Valentin Iremonger was born in Dublin, 1918, educated at Synge Street Christian Brothers' School, Colaiste Mhuire and the Abbey Theatre School of Acting. Actor and producer at Abbey and Gate theatres, 1940-6. He wrote a small number of impressive lyrics in his late 20s and very little thereafter. Entered Irish diplomatic service, 1946. Over the next approximately 20 years he was Ambassador to Sweden, Norway, Finland, India, Luxembourg and Portugal. He was poetry editor of "Envoy," 1949-51. Co-edited "Contemporary Irish Poetry" (1949) with Robert Greacen, and translated "The Hard Road to Klondike" and "An Irish Navvy, the Diary of an Exile" in the early 1960s. Iremonger died in 1991. THIS HOURE HER VIGILL Elizabeth, frigidly stretched, On a spring day surprised us With her starched dignity and the quietness Of her hands clasping a black cross. With book and candle and holy water dish She received us in the room with the blind down. Her eyes were peculiarly closed and we knelt shyly Noticing the blot of her hair on the white pillow. We met that evening by the crumbling wall In the field behind the house where I lived And talked it over, but could find no reason Whey she had left us whom she had liked so much. Death, yes, we understood: something to do With age and decay, decrepit bodies; But here was this vigorous one, aloof and prim. Who would not answer our furtive whispers. Next morning, hearing the priest call her name, I fled outside, being full of certainty, And cried my seven years against the church's stone wall. For eighteen years I did not speak her name. Until this autumn day when, in a gale, A sapling fell outside my window, its branches Rebelliously blotting the lawn's green. Suddenly, I thought Of Elizabeth, frigidly stretched. -- Valentin Iremonger

Here is another kind reply to my query: Duncan wrote: > Jean Accents in the UK change very quickly within short distances and whilst > foreigners might not notice this , native Britons will. Yes there would be > many words in common usage in Liverpool that would not be heard in Tunbridge > Wells. Tunbridge Wells is now a very affluent area but that may not have > been the case for the average person there in 1900. More than likely it > would have been a countrified accent in 1900. Usually accents from country > areas are much slower. > > No Tunbridge Wells folk have never had Cockney accents. Cockney accents > are confined to a small area in the East End of London. Cockneys are famous > for rhyming slang, although most areas have their own rhyming slang. > Examples = apples mean stairs, ( apples and pears) whistle means suit of > clothes (Whistle and flute ) Micheal Cain has a Cockney type accent. > > Liverpool accents are influenced very much by Ireland and are similar in > some ways to Dublin accents. The Beatles are the best example. Again not > sure of the Scouse (Liverpool) accent in 1900 but many words are not used in > the south of England . Butty for sandwich is one example. In Cockney a > sandwich would sound like sarnie. > > To a Scot like me both accents , Scouse and Cockney, are very nasal. Y My query: > > Hi Listers -- I know there are some Britishers on this Irish list and > wonder if you can answer my question. Would the children of a blended > Irish/English family attending school in Liverpool in the early 1900s have > accents and/or names for everyday items that differed greatly from say their > more affluent cousins who lived closer to London, in Tunbridge Wells, Kent? > In the former, is that what they refer to as "Cockney" accent?. > > > > Can anyone give me examples of of how Liverpudlians might have pronounced > particular words as opposed to their counterparts living closer to London? > > > > This is one of the questions I wish I had asked my Liverpudlian father > before he died. He had lost his accent quickly after emigrating to the USA, > and before I was born - still used a few British words for items, though - > and I have been wondering about this for years. Jean > > > >

Thanks to all the listers who responded to my query about differing British accents. Here is one example: Colin wrote: > Well, the most famous example of 'Scouse' - the language of Liverpool - is > the word 'hair' as grows from the head, for example. > > A Scouser would pronounce it 'Hurr' as in 'her'. > > I suggest you look up 'scouse' on your search engine and I am almost sure > you will find a dictionary of scouse! > > Otherwise buy a Beatles record and listen carefully or a tape of the early > poems of Roger McGough (Goff!) or an early Cilla Black record. Her TV shows > show she still has the accent. > > Have fun > > Colin > >

