There is a wonderful set of microfilmed records at your local LDS FHC called the St. Albans VT emigration/immigration records. They are something of a misnomer and I believe many researchers don't investigate them. While the records were stored in Vermont they pertain to individuals ("aliens") crossings back and forth across the border at ANY point along the ENTIRE border. (For example, my father crossed at Blaine, WA), his mother at some point in Michigan, his sister, at some point in NY. These unique records are soundexed, so that all travellers with the same surname (or similiar) for the entire time period between 1895 and circa 1924 appear on one, at the most two microfilms. To my amazement, I found that some of my families crossed the border back and forth several times during that time period, and I even found an entry from 1925 although the soundex film states it ends at 1924. The records are particularly valuable in that they include personal descriptions (color of hair, eyes, weight, height, scars), their own address plus names and addresses of family in the "old" country and the same at the intended destination! They name traveling companions. They even give the name of any ship or train, date and port involved in travel. This can lead to a second film with an actual ship's manifest! It did for me! I discovered that two of dad's little brothers crossed the Atlantic to the USA alone at ages 16 & 11 just three months before the "Titanic" sank! Later, some of my relatives who traveled from Liverpool, England took a steamer to Quebec City, got off and took a train immediately across Canada entering at some point along the border. It was a comparatively cheaper "package deal" offered by the Canadian Pacific Railway (who owned both ships and trains) circa 1924. In the case of my relatives, they crossed back and forth across the border several times during that time period - my father, as part of his work, on his honeymoon, and his mother and siblings on their way back to England to visit relatives. Each border-crossing by an "alien" generated a new card of information which was subsequently microfilmed, front and back. These films are also found in branches of the National Archives (USA), likely also in Canada. The film set is M1461. The LDS have their own film numbers but you can call it up on their FHC Catalogue CD by inserting this number, jot it down and take it in with you as some of the volunteers aren't even aware of this wonderful resource - (1472801), that will bring up all the information you need, and it is best to know the Soundex Code for your surname you are interested in, as that is what the films are arranged by; Soundex codes can be found in a Soundex book in your genealogy library, on the Internet, and there is a book at your local LDS FHC where you can compute your surname code. Soundex codes contain the beginning letter of the name and three digits. Anyway, I took a chance and checked out the microfilms even though I did not suspect that my family had any connection to Canada. I discovered from one record that my paternal aunt who I knew all my life as "Pat" wasn't Patricia at all, her name was Winifred Rosina FORD, and her nickname was evidently for her Irish grandfather, Patrick. She was travelling with my father, who I was able to confirm this was the correct person. Imagine my delight and the goosebumps I got when I found my own father's record. He had always told me that he had sustained an injury during his Atlantic crossing from Liverpool, that was why he had an old scar in his eyebrow. When I found his record on the St. Albans film it stated that he had a "fresh cut under his left eyebrow." I encourage you to check out these records. My ordering two FORD microfims cost me a "rental fee" at the LDS (Mormon) FHC of less than eight dollars. What a small investment to discover new information! The family history centers are open to the public and staffed by helpful volunteers. They will help you determine which microfilm you need, order it for you to view (takes only 7-10 days and you get to view it at your local FHC for about six weeks), help you get the film in and out of the microfilm viewer and will make inexpensive copies of the material right from the film so that you don't have to jot everything down!

