Articles

Irish Footnotes, 2004
Reverence - as used in dance, was developed in 1400’s in France. It was then correct etiquette to kneel before a high class lady, Lord, or a dignitary. However that action stretched the knees of the exposed stockings of court dress into permanent floppy bags. So acknowledging a “higher” class was simplified to a bowed head and a partial knee bend instead.

 

Women’s lib - Over 2000 years ago, Celtic women had inheritance, property, and marriage rights. Queen Maeve, a mighty legendary warrior queen, was actually Grace O’Malley (anglicised name) who conducted wars along the west coast of Ireland. She married many men, divorced them, but kept their lands and became very rich.

 

Ulster ulcer. - Ancient Ireland was divided into 150 little kingdoms. Politically they grouped into 5 antagonistic provinces. Remains of those provinces still exist today. “Munster” (associated with Soccer and sports), and “Ulster” in northern Ireland, home of the British protestants and displaced Catholics and terrible conflict for the past 300 years.

 

Saint Patrick - was actually a Roman citizen of England. When he was 16, he was captured by Irish pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland. Many years later he escaped, and ultimately studied Theology in France. He could not forget the young people of Ireland, and he returned there as a Missionary in 432AD.
Other missionaries had already been there, but Patrick was the most successful. He converted the whole island within 33 years, without any conflict. A great compromiser and story teller, he simply converted pagan ceremonies into Christian ceremonies, and talked the Kings into changing. The people just followed suit.

 

St Pats Day - to celebrate his conversion of Ireland to Catholicism, is held on 17th of March each year, during the fast of Lent, prior to Easter. People abstaining from drink etc for Lent, were permitted to forgoe their pledge, in order to honour his memory on that day.
St Patrick would be mortified and disgusted at the drunken orgies his “honour day” has sunk to now.

 

Pioneer Pastor - The first Missionary to venture into heathen Ireland came in early 400AD. His tiny stone chapel still stands 1600 yrs later, at Ardmore, on the southern Atlantic coast. Grave robbers have taken all relics and his coffin, consequently very little is known of this brave soul.

 

Talking tongues - West & south Ireland were heavily influenced by France, Germany, and Spain, who all helped the locals rebel against British rule over the past 250 years.
So children at school, by matter of course, learn English, Gaelic, French, German, and say masses in Latin.

 

Rosetta stone - In the Irish fishing village of Killrush, stands a monument to 2 Irish heroes, executed in 1857 for helping 3 Irish rebel chiefs escape from British jail. The epic story is written in 4 languages, so that it will never be forgotten.

 

Spanish armada - The destruction of the Spanish armada by Sir Francis Drake was a blow to Spain, and also to Ireland. The Irish underground had organised for part of the fleet to sail to Ireland, and assist in the “Uprising” of 1601, to push the English out of the country.
Epitaph - Robert Emmet, 1803, was executed for organising one of the many Irish uprisings against the British occupation (and he was a Protestant too). His final words are now an Irish legend - “Let no man write my epitaph! When my country takes her place amongst the free nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.”
Golden Fleece - In ancient Greek legend, Jason and the Argonauts searched for the Golden Fleece. They actually sailed through the Black Sea to Russian Georgia on the east coast. A rich Celtic civilisation existed there. Jason laboured for the king, charmed the king’s daughter, and discovered the secret of the Celtic miners. Soil from mountain streams was filtered through sheepskins, gold was trapped in the wool, hence the “golden fleece”. Jason fled home with the Celtic technology, and the king’s daughter! Unfortunately Jason was a Casanova and a bad husband, and suffered the Celtic Curse. His children were murdered and he was killed later.

 

Culture Control - After Cromwell’s reign of terror and oppression in England and Ireland ended, King James 2nd was restored (briefly) to the throne in 1685 AD. James had studied and performed dance in France, and appreciated the arts. Despite political pressure, he lifted Cromwell’s art ban, but only quality theatre was allowed. Only theatres licenced by the king could function. The first official licence was granted to “The Royal” in Drury Lane, London. It was built in 1622 and is still functioning today, the longest continuously operating theatre in the world (380 yrs). (The Royal was also the first theatre ever to have a fire curtain and drencher system, and it still got burnt.)
Thus Australia’s first theatres were licenced to the government (the Crown) and no one else could present classical works. In a perverse way, Cromwell’s paranoia caused vaudeville, pantomime, and “low class” acts to blossom in Australian hotels and private “theatres”.