Closing the Distance -- James Murphy, A Trip Home to Ireland September 1930. Age 16, my mother, Kathleen Sloyan, the second of eight children, leaves her home in Ballyhaunis, Co. Mayo. She will marry, raise three children and die in Brooklyn, NY, at age 53, without ever returning home. We have no photos of her as a child. With my first wage as a paper boy, I bought her a 78 rpm record that had "Mayo" in the title. Her hug was a full world. Her eyes filled, and for years I bought her anything that had Mayo in the title. I still love the sound of the word Mayo. March 1924. Age 20, my father, Patrick Joseph Murphy, the fifth of 13 children, leaves his home in Cloone, Co. Leitrim. He will return years later, a year after the death of my mother, many years after the deaths of his own mother and father. We have no photos of him as a child. This is the story of his journey home. I went with him and met myself. In the Brooklyn world of my childhood, Ireland was always there on my mental horizon in the rhythms of speech and turns of phrase of Irish people about the house; in the ballads about the old country and a moonlight in Mayo that could bring my mother to tears; in the Friday night card games in which a priest visiting from Ireland might occasionally loosen his collar and mutter a sort of curse when the Lord failed to fill his inside straight. Our was a world of aunts, uncles, cousins; the calendar had its comforting rhythm of gatherings for holidays, baptisms, communions, graduations. And, the funerals. Always uncles - Joh, Michael, Frank - each death strange in its own way, each one driving my father deeper into himself. I was eight when Uncle John fell over the banister on his way up to his apartment, dropped three stories, and broke his neck. I didn't really know him, but I can still see him falling. Then, I was nine when Uncle Michael fell under the wheels of the IRT subway, the family said it was the heart that gave way, dead before he hit the tracks; others whispered that he had jumped. My dad said his brothers had bad luck... Then my godfather, Uncle Frank, the bachelor, a large man with gruff manners whose hand swallowed mine when he shook it, his breath spoke of cigarettes, whiskey, and anger. I felt bonded to him as my godfather and a bit afraid of him at the same time. He drank himself to dea! th. I was 13 when he died, my father was 50 and was burying his third brother in America. Years later, I would begin to understand his loss and the pain that he kept inside as the funerals kept coming. But then, I was young and my father's losses were distant. I went to my uncles' wakes and funerals and then came home, tired after a day of play with all the cousins. In Aughakiltrubred, parish of Cloone, Co. Leitrim, what could my grandparents, John Murphy and Bridget Maguire, possibly have thought when formal studio wedding pictures from the USA had arrived in the mail - the grooms looking awkward in their rented tuxedos. Immigrants to a new world, just starting out, so far from their homes. I now realize that it was sending word home that all was well, that they were prospering in the new world. The photos sent home say, "Not to worry, all's well." Grooms dressed in tuxedos for marriage, a formal occasion at which parents should be honoured and basking in the glow of the moment, but there are no parents in these wdding photos. These parents are an ocean away and will not be seen again by their children, and will know many of their grandchildren only in the stream of photographs that will try to shrink the distance. The distance between these two worlds of our family came to me one day when I came home from school and my Dad was ! there, home earlier from work than normal -- News from Ireland, my grandmother had died. Naive, I don't think I had ever thought of my parents as having parents. I really couldn't grasp the whole idea of it - father had a mother but she lived far away in this mysterious place we talked and sang about, I had a grandmother, she had died, my dad would never see her again. He sits there, silence fills the room, and I try to understand this mystery. My Dad was a warm, loving man, full of sharp humour, always humming tunes he composed as he went along, but at the same time he was a man of few words, at least in terms of his personal feelings and experiences. I suspect that is, at least in part, an Irish