Irish-American Academy Award Winners (Motion Pictures) -- 1931-1997 1931 - Lionel BARRYMORE best actor "A Free Soul." 1932 - Helen HAYES best actress "The Sin of Madelon Claudet." 1935 - Victor McLAGLEN best actor "The Informer." 1936 - Walter BRENNAN best supporting actor "Come and Get It." 1937 - Spencer TRACY best actor "Captains Courageous" 1937 - Alice BRADY best supporting actress "In Old Chicago." 1937 - Leo McCAREY best director "The Awful Truth." 1938 - Spencer TRACY best actor "Boys Town." 1938 - Walter BRENNAN best supporting actor "Kentucky." 1939 - Thomas MITCHELL best supporting actor "Stagecoach." 1940 - Walter BRENNAN best supporting actor "The Westerner" 1940 - John FORD best director "The Grapes of Wrath." 1941 - John FORD best director "How Green Was My Valley." 1942 - James CAGNEY best actor "Yankee Doodle Dandy." 1942 - Greer GARSON best actress "Mrs. Miniver." 1944 - Bing CROSBY best actor "Going My Way." 1944 - Barry FITZGERALD best supporting actor "Going My Way." 1944 - Leo McCAREY best director "Going My Way." 1945 - James DUNN best supporting actor "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." 1948 - Walter HUSTON best supporting actor "The Treasure of Sierra Madre." 1949 - Mercedes McCAMBRIDGE best supporting actress "All the King's Men" 1952 - Anthony QUINN best supporting actor "Viva Zapata!" 1952 - John FORD best director "The Quiet Man." 1954 - Grace KELLY best actress "The Country Girl." 1954 - Edmund O'BRIEN best supporting actor "The Barefoot Contessa." 1955 - Jack LEMMON best supporting actor "Mister Roberts." 1956- Anthony QUINN best supporting actor "Lust for Life." 1956 - Dorothy MALONE best supporting actress "Written on the Wind." 1958 - Susan HAYWARD best actress "I Want to Live!" 1960 - Burt LANCASTER best actor "Elmer Gantry." 1962 - Gregory PECK best actor "To Kill a Mockingbird." 1952 - Ed BEGLEY best supporting actor "Sweet Bird of Youth." 1963 - Patricia NEAL best actress "Hud." 1967 - George KENNEDY best supporting actor "Cool Hand Luke" 1969 - John WAYNE best actor "True Grit." 1970 - Helen HAYES best supporting actress "Airport." 1972 - Liza MINNELLI best actress "Cabaret." 1973 - Jack LEMMON best actor "Save the Tiger." 1973 - Tatum O'NEAL best supporting actress "Paper Moon." 1974 - Art CARNEY best actor "Harry and Tonto." 1974 - Ellen BURSTYN best actress "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." 1975 - Jack NICHOLSON best actor "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." 1977 - Jason ROBARDS best supporting actor "Julia." 1980 - Robert REDFORD best director "Ordinary People." 1981 - Warren BEATTY best director "Reds." 1981 - Maureen STAPLETON supporting actress "Reds." 1983 - Jack NICHOLSON best supporting actor "Terms of Endearment." 1983 - Shirley MacLAINE best actress "Terms of Endearment." 1985 - Anjelica HUSTON best supporting actress "Prizzi's Honor." 1988 - Jodie FOSTER best actress "The Accused." 1988 - Kevin KLINE best supporting actor "A Fish Called Wanda." 1991 - Jodie FOSTER best actress "The Silence of the Lambs." 1995 - Susan SARANDON best actress "Dead Man Walking." 1996 - Frances McDORMAND best actress "Fargo." 1997 - Jack NICHOLSON best actor "As Good as It Gets."

BIO: Carolyn McCarthy, U. S. Congresswoman, NY, beginning in 1996, has a 3rd generation connection to Ireland. Her family emigrated in 1890, their county of origin was Cork. Her family's surname was Carey. It has been said that the greatest crusaders for justice are born from tragedy. And thus Carolyn McCarthy, a nurse for three decades, was transformed into a political activist. On Dec. 7, 1993, her son, Kevin, and husband, Dennis, were gunned down as they rode home from work on a packed commuter train. Among those killed in the incident was Dennis, while her son suffered serious injuries, some of them permanent. In the face of this horror rose Mrs. McCarthy's inner strength, which propelled her to Congress three years after the shooting. She credits her Irish background with giving her the ability to continue. "I am extremely proud of my Irish roots. We are a people who have not only coped with life's adversities, but triumphed over them. In a way, my story is! not different from the hundreds of thousands of Irish-Americans who came before me." Having come to Washington a political neophyte, McCarthy brings a much-needed outsider's perspective to Congress. Yet, despite her relative newcomer status, she has made it very clear that when McCarthy "gets her Irish up" - look out! -- Excerpt, "The World of Hibernia" (Summer/1998)

