charles Stewart Parnell and Katherine O'Shea - Never Call It Loving by Dorothy Eden. Also saw an wonderful movie about Charles Stewart Parnell starring Clark Gable, think it was made in the late 1930s. The movie begins with the very sad scene of a family being evicted from their home and it being destroyed and Charles Stewart Parnell was present as President of the Land League. The movie chronicles Parnell's struggle with his party and the forgery that falsely implicated him in the Phoenix Park murders. Slan go foill, Margaret (Mairead)

Hi, I am searching for the origins of the Marshall family that left Ireland during the Famine. Here is what I have so far. John Marshall died 1881 age 89 b. 1792 Sarah died 1855 age 57 b. 1798 David died 1855 age 25 b. 1830 William died 1859 age 38 b. 1821 Robert died 1865 age 45 b. 1820 John died 1882 age 47 b. 1835 Rebecca died 1822 age 44 b. 1837 All are buried together in Saint John, New Brunswick. A listing from the Irish Famine Migration has David, Sarah, John, John, and Letty Ann(???) all on the Londonderry 3 leaving Port of Derry, list states they were from Newbuildings-Londonderry. Any help on this family or suggestions on where to start searching for them would be greatly appreciated. Karen Chessa Charleston, SC

BIO: Charles Stewart PARNELL, the greatest champion of Irish Home Rule, like a character in a Greek drama, had a tragic flaw, per an article in a copy of "British Heritage" magazine. He kept the issue in the public eye but failed to achieve his primary goals as a Member of Parliament. To the Victorian world, Parnell's death at 45 from rheumatic fever was a perfect example of divine retribution; punishment for his decade-long adulterous affair with Katharine O'SHEA. Yet when the mists of emotional condemnation had lifted, allowing history to judge him with a more objective eye, the controversial statesman emerged as the unsurpassed champion of Ireland's fierce longing for Home Rule. A handsome Protestant Anglo-Irish aristocrat from County Wicklow, Parnell masked his genuine sympathy for the Irish with an arrogant demeanour and glacial personality - the polar opposite of that of his followers. But from the time he first felt political stirrings, the Protestant-born Parne! ll possessed a conviction that as the majority, Catholics were Ireland's legitimate policy makers and deserved freedom from English oppression. With a few years of his election to Parliament in 1875 he had charted his course. He would unit all Irish Members of Parliament who supported a legislative body in Dublin into an Irish Nationalist Party with him at its helm. And he would join with ex-Fenians to form an Irish National Land League to protect the rights of tenant farmers and encourage peasant land purchase. In 1879, when he became president of the Land League, its activities were limited to organizing popular resistance to eviction - action that often resulted in property destruction, bloodshed, and even loss of life. Parnell and the Land Leaguers first coined the term "boycott" when they orchestrated a widespread refusal to work for or trade with one of the evictors, an exploitive landlord named Captain Charles BOYCOTT. But sporadic acts of local agitation had achieved little, and Parnell knew the Irish could not hold onto their land with pikes and buckshot. He decided that Ireland's most direct path to land reform and independence lay through Westminster. Accordingly, during the 1880s he forged an alliance between his Nationalist Party and Prime Minister GLADSTONE's Liberal Party, a partnership that suited Gladstone equally well because having the Irish Home Rulers in his camp bolstered his power to keep Conservative opposition at bay. For the first time in history, the! British took the Irish MPs seriously. The alliance, however, did not guarantee Gladstone's beneficence. In response to Land League-initiated violence in County Mayo, his Liberals attempted to pass the Coercion Act, legislation that mandated government by force in Ireland. It called for the suspension of habeas corpus and the right to jail Land League members without benefit of trial. To fight passage of the incendiary act, Parnell led his Home Rule MPs in obstructionist tactics. If Parnell did not actually invent the filibuster, he was one of the first lawmakers to use the technique with skill; one Land League speech lasted some 40 hours.. While in the throes of such parliamentary intricacies, the 34-year-old Parnell met an attractive Englishwoman named Katharine O'SHEA whose repeated dinner invitations he had been declining for months. Katharine brazenly accosted the Irish leader in a street outside the House of Commons, addressing him from her carriage. The woman's thick auburn hair, flawless complexion and alert blue eyes, combined with her confident manner of speaking, aroused feelings in him. An