It's Grand to be Irish

THE FLAG OF IRELAND
The national flag of Ireland is a tricolour of
green, white and orange. The tricolour is
rectangular in shape with the width being twice
the depth. The three colours of the Irish flag
are of equal size, vertically disposed, and the
green is displayed next to the staff, followed by
the white, and then the orange.

The flag was first introduced by Thomas Francis
Meagher during the revolutionary year of 1848 as
an emblem of the Young Ireland movement which
sought Irish independence. The 3 colors have
great significance. The green represents the
old Gaelic tradition, the orange represents the
Ulster Unionist tradition and the white
represents a place in the middle where both
traditions can co-exist in peace. The 1916
rising led by Padraig Pearse was the moment
when the tricolor began to be accepted as the
Irish flag.

An national coat of arms of Ireland depicts the
famous Irish Harp on a blue background. The Irish
harp is also often used on flags bearing the
saying 'Erin go Braugh' which has been a symbol
of Irish identity for centuries. The phrase Erin
go Bragh (sometimes 'Erin go Braugh') translates
from Gaelic as 'Ireland Forever' and is pronounced
'air-inn guh braw'. The Saint Patrick's Battalion
who fought in the Mexican war of 1847 were among
the first to use the flag which shows the harp
with the famous phrase underneath it.

In modern times it is not uncommon for people of
Irish heritage to display the Irish flag with
their own family coat of arms within it.

Any of the flags above and the Ireland Family
Crest Flag for YOUR family name can be ordered
from here:


http://www.irishnation.com/irelandflag.htm

My Vacation My Choice

7 REASONS TO CHOOSE IRELAND
It's Spectaculary Beautiful with emerald green rolling countryside, golden blue flag beaches, hundreds of rivers and lakes.
It's Quiet the pace of life is relaxed with most of the country sparsely populated.
It's Fun there's plenty of daytime activities for people of any age and plenty of nightlife if you want it.
It's Safe with a very low crime rate and no poisonous insects or animals to worry about.
It's Variety National Parks, Historic places to visit, Golf, touring by coach or car, individual, family or group - whatever your choice of holiday, you can find it in Ireland.
It's People The Irish are known for their friendliness and their ability to make any visitor welcome.
It's Easy 3 international airports and 3 ferry ports makes getting to Ireland easy.

The Confirmation Suit - A short Story

For weeks it was nothing but simony and sacrilege, and the sins crying to heaven for vengeance, the big green Catechism in our hands, walking home along the North Circular Road. And after tea, at the back of the brewery wall, with a butt too, to help our wits, what is a pure spirit, and don't kill that, Billser has to get a drag out of it yet, what do I mean by apostate, and hell and heaven and despair and presumption and hope. The big fellows, who were now thirteen and the veterans of last year's Confirmation, frightened us, and said the Bishop would fire us out of the chapel if we didn't answer his questions, and we'd be left wandering around the streets, in a new suit and top-coat with nothing to show for it, all dressed up and nowhere to go. The big people said not to mind them; they were only getting it up for us, jealous because they were over their Confirmation, and could never make it again. At school we were in a special room to ourselves, for the last few days, and went round, a special class of people. There were worrying times too, that the Bishop would light on you, and you wouldn't be able to answer his questions. Or you might hear the women complaining about the price of boys' clothes.

'Twenty-two and sixpence for tweed, I'd expect a share in the shop for that. I've a good mind to let him go in jersey and pants for that.'

'Quite right, ma'am,' says one to another, backing one another up, 'I always say what matter if they are good and pure.' What had that got to do with it, if you had to go into the Chapel in a jersey and pants, and every other kid in a new suit, kid gloves and tan shoes and a scoil cap. The Cowan brothers were terrified. They were twins, and twelve years old, and every one in the street seemed to be wishing a jersey and pants on them, and saying their poor mother couldn't be expected to do for two in the one year, and she ought to go down to Sister Monica and tell her to put one back. If it came to that, the Cowans agreed to fight it out, at the back of the brewery wall, whoever got best, the other would be put back.

I wasn't so worried about this. My old fellow was a tradesman, and made money most of the time. Besides, my grandmother who lived at the top of the next house, was a lady of capernosity and function. She had money and lay in bed all day, drinking porter or malt, and taking pinches of snuff, and talking to the neighbours that would call up to tell her the news of the day. She only left her bed to go down one flight of stairs and visit the lady in the back drawing-room, Miss McCann.

Miss McCann worked a sewing-machine, making habits for the dead. Sometimes girls from our quarter got her to make dresses and costumes, but mostly she stuck to the habits. They were a steady line, she said, and you didn't have to be always buying patterns, for the fashions didn't change, not even from summer to winter. They were like a brown shirt, and a hood attached, that was closed over the person's face before the coffin lid was screwn down. A sort of little banner hung out of one arm, made of the same material, and four silk rosettes in each corner, and in the middle, the letters I.H.S., which mean, Miss McCann said: 'I have suffered.' My grandmother and Miss McCann liked me more than any other kid they knew. I like being liked, and could only admire their taste.

My Aunt Jack, who was my father's aunt as well as mine, sometimes came down from where she lived, up near the Basin, where the water came from before they started getting it from Wicklow. My Aunt Jack said it was much better water, at that. Miss McCann said she ought to be a good judge. For Aunt Jack was funny. She didn't drink porter or malt, or take snuff and my father said she never thought much about men, either. She was also very strict about washing yourself very often. My grandmother took a bath every year, whether she was dirty or not, but she was in no way bigoted in the washing line in between times.

Aunt Jack made terrible raids on us now and again, to stop snuff and drink, and make my grandmother get up in the morning, and wash herself, and cook meals and take food with them. My grandmother was a gilder by trade, and served her time in one of the best shops in the city, and was getting a man's wages at sixteen. She liked stuff out of the pork butchers, and out of cans, but didn't like boiling potatoes, for she said she was no skivvy, and the chip man was better at it. When she was left alone it was a pleasure to eat with her. She always had cans of lovely things and spicy meat and brawn, and plenty of seasoning, fresh out of the German man's shop up the road. But after a visit from Aunt Jack, she would have to get up and wash for a week, and she would have to go and make stews and boil cabbage and pig's cheeks. Aunt Jack was very much up for sheep's heads, too. They were cheap and nourishing.