trait, especially on the male side of the fence, but in planning a trip home energized him in a special way. He began to speak more about Ireland as the trip approached, he had lots of questions. He wanted to look good, so off we went to Sears and Roebuck on Bedford Avenue, our idea of high fashion. He was clearly nervous about the whole thing. Ours was to be a five-week trip, visiting Ireland and England. In each place, he had both of his own and my mother's family to visit. Only as we talked on the plane did I realize that much of his nervousness came from worry that he might not like all these people. There he would be five long weeks, "at home," but in a world of strangers. What would he have to say to his br! other, Eddie, and to his sister, Ellen? After all, they wouldn't be interested in baseball, one of his passions, that was a sure indicator he had become a Yank. After a few days visiting with my mother's brothers and sisters in Mayo, it was off to Leitrim, the real goal of the whole trip. As we neared his home turf, he began to recognize landmarks, houses, churches. No, we didn't need the maps I had been studying so carefully since Shannon Airport. He became the guide. We were closing distances - "Turn here, make the next right. If you turn here, you'll see Reynolds' place. The next house should be John Lee's..." Much had surely changed in more than 40 years, but he knew this place; its houses and turns of the road had histories that he was remembering, this world of rough, marginal farmland, clearly not prosperous, was the place of their beginnings of all the Murphy boys and girls who wound up in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Canada, Rhode Island, California, England, in jobs and worlds far removed from their parents who had worked the stubborn Leitrim land to feed them. He said there would be a place a bit up the road where we coul! d buy some beer and stout to take up with us. Partly, he was testing his memory; partly, he was stalling. There was indeed a place that was not really a pub in today's terms; rather, it was a sort of general store that also served as the post office and pub, Brady's. He had gotten the place right in his memory; he had found it after all those years, but will this place know him? One of the men looks up and says, "Is it Packy Murphy?" There he is, Patrick Joseph Murphy, looking all too American in his Sears and Roebuck best, but he is surely close to home. "John Francis?" Obviously, Daddy had recognized John Francis Mulvey, or at least suspected that he did. No dramatic hugs, a quiet handshake, and Mulvey, "We knew you were coming home. Eddie's expecting you." Perhaps this moment is more in my own memory than in reality. Nonetheless, I remember it as a great release for Daddy. If he was OK with John Francis Mulvey, surely he would be OK with his brother and siste! r. Great distance were closed in that meeting of two brothers who hadn't seen each other in over 40 years. Their greeting itself was not dramatic in any gesture or outward emotional demonstration. Brothers in more than looks, they deflected emotions, keeping their inner worlds to themselves. For all anyone could tell, they might have seen each other last week. A handshake, no hugs. "You're welcome home, sit by the fire." Whiskey all around, the only public acknowledgement of a special occasion. Aunt Maggie gave us a bit of tea. Daddy gradually settled into a rhythm of memory and laughter as old friends came by and nostalgia filled this small, warm, secure place. He was home, a circle had been closed. He had lived his life far removed from this starting place, and now he was back 40 years later. Hearing the laughter about some forgotten wildness when they were all young bucks, watching him walk the fields with his brother, seeing the easy way he had with cattle, I realised that I had always known instinctively about this other world. Without my realising it, Ireland had been one of my parents' gifts to me; perhaps without their even intending it as a gift, but here it was -- a whitewashed cottage in Leitirm, no running water, three rooms, a central fire -- in this place, my Dad and the aunts and uncles of my growing up were all born. All along that trip, I had thought I was taking my Dad home. Now, I know he was showing me my own starting place. He had taken me home. -- Excerpts, Jim Murphy -- "Leitrim Guardian" 2001