English clergyman's daughter, Katharine was the youngest of eight children. Her rich Aunt Ben had always doted on her, allowing her to live in style at Wonersh Lodge, an estate near Eltham a few miles from London. As a young woman she had been swept off her feet by an Irishman, Captain Willie O'SHEA with his good looks, glib tongue, and the gold braid of his Hussars uniform. At the time of her first meeting with Parnell, Katharine and Willie, an MP from County Clare, already had three young children. Belyin! g her upbringing and the Victorian times, Katharine was an unconventional woman who insisted that her husband live in London, visiting her and the children at Wonersh Lodge on the weekends for the sake of appearances. She apparently no longer loved him, and his presence in her life was an annoyance. Despite their separate living arrangements, Katharine remained ambitious for her husband. It was imperative for her that Willie's political career succeed, unlike his army career, which had fizzled, and his investment in a Spanish sulphur mine, which had been lost. When she met Parnell, he was an emotionally vulnerable man. Growing up as one of 11 children of an Anglo-Irish father and American mother, he had received little individual attention. His father died when Parnell was 13, and it was said that his mother lacked maternal warmth. While Parnell could clear the hurdles of public speaking with ease, he had never learned to confide in anyone. He needed a confidant as m! uch as a lover. By October Parnell and Katharine were deeply in love. When Parnell and his colleagues were in Paris for a meeting, Timothy HEALY, his devoted private secretary, discovered the affair when he opened a letter addressed to his boss; both astonished and devastated, Healy nevertheless suppressed the incriminating correspondence for years out of loyalty to the Irish cause. Meanwhile, Parnell's own political fortunes took a dramatic and unfavourable turn. In 1881 Gladstone succeeded in passing his Irish Land Act. Parnell countered with an inflammatory speech delivered in County Wexford. "The Irishman," he pronounced, "who thinks he can throw away his arms will find to his sorrow that he has placed himself in the power of the cruel and perfidious English enemy." Only hours after his speech, Gladstone issued a warrant for the Nationalist leader's arrest. British police caught up with Parnell in Dublin and transported him to Kilmainham Goal where he was confined for "fomenting armed rebellion in Ireland. " During his 7-month incarceration Parnell drafted a manifesto urging Irish tenants to fight the Coercion act by nonpayment of rent. To his amazement they ignored his instruction, heeding instead their priest's warning that withholding rent was sinful. This failure on the part of tenants to go along with Parnell spelled doom for the Land League. Soon after his release from Kilmainham, a new British Secretary for Ireland, Lord Frederick CAVENDISH, and his undersecretary were stabbed to death in Dublin's Phoenix Park by members of the Invincibles, an extremist Fenian group. Outraged by the butchery, Parnell issued a statement deploring the murders. But a few months later letters (which proved to be fake, the work of Richard PIGOTT, a down-and-out Dublin journalist who had been bribed by an organization dedicated to blocking the Irish Nationalist Movement) surfaced implicating Parnell in the crime. British agents kept Parnell under surveillance in the hopes of linking him t! o the Phoenix Park murders, but they eventually filed a report confirming his innocence. However, the report did disclose the scandalous report that Captain O'SHEAs wife was PARNELL's mistress. Willie O'SHEA brought suit for divorce, naming PARNELL as co-respondent, and GLADSTONE demanded Parnell's resignation. Catholic Ireland and Victorian England alike were appalled at Parnell's behavior. Ireland's rejection of its once-exalted leader was almost universal. Yet a few remained loyal. Expressing admiration for Parnell, William Butler YEATS referred to "that lonely and haughty person cast out by the people at the behest of their priests." Parnell stated that, The dishonour and discredit are not on my side." He tried desperately to regain power, transversing Ireland making appearances on behalf of Nationalist MP candidates. The effort took a toll on his already delicate state of health, and by the time he and Katharine married he was fatally ill. He died in England with Katharine at his side three short months after their wedding. In the end, the stench of divorce court forced a postponement of Irish Home Rule, the cause so immeasurably advanced by Charles Stewart PARNELL. Funerals have always been Ireland's forte, and on 10th of October, 1891, Dublin gave its disgraced hero a majestic one. Cynics remarked that it was because he had the good breeding to die.