But my grandmother only tried it once. She had been a first-class gilder in Eustace Street, but never had anything to do with sheep's heads before. When she took it out of the pot, and laid it on the plate, she and I sat looking at it, in fear and trembling. It was bad enough going into the pot, but with the soup streaming from its eyes, and its big teeth clenched in a very bad temper, it would put the heart crossways in you. My grandmother asked me, in a whisper, if I ever thought sheep could look so vindictive, but that it was more like the head of an old man, and would I for God's sake take it up and throw it out of the window. The sheep kept glaring at us, but I came the far side of it, and rushed over to the window and threw it out in a flash. My grandmother had to drink a Baby Power whiskey, for she wasn't the better of herself.

Afterwards she kept what she called her stock-pot on the gas. A heap of bones, and as she said herself, any old muck that would come in handy, to have boiling there, night and day, on a glimmer. She and I ate happily of cooked ham and California pineapple and sock-eye salmon, and the pot of good nourishing soup was always on the gas even if Aunt Jack came down the chimney, like the Holy Souls at midnight. My grandmother said she didn't begrudge the money for the gas. Not when she remembered the looks that sheep's head was giving her. And all she had to do with the stock-pot was to throw in another sup of water, now and again, and a handful of old rubbish the pork butcher would send over, in the way of lights or bones. My Aunt Jack thought a lot about barley, too, so we had a package of that lying beside the gas, and threw a sprinkle in any time her foot was heard on the stairs. The stock-pot bubbled away on the gas for years after, and only when my grandmother was dead did someone notice it. They tasted it, and spat it out just as quick, and wondered what it was. Some said it was paste, and more that it was gold size, and there were other people and they maintained that it was glue. They all agreed on one thing, that it was dangerous tack to leave lying around, where there might be young children, and in the heel of the reel, it went out the same window as the sheep's head.

Miss McCann told my grandmother not to mind Aunt Jack but to sleep as long as she liked in the morning. They came to an arrangement that Miss McCann would cover the landing and keep an eye out. She would call Aunt Jack in for a minute, and give the signal by banging the grate, letting on to poke the fire, and have a bit of a conversation with Aunt Jack about dresses and costumes, and hats and habits.

One of these mornings, and Miss McCann fighting a delaying action, to give my grandmother time to hurl herself out of bed and into her clothes and give her face the rub of a towel, the chat between Miss McCann and Aunt came to my Confirmation suit.

When I made my first Communion, my grandmother dug deep under the mattress, and myself and Aunt Jack were sent round expensive shops, I came back with a rig that would take the sight of your eye. This time however, Miss McCann said there wasn't much stirring in the habit line on account of the mild winter, and she would be delighted to make the suit if Aunt Jack would get the material. I nearly wept, for terror of what the old women would have me got up in, but I had to let on to be delighted, Miss McCann was so set on it. She asked Aunt Jack did she remember father's Confirmation suit. He did. He said he would never forget it. T sent him out in a velvet suit, of plum colour, with a lace collar. My blood ran cold when he told me.

The stuff they got for my suit was blue serge, and that was not so bad. They got as far as the pants, and that passed off very civil. You can't do much to a boy’s pants, one pair is like the next, though I had to ask them not to trouble themselves putting three little buttons on either side of the legs. The waistcoat was all right, and anyway the coat would cover it. The coat itself, that was where Aughrim was lost.

The lapels were little wee things, like what you'd see in pictures like Ring magazine of John L. Sullivan, or Gentleman Jim, and the button were the size of saucers, or within the bawl of an ass of it, and I nearly cried when I saw them being put on, and ran down to my mother, and begged her to get me any sort of a suit, even a jersey and pants, than Ii me set up before the people in this get-up. My mother said it was very kind of Aunt Jack and Miss McCann to go to all this trouble and expense, and I was very ungrateful not to appreciate it. My father said that Miss McCann was such a good tailor that people were dying to get into her creations her handiwork was to be found in all the best cemeteries. He laughed himself sick at this, and said if it was good enough for him to be sent to North William Street in plum-coloured velvet and lace, I needn't be getting the needle over a couple of big buttons and little lapels. He asked me not to forget to get up early the morning of my Confirmation, and him see me before he went to work: a bit of a laugh started the day well.

My mother told him to give over and let me alone, and said she was sure it would be a lovely suit, and that Aunt Jack would never buy poor material, but stuff that would last forever. That nearly finished me altogether, and I ran through the hall up to the corner, fit to cry my eyes

out, only I wasn't much of a hand at crying. I went more for cursing, and I cursed all belonging to me, and was hard at it on my father, and was wondering why his lace collar hadn't choked him, when I remembered that it was a sin to go on like that, and I going up for Confirmation, and I had to simmer down, and live in fear of the day I'd put on that jacket.

The days passed, and I was fitted and refitted, and every old one in the house came up to look at the suit, and took a pinch of snuff, and a sup out of the jug, and wished me long life and the health to wear and tear it and they spent that much time viewing it round, back, belly and sides, that Miss McCann hadn't time to make the overcoat, and like an answer to a prayer, I was brought down to Talbot Street, and dressed out in a dinging overcoat, belted like a grown-up man's. And my shoes and gloves were dear and dandy, and I said to myself that there was no need to let anyone see the suit with its little lapels and big buttons. I could keep the topcoat on all day, in the chapel, and going round afterwards.

The night before Confirmation day, Miss McCann handed over the suit to my mother, and kissed me, and said not to bother thanking her. She would do more than that for me, and she and my grandmother cried and had a drink on the strength of my having grown to be a big fellow, in the space of twelve years, which they didn't seem to consider a great deal of time. My father said to my mother, and I getting bathed before the fire, that since I was born Miss McCann thought the world of me. When my mother was in hospital, she took me into her place till my mother came out, and it near broke her heart to give me back.