 

Irish America - Saint Brendan, a famous Irish monk, discovered America 1000 years before Columbus. The Irish were frequent seafarers of the north Atlantic. Using the Atlantic current and prevailing winds, they set up seclusary monasteries on many remote and far flung islands. There were stories of some monks who had wandered as far as America, the “promised land“.
About 550AD, at 70 years of age, St Brendan and 17 monks set out in a wood and leather boat to verify the stories. They spent 7 years sailing the north Atlantic, over-wintering at remote monasteries. They travelled north west via Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland and down the coast of America. An Indian showed them over the country to a great river. Their other journeys may have been to the Azores, Bermuda, and Bahamas islands. They experienced unimaginable wonders and terrors. Only 4 monks and Brendan returned to Ireland. St Brendan continued working and died at 93, in 577AD.
Other monks tried to establish Christianity in America Irish stone Christian relics have been found in West Virginia, dated to 500-700AD.
Brendan’s chronicles of discovery were “re-written” into a fanciful and highly embellished book (Navigatio Sancti) 400 years later, and basically ignored by historians. When the Vikings invaded Ireland, they learned of the Brendan chronicles. So in 1003, Leif Ericsson sailed the north west route to America, and established a Viking village in New Brunswick. Other Europeans have set up communities in America over time, but they all failed or were killed. Only when Columbus and friends brought European diseases with them, were the Indians decimated and white man won the land.

 

Dance Mania - Outbreaks of frantic dancing and trance -like states have occurred from time to time throughout the world. The early Church thought them the work of the devil. Later work showed that food grains contaminated by fungus, were causing hallucinations.

 

First man to Fly - was not the Wright brothers or Paddy at the bar. A part Irish monk, brother Eilmer, was stationed at Malmsbury Abbey in central England. Irish monks had built the abbey in the mid 600’sAD. (Cromwell destroyed the abbey, but the cathedral is still active even today). Somewhere in the 900’s AD, Eilmer made some wings of saplings and cloth, and with many prayers and blessings, leaped from the church tower “to join the angels in heaven“. Alas Eilmer was physically unable to flap the great wings, but he did fly, and glided for 201 metres. He landed heavily and broke both his legs, remaining a cripple for the rest of his life. However he did correctly identify his engineering faults, and designed the next model to have a tail to control direction and altitude. No one else took up the challenge.

 

The Bag-pipes. - were first known in Syria 1000BC. Romans adopted them and spread their use throughout Europe. Irish bagpipes have a small bellows strapped under the arm, which inflates the bag. A tube leads from the bag to the 3 drone pipes, and 1 chanter (melody pipe) with a 2 octave range. The drones & chanter tend to hang down, it is not a tidy unit like Scottish pipes.
Tap not - Irish dancers do a lot of intricate tapping, but their rules do not allow metal taps on the shoes. So the wily Irish developed hard fibreglass toe and heel pieces to do exactly the same thing.

 

Real Reel - The Irish reel derived from the Scottish Reel dance. The reel in turn derived from the Swedish “Ragla”, meaning to stagger, walk from side to side, with or without the Guinness!
Hands up - Why do Scottish Highland Dancers hold an arm up in the air? It was originally a fertility dance, the arm representing the antlers of a stag, seeking the favours of a maiden.
Calisthenics revisited - Irish dancing competitions have a complex marking system. Judges award points. These are converted to placings. . Then they are given an “Irish Mark”, another value according to 1st 2nd 3rd etc just as in the Calisthenics 3 judge/assessor system. Somehow it biases the previous values because of the number of dances, numbers of competitors, and their marks, such that a dancer who won on judges points may not win at all. One book I read spent 4 pages explaining the Irish Mark, and another 2 pages on how to placate the dancer and her mum who could not understand why she didn’t win the prize!
Coming home - Over 2 million Americans visit Ireland every year for holidays. Many return year after year.
Tourists also come from Germany, France, Spain, but hardly any from England.

 

An Irish Malady of Love

Long ago in the Celtic Ireland of 1166AD, the island was divided amongst many small and independent kingdoms. Dermott MacMurrough was the king of Leinster (near Waterford, south east Ireland). He often visited the neighbouring king O’Rourke, where one day he locked eyes with O’Rourke’s wife, Dervorgilla, who was dancing in the celebration. There followed a most torrid and legendary love affair, laced with deceit, clandestine meetings, and desperate longings.
Ultimately queen Dervorgilla eloped with MacM to Leinster.

 

Outraged, O’Rourke waged a war of revenge, and won. Ex king MacM fled across the Irish sea to England, where he schemed and plotted to regain his land, and his lover.

 

MacM travelled widely, even to France, seeking help from the new French (Norman) conquerors of England. No one really wanted to go into wild Celtic Ireland. Eventually the French Earl of Pembroke (in Wales), Richard Fitzsgilbert, nicknamed “Strongbow”, agreed to help.

 

Strongbow sailed to Waterford in 1169 with 600 soldiers, and the blessing of the king of England and the Pope to invade another Catholic country! Waterford was a Viking city protected by a Viking army. Only two days into the fighting and Waterford surrendered! O’Rourke was next, and was quickly defeated. MacM got his kingdom back, and Strongbow got the O’Rourke kingdom as booty. Alas Dervorgilla fled in the fighting, and their desperate love was lost forever, to become a star of sadness in the legends of Eire.

 

Strongbow had now seen the Irish in action, and knew their weaknesses. He hatched a more sinister plan of conquest. Firstly he noted Celtic property laws, married the king’s daughter, and legally inherited all of MacM’s kingdom as well. Poor MacM, sad and loveless, was sidelined, and “died” within 2 years.