DONKEYS They are not silent like work-horses Who are happy or indifferent about the plow and wagon; Donkey's don't submit like that For they are sensitive And cry continually under their burdens; Yes, they are animals of sensibility Even if they aren't intelligent enough To count money or discuss religion. Laugh if you will when they hee-haw But know that they are crying When they make that noise that sounds like something Between a squawking water-pump and a fog-horn. And when I hear them sobbing I suddenly notice their sweet eyes and ridiculous ears And their naive bodies that look as though they never grew up But stayed children, as in fact they are; And being misunderstood as children often are They are forced to walk up mountains With men and bundles on their backs. Somehow I am glad That they do not submit without a protest; But as their masters are of the deafest The wails are never heard. I am sure that donkeys know what life should be But alas, they do not own their bodies; and if they had their own way, I am sure That they would sit in a field of flowers Kissing each other, and maybe They would even invite us to join them. For they never let us forget that they know (As everyone knows who stays as sweet as children) That there is a far better way to spend time; You can be sure of that when they stop in their tracks And honk and honk and honk. And if I tried to explain to them Why work is not only necessary but good, I am afraid that they would never understand And kick me with their back legs As commentary on my wisdom. So they remain unhappy and sob And their masters who are equally convinced of being right Beat them and hear nothing. -- "Donkey" from "Stand Up, Friend With Me," by Edward Field, 1963. Edward Field was born in 1924 in NYC, contributed regularly to the "Evergreen Review." Donkeys have been an intregal part of Ireland - perhaps, Mr. Field has Irish roots?

ASS IN RETIREMENT Ass orbits a firm stake: each circle round the last one is stamped slow and unmomentous like a tree-trunk's annual rings. He does not fancy himself as a tragedian, a circumference mystic or a treadmill hero, nor takes he pride in his grey humility. He is just one more Irish ass eating his way round the clock, keeping pace with his own appetite. Put out to grass, given a yard more rope each week, he takes time off from what's under his nose only to bray at rain-clouds over the distant bog; relishes asinine freedom -- having to bear no topple of hay, nor cleeves crammed with turf; ignorant that he'll come in time to the longest tether's end, then strangle or accept that stake. Either way on the endless grass one day he'll drop dead. -- The late Anglo-Irish poet Cecil Day-Lewis was born in Ballintubbert Queen's (Co. Laois), his father a Protestant clergyman. After his mother died he was brought up in London by his father with the help of an aunt. He graduated Wadham College, Oxford, in 1927. Day-Lewis also wrote detective stories under the name "Nicholas Blake" He was married twice and fathered five children, one of whom is Academy-Award winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis. C. Day-Lewis received the honor of England's Poet Laureate.

Marginal poem written on "Codex S. Pauli," by student of the Monastery of Carinthia, this version based on translations by Whitley Stokes, John Strachan, and Kuno Meyer: THE MONK AND HIS PET CAT I and my white Pangur Each has his special art; His mind is set on hunting mice Mine on my special craft. Better than fame I love to rest With close study of my little book; White Pangur does not envy me, He loves to ply his childish art. When we two are alone in our house It is a tale without tedium; Each of us has games never ending Something to sharpen our wit upon. At times by feats of valor A mouse sticks in his net, While into my net there drops A loved law of obscure meaning. His eye, this flashing full one, He points against the fence wall While against the fine edge of science I point my clear but feeble eye. He is joyous with swift jumping When a mouse sticks in his sharp claw, And I too am joyous when I have grasped The elusive but well loved problem. Though we thus play at all times Neither hinders the other -- Each is happy with his own art, Pursues it with delight. He is master of the work Which he does every day While I am master of my work, Bringing to obscure laws clarity.

PANGUR BAN I and Pangur Ban, my cat, 'Tis a like task we are at; Hunting mice is his delight, Hunting words I sit all night. Better far than praise of men 'Tis to sit with book and pen; Pangur bears me no ill will, He too plies his simple skill. 'Tis a merry thing we see At our tasks how glad are we, When at home we sit and find Entertainment to our mind. Oftentimes a mouse will stray In the hero Pangur's way; Oftentimes my keen thought set Takes a meaning in its net. 'Gainst the wall he sets his eye Full and fierce and sharp and sly; 'Gainst the wall of knowledge I All my little wisdom try. When a mouse darts from its den, O how glad is Pangur then! O what gladness do I prove When I solve the doubts I love! So in peace our tasks we ply, Pangur Ban, my cat, and I; In our arts we find our bliss, I have mine and he has his. Practice every day has made Pangur perfect in his trade; I get wisdom day and night Turning darkness into light. -- Trans. Robin Flower from a marginal poem on "Codex S. Pauli," by a student of the Monastery of Carinthia (anon. 8th or early 9th century).