In the morning I got up, and Mrs Rooney in the next room shouted to my mother that her Liam was still stalling, and not making any move to get out of it, and she thought she was cursed: Christmas or Easter, Communion or Confirmation, it would drive a body into Riddleys, which is the mad part of Grangegorman, and she wondered she wasn't driven out of her mind, and above in the puzzle factory years ago. So she shouted again at Liam to get up, and washed and dressed. And my mother shouted at me, though I was already knotting my tie, but you might as well be out of the world, as out of fashion, and they kept it up like a pair of mad women, until at last Liam and I were ready and he came in to show my mother his clothes. She handselled him a tanner, which h put in his pocket and Mrs Rooney called me in to show her my clothes. I just stood at her door, and didn't open my coat, but just grabbed the sixpence out of her hand, and ran up the stairs like the hammers of hell. She shouted at me to hold on a minute, she hadn't seen my suit, but I muttered something about it not being lucky to keep the Bishop waiting and ran on.

The Church was crowded, boys on one side and the girls on the other, and the altar ablaze with lights and flowers, and a throne for the Bishop to sit on when he wasn't confirming. There was a cheering crowd outside, drums rolled, trumpeters from Jim Larkin' s band sounded the Salute. The Bishop came in and the doors were shut. In short order I joined the queue to the rails, knelt and was whispered over, and touched on the cheek. I had my overcoat on the whole time, though it was warm, and I was in a lather of sweat waiting for the hymns and the sermon. The lights grew brighter and I got warmer, was carried out fainting. Even though I didn't mind them loosening my tie, I clenched firmly my overcoat, and nobody saw the jacket with the big buttons and the little lapels. When I went home, I got into bed, and my father said I went into sickness just as the Bishop was giving us the pledge. He said this was a master stroke, and showed real presence of mind.

Sunday after Sunday, my mother fought over the suit. She said I was liar and a hypocrite, putting it on for a few minutes every week, and running into Miss McCann's and out again, letting her think I wore it every weekend. In a passionate temper my mother said she would show me up, and tell Miss McCann, and up like a shot with her, for my mother was always slim, and light on her feet as a feather, and in next door. When she came back she said nothing, but sat at the fire looking into it. I didn’t really believe she would tell Miss McCann. And I put on the suit and thought I would go in and tell her I was wearing it this week-night, because I was going to the Queen's with my brothers. I ran next door a upstairs, and every step was more certain and easy that my mother had told her. I ran, shoved in the door, saying: 'Miss Mc., Miss Mc., Rory and Sean and I are going to the Queen's...' She was bent over the sewing-machine and all I could see was the top of her old grey head, and the rest of her shaking with crying, and her arms folded under her head, on a bit of habit where she had been finishing the I.H.S. I ran down the stairs and back into our place, and my mother was sitting at the fire, sad and sorry, but saying nothing.

I needn't have worried about the suit lasting forever. Miss McCann didn't. The next winter was not so mild, and she was whipped before the year was out. At her wake people said how she was in a habit of her own making, and my father said she would look queer in anything else, seeing as she supplied the dead of the whole quarter for forty years, without one complaint from a customer.

At the funeral, I left my topcoat in the carriage and got out and walked in the spills of rain after her coffin. People said I would get my end, but I went on till we reached the graveside, and I stood in my Confirmation suit drenched to the skin. I thought this was the least I could do.
_Brendan Behan

THE RED MAHOGANY PIANO

Many years ago, when I was a young man in my twenties, I worked as a
salesman for a St. Louis piano company. We sold our pianos all over the
state by advertising in small town newspapers and then, when we had
received sufficient replies, we would load our little trucks, drive into
the area and sell the pianos to those who had replied.

Every time we would advertise in the cotton country of Southeast
Missouri, we would receive a reply on a postcard which said, in effect,
"Please bring me a new piano for my little grandaughter. It must be red
mahogany. I can pay $10 a month with my egg money." The old lady scrawled
on and on and on that postcard until she filled it up, then turned it over
and even wrote on the front -- around and around the edges until there was
barely room for the address.

Of course, we could not sell a new piano for $10 a month. No finance
company would carry a contract with payments that small, so we ignored her
postcards.

One day, however, I happened to be in that area calling on other
replies, and out of curiosity I decided to look the old lady up. I found
pretty much what I expected: The old lady lived in a one room
sharecroppers cabin in the middle of a cotton field. The cabin had a dirt
floor and there were chickens in the house. Obviously, the old lady could
not have qualified to purchase anything on credit -- no car, no phone, no
real job, nothing but a roof over her head and not a very good one at that.
I could see daylight through it in several places. Her little
grandaughter was about 10, barefoot and wearing a feedsack dress.

I explained to the old lady that we could not sell a new piano for $10
a month and that she should stop writing to us every time she saw our ad.
I drove away heartsick, but my advice had no effect -- she still sent us
the same post card every six weeks. Always wanting a new piano, red
mahogany, please, and swearing she would never miss a $10 payment. It was
sad.

A couple of years later, I owned my own piano company, and when I
advertised in that area, the postcards started coming to me. For months, I
ignored them -- what else could I do?

But then, one day when I was in the area something came over me. I
had a red mahogany piano on my little truck. Despite knowing that I was
about to make a terrible business decision, I delivered the piano to her
and told her I would carry the contract myself at $10 a month with no
interest, and that would mean 52 payments. I took the new piano in the
house and placed it where I thought the roof would be least likely to rain
on it. I admonished her and the little girl to try to keep the chickens
off of it, and I left -- sure I had just thrown away a new piano.

But the payments came in, all 52 of them as agreed -- sometimes with
coins taped to a 3x5 inch card in the envelope. It was incredible!
So, I put the incident out of my mind for 20 years.

Then one day I was in Memphis on other business, and after dinner at
the Holiday Inn on the Levee, I went into the lounge. As I was sitting at
the bar having an after dinner drink, I heard the most beautiful piano
music behind me. I looked around, and there was a lovely young woman
playing a very nice grand piano.

