THE STARE'S NEST BY MY WINDOW The bees build in the crevices Of loosening masonry, and there The mother birds bring grubs and flies. My wall is loosening; honey-bees, Come build in the empty house of the stare. We are closed in, and the key is turned On our uncertainty; somewhere A man is killed, or a house burned, Yet no clear fact to be discerned; Come build in the empty house of the stare. A barricade of stone or of wood; Some fourteen days of civil war; Last night they trundled down the road That dead young soldier in his blood: Come build in the empty house of the stare. We had fed the heart on fantasies, The heart's grown brutal from the fare; More substance in our enmities Than in our love; O honey-bees, Come build in the empty house of the stare. -- William Butler Yeats, Dublin poet, 1928 stare/starling

Margaret BURKE-SHERIDANs likeness appears in a wonderful pencil drawing by Sean O SULLIVAN (1906-64), now in the National Gallery of Ireland. Margaret was born in Castlebar, Co. Mayo, on 15 Oct 1889. Both of her parents died when she was four and she was raised in a Dublin orphanage where a musically perceptive nun saw to it that she went to London for voice training. The seventeen-year-old Irish girl with great beauty possessed a fresh and youthful voice, a deep pathos in her singing aided by the color and richness of her Gaelic vowels and a striking personality. She was blunt of speech, quarrelled often with Toscanini, but apparently also had a devastating wit. She was to gain a number of supporters and friends including inventor Guglielmo Marconi, baritone Mattia Battistini, the reknown composer, Puccini, and poet William Butler YEATS. Margaret was not especially literary and Yeats was notoriously unmusical, but singer and writer became fast friends after she retired to Dublin in 1936. This woman who began life as an ophan was to go on to wear exquisite silk costumes and perform at La Scala and Covent Garden. Ms. Burke-Sheridan died in 1958. A portrait of of the diva by Gaetano de Gennaro appears in Dublin's Gaiety Theatre. -- Excerpt, "Ireland of the Welcomes"

BIO: Mrs. Mary Anne MADDEN SADLIER (1820-1903) was one of the most prolific Irish-American writers in the 19th century. Born in Co. Cavan, Mary Anne emigrated to Montreal in 1844. There she wrote to support herself and met and married James SADLIER, a major Catholic publisher. She had six children but never stopped writing. She contributed to the Sadlier company's Catholic magazine, "The Tablet," and completed six novels. She soon gained a devoted readership. Her novels almost always featured Irish immigrant heroes and heroines and preached the virtues of parochial schooling, faithful obedience to Church teachings, regular attendance at Mass, and vigilance against Protestant proselytizing. The SADLIERs moved to NY in 1860 and her fame grew larger, as did her circle of high-profile Catholic friends. In all, Mary Anne Madden Sadlier produced nearly 60 novels and reached an audience of millions.

REQUIESCAT Tread lightly, she is near Under the snow, Speak gently, she can hear The daisies grow. All her bright golden hair Tarnished with rust, She that was young and fair Fallen to dust. Lily-like, white as snow, She hardly knew She was a woman, so Sweetly she grew. Coffin-board, heavy stone, Lie on her breast. I vex my heart alone, She is at rest. Peace, Peace, she cannot hear Lyre or sonnet, All my life's buried here, Heap earth upon it. -- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Oscar WILDE (1854-1900) was an author, playwright, and wit. (See an example of his mother's fine poetry below). Oscar preached the importance of style in both life and art but attacked Victorian narrow-mindedness and complacency. Wilde was born in Dublin. His full name was Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde. At 20, Wilde left Ireland to study at Oxford University where he distinguished himself as a scholar and wit. He soon became a well-known public figure, but the period of his true achievement did not begin until he published "The Happy Prince and Other Tales" in 1883. In these fairy tales and fables, Wilde found a literary form well-suited to his talents. His only novel, the ingenious "Picture of Dorian Gray" (1890), is an enlarged moral fable. It describes a man whose portrait ages and grows ugly as a reflection of his moral corruption while his actual appearance remains the same. The book seems to show the destructive side of a devotion to pleasure and beauty similiar to Wilde's own. Wilde's plays taken together are his most important works. They often try to educate the idealist to his own weaknesses and to show the need for tolerance and forgiveness. In "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1895), his masterpiece, Wilde unites his own concern with style with society's concern with appearances, ridiculing social hypocrisy. In 1895, at the peak of his career with three plays running at the same time, he was accused of "personal impropriety" with Lord Alfred DOUGLAS by the marquis of Queensberry, Lord Alfred's father. As a result, there was great scandal, hopeless legal disputes, and Wilde was sentenced to two years in prison at hard labor. "The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), and a remarkable autobiographical document sometimes called "De Profundis" were written. Wilde left England after his release. Ruined in health, finances, and creative energy, but with his wit intact, he died in France three years later. Do sgríobh Speranza [an Banthighearna Wilde, mathair Oscair] na línte a leanas; tá tuilleadh a filiochta ar fáil ar an lainn ghreasáin so: <http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/wilde/speranza.html>. Do chas sí a roscanna catha ar son a tíre, le croidhe mhisneach. Go mairidh a h-anm trí bhith beatha. Speranza [Lady Wilde, Oscar's mother] wrote the following lines; more of her poetry is available at this site: <http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/wilde/speranza.html>. She sang her war songs on behalf of her country, with a brave heart. . THE ENIGMA. PALE victims, where is your Fatherland? Where oppression is law from age to age, Where the death-plague, and hunger, and misery rage, And tyrants a godless warfare wage 'Gainst the holiest rights of an ancient land. Where the corn waves green on the fair hillside, But each sheaf by the serfs and slavelings tied Is taken to pamper a foreigner's pride-- There is our suffering Fatherland. Where broad rivers flow 'neath a glorious sky, And the valleys like gems of emerald lie; Yet, the young men, and strong men, starve and die, For want of bread in their own rich land. And we pile up their corses, heap on heap, While the pale mothers faint, and the children weep; Yet, the living might envy the dead their sleep, So bitter is life in that mourning land. Oh! Heaven ne'er looked on a sadder scene; Earth shuddered to hear that such woe had been; Then we prayed, in despair, to a foreign queen, For leave to live on our own fair land. We have wept till our faces are pale and wan; We have knelt to a throne till our strength is gone; We prayed to our masters, but, one by one, They laughed to scorn our suffering land; And sent forth their minions, with cannon and steel, Swearing with fierce, unholy zeal, To trample us down with an iron heel, If we dared but to murmur our just demand.-- Know ye not now our Fatherland? What! are there no MEN in your Fatherland, To confront the tyrant's stormy glare, With a scorn as deep as the wrongs ye bear, With defiance as fierce as the oaths they sware, With vengeance as wild as the cries of despair, That rise from your suffering Fatherland? Are there no SWORDS in your Fatherland, To smite down the proud, insulting foe, With the strength of despair give blow for blow Till the blood of the baffled murderers flow On the trampled soil of your outraged land? Are your right arms weak in that land of slaves, That ye stand by your murdered brothers' graves, Yet tremble like coward and crouching knaves, To strike for freedom and Fatherland? Oh! had ye faith in your Fatherland, In God, your Cause, and your own right hand, Ye would go forth as saints to the holy fight, Go in the strength of eternal right, Go in the conquering Godhead's might-- And save or AVENGE your Fatherland!