BIO: "Ah, the long and short of it is that we're the end of the line. When we die, to hell with it, it's gone." Patrick Murphy, all of 81 years old, and for the last 62 a tailor, pressed a button on the old iron, releasing a cloud of steam that enveloped his presence completely. "At that moment, it seemed as if he had gone back in time to another age. Indeed, in this room of ancient pattern books and bolts of exclusive cloth, with names like "Keeper's Tweed" and "Bedford Cord," I felt as if I'd gone back too," wrote Patrick Cooney, for "The World Of Hibernia." "Back to an age of hunt balls and dressing for dinner. Here, in this basement room at Hawkins of Dublin, the remnants of that age are still catered to, along with an ever-growing number of converts jaded with throwaway shirts and self-destructing suits." Messrs. Des Leech and Patrick Murphy are the last of the great gentleman's tailors in Ireland, per Cooney in his charming 1998 article. William Hawkins established the shop in 1916; his son retired a few years ago, but Leech and Murphy retained the name. One glance at the Hawkins client book proved that their reputation had spread far beyond their tiny shop near Dublin's Parnell Square. Dublin's Gate Theatre, long known for its high production values, has commissioned them to make costumes for its period productions, as have several of the current crop of Hollywood films being shot in Ireland. The fine actor Liam Neeson, a native of Ballymena, Co. Armagh ("A perfect gentleman," said Leech) was kitted out for "Michael Collins." With more than 100 years of tailoring experience between them, these sage-like gentleman constantly underplay the importance of their position. There is no stuffiness in their salon, there are no private fitting rooms, and the work room has the pleasing disorder that only the truly great encourage. "When we're gone, you'll get the professors looking at our work on a scientific basis asking, "How did they do this?" They'll be ripping coats apart to see the skill, because that is where it is - hidden," said Leech, drawing on his curved pipe. Murphy's face suddenly emerged from the steam cloud. "I've worked here 30 years," he announced, "and I've never seen a coat come back with the pocket ripped." Who are these clients, the last fragments of the old Anglo-Irish ascendancy? "Oh, they're the greatest bunch of characters you're ever likely to meet." Leech enthused, "Horsey people, a lot of them. Some of them love the horse more than the missus...," he pointed out mischieviously. A fascinating double act to watch, they have an endearing, unstudied comical air. Leech has the slightly distracted air of a frayed Oxford don, while Murphy, short and dapper, bustles around with sinister-looking implements of the trade. Yet all comedy is gone when they set to work, plotting lines on exquisite cloth like field marshals or railroad pioneers. Now it seems that their skills will die with them. There are no apprentices to carry on the art. "You'd like to pass it on," Leech said, "but who's going to come and work for you for buttons? Kids would make more stacking shelves in a supermarket - and they wouldn't have the patience. I couldn't train a tailor in four years; it isn't possible. It'll be sad to see it die, because you know no one will ever have that kind of skill to take it up again." So, before the shutter comes down and the dream is lost, what suit would Leech choose for himself? "A three-piece business suit, quite formal in cut, a three-button in worsted. And I like a pinstripe running through it." And the craftsman to carry out the task? "I'd choose meself, I wouldn't trust anyone else to make a coat for me. I'm a tailor's nightmare with my shape. Sloping shoulders, hollow chest." Murphy emerged through the steam with a doleful expression. "Ah, the ravages of time." Cooney's tender observations were accompanied with equally wonderful photographs by Seamus Murphy of these two distinguished gentleman, members of that vanishing breed that once suited up Dublin's beau brummels, in the Spring 1998 issue of "The World Of Hibernia."

AFTER FIVE YEARS Pulling up in my car, I went into the cottage, wearing a tie. They didn't recognise me until I took off my sportscoat. Well I knew the walls and what they contained. I could account for the crack in the cup I drank from. I could hear their voice from a distance, knowing its nearness; hardly a word new, hardly a smile that wasn't a clue to another. And when they handed me the fiddle, I played the tune they taught me, although the time was off; the three brothers from the hill came in to make me more at home. The strange cat on the range was the only sign that I had been away. He was offspring of in the generation in between. -- Augustus Young (born 1943)