Being a pianist of some ability myself, I was stunned by her
virtuosity, and I picked up my drink and moved to a table beside her where
I could listen and watch. She smiled at me, asked for requests, and when
she took a break she sat down at my table.

"Aren't you the man who sold my grandma a piano a long time ago?"
It didn't ring a bell, so I asked her to explain.
She started to tell me, and I suddenly remembered. My Lord, it was her! It was the little barefood girl in the feedsack dress!
She told me her name was Elise and since her grandmother couldn't
afford to pay for lessons, she had learned to play by listening to the
radio. She said she had started to play in church where she and her
grandmother had to walk over two miles, and that she had then played in
school, had won many awards and a music scholarship. She had married an
attorney in Memphis and he had bought her that beautiful grand piano she
was playing.

Something else entered my mind. "Elise," I asked, "It's a little dark
in here. What color is that piano?"
"It's red mahogany," she said, "Why?"
I couldn't speak.
Did she understand the significance of the red mahogany? The
unbelievable audacity of her grandmother insisting on a red mahogany piano
when no one in his right mind would have sold her a piano of any kind? I
think not.

And then the marvelous accomplishment of that beautiful, terribly
underprivileged child in the feedsack dress? No, I'm sure she didn't
understand that either.
But I did, and my throat tightened.
Finally, I found my voice. "I just wondered," I said. "I'm proud of
you, but I have to go to my room."
And I did have to go to my room, because men don't like to be seen
crying in public.

Banshees I have known

What Is A Banshee?
The Solitary Fairies
The banshee , from ban (bean), a woman, and shee ( sidhe, a fairie), is an attendant fairy that follows the old families, and none but them, and wails before a death. Many have seen her as she goes wailing and clapping her hands. The keen (caoine), the funeral cry of the pesantry, is said to be an imitation of her cry. When more than one banshee is present, and they wail and sing in chorus, it is for the death of some holy or great one. An omen that sometimes accompanies the banshee is the _coach-a-bower_ (coiste-bodhar), an immense black coach, mounted by a coffin, and drawn by headless horses driven by a _Dullahan_. It will go rumbling to your door, and if you open it, according to Croker, a basin of blood will be thrown in your face. These headless phantoms are found elsewhere than in Ireland. In 1807 two of the sentries stationed outside St. James's Park died of fright. A headless woman the upper part of her body naked, used to pass at midnight and scale the railings. After a time the sentries were stationed no longer at the haunted spot. In Norway the heads of corpses were cut off to make their ghosts feeble. Thus came into existence the _Dullahans_, perhaps ; unless, indeed, they are descended from that Irish giant who swam across the Channel with his head in his teeth. -Ed.
(from "A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend, and Folklore", Ed. W.B. Yeats)


The banshee in Irish Gælic, is called 'bean sidhe', which means 'supernatural woman'. She is envisioned with a sunken nose, scraggy hair and huge hollow eye sockets. Her eyes are fiery red from continuous weeping. She wears a tattered white sheet flapping around her. She wails outside the door of someone who is about to die, but only for old families. All the best clans have their own private banshee. They are very closely related to the bean-nighe and cointeach

Anam Cara True Friend

In Corrogue it is frosty.

The ramp into our "acre of diamonds" is now firm underfoot where before it was a sea of mud. Murphy our dog runs excitedly by my side. We are on our way to release the chickens from the coop. They are to be fed porridge oats in milk.

Murphy has become an honorary chicken. He has been self-appointed. He now eats with the hens and cockerels as I give them their long awaited breakfast. They are now together, dog and birds, loving this life that is secure and satisfying for them.

I am becoming clearer. I am becoming more integrated and more know of the flow of this life. I am become a soul friend. I am becoming what is known in the Celtic tradition an Anam Cara. This translates as Anam meaning "soul" and Cara meaning "friend."

Like our beautiful dog Murphy I am busy rounding up different aspects of my less integrated self. These are pieces that are like different chickens within a roost. I gently bring them together in love and acceptance. I imagine myself sitting atop a chicken coop with my chicken friends and we would debate various life questions.

We might ask "What does it mean to be a seeker after soul." We would squawk about our inner life. We would peck at the question "is the unexamined life worth living?" We would joke about what happened when the chicken crossed the road. More seriously we would scratch in the earth to query that existential question, "What came first - the chicken or the egg?"

One of our favourite hens (and I have to acknowledge I do have favourites) is Boddica. She is fearless. She would be the hen to ask fierce questions. She is the hen equivalent of a soul friend. She probes your knowing and understanding of who you really are. She might ask, "What does an Anam Cara do?In answer to Bodica`s question I would humbly reply thus.

An Anam Cara loves your essence.

They see you beyond your mask. This is the mask of persona. This is what you call personality. They see beyond the fear. They see the absence of love. This is love you withdraw from others and yourself. This is the love that is your real power. This does not mean they have to like YOU. You are the one that gets in the way of soul. You soul is the light of love and it needs light. It needs the lightness of being. An Anam Cara will remind you simply "to be."

An Anam Cara lives close to the land.

They might be found roosting with chickens. They love the elements of fire, water, earth and air. They are elemental beings although they are more down to earth than mental. Some might consider they exhibit opposite traits. They love sensuality and sexuality. They love the play of Eros. This takes them on the wing. An Anam Cara will remind you to come to your senses and be sensational.

An Anam Cara guides you to the presence you are.

They are people of the silence. They listen. They do not debate. They do not fill you up with knowledge. They transmit the knowing of love. They touch you with beauty. This is not their beauty but the beauty of the Beloved. They move in the world as nobodies of import. They do not puff up your ego. They may build your ego up. They do so in order that you can disappear. This is in order that you can fly the coop. This is so you can enter the joy of leaving the prison house of never being enough.

An Anam Cara reminds you of what is important.