A LITTLE BIT OF HEAVEN Sure, a little bit o' Heaven fell from out the sky one day, And nestled on the ocean in a spot so far away; And the angels found it, sure it looked so sweet and fair. They said suppose we leave it, for it looks so peaceful there! So they sprinkled it with star dust just to make the shamrocks grow; 'Tis the only place you'll find them, No matter where you go; Then they dotted it with silver To make its lakes so grand, And when they had it finished Sure, they called it Ireland! -- Ernest R. BALL, Composer/Joseph Keirn BRENNAN, Lyricist

BIO: Many of the men and women who pioneered the development of the American West were Irish. John McLOUGHLIN, for example, is known to history as the "father or Oregon." He arrived there in 1824 as an agent of the Hudson's Bay Co. to manage its fur operations in the Oregon Territory. With no formal government there, McLOUGHLIN effectively ruled the region until 1846. Edward CREIGHTON (1820-1874), played a central role in developing the state of Nebraska. Born in Ohio to immigrant parents, he first worked as a wagon driver. Fascinated by the telegraph equipment he often carried, Creighton borrowed some money and went into the telegraph-building business. By the early 1860s he was building lines all across the Midwest, including parts of the of the first transcontinental telegraph line. Creighton grew rich on his shares in the Pacific Telegraph Co. and later expanded into railroads and banking. As Omaha's leading citizen, he helped establish many lasting public institutions and charities. Another prominent figure in the West was Thomas KEARNS (1862-1918), a hard-nosed adventurer born in Canada and raised in O'Neill, Nebraska. As a young man he headed for the mining district of South Dakota. Failing to strike it rich, he headed south to Tombstone, Arizona, and then on to Salt Lake City, Utah. In the early 1890s his Silver King Mine hit a huge vein of silver, making him a multimillionaire. He became the leading spokesman for Utah's non-Mormon population and served one term in the U. S. Senate. He later donated a considerable amount of his fortune to local Salt Lake City charities. -- Excerpts, "1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History," Edward T. O'Donnell" (2002).

FATHER AND SON Only last week, walking the hushed fields Of our most lovely Meath, now thinned by November, I came to where the road from Laracor leads To the Boyne river -- that seemed more lake than river, Stretched in uneasy light and stript of reeds. And walking longside an old weir Of my people's, where nothing stirs -- only the shadowed Leaden flight of a heron up the lean air -- I went unmanly with grief, knowing how my father, Happy though captive in years, walked last with me there. Yes, happy in Meath with me for a day He walked, taking stock of herds hid in their own breathing; And naming colts, gusty as wind, once steered by his hand, Lightnings winked in the eyes that were half shy in greeting Old friends -- the wild blades, when he gallivanted the land. For that proud, wayward man now my heart breaks -- Breaks for that man whose mind was a secret eyrie, Whose kind hand was sole signet of his race, Who curbed me, scorned my green ways, yet increasingly loved me Till Death drew its grey blind down on his face. And yet I am pleased that even my reckless ways Are living shades of his rich calms and passions - Witnesses for him and for those faint namesakes With whom now he is one, under yew branches, Yes, one in a graven silence no bird breaks. -- F. R. Higgins (1896-1941)