LIGHTENINGS VIII The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise Were all at prayers inside the oratory A ship appeared above them in the air. The anchor dragged along behind so deep It hooked itself into the altar rails And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill, A crewman shinned and grappled down a rope And struggled to release it. But in vain, "This man can't bear our life here and will drown," The abbot said, "Unless we help him." So They did, the freed ship sailed and the man climbed back Out of the marvelous as he he had known it. This poem was cited by the Nobel Committee when Derry's Seamus Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 . The poem has always puzzled me, but perhaps it pertains to the following....".According to an ancient legend recorded in the medieval Book of Invasions, the Tuatha De Danaan, the People of the Goddess Diana, were a race of benevolent enchanters and enchantresses who conquered Ireland long, long before the coming of Christianity. When their first attempts to make a landing were thrown back from the beaches by the evil Fir Bolg, the De Danaan ships took off from the ocean and flew through the air..." Also, the Celts believed that when people died, they went to a land of eternal youth and happiness called Tir nan Og.

Hi everyone, I would just like to say a big thank you to all the people who contacted me with their praise and comments concerning the Lurgan Ancestry website www.lurganancestry.net These comments makes it all worth while to myself and the other genealogists who volunteered their time and effort into the creation of this website! Thanks Again. Martin McGoldrick. Lurgan Ancestry. Northern Ireland.

STREET MUSICIANS But there is a community in despised professions and when the musicians look down into the deep red or blue linings of their instruments' cases they are like divers, like archaeologists discovering for the first time after centuries of burial, centuries of invention and vast migrations no one understands, a lost beauty, a vanished art like a living face -- Philip of Macedon's tomb. -- John Ash

WOMAN Not she with traitorous kiss her Saviour stung, Not she denied Him with unholy tongue; She, while apostles shrank, could dangers brave, Last at the cross and earliest at the grave. -- Eaton Stannard Barrett (1786-1820)

In the July-Aug 2001 issue of "Ireland of the Welcomes" is an article and photos of Presbyterian Roy ARBUCKLE, actor, director and founder of the unique Irish music group "Different Drums," with its added cultural dimension of having a Lambeg drum (see below) and a bodhran (potent symbols of the Protestant and Catholic Communities in Northern Ireland) being played side by side in perfect harmony. The band has experienced a meteoric rise since its establishment in 1992, firming believing that it is a necessity for humanity to march to the same beat. Roy says, "Sometimes our concept has been rejected even before we start to perform. In the early days we had skin-head thugs who created trouble for us in Belfast, and later in Waterford there were Republicans who were not too happy that we were using the Lambeg drum. To them it was a symbol of British "Imperialism." These kind of objectors are a minority, and when most people start to listen to what we are doing, all that k! ind of prejudice evaporates. The Lambeg has a certain edge for Catholic people because of its association with the Orange tradition...To an extent we are dispelling the territorial dimension of the Lambeg, and presenting it in its own right as a musical instrument." Arbuckle recently remarked, "If we do not learn to create an authentic sense of community at local level, how are we going to stop wars between nations? This philosophy underlines everything we do as a musical group. We are not trying to change people, but we are attempting to help them to express themselves a individuals within a larger community, and how to develop their own culture without harming others." Roy was speaking at a one-day workshop for 345 children at the Academy Primary School in Saintfield, Co. Down - a small picturesque village SE of Belfast. Roy and his colleagues introduced some of the children to the practice of rhythm and taught them part of a piece of music which they played to the entire school later on. To reinforce the point, the group played three versions of one tune - first as an Irish "slow air" titled "Young Boy," then as a variation which became an Orange "marching tune," and finally as a hauntingly beautiful Irish reel, called "Swallow's Tail." Roy summed it up, "This is basically the same music, but it shows how in the end we all march to the same tune." The children, and their teachers, loved it. The principal, Stephen MOORE commented, "This is very much a cross-community school, and it is good for our pupils to hear the different forms of music expressed in this way." Roy ARBUCKLE's early musical experience was with local showbands. He developed an interest in traditional Irish music, and played with such well-known groups as "Chaff" and "Fiddler's Elbow." After spending eight years in Canada, Roy returned to his native city, and since then has been involved in cross-community projects. They participated in an Irish Festival in New Brunswick, which had the theme "Come Celebrate Orange and Green." A breakthrough came in 1998 when they were invited to take part in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Dublin. They have participated in musical festivals in the USA, Europe and Japan, as well as keynote events including special performances for successive Irish Presidents Mary ROBINSON and Mary McALEESE. More recently they played at the new Odyssey Centre in Belfast, in the presence President Bill CLINTON, British Premier Tony BLAIR, local Unionist and Nationalist political leads and several thousand cross-community reps. Arbuckle has also spent two weeks with the Kodo Drummers of Japan. Other highlights include a visits in 1999 to the USA as part of a "Both Sides Now" tour that included noted Irish musicians James GALWAY and Phil COULTER. They made a historic appearance at St. Patrick's Cathedral, NY, and on St. Pat's Day performed for then President CLINTON at! the White House. They have also performed at the Kennedy Center in WA DC. A close-up of a beautiful and colorful Lambeg drum reveals a portrait of King William on horseback; the drum as made by W & J HAMILTON of Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim. It is apparently one of a matched pair which had been used by an Orange Lodge at Finnis, near Dromara, and were around 100 years old. This "great purchase" came from a shop in Belfast's Sandy Row, a well-known Protestant area. Around the same time Roy commissioned a new set of bodhrans from Eamonn MAGUIRE, a craftsman based in Ardoyne, a Catholic part of Belfast. The symbolism is inescapable of the symmetry of instruments acquired from both parts of that troubled city. Talented and enthusiastic members of the band include Stephen MATIER, Belfast, Brendon MONAGHAN, Banbridge, Kevin SHARKEY, Derry and Rory McCARRON, Derry. The group's engagement book is well-filled and their latest CD is called "New Day Dawning." Their music has produced a fascinating blend of sounds and rhythms - Irish reels, jigs and marches, an element of reggae, and traditional Lambeg chants played with a variety of instruments and drums.