They guide you to knowing who you are. They take you into what are called in Ireland "thin places." They take you to the edge. They coax you to the edge. When you are trusting enough they push you. They know this is the only way for you to learn to fly. They know you are an eagle that was brought up in a society of chickens. The Anam Cara will take you soaring. The very air that will take you higher is learning trust and faith in your essential goodness.

An Anam Cara takes you to the source. You will be taken beyond time and space to the very souse of your being. This will be done using different techniques depending on which Anam Cara you talk with. There will be techniques to take you out of the constant chatter of the coop into the light heartedness of life beyond the chicken wire. These techniques take you into ease and allow you to give up dis-ease.

An Anam Cara will affirm YOU.

You will be told that YOU are forever enough. This is because the Anam Cara knows that you are forever enough. They have seen beyond the limitation of the ego. They know the prison house of the little self. They know you hold the key to liberation. Only they might tell you that the door is always open. It was and never will be shut to you. They have trust that "all is well and all manner of things shall be well."

An Anam Cara does not really care.

They know you are always held in the hand of the Beloved. They are not here to do anything for or to you. They are only there to facilitate your discovery that you are always enough. They know that what you need is not more of anything but a great big helping of "no thing." This gives your soul true rest. This is where you give up trying to live life and become life abundant. You become the flow of the essential. Nothing matters because it all matters. Ultimately they take you to love of soul.

So this is how I would answer my Anam Cara soul hen.

Would she be satisfied? I am not sure. I know she would think I have avoided the real question. "What comes first? - the chicken or the egg." I compensate by tenderly gathering her up in my arms. I stroke her beautiful chicken head. I tell her, "I love you." I tell her, "You are a forever enough hen." She goes off and lays another golden egg.

I leave the coop. I leave this Chicken Coop for the Soul and return up the ramp to our cottage. I am gathered in. I leave Murphy to debate the rudiments of flying. He is on the edge. He is excited. One day soon he too hopes to fly. The question is, "Which soul hen will do the pushing."

Legends of the Sea Irish Selchies [the seal people]

The seal-folk of Scotland and Ireland, variously called selchies, selkies, silkies, or roanes, have a habit of swimming out of the mists of Faery and landing on the shores of popular culture.

Those of a certain age will remember haunting versions of the ballad The Great Silkie of Sule Skerrie by Joan Baez and Judy Collins in the 1960s, and younger readers will know John Sayles's film The Secret of Roan Inish or the novel that inspired it, Rosalie K. Fry's Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry.


The Selchies
I am a man upon the land
I am a selkie on the sea


The legend of the selchie is found along the shores of Britain and Eire; there are selchie stories from Cornwall, Ireland, and most particularly the northern islands off Scotland: the Orkneys, Shetlands, and Hebrides.
Unlike other merfolk, selchies can shed their seal-skins on the land and pass for humans, usually with tragic consequences.


The Seal-Woman's Croon (An Cadal Trom)
from "Songs of the Hebrides"


The seals are the children of the King of Lochlann under spells -- Clann Righ Lochlainn fo gheasaibh. Beauty, wisdom and bravery were in their blood as well as in their skins, and that was why their step-mother took the bate of destruction for the, and live she would not unless she got them out of the way. Seven long years did she spend with a namely magician, a-learning of the Black Arts, until at last she was as good as her master at it, with a woman's wit, forby. And what think ye of it! Did not the terrible carlin put her step-children under eternal spells that they should be half-fish half-beast so long as waves should beat on the sores of Lochlann! Och! Och!

That was the black deed -- sure you would know by the very eyes of the seals that there is a kingly blood in them. But the worst is still untold. Three times in the year, when the full moon is brightest, the seals must go back to their own natural state, whether they wish it or no. Their step-mother put this in the spells so that there might be a world of envy and sorrow in their hearts every time they saw others ruling in the kingdom which is theirs by right of blood. And if you were to see one of them as they should be always, if right were kept, you would take the love of your heart for that one, and if weddings were in your thoughts, sure enough a wedding there would be.

Long ago, and not so long ago either, a man in Canna was shore-wandering on an autumn night and the moon full, and did he not see one of the seal lady-lords washing herself in a streamlet that was meeting the waves! And just as I said, he took the love of his heart for her, and he went and put deep sleep on her with a sort of charm that he had, and he carried her home in his arms. But och! och! when she wakening came, what had he before him but a seal! And though he needed all the goodness he had, love put softening in his heart, and he carried her down to the sea and let her swim away to her own kith and kin, where she ought to be. And she spent that night, it is said, on a reef near the shore, singing like a daft mavis, and this is one of her croons -- indeed, all the seals are good at the songs, and though they are really of the race of Lochlann, it is the Gaelic they like best.
--Kenneth MacLeod


Pillowed on the sea-wrack, brown am I,
On the gleaming white-sheen sand
Lulled by the sweet croon of the waves I lie
Could slumber deep, part thee and me

Far away, my own gruag-ach lone
On the gleaming white-friend reefs
Lies that cause of all my moan
Did slumber deep, part thee and me

On the morrow shall I, o'er the sound
O'er the gleaming white-sheen sand
Swim until I reach my loved one brown
Nor slumber deep, part thee and me

WHY THE IRISH DRINK !!!

If one was to research (and God knows I haven't bothered): Guaranteed they would discover that there was no alcohol in the Land of Leprechauns before America was discovered. Sadly, it's a vicious cycle.

They came over and are baffled, supposedly insulted, confused, and angered: their misunderstanding of American slang and cliches regrettably caused them to find solace in the 'Demon Rum'.

They returned home, told their stories, which drove others to the 'Hooch'. In fact, unscrupulous tavern owners, in Ireland and Gaelic areas of the U.S. have instructed their bartenders to employ American Platitudes as often as possible.

On any given night in these establishments, you can hear the staff using such expressions as: He had a 'Tiger By The Tail', 'Don't Throw The Baby Out With The Bathwater', 'By The Skin Of His Teeth' and probably the most common 'Here's Mud In Your Eye'.