Books can be a wonderful resource for background on an Irish county in a particular time period. In his Pulitzer prize winning autobiography, Frank McCOURT recalls some of his experiences in Leamy's School, Limerick, circa 1940: " I'm taken out of the fifth class and put into Mr. O'Halloran's sixth class with all the boys I know, Paddy Clohessy, Fintan Slattery, "The Question" Quigley, and when school is over that day I have to go back down to the statue of St. Francis of Assisi to thank him even if my legs are still weak from the typhoid and I have to sit on steps and hold on to walls... Mr. Thomas O'Halloran teaches three classes in one room, sixth, seventh, eighth. He has a head like President Roosevelt and he wears gold glasses. He wears suits, navy blue or gray, and there's a gold watch chain that hangs across his belly from pocket to pocket in his waistcoat. We call him Hoppy because he has a short leg and hops when he walks. He knows what we call him and he says, "Yes, I'm Hoppy and I'll hop on you." He carries a long stick, a pointer, and if you don't pay attention or give a stupid answer he gives three slaps on each hand or whacks you across the backs of your legs. He makes you learn everything by heart, everything, and that makes him the hardest master in school... We have to know all the important dates in Irish history. He tells us what is important and why. No master ever told us why before. If you asked why you'd be hit on the head. Hoppy doesn't call us idiots and if you ask a question he doesn't go into a rage. He's the only master who stops and says, "Do ye understand what I'm talking about? Do you want to ask a question?" It's a shock to everyone when he says, the Battle of Kinsale in sixteen nought one was the saddest moment in Irish history, a close battle with cruelty and atrocities on both sides. Cruelty on both sides? The Irish side? How could that be? All the other masters told us the Irish always fought nobly, they always fought the fair fight. He recites and makes us remember: "They went forth to battle, but they always fell, Their eyes were fixed above the sullen shields, Nobly they fought and bravely, but not well, And sank heart-wounded by a subtle spell." If they lost it was because of traitors and informers. But I want to know about these Irish atrocities. "Sir, did the Irish commit atrocities at the Battle of Kinsale?" "They did, indeed. It is recorded that they killed prisoners but they were no better nor worse than the English." Mr. O'Halloran can't lie. He's the headmaster. All these year we were told the Irish were always noble and they made brave speeches before the English hanged them. Now Hoppy O'Halloran is saying the Irish did bad things. Next thing he'll be saying the English did good things! He says, "You have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everything else but you can't make up an empty mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it. If you won the Irish Sweepstakes and bought a house that needed furniture would you fill it with bits and pieces of rubbish? Your mind is your house and if you fill it with rubbish from the cinemas it will rot in your head. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace." He calls us one by one to the front of the room and looks at our shoes. He wants to know why they're broken or why we have no shoes at all. He tells us this is a disgrace and he's going to have a raffle to raise money so that we can have strong warm boots for the winter. He gives us books of tickets and we swarm all over Limerick for Leamy's School boot fund, first prize five pounds, five prizes of a pound each. Eleven with no boots get new boots. Malachy (Frank's brother) and I don't get any because we have shoes on our feet even if the soles are worn away and we wonder why we ran all over Limerick selling tickets so that other boys could get boots." -- Excerpt, Frank McCourt, "Angela's Ashes," (1996)