 

Then Strongbow called his mates over, and swept through Ireland like a scythe.
The Celts had no central command, and were no match for the armoured knights and advanced battle tactics of the French. Dublin was seized, kingdoms fell like dominoes, and the whole country was brought under French control within 40 years. Castles were built everywhere, a days march apart. The Irish were thrown off their lands, the feudal system imposed, old laws and customs demolished. An iron fist of control descended on the Celtic community, just as it had in England a century before.

 

Celtic life was never the same. They were shocked and angry and resorted to sporadic guerrilla warfare against the French. Irish resistance was never fully eliminated. There followed 800 years of terrible Anglo-Irish conflict, millions were slaughtered, millions became paupers and peasants, millions more fled Ireland, there was terrorism, bombings, assassinations, Orange men, Paisley, IRA and Sinn Fein.

 

And all because of a hopeless love affair of a petty Celtic king.

 

l=2 r=1.5

 

Irish America part 1- Saint Brendan, a famous Irish monk, discovered America 1000 years before Columbus.
The Irish were frequent seafarers of the north Atlantic. Using the Atlantic current and prevailing winds, they set up seclusary monasteries on many remote and far flung islands. There were stories of some monks who had wandered as far as America, the “promised land“.
About 550AD, at 70 years of age, St Brendan and 17 monks set out in a wood and leather boat to verify the stories. They spent 7 years sailing the north Atlantic, over-wintering at remote monasteries. They travelled north west via Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland and down the coast of America. An Indian showed them over the country to a great river, and they marvelled at the abundance of apple trees. Their other journeys may have been to the Azores, Bermuda, and Bahamas.. They experienced unimaginable wonders and terrors. Only 4 monks and Brendan returned to Ireland.
St Brendan continued working and died at 93, in 577AD.

 

Irish America part 2 - After the discovery of America by St.Brendan, other monks tried to establish Christianity in America. Irish stone Christian relics have been found in West Virginia, dated to 500-700AD.
St.Brendan’s chronicles of discovery were “re-written” by monks into a highly religiously embellished book (Navigatio Sancti) 400 years later, so fanciful that it was basically ignored by historians until recently. When the Vikings invaded Ireland, they learned of the Brendan chronicles. So in 1003AD, Leif Ericsson sailed the north west route to America, and established a Viking village in New Brunswick.
Other Europeans have set up communities in America over time, but they all failed or were killed.
Ultimately America was won not by religion or guns, but by European diseases brought in by Columbus and Spanish friends. The great empires of the Aztecs in Mexico, Incas in Peru, and Indians of the Mississippi valley were decimated by epidemics as white man walked in.
The Irish people came again in the 1800’s, mining for gold, and helping to build the great trans-continental railways.

 

A message from Ireland, 1780.

 

“The spirit of gaiety shines upon every hour, and every foot is in motion.
The Dancer dances, as it were underneath herself, trapping each note of music on the floor.”

 

Rose of Tralee - A French nobleman, Fitzgerald, established himself in Ireland in early 1200 AD. He built a great castle and founded the city of Tralee. His passion was roses and he filled his 20 acre “private garden” with them. The great castle was demolished in the 1800’s for housing. But the garden is now a beautiful public park, with ancient oak trees and roses, and hosts the International Festival of Roses each year. Also inspired the song “Rose of Tralee”.

 

Irish Music - like many things Irish, is beyond understanding. Conventional music has a structured start, middle, and end. Irish music is a single “decorated” melody line, which can go on and on, repeat itself as the musician sees fit, or suddenly change to something quite different. There is no official start or end, and Guinness guides the rules.

 

White Wash - The average house of the Irish peasant farmer over the past few centuries has been a low stone & mortar walled rectangle, with a high pitched thatched roof. The roof was held down with a net and stone weights in windy areas.
The Kitchen was the central room, with a bedroom off either end. In very poor areas a section of the main room held some cows and chooks to provide mutual warmth. Normally, heating was by peat fire. Peat requires minimal air so the fire sat flat on the floor of the kitchen with cooking pots suspended above it. Burning peat was a rich source of hydrocarbons and pollution, and the wall behind the fire was coated with a thick layer of evil tar.
The thatching was a forest of mites, lice, spiders, bugs, worms, fungi, and mice. The stone walls were regularly painted with “white wash” (lime & water) to keep them clean and bright. Whitewash is also a mild disinfectant, and stopped the growth of mould in the warm humid kitchen, and positively repelled the overhead spiders and bugs from coming down. Artistic people began adding colour pigments like ochre (Kerry Pink) to the outer whitewash until there were and are whole villages of brightly coloured homes, straight out of a fairy story book.

 

Irish Soda Bread - a quick and simple bread for the hungry. Mix 3 cups of plain flour, 1 pinch of salt, 1 teaspoon
of Baking powder, 1 pinch of Bicarb of soda, and some Sour Milk, into a nice spongy dough. Heat in an oven at
260 C for 30 minutes. Bingo, chunk of bread. Slice and eat with thick slab of butter, and don’t go swimming after.