Thought this might be of interest to someone. Book reviews per May/June 2002 issue "Ireland of the Welcomes." 1. "When I Was Young," by Seamus O'Grianna "Maire", trans. by A. J. Hughes , A. & A. Farmar. Seamus O'Grianna (1889-1969) published over 30 books and this is the first translation of his autobiography, a much admired account of growing up in rural Donegal in the 1890s and 1900s, in a remote pre-industrial world where people delighted in folklore and storytelling. A very special book, completed by the inclusion of a chapter on the author's life and times and a seminal contemporary government report on the Donegal of the author's day. 2. "Once In A Green Summer," by Thomas F. Walsh. Mr. Walsh was a primary school headmaster and is now a writer and broadcaster, editor of the much loved "Favourite Poems" series. He was one of a large family growing up on a small farm in the west far away from the temptations and opportunities of the big city. They had water from the well, food from the fields and a priest in the family. Life was certain, safe and sheltered. A gentle account of a vanished world. 3. "It's A Long Way from Penny Apples," by Bill Cullen. Mercier Press. Bill Cullen is one of Ireland's wealthiest citizens. Born one of 14 children of a labourer father and a street trading mother. Bill started off in the maternal business selling fruit, fish, paper roses and Christmas decoration. His autobiography is full of huge good humour, good luck, hard work - and a fierce talent for getting up early in the mornings before the rest of the world has got the sleep out of its eyes! The author's royalties are all going to the Irish Youth Foundation. "A glorious warm-hearted read!" 4. "The Spirit of Rural Ireland" by Christopher Somerville with photography by Chris Coe, New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd, Garfield House, 86-88 Edgeware Rd, London W2 2EA, England. "He observes only as a walker can, noticing those tiny, fragile, momentary beauties inevitably missed by motorists - or even cyclists. Splendid photography. 5. "Rory Gallagher - A Biography" -- Jean-Noel Coghe, trans. by Lorna Carson and Brian Steer, Mercier press. He died in 1995, at 47, an innovative and gifted blues guitarist who laid the foundation for the extraordinary development of "Irish" rock and blues. He was admired around the world, but most particularly in France and is hardly a surprise that is biography should have appeared initially in French. He was born in Donegal, but they buried him in the place where he grew up, Cork city. 6. "A Living Word," compiled by Jacqui Corcoran, Town House & Country House: Every morning, for a precious few minutes RTE broadcasts what can only be described as an informal meditation on something or someone or some event or experience. This little book enables us to recapture thought-provoking moments that might otherwise vanish. 7. "Irish Volunteers in the Second World War," Richard Doherty, Four Courts Press. During WWII all kinds of things were done in all sorts of places by Irish men and women - operating clandestine wirless services in occupied France, serving in the Allied armies, navies and air forces, serving in the merchant marine, trying to stay alive in POW camps, serving on the British home front during the Blitz. Richard Doherty even devotes a short chapter to "Lord Haw Haw" and John Francis O'Reilly and others who chose to side with the Nazis. This second book is a fitting companion to the earlier volume, "Irish Men and Women in the Second World War." -- "When you go home, Tell them of us and say For your tomorrow We gave our today." 8. "Praying With The Celtic Saints" -- by Mary C. Earle and Sylvia Maddox, Columba. Fifteen unique perosnalities from the particular Christian tradition of these islands are drawn together by the American authors, who comes themselves from the Episcopalian tradition. "Every day and every night that I say the genealogy of Bride, I shall not be killed, I shall not be harried, I shall not be put in a cell, I shall not be wounded, Neither shall Christ leave me in forgetfulness." 9. "The Wearing Of the Green, A History of St. Patrick's Day," by Mike Cronin and Daryl Adair, Routledge. "When the law can stop the blades of grass from growing as they grow, And when the leaves in Summer-time, their verdure dare not show, Then I will change the colour that I wear in my caubeen, But 'til that day, please God, I'll stick to wearing of the Green." One particular personality stands out in the tradition of Irish spiritual legends and that is Patricius the one-time slave who returned to Ireland, the place of his enslavement, to preach the Gospel, Glorious Saint Patrick! As an Irish clergyman remarked in the course of a Patrician celebration in Argentina in 1963: "Saint Patrick's Day is, perhaps, the most widely celebrated of feasts. It is the day when the Irish in NY and Dublin, in Melbourne and Buenos Aires foregather to honour the Saint who brought them the faith. His memory lives on in lands watered by the Mississippi and the River Plate, the Rhine and! the Danube." 10. "Making My Mark, An Artist's Early Life," by James MacIntyre, The Blackstaff Press. His talent could not be denied - even in the tough conditions of Belfast's Shankill road in the 1930s. James MacIntyre is a fine artist and a very good writer. His book is a joy and the reproductions of his paintings and sketches are superb. (The cover of the book is really stunning!). 11. "Imogen Stuart, Sculptor," by Brian Fallon, Four Courts Press. A major book on the German-born lady who has done us the honour of residing with us (Ireland) for over half a century. "With her flair and enthusiasm, and the courage of her convictions, she has changed Irish ecclesiastical statuary out of all recognition in less that half a century." (Very lovely modern lines). 12. Three beautifully-illustrated books for children: "The Fairy Glen," and "The Lost Seagull," by Declan Carville and Belinda Larmour. "Under The Eye of the Moon, Poems for Children," Mercier Press, by Carmen Cullen, illustrated by Oona McFarland.

