Photo: Jerzy Strzelecki
Wikimedia commons
Daily Press, 5th March 1905 P5
IRISH PILGRIMS TO THE SKELLIG ROCKS RISK THEIR LIVES
Ten miles off the coast of Kerry, in the west of Ireland, lie the Skellig rocks, one of which has been for years the scene of a difficult penance. A zig-zag path leads up some 700 feet to a lighthouse, but 700 feet more must be climbed before the summit is reached, where stand the ruins of St. Finian’s monastery and a cross of St. Michael.
Here on the anniversary of St. Michael devotees risk their lives in performing their devotions. First they have to squeeze themselves through the Needle’s Eye, a tunnel in the rock thirteen feet long, the passing up which is like the ascent of a chimney. Then they creep on all fours up the Stone of Pain, on whose smooth surface one false step is fatal: then, getting astride the Spindle, a rock 1,500 feet above the Atlantic and projecting some ten feet, each pilgrim must “ride a cock horse to St. Michael’s cross,” say a Paternoster and shuffle back as best he can.
Pearson’s weekly.
Category: Posts and podcasts
Posts and Podcasts
Slán agus beannacht Dé Libh – 1863
Photo: Greg O’Beirne
Wikimedia Commons
THE IRISH EXODUS
(From the London Times – October 30th) – ABRIDGED
On Monday night there steamed into Galway Bay a very large ship, with some goods on board, about three hundred steerage passengers, and a select party in the cabin. Under the protection of the Isles of Arran, thirty miles off, and favored by wind and tide, the ship steamed up to an anchorage on the safe side of a small island, on which stand a lighthouse and a battery, and thence, by means of a steam tender, communicated with the port of Galway…
Besides the four hundred steerage passengers and the twenty-three sacks of letters, she took in at Galway two puncheons of whisky and the latest telegrams…
But putting out of the question that desolate waste of waters, that strange old medieval city, its still stranger suburbs, the twenty-three sacks of letters, the twenty-eight cabin passengers, the latest telegrams, and the two puncheons of whiskey, out and out, beyond all comparison, the most important article in that departure from Galway Bay were the seven hundred steerage passengers.
They were robust, healthy young people; very few of them married; what people used to call the “sinew and bone” of a country…
This is a fact which overrides every other Irish question. The current, in every town and village, every street, every family, every breast, has set in, and it is beyond the power of Governments, of laws, of priests, of politicians, to do more than just lash and disturb the great tide of emigration… there is scarcely a cottage in the west of Ireland where the promise of the family, the elder sons and daughters – their voices and their features still fresh in memory as young and old gather round the turf fire – are now in some far Western State, sending home their hearts’ best wishes for the reunion of the circle.
While writers at home are angrily debating what is to be done with the Irish, they are fast settling the question for themselves by a universal departure.
Home
Wikimedia commons
THE INTERMOUNTAIN CATHOLIC 24TH NOVEMBER, 1906 P2
HOME SWEET HOME (abridged ) J.J. Fleming, Allegheny P.A
I love to be in Galway when the tide breaks on the shore,
And the silver mists are rising from the lea.
When the summer sun in brightness lights the valleys all around.
And nature’s jewels are sparkling, I can see
The little old thatched cottage and the ivy creeping round,
And the skylark thrilling in the vaulted dome;
Among quiet nooks and dells fairy music softly swells,
I love to be in Galway, “Home Sweet Home.”
All the way to Galway – 1926
DIDSBURY PIONEER 7TH OCTOBER, 1926 P2
CLAIMED BY IRELAND
British National Anthem and “Yankee Doodle,” Old Irish Tunes.
“Yankee Doodle” is not American at all – it’s Irish, according to Dr. Grattan Flood, an Irish authority on musical history. He asserts that “Yankee Doodle” was originally an Irish Air known as “All the way to Galway,”
“God Save the King,” the British national anthem, Dr. Flood says, also is an old Irish tune which originated about 1595 and has been going strong ever since.
The Irish Republic – Ukmerge Lithuania – 1922
Jon Sullivan
https://widgetworld3.wordpress.com/podcasts/
BLAIRMORE ENTERPRISE 2ND MARCH, 1922
Irish in Russia Heard Peace News
Descendants of the Irish Brigade were deeply affected
Captain Francis McCullough, a former British Officer, writes to the Manchester Guardian from Ukmerge, Lithuania, date December 9:
I sat until late last night before a logwood fire in an Irish castle, surrounded for scores of miles in every direction by Lithuanian forests, deep in snow. The wail of the icy wind through the trees sounded like the keen of the banshee, and sometimes I could catch the distant howling of a wolf. No more suitable setting could have been found for the tales I listened to and told – tales of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, of the devastating Williamite wars in Ireland and of that awful period of persecution which followed the Williamite wars.
I held in my hands a sword which had been wielded at the Boyne – on the losing side – and I had examined a fragmentary record printed by order of the last Catholic Parliament which sat in Dublin over two and a half centuries ago. I had heard a violin give one of the saddest and most melting of all the old Irish melodies; and in return I had sung as best I could, in Russia, many of the Irish songs which I had learned as a boy in Ireland over twenty years ago, but have not forgotten since.
It was a strange night and a strange company. Everybody around me claimed to be Irish, but not one of them spoke Irish or English, for the noble Lithuanian family with which I am passing my Christmas holiday is descended from one of the Irish chiefs who left his native country after the fall of Limerick.