SEA WRACK The wrack was dark an' shiny where it floated in the sea, There was no one in the brown boat but only him an' me; Him to cut the sea wrack, me to mind the boat, An' not a word between us the hours we were afloat. The wet wrack, The sea wrack, The wrack was strong to cut. We laid it on the grey rocks to wither in the sun, An' what should call my lad then, to sail from Cushendun? With a low moon, a full tide, a swell upon the deep, Him to sail the old boat, me to fall sleep. The dry wrack, The sea wrack, The wrack was dead so soon. There' a fire low upon the rocks to burn the wrack to kelp, There' a boat gone down upon the Moyle, an' sorra one to help! Him beneath the salt sea, me upon the shore, By sunlight or moonlight, we'll lift the wrack no more. The dark wrack, The sea wrack, The wrack may drift ashore. -- Moira O'Neill (?dates) Cushendun is in Co. Antrim

ON A LONELY SPRAY Under a lonely sky a lonely tree Is beautiful. All that is loneliness Is beautiful. A feather lost at sea; A staring owl; a moth; a yellow tress Of seaweed on a rock, is beautiful. The night-lit moon, wide-wandering in sky; A blue-bright spark, where ne'er a cloud is up; A wing, where no wing is, it is so high; A bee in winter, or a buttercup, Late-blown, are lonely, and are beautiful. She, whom you saw but once, and saw no more; That he, who startled you, and went away; The eye that watched you from a cottage door; The first leaf, and the last; the break of day; The mouse, the cuckoo, and the cloud, are beautiful. For all that is, is lonely; all that may Will be as lonely as is that you see; The lonely heart sings on a lonely spray, The lonely soul swings lonely in the sea, And all that loneliness is beautiful. All, all alone, and all without a part Is beautiful, for beauty is all where; Where is an eye is beauty, where an heart Is beauty, brooding out, on empty air, All that is lonely and is beautiful. -- James Stephens (born 1882)