Co. Laois ("Queen's) -- The workhouse of Donaghmore is a range of two-storey buildings of grey limestone, built in 1853 to feed and house 400 paupers. It closed its doors in 1886, but the buildings survived and in 1993 they were opened offically as the Donaghmore Workhouse Museum. Refurbishment and adding to the collections is in progress all the time. Part of the complex now houses a fine display of horse-drawn farm implements and a wide selection of local household goods, many of them bringing back happy childhood memories to those in their 60s and older. The other part is the Workhouse itself. Its inhabitants had few material goods to leave, but the layout of the buildings and the surviving furnishings give a grim imprssion of how the destitute lived. Morality of the 19th century demanded that males and females be segregated, so family life came to an abrupt end once within the gates. The dormitories, though spacious, had few comforts, but there was a slightly elevated floor on which the inmates slept. In their waking hours, the able-bodied men, women and children engaged in working for their keep. It was better than the starvation offered by the outside world - but not much. Northwards is the village of Borris-in-Ossory, on the main road from Limerick to Dublin. (Note there is now a new Heritage Trail with delightful signposted tours of 13 places in Co. Laois of particular interest). From Borris-in-Ossory the trail goes south-west through green pastures with well-tended hedges to the ruins of the monastery of Aghaboe, a foundation of the great Saint Canice in the 6th century . History did not treat the foundation with any particular deference; it was plundered and burned with dismal regularity every 50 years or so by a variety of individuals, though it was bravely rebuilt each time until its final demise in the 16h century. The next stop on the trail is Durrow, a delightful village with generous green surrounded by neat houses. Then the trail follows a narrow, winding road to the angling museum and the tiny village of Attanagh. It is a rarity in that it is actually being built by the collector himself, Walter WHELAN, and visitors can see a swarm of fishing flies, an array of rods and reels, some tools of the trades of fly-tiers, gunsmiths and poachers. -- Excerpt, "Ireland of the Welcomes"

REVIEW: This book contains a real success story and shows the value of family oral histories to genealogists, see below. Perhaps you can locate a copy of this book published in 1998 if the subject interests you, "The Story of the Rebellious O'Kennedys," Brian Patrick KENNEDY, Gaeltachta Publishing, POB 7030, Holland Park East, 4121 Australia. There are 38 chapters in this book, and per book review by the editor of "Irish Roots" magazine, most of the book is a history of the Kennedys from earliest times to the present - how the Kennedys fared through the various episodes of Irish history. There are chapters on Kennedy churches, churchmen, castles and cottages, there is a well-informed chapter on the Kennedy coats of arms and seals. One of the most interesting parts of the book is a chapter in which the author recounts in detail how he located the place in Ireland from which his own Kennedy ancestors set out for Australia. Brian Kennedy already knew from Australian records that the family was associated with the parish of Doon, Co. Limerick, but the parish priest had not been able to trace the marriage record years before. The real breakthrough came when the author's cousin remembered that her grandmother, who had purchased a farm in Brisbane at the turn of the century, had the name "Foilaclara" painted on the board at the farm gate. She remembered trying to pronounce it as a child and being told that it was the name of the place in Ireland from which her grandmother had come. The significance of this name became apparent when, checking through the townlands of Griffith's Valuation, Brian Kennedy came across the name Foilycleara with two Kennedy families listed as landholders! Further research at the Land Valuation Office in Dublin enabled the author to find the old Kennedy homestead. Clearly, it was worth the long search. "It was a cold drizzly afternoon when we stopped the car on the road outside and walked into the yard. I cannot describe my feelings as I stepped over the threshold into the cottage. To think that my great-grandparents had left here to go to Australia. Every genealogist's dream!"

Please see Query below -- Hi Rita, As I recall that book is divided by Irish county. It gives the name of a civil parish, townlands, the denominations of old churches, years of church operation, years for which records are available. It tells if there is a graveyard attached and lists location of graveyards not connected to any particular church. It usually does not give the exact name of the church, only type, but it does give the name of the town, often with the name of the street. It does not list names on graves. However, John Grenham's "Tracing Your Irish Ancestors," (1999) gives information that includes where you can find graveyard transcriptions. There is a good website (Commonwealth War Graves Commission) for UK-connected soldier & civilian DEATHS during WWI & WWII, and the WWI data often includes name and address of "next-of-kin." Just enter that address in your browser, or try http://yard.ccta.gov.uk/cwgc/register.nsf Jean Rita wrote: I subscribe to Ancestry.com and have tried to search the WWI records, but it is very tedious and time consuming. Is there an easy way to search them? > > Are the graves inventoried in the book Jean recommended, 'A Guide to Irish Churches and Graveyards'? or just graveyard and church locations (which would be a mighty resource for me). > > OK, I hope everyone will bear my Irish history ignorance with grace--I am sure I will have more questions--still haven't read anything that's sold me on terrorism tho'. > > Take care, Rita

Don at donkelly@grovenet.net writes: << Irene didn't provide much to go one, but perhaps those who descend from O'Rourke can at least give her some encouragement. Her address below. >> Don, I didn't find any address in the message, so perhaps she'll get it this way. If she goes to google.com and enters > breifne <, she'll get over 1000 hits. The first one deals with the territory of Breifne and the O Rourkes, who were the Lords and Kings of Breifne. Pete Schermerhorn, in the glorious Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts

MUNSTER: The province of Munster is composed of Cos. Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford. It is the largest province in Ireland, rich and confident, having three of the Republic's six cities, four of her great rivers, and the great flow and estuary of the Shannon, longest river in Britain and Ireland. It has a massive diversity of landscape, from the most fertile, the Golden Vale, to the least fertile, the naked limestone plains of north Clare. There, in the Burren, one finds such botanical variety that flowers found elsewhere only in the Alps, and those of the Mediterrean lowlands can be seen growing side by side! Kerry and Cork have fuchsia hedges, rhododendron forests, and plants found nowhere else north of Spain. Of all the provinces it has the longest Gulf Stream coast and the mildest climate. It may rain, deep in the west, but there are a greater number of frost-free days in Munster than anywhere north of the Channel Isles. Migrant birds flock in their hundred thousands to Munster estuaries in winter, and Cape Clear is the oldest bird observatory in the Republic. Of Ireland's 66 Blue Flag beaches (those meeting European Union standards relating to water quality and general cleanliness), 26 are in Munster. For the saltwater fisherman, it is lapped by the most fertile sea - 3/4 of all specimen sea fish are caught in southwestern waters. Here, the first sharks of summer are hooked, tagged and released, drifting north on the Gulf Stream. Whales pass by, and giant leather-back turtles circumnavigate the Atlantic from their nesting beaches in the Caribbean. For the inland angler, Munster rivers are said to hold the most bountiful stocks of brown trout, and almost every river has a respectable salmon run. Waterville is one of the best sea-trout lakes in Europe. Kerry also has a large colony of natterjack toads which live in the dunes backing the five-mile (8 km) long strand at Inch. The elegant snow white egret , a new visitor, favours the southwest and it nests in Ireland. Munster has, also, a richer variety of warm-blooded wild creatures than any other province including the pine marten, bank vole and red squirrel. The Munster people are warm blooded themselves and famous for sport and song. Munster was the nursery of many a journeyman saint who set out from stone cells by lake and sea to carry the Christian light to Dark Age Europe. The oldest surviving Christian church in Ireland is Gallarus Oratory, near Slea Head, and the first Protestant church built in Ireland is in Bandon, Co. Cork. Everywhere the landscape is dotted with relics of an earlier worship; stone circles and dolemns, their capstones like alters under the vault of the sky. Munster has always produced Irish patriots and liberators. It was Brian Boru, from Clare, High King of Ireland, who defeated the Vickings. The ancient abbey that tops the Rock of Cashel-of-the-Kings rises dramatic and lovely out of the Tipperary plain. Daniel O'Connell, "the Liberator," was born in Kerry. Michael Collins, who led the fight for Irish independence in 1919-1921, was born and died in west Cork. The cottage in which de Valera, the first Taoiseach, was reared was at Bruree in the Golden Vale. Cashel is only one of thousands of ruins of old Ireland still extant in Munster. Cork has 2,000 prehistoric sites, and Limerick's Lough Gur offers fine examples of early lake dwellings. Co. Limerick, alone, has 400 castles! Everywhere in Muster one comes upon elegant, roofless abbeys, squat oratories, ivy-bound churches and gutted stately houses. It is also quite likely that Munster was the home to the first potatoes, imported from America and welcomed at Youghal by Sir Walter Raleigh, also an import to Ireland, but not so welcome himself. At Youghal, also, was possibly smoked the first pipe of the insidious tobacco - but we can blame Raleigh for that. Muster has some of the finest progenitors and practioners of Irish music among the people of Clare. Ireland's composer, Wallace, of Waterford, was Munster born, as was the modern composer, Sean O'Riada, and the great poet in Gaelic, Aodhagan O'Rathaille. In science, Munstermen also made their mark - Boyle, of Boyle's Law, was born at Lismore Castle in 1627. For sporting, the Munster people are famous. Jack Doyles, the boxer, was born at Cobh on the Shannon Estuary. Cork also has more All Ireland Hurling medals than any other county, and was the home to the legendary hurler, Christy Ring. Its road bowlers sling a bowl with great flair and accuracy. The first steeplechase ever was galloped between the steeples of Buttevant and Doneraile, in Co. Cork. The fine stud farms of Tipperary and north Cork are famous. Sons of Shergar, prince of stallions, can be seen grazing the parklands on long, slim legs. Vincent O'Brien, doyen of trainers, has his stables, still in business, at Ballydoyle. Master MacGrath, the world-beating greyhound, was pupped in Waterford. Muster offers the finest, most scenic golf in Europe, with four world-class links courses close together in Kerry and Clare. The oldest yacht club in the world is on Cork harbour. Being arguably the most beautiful province, it is the most filmed. "Moby Dick" was made off the Cork coast. "Ryan's Daughter," on the coast of Kerry. Craftsman abound, and the finest crystal glass in the world is made in Waterford, an amazingly successful venture begun by the Penrose brothers. Sellig Michael, one of the two Skellig Rocks which rise out of the Atlantic, is off the coast of Kerry. Its beehive huts are still clinging to the clifftop 700 feet above the sea built in the 6th century by members of a religious order whose successors remained on the island, cut off from the world by eight miles of often raging ocean, for the next 600 years. Humour is the breath of life and the tradition of talk, song, dance and banter is treasured in Munster, where the softest Irish and the most melodious English is spoken. It is said that when Cork men or Kerry women speak, you might think they were singing to you. Excerpts, "Irish Counties," J. J. Lee (1997)