As each of these phrases is uttered, a 'Dead Silence' reverberates throughout the bar and the customers look like 'Deer Caught In The Headlights'.

The bewildered Celtic crowd, not being able to 'Make Heads Or Tails Of It', 'Beat A Hasty Retreat' to the comfort of the 'Happy Juice'.

May your house be safe from Tigers

Go n-eírí an bóthar leat.
May the road rise with you.





May the blessing of the rain be on you—
the soft sweet rain.
May it fall upon your spirit
so that all the little flowers may spring up,
and shed their sweetness on the air.
May the blessing of the great rains be on you,
may they beat upon your spirit
and wash it fair and clean,
and leave there many a shining pool
where the blue of heaven shines,
and sometimes a star.

May the good earth be soft under you
when you rest upon it,
and may it rest easy over you when,
at the last, you lay out under it,
And may it rest so lightly over you
that your soul may be out
from under it quickly,
and up, and off,
And be on its way to God.

Dear Lord,
Give me a few friends
who will love me for what I am,
and keep ever burning
before my vagrant steps
the kindly light of hope...
And though I come not within sight
of the castle of my dreams,
teach me to be thankful for life,
and for time's olden memories
that are good and sweet.
And may the evening's twilight
find me gentle still.

May your day be touched
by a bit of Irish luck,
brightened by a song in your heart,
and warmed by the smiles
of the people you love.


May the light of heaven shine on your grave.

Bless those minding cattle,
And those minding sheep,
And those fishing the sea
While the rest of us sleep.

If God sends you down a stony path,
may he give you strong shoes.


May the rains sweep gentle across your fields,
May the sun warm the land,
May every good seed you have planted bear fruit,
And late summer find you standing in fields of plenty.

May the frost never afflict your spuds.
May the leaves of your cabbage always be free from worms.
May the crows never pick your haystack.
If you inherit a donkey, may she be in foal.



May there always be work for your hands to do.
May your purse always hold a coin or two.
May the sun always shine on your windowpane.
May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain.
May the hand of a friend always be near you.
May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.

Wherever you go and whatever you do,
May the luck of the Irish be there with you.

Wishing you always...
Walls for the wind,
A roof for the rain
And tea beside the fire.
Laughter to cheer you,
Those you love near you,
And all that your heart may desire



May neighbours respect you,
Trouble neglect you,
The angels protect you,
And heaven accept you.

May the light of heaven shine on your grave.

May the smile of God light you to glory.

God bless the corners of this house,
And be the lintel blest,
And bless the hearth and bless the board,
And bless each place of rest,
And bless each door that opens wide
To stranger as to kin,
And bless each crystal window pane
That lets the starlight in,
And bless the rooftree overhead
And every sturdy wall.
The peace of man, the peace of God,
The peace of love on all.

The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde

Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant's garden.
It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. 'How happy we are here!' they cried to each other.
One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend the Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After the seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his conversation was limited, and he determined to return to his own castle. When he arrived he saw the children playing in the garden.
'What are you doing here?' he cried in a very gruff voice, and the children ran away.
'My own garden is my own garden,' said the Giant; 'any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.' So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board.
TRESPASSERS
WILL BE
PROSECUTED

He was a very selfish Giant.

< 2 >

The poor children had now nowhere to play. They tried to play on the road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, and they did not like it. They used to wander round the high wall when their lessons were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside.
'How happy we were there,' they said to each other.
Then the Spring came, and all over the country there were little blossoms and little birds. Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant it was still Winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. Once a beautiful flower put its head out from the grass, but when it saw the notice-board it was so sorry for the children that it slipped back into the ground again, and went off to sleep. The only people who were pleased were the Snow and the Frost. 'Spring has forgotten this garden,' they cried, 'so we will live here all the year round.' The Snow covered up the grass with her great white cloak, and the Frost painted all the trees silver. Then they invited the North Wind to stay with them, and he came. He was wrapped in furs, and he roared all day about the garden, and blew the chimney-pots down. 'This is a delightful spot,' he said, 'we must ask the Hail on a visit.' So the Hail came. Every day for three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle till he broke most of the slates, and then he ran round and round the garden as fast as he could go. He was dressed in grey, and his breath was like ice.
'I cannot understand why the Spring is so late in coming,' said the Selfish Giant, as he sat at the window and looked out at his cold white garden; 'I hope there will be a change in the weather.'
But the Spring never came, nor the Summer. The Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, but to the Giant's garden she gave none. 'He is too selfish,' she said. So it was always Winter there, and the North Wind, and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees.

< 3 >

One morning the Giant was lying awake in bed when he heard some lovely music. It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it must be the King's musicians passing by. It was really only a little linnet singing outside his window, but it was so long since he had heard a bird sing in his garden that it seemed to him to be the most beautiful music in the world. Then the Hail stopped dancing over his head, and the North Wind ceased roaring, and a delicious perfume came to him through the open casement. 'I believe the Spring has come at last,' said the Giant; and he jumped out of bed and looked out.
What did he see?
He saw a most wonderful sight. Through a little hole in the wall the children had crept in, and they were sitting in the branches of the trees. In every tree that he could see there was a little child. And the trees were so glad to have the children back again that they had covered themselves with blossoms, and were waving their arms gently above the children's heads. The birds were flying about and twittering with delight, and the flowers were looking up through the green grass and laughing. It was a lovely scene, only in one corner it was still Winter. It was the farthest corner of the garden, and in it was standing a little boy. He was so small that he could not reach up to the branches of the tree, and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly. The poor tree was still quite covered with frost and snow, and the North Wind was blowing and roaring above it. 'Climb up! little boy,' said the Tree, and it bent its branches down as low as it could; but the little boy was too tiny.
And the Giant's heart melted as he looked out. 'How selfish I have been!' he said; 'now I know why the Spring would not come here. I will put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children's playground for ever and ever.' He was really very sorry for what he had done.