SEAWEED BATHS: The Atlantic ocean resort of Enniscrone in south-west Co. Sligo is not only famous for its pristine beach running for six miles between white-capped ocean breakers and a range of sand hills, but it has long been celebrated for its soothing sea baths which are reputed to impart therapeutic blessings apart from being a deeply pleasurable sensual experience. Brothers Michael and Edward Kilcullen are the proprieters of a bath-house located at the Old Boat Port premises on the verge of the Atlantic. It has been echoing to the sound of running seawater and hissing steam since the turn of the century. It is enjoying a new lease of life having been discovered by health conscious young people who are drawn to mother sea. Edward Kilcullen, Jr., who runs the bathhouses, remembers when it was only old men and women in shawls to come in droves every summer for the seaweed baths. "It was regarded as a traditional remedy for aches and pains of rheumatism, the old people swore by it and they still do, and they'll tell you that they'd be crippled with rheumatism all winter if they didn't have the seaweed baths in summer." Edward believes that the secret is in the relaxation induced by immersion in the warm sea water, but it is very buoyant and can't help but promote a marvellous feeling of well-being. It has been found that seaweed baths are laced with natural oils and have an emollient effect on the bather's skin, as well. The seaweed bath tradition in Enniscrone goes back to the 18th century. The first bath-house was built around 1750 on the rocky seashore beneath the Enniscrone cliffs not far from the present Kilcullen establishment. This was no more than a single room used for the exclusive use of Christopher Orme, a landlord at the nearby Abbeytown demesne. Bathing in the ocean proper became popular in the 19th century when the masses followed the example of the Prince of Wales and other members of the British royalty who began wading into the breakers at Bognor Regis. People in prim and proper bathing suits took to the sea, too, on Enniscrone's magnificent crescent strand and the doors of Mr. Orme's seashore bath-house were discreetly opened to the public. By then the building had passed into the hands of the Blakeney family, who added four bathrooms into which the Atlantic was piped through corrosion-free copper conduits, heated to a comfortable temperature. No one is quite sure of whom came up with the inspired touch of adding the seaweed, but it was most likely Christopher Orme. The local gentry became regular patrons of the original bath house. Business appeared to be so good that Edward Kilcullen's great-grandfather felt there was a need for a second bath-home, prompting him to take a lease on the Boat Port land in 1898 when he intended to build one. It didn't happen until 1910 and it was Edward's grandfather who opened the new baths termed grandly Kilcullen's Moderate Bath-House. It cost a fortune in those day(1,000 pounds) to fit out the baths with the handsome Edwardian ornamentation in porcelain and heavy brass that are still in use in the modern premises. Galloway's of Sligo were called in to solve the massive puzzle of how to pipe in the Atlantic sea water and the job they accomplished was hailed as a masterpiece of the plumbing art. Originally the water was heated by turf-fired furances and on a busy Sunday a ton of peat would be burned to maintain the heat. It cost sixpence for a bath and once you were in your tub behind your bolted door, nobody would come to rout you out no matter how long you lingered. The ritual has not changed; you first sit into a wooden steam cabinet for a Finnish-style sauna; then it's into the porcelain tub filled with hot seawater and freshly-cut seaweed; finally, you step under an old-fashioned chain-pull shower of teeth-chattering cold water. The seaweed that is used is known as fucus serratus, a serrated brown wrack that gors profusely among the rocks on the shore. It is cut at low tide on the day it is to be used and carried in buckets to the bath-house. Immediately before use it is put under a jet of steam for 15 seconds and magically turns from dark brown to a beautiful bottle green, turning the water to amber and making it smooth and oily. For many years a quaint Edwardian-style tea room was run by Granny Kilcullen but they closed it after her death in 1964. More recently Edward and Christina Kilcullen have refurbished the bath house and reopened the tea-room. "We stepped back in time," said Edward. "I like old things, and I believe other people do too." - Excerpt, "Ireland of the Welcomes"

Perhaps you can still find a copy of this 1999 book if the subject interests you: "A Most Delightful Station, The British Army on the Curragh of Kildare, Ireland, 1855-1922" by Con COSTELLO is a fully-documented account of one of the most important military training camps in the former British empire. By examining the everyday lives of the officers, men and their families stationed on the Curragh, and through the use of many previously unpublished b/w photographs, this important study provides a revealing portrait of the changing profile of a colonial army. p/b, 431 pages.

Published in 1999, Liam SWORDS "In Their Own Words, The Famine in North Connacht" chronicles the peak of the Famine through the diaries and letters of the residents of Connacht. The book's nine appendices feature detailed material such as records of public works, previously unknown information regarding the efforts of the Society of Friends (Quakers) and complete passenger lists of the "coffin ships" which left Sligo for New York. A fascinating and harrowing account of the Famine and a book of genealogical importance. Hardback, 490 pages, b/w photos. Perhaps you can locate a copy if the subject interests you.