MORE: As the glaciers retreated from Munster northward to Finland, for a long time Galway Bay was a fresh water lake. What we now know as the Aran Islands set atop a solid limestone arch that blocked seawater from entering Galway Bay. That limestone arch looped from the Burren area of Clare out to sea and returned to land further north in Galway/Connaught. As glaciers continued to melt, the sea level raised until it overflowed the lower parts of the limestone archway. At that time the higher points became the Aran Islands and Galway Bay turned from fresh to salt water. Some varieties of wild flowers there are found nowhere else in Ireland. Before man came, it must have been a magical place. Thanks Jean Don Kelly ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jean Rice" <jeanrice@cet.com> To: <IrelandGenWeb-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2002 9:32 AM Subject: [IGW] Clare's Burren - Rock Garden w/ Orchids in a Lunar Landscape - (PRAEGER/NELSON) > Co. Clare's usual 140-square mile area called the Burren or boireann (stony > place) is an intricately beautiful natural phenomenon - a moonscape in which > Ice Age glaciers marched south across Galway Bay and rode up and over the > Burren plateau. The ice stripped away all the weathered rock, scraped out > tiers of cliffs and smooth, flat terraces on the hills, and deepened the > valleys and hollows. It left a litter of boulders made of limestone and > Connemara granite. When walking over a stretch of the shattered, uneven > pavement, a whole slab of limestone may teeter underfoot and fall back into > place with a ring like a cracked church bell, the noise echoing down through > crevices, fissures and shafts until it reaches caves far underground and is > lost in the cistern-sounds of flowing water. Spring gentians, mountain > avens and bloody cranesbill bloom here. > > Notably, there are are 22 recorded kinds of orchid blossoms to be found in > the Burren beginning in late April and continuing into September! Sma ll > plants thrive in the most unexpected places requiring just a bit of light, > soil and water to spring forth in minature beauty. Also seen are "vanishing > lakes," the grassy hollows called turloughs, which brim with water in winter > and often empty entirely in summer. In the typical turlough, a rim of black > moss on the encircling rocks shows the "high tide" mark. > > The Burren has the longest cave in Ireland, Poulnagollum, "The Cave of the > Doves" with water-smoothed passages that wind for more than nine miles > through the dark. Less-adventurous visitors can stroll through the caverns > of Aillwee, above Ballyvaughan, with their dry walkways and spotlit > stalactites. > > Ireland's insular history and special Atlantic climate have put together in > this corner of north County Clare a bouquet of wildflowers whose mixture is > ecologically unique. The famous early 20th century botanist, Robert Lloyd > PRAEGER said, "He who has viewed the thousands of acres of arctic-alpine > plants in full flower, from hilltop down to sea level has seen one of the > loveliest sights Ireland has to offer." Modern-day botanist Charles > NELSONdescribes the blue color of the spring gentian as "the darker part of > the clear summer sky at sunset." Bloody cranesbill, in bloom from June to > August, is a piercing magenta color enriched with anthers of turquoise blue > on closer inspection. In "stony pastures," bluebells can be found, hazel > copses, cushioned in mosses and tall helleborines. > > The trees of the Burren have curious shapes that seem perfectly suited to > their unusual location. Essential to the Burren ecosystem, cows and feral > goats found throughout the area graze on hazel scrub that would otherwise > proliferate and overshadow more delicate wildlife. > > -- Excerpt, "The World of Hibernia" - Summer 1998 > > > > ==== IrelandGenWeb Mailing List ==== > Please make sure to visit RootsWeb, our hostmaster, at http://www.rootsweb.com > --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.394 / Virus Database: 224 - Release Date: 10/3/02

Address for Irene in OZ is jake.d.muss.d@bigpond.com <jake.d.muss.d@bigpond.com> She isn't on this list, but perhaps she will join. Thanks Pete. Don ----- Original Message ----- From: <PeteScherm@aol.com> To: <IrelandGenWeb-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2002 9:50 AM Subject: Re: [IGW] From Irene Diamond, Sydney Australia. > Don at donkelly@grovenet.net writes: > > << Irene didn't provide much to go one, but perhaps those who descend from > O'Rourke can at least give her some encouragement. Her address below. >> > > Don, > > I didn't find any address in the message, so perhaps she'll get it this way. > If she goes to google.com and enters > breifne <, she'll get over 1000 > hits. The first one deals with the territory of Breifne and the O Rourkes, > who were the Lords and Kings of Breifne. > > Pete Schermerhorn, in the glorious Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts > > > ==== IrelandGenWeb Mailing List ==== > Please make sure to visit RootsWeb, our hostmaster, at http://www.rootsweb.com > --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.394 / Virus Database: 224 - Release Date: 10/3/02

"A Very Brief Reflection on Omagh" - (Dedicated to Lasting Peace in Ireland) No words - how many of us have said that? No words for what happened in Omagh at 10 minutes past three on the Feast Day of the Assumption, 1998. The silence, others have said. The eerie, awful split-second of silence after Saturday's blast - then the screaming. In Buncrana children weep. In Omagh, people gather to pray together. In Madrid, a mother turns her face away from the sight of her son's coffin. The harvest fields of Mid-Ulster are still. It is four months since Good Friday - since the signing of the agreement that we hoped would mean the end to all of this. "Never again," we vowed, "Never again," we voted. Then the burning of the three Quinn boys, then the murder of Belfast father Andrew Kearney beside his new-born baby. Then this. Four months since Good Friday...Augher, Clogher, Drum... Four months since good Friday... Omagh, Buncrana, Madrid... Good Friday, Bloody Saturday. When will Sunday come? Sunday - the day of Resurrection. The slab rolled back forever from the crucified bodies of the people we love. On Omagh Bridge an RUC man stands holding a crown of thorns. No words. Yet, months ago, with a friend, 12-year-old Sean McLaughlin found words, wrote innocently, inspired, hopeful. "Orange and green, it doesn't matter, United now, don't shatter our dream, Scatter the seeds of peace over our land, So we can travel hand in hand, Across the bridge of hope." His life, his dream, was shattered. "I still believe in God, I still believe in an afterlife," say the parents of the murdered children. "Orange and green - it doesn't matter - united now." 28 people united - in death. We pray as we lay them to rest - "scatter the seeds of peace." 18 dead - so many injured, marred, marked, desolate. Omagh joining the unholy litany of places - names remembered for horror. On Saturday - not knowing what had happened - I watched a pageant commemorating 1798 and that part of the ongoing, universal struggle for liberty and equality. One of those taking part gave me a hand-out, one of the many pithy, literary extracts they were distributing for their audience to reflect upon. Mine was written by Father Michael MacGreal, SJ - it simply said: Violence inevitably leads to the peace of the graveyard." Let there be an end now to that kind of peace. We seek for words. We must find words, as the peacemakers did - words wrought from pain and conflict and other dark days and nights. Words to buttress that bridge of hope - that bridge out of darkness, into the tentative light of dawn." -- Vincent Woods, author/poet (Note, Omagh is in Co. Tyrone).