< 4 >

So he crept downstairs and opened the front door quite softly, and went out into the garden. But when the children saw him they were so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became Winter again. Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears that he died not see the Giant coming. And the Giant stole up behind him and took him gently in his hand, and put him up into the tree. And the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the little boy stretched out his two arms and flung them round the Giant's neck, and kissed him. And the other children, when they saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer, came running back, and with them came the Spring. 'It is your garden now, little children,' said the Giant, and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall. And when the people were gong to market at twelve o'clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.
All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to bid him good-bye.
'But where is your little companion?' he said: 'the boy I put into the tree.' The Giant loved him the best because he had kissed him.
'We don't know,' answered the children; 'he has gone away.'
'You must tell him to be sure and come here to-morrow,' said the Giant. But the children said that they did not know where he lived, and had never seen him before; and the Giant felt very sad.
Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with the Giant. But the little boy whom the Giant loved was never seen again. The Giant was very kind to all the children, yet he longed for his first little friend, and often spoke of him. 'How I would like to see him!' he used to say.
Years went over, and the Giant grew very old and feeble. He could not play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched the children at their games, and admired his garden. 'I have many beautiful flowers,' he said; 'but the children are the most beautiful flowers of all.'

< 5 >

One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing. He did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that it was merely the Spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting.
Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked. It certainly was a marvellous sight. In the farthest corner of the garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved.
Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, 'Who hath dared to wound thee?' For on the palms of the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.
'Who hath dared to wound thee?' cried the Giant; 'tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him.'
'Nay!' answered the child; 'but these are the wounds of Love.'
'Who art thou?' said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.
And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, 'You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.'
And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms.

Did the Irish discover America?

Brendan the Navigator

An Irish monk of the Middle Ages: born circa 488, ordained in 512, and died circa 577. He was the founder of many monasteries in his native land, including the great one at Clonfert, where he lies buried. And, oh, yes, it’s a good possibility that dear old Saint Brendan was the European who discovered America.

That’s right, Saint Brendan may have been the one to discover America—way before Leif Ericsson explored the North Atlantic or Christopher Columbus set sail for the Orient. The story is that Brendan—full-time monk, sometime adventurer—once sailed his boat too far west and bumped into North America. While many historians will not entertain such conjecture, compelling arguments are made at regular intervals by Hibernophiles who insist that cave dwellings and Stonehenge-like arrangements throughout northeastern North America reflect a strong Celtic influence. When a large seaside rock with inscriptions on it resembling Irish letters was discovered in Newfoundland a few years ago, it led Canada’s national archivist to declare, “There is no doubt that Irish monks reached our shores before the Vikings.”
Brendan the Navigator was, all legends agree, the most footloose of these Irish monks. Having heard about “the land of promise and of the saints,” a milk-and-honey paradise to the west, he fasted for 40 days, then set out from Dingle Bay with a crew of more than a dozen men in a 36-foot, skin-covered boat called a curragh. When he returned to Ireland after seven years, he had many fascinating stories to tell about his adventures. Oral traditions that were handed down concerning Brendan were eventually codified in Navigatio Sancti Brendani (The Voyage of Saint Brendan). This volume was compiled by different authors between 700 and 1000—well after Brendan’s explorations.
The Navigatio was, in its day, a widely translated narrative; it remains a tantalizing document. In it, Brendan tells of encountering “mountains in the sea spouting fire,” floating crystal palaces, monsters with catlike heads and horns growing from their mouths, and “little furry men.” Before dismissing Brendan’s story as a lot of blarney, think upon Iceland’s volcanoes, upon icebergs, upon walruses, upon Eskimos.


According to the Navigatio, Brendan and crew drifted from one island to the next, “following God’s stepping stones,” until they came to a large land mass where they stayed for many months. Their return voyage was made by an altogether different route; they wound up in the Azores and from there sailed to Ireland. The voyage was deemed a great success, and this view obtained for centuries. It is said that some 900 years after Brendan and at least 400 after the publication of the Navigatio, Christopher Columbus visited Dingle to secure information about Brendan’s alleged trip before setting out to find a westward route to China. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t—but certainly Columbus knew the Navigatio, and a map that he used when sailing from Spain in 1492 featured a large land mass in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean labeled “Saint Brendan’s Island.” In fact, the Spanish crown had already claimed sovereignty over it—wherever and whatever it was—and many sailors before Columbus had sought to find it. Back then, no one scoffed at Brendan’s claims.

Cut to the present era, and anyone who knew anything about Brendan’s claims was readily and loudly scoffing. Anyone but Tim Severin.

Severin was a devotee of Kon Tiki–esque adventures. He had already traced Marco Polo’s route on a motorcycle (he would later go on to recreate the journeys of Ulysses, Sinbad, and Genghis Khan; his most recent book, published last year, In Search of Moby Dick: Quest for the White Whale, recounts his quest for Ahab’s great nemesis). Severin was and still is a sailor, author, filmmaker, and lecturer. Back at the time of this journey, in the mid-1970s, he was living in Ireland. Being on the Emerald Isle gave him the opportunity to investigate Brendan’s tale. Severin found it irresistible.

Severin located a centuries-old tannery that prepared oxhides in the medieval manner. With these he fashioned a curragh that was probably like Saint Brendan’s. He found one of the last pieces of Irish-grown timber tall enough for a mainmast. He hammered, sawed, and tied; the boat’s framework featured ash laths bound by leather thongs. Finally, he had a boat, and he named it Brendan. He had it christened by the local bishop, Eammon Casey (“Bless this boat, O True Christ/Convey her free and safe across the sea…/To go to the land of promise is your right/ You are like a guide of Brendan’s time/Guide our boat now”), and then Severin and his men pushed it out upon the salty water. “Beneath us Brendan rose and sank on each wave crest with a motion that managed to be both ponderous and sensitive at the same time,” Severin wrote of his first hours on the Atlantic. “Very slightly, the hull bent and straightened to the changing pressures of the waves, and the masts creaked in sympathy against the thwarts. Aft, at the steering position, the massive four-inch shaft of the steering paddle nuzzled against the cross piece of an H-shaped frame that held the paddle in place. Every now and again the shaft dropped back into the crotch with a dull thump that could be felt as a quiver along the length of the hull. But apart from this sound, the boat was remarkably quiet. The leather skin seemed to muffle the usual slap of the wavelets against the hull, and the thong-tied frame damped out the customary tremors of a stiff-hulled sailing boat. The result was a curious disembodied feeling, a sense of being a part of the sea’s motion, molding to the waves.” In other words, Severin had succeeded in building a craft that was both unwieldy in the olden way and supple because of its careful construction.