The late Derek BELL, harpist with the Chieftains, and Liam O CONCHUBHAIR created a book in 1999 called the "Traditional Songs of the North of Ireland." From the hills of Donegal to the Glens of Antrim, the airs and melodies reflect the rich but largely unknown musical tradition of the northern half of the island. Liam O Conchubhair, a singer and teacher of songs, and musician Derek Bell included the words, music and translations to many of the songs that are still sung as part of a vibrant oral tradition including "The Parting Glass" and "Blackberry Fair." Perhaps you can locate a copy if the subject interests you.

REVIEW: In the book mentioned below, there is a panoramic view of the Catholic middle class - a social stratum that has until now received little attention. In 1802, Daniel O'CONNELL, the Co. Kerry barrister who became known as the "liberator" for his work toward Catholic emancipation, secretly married a distant cousin, Mary O'CONNELL of Tralee. By doing so he jeopardized his inheritance, but forged a bond that would last until Mary's death in 1836. In 1998, "The World of Mary O'Connell 1778-1836," by Erin I. Bishop was published. You might want to look for a copy if the subject interests you. This biography of Mary O'CONNELL examines letters between the two as well as other family correspondence to provide a fascinating study of social and domestic life in early 19th century Ireland -- dealing with love, marriage, motherhood, family, sickness and health and religion. Mary is viewed in her own right, as a person and as a woman, rather than with the usual view of how Daniel O'Connell perceived her or how she affected his life. Her story helps to fill a gap in the history of women in Ireland.

DEAD I was the moon. A shadow hid me and I knew what it meant not to be at all. The moon in eclipse is sad and sinless. There is no passion in her plight. Cold, unlighted, moving in trance, she comes to her station or passes again to her place; uncovers her loneliness: eyeless behind no eyelids has neither sleeping nor waking, no body, parts, nor passions, no loving, perceiving, having, nor being; moves only in a wayless night; and drifting, as a ship without direction, sinks to a forgotten depth, among weeds, among stones. -- Rhoda Coghill (1903-2000) Born in Dublin, the late Ms. Coghill was a published poet, concert pianist, teacher, and accompanist at BBC. As a young woman she composed a large-scale orchestral work, "Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking."

THE PLOUGH HORSE On a wide-open, windless Autumn morning When shadows are all on the other side of the hedge or the tree, A slim young rook slides away like a knife blade >From the branch-stump, notched and broken as an old tooth, Where his eager bright brothers noisily Push each other down -- I'm King of the Castle! With wings rising like tattered heraldry; With torn wings flapping they regain their balance. >From behind a sturdy tree in the quiet, sunny distance, Solemnly comes the stolid brown plough-horse, Tony: No harness about him now, no harrow behind him, While the furrows are idle and himself at leisure, Shoulder-bare he plods forward in the resting field, His gait not changing, his muscles anticipating The solid jolting weight again of the ghostly gear That he wears as surely buckled on him now As a sleepwalking monk would carry his girdle and habit. -- Rhoda Coghill (born 1903)

KNOW YE NOT THAT LOVELY RIVER Know ye not that lovely river? Know ye not that smiling river? Whose gentle flood, By cliff and wood, With wildering sound goes winding ever. Oh! often yet with feeling strong, On that dear stream my memory ponders, And still I prize its murmuring song, For by my childhood's home it wanders. Know ye not that lovely river? There's music in each wind that flows Within our native woodland breathing; There's beauty in each flower that blows Around our native woodland wreathing. The memory of the brightest joys In childhood's happy morn that found us, Is dearer than the richest toys The present vainly sheds around us. Know ye not that lovely river? Oh, sister! when 'mid doubts and fears, That haunt life's onward journey ever, I turn to those departed years, And that beloved and lonely river; With sinking mind and bosom riven, And heart with lonely anguish aching; It needs my long-taught hope in heaven To keep this weary heart from breaking! Know ye not that lovely river? -- Gerald Griffin (1803-1840)