In Casalattico, Italy, St. Patrick's Day is celebrated with gusto and many inhabitants there speak English but with an Irish accent! Situated south of Rome in the Valle di Comino, the tiny mountainous village is rustic, harsh and rocky. It has a touch of Connemara, that rugged region in the west of Ireland. On March 17 each year, a special Mass is celebrated in the town in honor of the Irish patron saint. Green banners abound, along with real Shamrocks mailed from Ireland. Irish and Italian music fills the air. By evening there are Irish dancers. Many of the Italians who settled in Ireland came from sunlit Casalattico in a steady trickle. The exodus followed Italy's 1858 revolution, the "Risorgimento." With the victory of King Emmanual, many who fought for Garibaldi fled the country. Some of them, and others who left because of extreme poverty, traveled by foot through Italy into France. Many settled in England or Scotland, others in Ireland. Earlier, Irish missionaries, often called "warrior monks," had left their mark all over Europe, including Italy. Munster-born St. Cathal was the patron saint of the Italian army and revered in Taranto in southern Italy. Donogh O'Brien, the son of the 11th century High King Brian Boru joined the Roman monastery of Santo Stefano Rotondo, where he died. The Normans, who built castles in Sicily fifty years later, began cultural links between Italy and Ireland. The great Norman-Irish families such as the Fitzgeralds claimed Italian ancestors. The Geraldine can trace their heritage to the powerful Gheradini family of Florence. Followng the winning of Catholic emancipation in Ireland in 1829, there was a boom in church building. There was a demand for stone masons, church decorators and terrazzo tile workers. Italians with such skills had already been brought over to Ireland to ornament the graceful houses of Georgian Dublin and the country home of the English landlords. Alessandro Galilei, the architect who designed the facade of St. John Latern in Rome, built Castletown House in Co. Kildare for William Conolly. Other craftsmen decorated such mansions as Russborough, Maynooth College and Aras an Uachtarain, in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, which is the residence of the President of Ireland. The master craftsman Bartholomew Crammillion decorated Dublin's Rotunda Hospital. The lovely fleur-de-lys, cupids and angels still to be seen in the plasterwork of Georgian houses in Dublin are synonymous with such names as Francini and Bossi. At the time of Catholic emanicipation, Paul Cullen was Archbishopof Dublin. He had studied at the Irish College in Rome and acquired a taste for Roman-style churches, ornate decorating and Italian religious symbolism. The demand grew. Years after the Great Famine (1845-1849) many of the one million Irish who had emigrated worldwide in search of work and food sent money home to to have gravestones made and decorated in memory of family members who had died of starvation. Italians were quickly assimilated into the Irish culture. They were not taking work away from Irish. Their skills were needed. Both ethnic groups shared the same religion. The Italians brought gastronomic skills with them including the introduction of ice cream and hot chestnuts. Many of the Italians who came to Ireland, other than those in stone and terrazzo work, ended up selling fish and chips, not spaghetti. The first Italian immigrants in Ireland married with their own ethnic group. With time that gradually changed. Next to the Jewish community, the Italians form the oldest and most cohesive group of immigrants in Ireland. They advertise their nationality through their names which include Cipriani, Cafolla, Borza, Fusco, Marcari, De Vito, Cassoni. Carlo Bianconi ("Brian Cooney" to his neighbors in Thurles, Co. Tipperary) built and organized the first Irish transport system. He arrived in Ireland in 1804. One of the few Italians to venture into Irish politics, he helped his friend Daniel O'Connell in his fight for Catholic amancipation Giuseppe Nannetti was a Lord Mayor of Dublin (1906-08). During the 1930s, the Italian ship, "Amerigo Vespucci" visited Dublin and its crew enjoyed the hospitality of the Cafolla family, whose photo appears in the March-April 2001 issue of "Ireland of the Welcomes." Luigi Fulgoni developed a perfume called "Shamrock Leaves" circa 1960s; his next venture was the opening of Dublin's Unicorn Restaurant. Until 1969, there was a large Italian community in Northern Ireland, mainly in Belfast, where members attended St. Mary's Church in Chapel Lane. There was even an Italian school in the city. A close social life was maintained, and in the early years marriage among Italian families were encouraged. Always, the link with Italy was maintained. The financial and material support from the Italian-Irish at the time of Italy's disastrous flood in 1951 was an example of that unbroken link. In 1978, the Club Italiano centre in Tibradden on the outskirts of Dublin was opened. "Italia Stampa" is the official publication of the entire Italian-Irish community. Researchers may be interested in "Terra Straniera: The Story of the Italians in Ireland," author Una Power. -- Excerpts, "Ireland of the Welcomes"