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

Hi Listers -- I know there are some Britishers on this Irish list and wonder if you can answer my question. Would the children of a blended Irish/English family attending school in Liverpool in the early 1900s have accents and/or names for everyday items that differed greatly from say their more affluent cousins who lived closer to London, in Tunbridge Wells, Kent? In the former, is that what they refer to as "Cockney" accent?. Can anyone give me examples of of how Liverpudlians might have pronounced particular words as opposed to their counterparts living closer to London? This is one of the questions I wish I had asked my Liverpudlian father before he died. He had lost his accent quickly after emigrating to the USA, and before I was born - still used a few British words for items, though - and I have been wondering about this for years. Please reply to the list, as someone else might be interested. Jean Jean

Hi, Looking for any MCLOUGHLIN/LESNAN/ROONEY/CLEARY names in Co. Sligo (I think) My gt.gt.grandfather Owen McLOUGHLIN was born in Co. Sligo about 1817, he & his wife Ann LESNAN emigrated to Lancashire about 1858, their son Michael (born 1839) married Ann ROONEY born Ireland (?) the daughter of Garret & Margaret ROONEY. They were all in Lancashire, UK by the 1871 Census. Is there anyone else researching any of these names??? TIA, Anita. New Zealand.

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)

ROSSAN SCHOOL REUNION 1949-1999 The invitation arrived and was gladly accepted. Saturday 18th September was the date. We headed West for the N4 passing the River Griffeen lapping its way to the Liffey. Through the rolling countryside of Counties Kildare, Meath, Westmeath, Longford and on to Leitrim. The Great River Shannon came in to view with a wild expression. At Dromod we made our way cross country to Gortletteragh where more people joined us. To the Nailers Cross and down the Poets Hill we did go. Around the corner standing tall and slim was the school building bedecked with "Failte go Rosin." We had arrived . First to St. Stephens Church for the celebration of Mass with Father Cahal. He welcomed everyone from far and near. A tour of the school followed. Outside the Little Red Brick Flower Bed still stood as I remembered it with Nasturtiums, where busy bee and wasp sent us scurrying to the four corners of the school yard. Inside the Big Beige Book was in great demand. It was hurriedly opened for a name inspection. There I was written in Gaeilge. A great evening was had by all. We bade farewell to one and all. Back in the city as I looked out the kitchen window. The Nasturtiums are in bloom, A lovely reminder of Rossan. -- Mairead Ni hUiginn (Peggy Smith), "Leitrim Guardian" 2001annual magazine

QUARANTINE In the worst hour of the worst season of the worst year of a whole people a man set out from the workhouse with his wife. He was walking -- they were both walking -- north . She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up. He lifted her and put her on his back. He walked like that west and west and north. Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived. In the morning they were both found dead. Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history. But her feet were held against his breastbone. The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her. Let no love poem ever come to this threshold. There is no place here for the inexact praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body. There is only time for this merciless inventory: Their death together in the winter of 1847. Also what they suffered. How they lived. And what there is between a man and woman. And in which darkness it can best be proved. -- Ms. Eavan Boland (born Dublin 1944)

July 1, 2002, Hello Liz, When you go into http://lists.rootsweb.com look under Northern Ireland NOT Ireland and you will find a mailing list for Armagh county and also one for Armagh city. Hope this helps. Happy Canada Day to you. Joan. >From: Craig and Liz <amoseley@shaw.ca> >To: IrelandGenWeb-L@rootsweb.com >Subject: [IGW] armagh mailing list? >Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 14:43:37 -0700 > >Is there a mailing list that directly deals with the county of Armagh? I >know that it is in Northren Ireland, but I would like more informaition on >it! THanks kindly, liz _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com

MY DESCENDANTS Having inherited a vigorous mind >From my old fathers, I must nourish dreams And leave a woman and a man behind As vigorous of mind, and yet it seems Life scarce can cast a fragrance on the wind, Scarce spread a glory to the morning beams, But the torn petals strew the garden plot; And there's but common greenness after that. And what if my descendants lose the flower Through natural declension of the soul, Through too much business with the passing hour, Through too much play, or marriage with a fool? May this laborious stair and this stark tower Become a roofless ruin that the owl May build in the cracked masonry and cry Her desolation to the desolate sky. The Primum Mobile that fashioned us Has made the very owls in circles move; And I, that count myself most prosperous, Seeing that love and friendship are enough, For an old neighbour's friendship chose the house And decked and altered it for a girl's love, And know whatever flourish and decline These stones remain their monument and mine. -- William Butler Yeats ( 1865-1939), born Georgeville, Dublin