One member of the family was absent, young Rory, who had ridden in to town on some business connected with the estate, and who had promised to bring me back any news from Russia that he got hold of, for it is the Russian, not the Irish, situations that accounts for my being in this part of the world. Rory had not returned when I retired to my bedroom, and as I sat down in a chair to await him my mind became filled with thoughts of the “old, forgotten, bygone things and battles ong ago” which had occupied my attention for so many hours that night.
I was awakened by a knocking at my door and the voice of Rory. From the furs, which he had not taken off, and from the snow on his fox skin papakha, I concluded that he had just jumped off his horse and come straight to my room. His face was flushed and his eyes shone. “What is it Rory?” said I. “Any news form the Red frontier?”
“Great news,” he replied, speaking in Russian. “Peace is signed between England and Ireland. The Irish Republic is recognized. The horrors of the Civil War are now things of the past.” He mistranslated “Free State” as “Respublica,” but he had got the gist of the peace terms all right.
To me Rory’s message was more than news. It was the rolling back of the stone from a nation’s sepulchre. And my hosts, whose ancestors had left Ireland over two hundred years ago, were as affected as I.
For James – O’Malley – 365 A.D.
Associated with Grace O’Malley
Wikipedia.org
IRMA TIMES, DECEMBER 14TH 1928 P 6
THE O’MALLEYS CLAIM THEY GO BACK TO 365 A.D.
Apart from the Royal Family which is the oldest in Great Britain and Ireland?
This provocative question has produced volumes of correspondence from ancient families claiming the honor. Latest and most impressive of all is a claim from a member of the O’Malley family which has been settled in Galway for centuries.
In his letter he stated that there is in existence a documented pedigree showing that his family, of which Sir Nevile Wilkinson, the Ulster King of Arms, is a member through the female line, can be traced back to an ancestor who flourished in A.D. 365 or nearly half a century before the Romans left Britain.
Valiant Fishermen from County Clare – 1907
Built with funds donated by French people after the rescue of the crew of the Leon XIII. The church porch contains a replica of the Leon XIII in a glass bottle, and the ship’s bell stands in front of the altar.
Photo: Eddylandzaat Wikipedia.org
THE STARK COUNTY DEMOCRAT, 4TH OF OCTOBER, 1907, WEEKLY EDITION P5
IRISH FISHERMEN WORK VALIANTLY TO SAVE CREW OF FRENCH VESSEL WRECKED BY GALE
London, October 3rd
Throughout yesterday and today the fishermen on the coast of County Clare, Ireland, aided by coast guards and volunteer helpers, worked with the greatest courage and devotion to rescue the crew of the French ship Leon XIII, which went ashore in a gale on Spanish Point.
By nightfall they succeeded in saving thirteen, but nine men are still clinging to the rigging. There is hope, however, that they will be rescued at low tide tonightl
Clog na neal – 1918
Wikipedia.org
COLEMAN BULLETIN, 20TH DECEMBER, 1918 P3
RELIC OF FAMOUS BELL (abridged)
An ancient relic is being offered for sale in London. This is the famous “Clog an air” (sic. – bell of gold) a renowned relic which for centuries has been venerated by the people of the West of Ireland. From time immemorial the bell has been in the possession of a County Clare family, the O’Cahanos (sic.).
According to tradition, it descended from heaven, ringing loudly to St. Senan, the patron of the Seven Churches of Scattery, a holy island near the mouth of the river Shannon, opposite Kilrush, in the earliest years of Christianity in Ireland. Hence it was originally known as “Clog na neal,” or bell of the clouds. But the antiquaries are agreed that it is the work of human hands, not angelic, and from its decorations, they date it from the 11th century.
The bell is known to have been used for a period of time in the religious services at Scattery (now a place of ecclesiastical remains of great antiquity) before it was given into the care of the O’Cahanes, the ancient protectors of the island. It attained to an extraordinary degree of fame and sanctity throughout Clare and Galway. No oath was held to be so sacred as one sworn on the Golden Bell. It was believed that anyone who told a lie, after being sworn on the bell, would have his mouth twisted on one side; and down to about the middle of the 19th century it was used successfully for the discovery of information when all other means failed. The relic is in the form of a shrine which probably once contained a bell and clapper. It is made of bronze and silver, and is decorated with the figures of two-winged dragons and quaint serpent interlacings.
The crew of Columbus – 1912
Sebastiano del Piombo (1485-1547)
Metropolitan Museum of Art
wikipedia.org
BLAIRMORE ENTERPRISE 9TH MAY, 1912
THE CREW OF COLUMBUS – (abridged)
The list of the officers and sailors in the first voyage of Columbus was almost cosmopolitan in its character Among them there was a man of Jewish heritage, Luis de Torres; an Irishman from Galway Ireland, William Harris; an Englishman, Arthur Laws; Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards and several other nationalities, though, of course, the Spaniards were largely in the majority.
It is maintained by some authorities, with considerable plausibility too, that there was a Scotchman in the list and that after Columbus himself he was the first man to tread the soil of the new world – Exchange
Anxious to vote? – 1933
Irish Minister for Posts and Telegraphs
BLAIRMORE ENTERPRISE 2ND FEBRUARY, 1933 P 7
ANXIOUS TO VOTE
Man in Ireland cycles 100 miles to cast his ballot.
Dublin, Ireland – Two centenarians were among the first to case their vote in Donegal as the Irish Free State went to the polls. In Kenmare a husband, a wife, aged 101 and 99 years respectively, voted their preferences.
A Galway man cycled 100 miles to cast his ballot, while an enthusiast in Killarney walked 40 miles to do his bit for his party.
The Burren and Beyond 