CASUALTY He would drink by himself And raise a weathered thumb Towards the high shelf, Calling another rum And blackcurrant, without Having to raise his voice, Or order a quick stout By a lifting of the eyes And a discreet dumb-show Or pulling off the top; At closing time would go In waders and peaked cap Out into the dark, A dole-kept breadwinner But a natural for work. I loved his whole manner, Sure-footed but too sly, His deadpan sidling tact, His fisherman's quick eye And turned observant back. Incomprehensible To him, my other life. Sometimes, on his high stool, Too busy with his knife At a tobacco plug And not meeting my eye, In the pause after a slug He mentioned poetry. We would be on our own And, always politic And shy of condescension, I would manage by some trick To switch the talk to eels Or lore of the horse and cart Or the Provisionals. But my kept wilting art His turned back watches too: He was blown to wet bits Out drinking in a curfew That wiser citizens Observed behind closed doors, When we mourned the thirteen killed By British paratroopers. It was a day of cold Raw silence, wind-blown Surplice and soutane: Rained-on, flower-laden Coffin after coffin Seemed to float from the door Of the packed cathedral Like blossoms on slow water. The common funeral Unrolled its swaddling band, Lapping, tightening Till we were braced and bound Like brothers in a ring. But he would not be held At home by his own crowd Whatever threats were phoned, Whatever black flags waved. I see him as he turned In that bombed offending place, Remorse fused with terror In his still knowable face, His cornered outfaced stare Blinding in the flash. He had gone miles away For he drank like a fish Nightly, naturally Swimming towards the lure Of warm, lit-up places, The blurred mesh and murmur Drifting among glasses In the gregarious smoke. How culpable was he That last night when he broke Our tribe's complicity? "Now you are supposed to be An educated man." I hear him say. "Puzzle me The right answer to that one." I missed his funeral, Those quiet walkers And sideways talkers Shoaling out of his lane To the respectable Purring of the hearse... They move in equal pace With the habitual Slow consolation Of a dawdling engine, The line lifted, hand Over fist, cold sunshine On the water, the land Banked under fog: that morning I was taken in his boat, The screw purling, turning Indolent fathoms white, I tasted freedom with him. To get out early, haul Steadily off the bottom, Dispraise the catch, and smile As you find a rhythm Working you, slow mile by mile, Into your proper haunt, Somewhere, well out, beyond... Dawn sniffing revenant, Plodder through midnight rain, Question me again. -- Seamus Heaney (b. 1939) Mossbawn, Co. Derry

BIO: Myles W. Keogh, born at Orchard House, Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow, distinguished himself in Papal Army of Pius IX as a second lieutenant in the Battalion of St. Patrick. In the military he received two Papal medals, and at one time became a prisoner of war. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Myles joined the US Army as a Captain at the age of 27. He became the second in command to General George Custer, fighting in the Battle of Little Big Horn when Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse wiped out the entire cavalry regiment, leaving nothing living except the horse of General Myles Keogh, named Commanche. The horse was taken care of by another Irishman, Captain Nolan, never ridden or worked again, but was kept as a living memorial to the battle. When Commanche died 20 years later he was preserved and put on exhibition in the University of Kansas. All the soldiers killed at the Battle of Custer's last stand were apparently mutilated and scalped with the exception of Custer and Myles Keogh. When Sitting Bull was killed in a later battle he was found to be wearing a Papal Medal. -- Excerpt, "Irish Roots" magazine

BIO: In Borris (Co. Carlow) is the home of the MacMurrough Kavanaghs, descendants of Diarmuid MacMurrough, King of Leinster. One of the most notable of this family was Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh who was born in 1831 without arms or legs. His story is remarkable as a tale of victory over adversity, as he managed to lead a very full life despite his physical handicaps. He traveled extensively all over the world. He married and fathered seven children, he was MP for Carlow from 1866 to 1880. By means of a steel hook protruding from his sleeve he could fish, hunt, sail and shoot and was said to have had a good sense of humor. He died at the ripe old age, for that time, of 76. --Excerpt, "Irish Roots" magazine

TREE Your skeletal form silhouetted against a mackerel sky. Bare twisted branches, gnarled witchlike fingers, pointing skywards, clawing outwards. Performing your dance macabre, to the music of the winter wind. A slanting morning sun, with Midas touch, gliding your gyrating limbs. At eventide, You were bedecked in coal black crows and aping Autumn, shed some feathered leaves. They looped, swooped, tumbled like leaves caught in a September squall. A blast of gunshot rent the air stripping you of your fluttering shroud, leaving your skeletal form, silhouetted against the evening sky. -- Barbara Diamond, "Leitrim Guardian" contemporary poet

THE HEATH Through the purple dusk on this pathless heath Wanders a horse with its rider, Death. The steed like its master is old and grim, And the flame in his eye is burning dim. The crown of the rider is red with gold, For he is lord of the lea and the wold. A-tween his ribs, against the sky Glimmer the stars as he rideth by. A hungry scythe o'er his shoulder bare Glints afar through the darkening air, And the sudden clank of his horse's hoof Frightens the Wanderer aloof. -- Thomas Boyd (1867-1927)