http://www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_mail_country-unk-irl.html does a fine job of gathering mailing lists for all of us..... ----- Original Message ----- From: Jean Rice Sent: Sunday, June 30, 2002 2:51 AM To: IrelandGenWeb-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [IGW] Mailing Lists -- Ireland, etc. Someone asked about mailing lists: If you go to http://www.rootsweb.com/ and under the top title 'mailing lists' you'll see all the 'rootsweb' lists. You can scroll down to Ireland and you'll see many on Ireland. There's alsoYahoo which has many lists as well http://groups.yahoo.com/ ==== IrelandGenWeb Mailing List ==== Please make sure to visit RootsWeb, our hostmaster, at http://www.rootsweb.comGet more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com

Someone asked about mailing lists: If you go to http://www.rootsweb.com/ and under the top title 'mailing lists' you'll see all the 'rootsweb' lists. You can scroll down to Ireland and you'll see many on Ireland. There's alsoYahoo which has many lists as well http://groups.yahoo.com/

A CONSTABLE CALLS His bicycle stood at the window-sill, The rubber cowl of a mud-splasher Skirting the front mudguard, Its fat black handlegrips Heating in sunlight, the "spud" Of the dynamo gleaming and cocked back, The pedal treads hanging relieved Of the boot of the law. His cap was upside down On the floor, next his chair. The line of its pressure ran like a bevel In his slightly sweating hair. He had unstrapped The heavy ledger, and my father Was making tillage returns In acres, roods, and perches. Arithmetic and fear. I sat staring at the polished holster With its buttoned flap, the braid cord Looped into the revolver butt. "Any other root crops? Mangolds? Marrowstems? Anything like that?" "No." But was there not a line Of turnips where the seed ran out In the potato field? I assumed Small guilts and sat Imagining the black hole in the barracks. He stood up, shifted the baton-case Further round on his belt, Closed the domesday book, Fitted his cap back with two hands, And looked at me as he said goodbye. A shadow bobbed in the window. He was snapping the carrier spring Over the ledger. His boot pushed off And the bicycle ticked, ticked, ticked. -- Seamus Heaney, born Mossbawn, Co. Derry

HERRINGS Be not sparing Leave off swearing. Buy my herring Fresh from Malahide, Better never was tried. Come, eat them with pure fresh butter and mustard, Their bellies are soft, and as white as a custard. Come, sixpence a dozen, to get me some bread, Or, like my own herrings, I soon shall be dead. -- Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

Badai na Scadan is a song from Donegal which was composed by a grief-stricken father whose sons were killed in a shipwreck near Inisfree Island. Their boat crashed on a rock which was usually submerged but suddenly broke water. The entire crew was lost and the distraught father is searching all the local harbors for the bodies of his drowned sons. It was found in a book called "Twenty Five Irish Songs." BADAI NA SCADAN (The Herring Boats) The crew of the best boat that left Inis Fraoigh Making their way to the place where the herring boats were at anchor On a submerged rock they ended up and they were not rescued alas And my nice fair-haired boy who would play the fiddle and the pipe I have more regard for Eoghan than a score of the men of this world It is he who could provide and his death has greatly saddened the land Poor Macan is sad and so is wee Nora and their daughter And I feel certain that his wife's sorrow will last for a very long time. Feargal, my friend, if you are in Heaven of the Saints Ask the High King for help for them to be found on the shore here below If their bones were found - were it only on the rocks by his father's side That wretched man would be satisfied and his life would be greatly changed I wouldn't like your eye, alas!, to be afflicted and lost to joy Or your youthful white body to be tossed about on top of the waves The oars that you plied you used to bend away back past you Your hand was on the helm and you were expecting to be in heaven soon If you saw Big Eoghan as he searched shores and holes Looking for a sign of the boys who were stolen away out on the wave He walked (sought out) the harbours but he was not likely to find the like there Till news of them was got down at An Iomaire Cam (The Crooked Ridge) -- Translation by Eamonn O Donaill

Hello Folks Can anyone please look up the death of a James Halpin between the years 1868-1885 in the Irish Death Indexes. I have a list of Halpin deaths from 1885-1916 and I haven't found the right one yet. He was supposedly born in 1818 but that may not be 100% accurate, a few years here or there would not be amiss. Any help would be gratefully appreciated. Thankyou Allyson Jardine, Dumfries

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