Co. Clare's usual 140-square mile area called the Burren or boireann (stony place) is an intricately beautiful natural phenomenon - a moonscape in which Ice Age glaciers marched south across Galway Bay and rode up and over the Burren plateau. The ice stripped away all the weathered rock, scraped out tiers of cliffs and smooth, flat terraces on the hills, and deepened the valleys and hollows. It left a litter of boulders made of limestone and Connemara granite. When walking over a stretch of the shattered, uneven pavement, a whole slab of limestone may teeter underfoot and fall back into place with a ring like a cracked church bell, the noise echoing down through crevices, fissures and shafts until it reaches caves far underground and is lost in the cistern-sounds of flowing water. Spring gentians, mountain avens and bloody cranesbill bloom here. Notably, there are are 22 recorded kinds of orchid blossoms to be found in the Burren beginning in late April and continuing into September! Small plants thrive in the most unexpected places requiring just a bit of light, soil and water to spring forth in minature beauty. Also seen are "vanishing lakes," the grassy hollows called turloughs, which brim with water in winter and often empty entirely in summer. In the typical turlough, a rim of black moss on the encircling rocks shows the "high tide" mark. The Burren has the longest cave in Ireland, Poulnagollum, "The Cave of the Doves" with water-smoothed passages that wind for more than nine miles through the dark. Less-adventurous visitors can stroll through the caverns of Aillwee, above Ballyvaughan, with their dry walkways and spotlit stalactites. Ireland's insular history and special Atlantic climate have put together in this corner of north County Clare a bouquet of wildflowers whose mixture is ecologically unique. The famous early 20th century botanist, Robert Lloyd PRAEGER said, "He who has viewed the thousands of acres of arctic-alpine plants in full flower, from hilltop down to sea level has seen one of the loveliest sights Ireland has to offer." Modern-day botanist Charles NELSONdescribes the blue color of the spring gentian as "the darker part of the clear summer sky at sunset." Bloody cranesbill, in bloom from June to August, is a piercing magenta color enriched with anthers of turquoise blue on closer inspection. In "stony pastures," bluebells can be found, hazel copses, cushioned in mosses and tall helleborines. The trees of the Burren have curious shapes that seem perfectly suited to their unusual location. Essential to the Burren ecosystem, cows and feral goats found throughout the area graze on hazel scrub that would otherwise proliferate and overshadow more delicate wildlife. -- Excerpt, "The World of Hibernia" - Summer 1998

Born in Belfast, 1907, John HEWITT was educated at Methodist College and Queen's University Belfast. He worked for 27 years in Belfast Museum and Art Gallery. Passed over for post of director in 1953, apparently because of his left-wing, anti-sectarian politics, Hewitt moved to Coventry as director of the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, 1957. He retired in 1972 and returned to Belfast (Co. Antrim) dying in 1987. "I may appear Planter's Gothic, " he wrote in 1953, "but there is a round tower somewhere inside, and needled through every sentence I utter." He identified with the radicalism of the Presbyterian United Irishmen and of the 18th and 19th century Rhyming Weavers of Antrim and Down, whose work he anthologised. Hewitt struggled to keep viable a submerged Ulster tradition of tolerance and faith in human progress. >From FREEHOLD (The Lonely Heart) Once in a seaside town with time to kill, the windless winter-daylight ebbing chill, the cafes shut till June, the shop blinds drawn, only one pub yet open where a man trundled his barrels off a dray with care, and two men talking, small across the square, I turned from broad street, down a red-brick row, past prams in parlours and infrequent show of thrusting bulbtips, till high steps and porch and rigid statue signalised a church. I climbed the granite past Saint Patrick's knees, saw cross in stone, befingered, ringed with grease, and water in a stroup with oily skin, swung door on stall of booklets and went in to the dim stained-glass cold interior between low pews along a marble floor to where the candles burned, still keeping pace with ugly-coloured Stations of the Cross. Two children tiptoed in and prayed awhile. A shabby woman in a faded shawl came hirpling past me then, and crumpled down, crossing herself and mumbling monotone. I stood and gazed across the altar rail at the tall windows, cold and winter pale; Christ and His Mother, Christ and Lazarus, Christ watching Martha bustle round the house, Christ crowned, with sceptre and a blessing hand. I counted seven candles on the stand; a box of matches of familiar brand lay on a tray. It somehow seemed my right to pay my penny and set up my light, not to this coloured Christ nor to His Mother, but single flame to sway with all the other small earnest flames against the crowding gloom which seemed that year descending on our time, suppressed the fancy, smiled a cynic thought, turned clicking heel on marble and went out. Not this my fathers' faith: Their walls are bare; their comfort's all within, if anywhere, I had gone there a vacant hour to pass, to see the sculpture and admire the glass, but left as I had come, a protestant, and all unconscious of my yawning want; too much intent on what to criticise to give my heart the room to realise that which endures the tides of time so long cannot be always absolutely wrong; not even with a friendly thought or human for the two children and the praying woman. The years since then have proved I should have stayed and mercy might have touched me till I prayed. For now I scorn no man's or child's belief in any symbol that may succour grief if we remember whence life first arose and how within us yet that river flows; and how the fabled shapes in dream's deep sea still evidence our continuity with being's seamless garment, web and thread. O windblown grass upon the mounded dead, O seed in crevice of the frost-split rock, the power that fixed your root shall take us back, though endlessly through aeons we are thrust as luminous or unreflecting dust. -- John Hewitt (1907-1987)

MAP I In six-inch scale, the Mayo baronies Cover half the wall above my couch. Bog and mountain, tarn and cascade: I trace These abrupt crazed contours where the gannet sweeps Round rock and cliff, the bay below groaning, the wind Cudgelling the coarse grass flat as it drives inland. Here, on the narrow slope between crags and sea, Clan fought clan, the misty cliffs over them, Searock a false step below, and the Atlantic gale Drumming their shields with shafts of rain. No peace Ever visits that shore; no worth in that stony ground. II Papers everywhere -- piled onto tables and shelves -- Accounts marked overdue, old magazines, failed poems. A room occupied too long. Inertia. I should Give up scanning the map, prone here on the couch, And like my father take rootless flight. He was an inconstant collector -- Spode jugs, The "Complete Works of George Moore," trout flies -- Fads, pawned off in time, to pay for new caprices. In his last place, the apartment in Beirut, He spread a dozen Persian rugs, overlapping each other, Auctioned off after his death. I held on to His bronze gesturing Shiva, with his little smile. Has ancestral greed driven us over the earth...? III Was it greed for possession of these salty crags That drove them at each other, wave after wave, Yelling and stumbling through bulrushes and mire Between Achill and the Bellacorick marsh? No one records the outcome, no one knows the victor: "Place of Great Slaughter," the name in Irish on the map. When the blighted stalks Lay cracked and brown above The harrow-rows, the lean Poets stopped their singing By the blackened hearth and sought The exile ship in the cove, Or death released them from Mourning the pestilence That shadowed every face, And rage against the tyrant Whose greed fostered famine Rattled in their throats. IV Rage swept them across the Vistula, Danube, Elbe, Before they had names for rivers. They hammered Images into bronze and gold to shield them For the crossing to the Isles of Bliss they dreamt Beyond the storms. Now they have spanned oceans And given their names to places they stayed in Hardly long enough to light a fire or dig a grave. My father learned to navigate the old way, By the stars -- could fly a course >From Ganges to Euphrates -- knew half the globe >From the air. The Ides of March: taking off >From Tehran, his plane crashed at the edge Of a place that is called in Persian "Desert of Salt." "Twenty thousand feet above the Aegean, Setting course for Alexandria... If you can get to Basel I can meet you And take you on to Beirut." His letter folded Round the cash for the fare, but I bought instead A box of secondhand books, and stayed home In a littered room, to doze to Haydn; to put down The pen, lost for words, considering the map, The pibroch sounding, the warriors shouting. The gannet settles On a narrow ledge Between rowdy waves And rain-laden clouds. On the slope of great slaughter A mountain ash raises Its one stricken limb. -- James J. McAuley (b. Dublin 1936) In memory of his father, Capt. J. Noel McAuley, 1908-1963

O'ROURKE'S TABLE August bank holiday weekend Sunlight coming through the hazels As we climb the steep path, Fresh bark on the irregular steps Up the slope of O'Rourke's table. "You'll get an indulgence for this," a woman says Stopping at the water gallon half-way up. Printed histories on the notice boards Are an excuse to delay and catch my breath. And hill people twice my age plough on. Sunlight hammers down on the anvil flat Hill-top where the O'Rourkes of Breifne, Held their banquets before that bother With Dervogilla, McMorrow, Cromwell. History. Their power broken. The domain endures. Lough Gill, the lake of brightness. Church Island, Beezie's Island, Cormorant rock. Black reefs In the dancing glimmer and perfect light On the Doons, Banagher, the Grianan of Calry Meaning a beautiful sunny spot. Place on a hill. "Surely to God you're not eating yet," says Fr. Patsy. As the barbecue smoke draws a line of appetites, An open-air hunger fee from turf-banks. Mothers and run-about children, old men in shorts White legs hidden half a century from the sun. "Give the 'genny a rev. The power is going up and down." Sure it'll add an extra beat." The organisers shout back and forth. Then amplified voices. Ballads. Set dances. The barbecue and the dancers are in full swing I should be writing, not sprawled on the heather But with music, company and wine from a back-pack, Only the skylarks dispute. And a guest at the high table Can make no argument with the Lord. -- Brian Leyden, contemporary poet, excerpt "Leitirm Guardian"

Account, Chapelizod, Dublin -- "AD 1767 - in the beginning of the month of May - I mention it because as I said, I write from memoranda, an awfully dark night down on Chapelizod and all the country round. I believe there was no moon, and the stars had been quite put out under the "wet blanket of the night," which impenetrable muffler overspread the sky with a funereal darkness. There was a little of that sheet-lightning early in the evening, which betokens sultry weather. The clouds, column after column, came up sullenly over the Dublin mountains, rolling themselves from one horizon to the other into one black dome of vapour, their slow but steady motion contrasting with the awful stillness of the air. There was a weight in the atmosphere, and a sort of undefined menace brooding over the little town, as if unseen crime or danger - some mystery of iniquity - was stealing into the heart of it, and the disapproving heavens scowled a melancholy warning... It was, indeed, a remarkably dark night - a rush and down-pour of rain! The doctor stood just under the porch of the stout brick house - of King William's date, which was then the residence of the worthy rector of Chapelizod - with his great surtout and cape on - his leggings buttoned up - and his capacious leather "overalls" pulled up and strapped over these - and his broad-leafed hat tied down over his wig and ears with a mightly silk kerchief. I dare say he looked absurd enough - but it was the women's doing - who always, upon emergencies, took the doctor's wardrobe in hands. Old Sally, with her kind, mild grave face, and gray locks, stood modestly behind the hall; and pretty Lilias, his only child, gave him her parting kiss, and her last grand charge about his shoes and other exterior toggery, in the porch; and he patted her cheek with a little fond laugh, taking old John TRACY's, the butler's, arm. John carried a handsome horn-lantern, which flashed now on a roadside bush - now on the discoloured battlements of the bridge - and now on a streaming window. They stept out - there were no umbrellas in those days - splashing among the wide and widening pools; while Sally and Lilias stood in the porch, holding candles for full five minutes after the doctor and his "Jack-o'-the lantern," as he called honest John, whose arm and candle always befriended him in his night excursions, had got round the corner." -- J. Sheridan Le Fanu, "The House By the Churchyard," 1863