Severin and his crew set out from Ireland on May 17, 1976, seeking to follow what is believed to have been Brendan’s “stepping-stones” (Scotland, the Hebrides, the Faroes, Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia, the “Promised Land”). It turns out, indeed, that the 3,000 miles traversed on this probable route from Ireland to America are not only the ones with the least open water but also those most direct: Transatlantic jets use it on the Shannon-to-Boston leg every day.
Severin and his crew encountered terrible weather. At one point they repaired a tear in the hull of the boat by hanging over the side as they restitched the leather, their heads sometimes submerged in the icy North Atlantic water.

This neck of the sea is, of course, Perfect Storm territory, and Severin survived some brutal squalls. “The crew looked at me with eyes raw-rimmed from exhaustion and the constant salt spray...the waves kept up their ceaseless rumble and roar; and for a moment I seriously wondered what on earth the four of us were doing here in this lonely, half-frozen part of the Atlantic; cold, drenched, and very tired, and out of touch with the outside world.”

So it felt to Severin a quarter-century ago, and most probably to Brendan those centuries past. (Severin writes with great eloquence but admirable restraint in regard to his heroics. His ability to conjure Brendan’s adventure and tell his own at the same time makes The Brendan Voyage a pleasure to read.)

The route Severin sailed passed through a region prone to storms and also to much ice. “Our torch showed us that Brendan had blundered into a type of sea ice known as Very Open Pack, and that most of the ice was rotten,” Severin wrote. “Everywhere the torch lights probed, white lumps of ice winked back out of the dark. Painfully, we wallowed past...heaving on the tiller, and silently hoping that Brendan would respond in time. Smaller floes bumped and muttered on her leather skin; and out of the darkness we heard the continuous swishing sound of the waves breaking on ice beyond our vision.”

They made it through. In Severin’s words: “Brendan eased forward. Not with style or speed, but in the same matter-of-fact manner that she had crossed three and a half thousand miles of sea. The red ring cross on her mainsail began to sag as I eased the halliard a few feet to slow the boat even more. Trondur took up the slack on the anchor rope and handed it gently over the gunwale. Arthur made a couple of dips at the water with his blade to keep the boat straight. Brendan nosed quietly onto the rocks. George leaped. His feet splashed, and touched ground…and I thought, ‘We’ve made it!’

“Brendan touched the New World at 8:00 p.m. on June 26, 1977, on the shore of Peckford Island in the Outer Wadham Group some 150 miles northwest of St. John’s, Newfoundland. She had been at sea for fifty days. The exact spot of her landfall has no particular significance to the story of the early Irish voyages into the Atlantic. It was merely the place where the wind and current had brought a twentieth-century replica of the original Irish skin vessels….”

Severin might be said to have a bias vis-à-vis his implications regarding those original Irish skin vessels. For a concluding note on the magic and wonder of the Saint Brendan story, let us turn to an objective observer—to one who is even, one might say, an amiable skeptic. Donald S. Johnson wrote admiringly of the Brendan voyage in his 1994 book, Phantom Islands of the Atlantic: “This remarkable achievement ended all controversy over whether such a voyage was possible. Using the prevailing wind and current patterns of northern latitudes, Severin found a ‘logical progression’ of landfalls, one conceivably the same as Saint Brendan’s; the islands he visited and the events he encountered closely paralleled those of the ancient legend.” Johnson then, however, throws cold water on the message of the replica voyage: “Unfortunately, proof that it could be done is not the same as proof that it was done.”

True. But having allowed Johnson his say, we must aver: There is another way to look at it. Since we know that Severin made it to North America in a big leather canoe, we are required—absolutely required—to ask: Did Brendan?

Even without a firm answer, we salute them. Here’s to you, Brendan, and you too, Tim. Sláinte, !

Come for a Visit - Stay for a Lifetime

PLEASE be careful when crossing the streets!! Remember in Ireland we drive on the left side so checking for on coming cars when you are about to cross requires looking the opposite of the way you would in most places. Luckily the Irish know this can be a problem and reminders are often painted on the street at crossings to LOOK RIGHT.

Breakfast is a bargain here. Many places offer variations of a full Irish breakfast for €3 or less. An Irish breakfast consists of an egg (if you don't like your eggs over well be sure to specify how you want it cooked as most of the time you will not be asked), rashers (fantastic 'bacon' that is 99% meat, not fat) sausages, a black and white pudding (another variety of sausages is the best way to describe the puddings) and toast. Some places also include tomatoes, beans and maybe mushrooms. Breakfast is the only meal of the day where potatoes are not a big part. Anyway you look at it it is a lot of food for the money!

If you order coffee with cream it will come with a big dollop of cream that has been whipped to a stiff consistency, so if you don't like cream be sure to specify milk. Speaking of coffee ... most coffee is stronger than American coffee but very good.

In pubs, if you order a pint that is what you get - a full pint. American beers are readily available but no trip to Ireland would be worth it without a pint of Guinness. If you order any type of mixed drink be sure to ask for ice as it is normally not served, though that seems to be changing. A pint runs €2.50 -3.80 + depending on where you are and what you order. Also all beer in Ireland, even Armerican beers, have a higher alcohol content so beware.

You CAN drink the water! I have noticed moving from state to state, or even city to city, it sometimes takes some time to adjust to the change in water but there seems to be no problem with that here. The water is cold, sparkling clear, pure and tastes wonderful. Many brands of bottled water are available in shops, eateries and pubs.

Tipping is not required in Ireland, nor really expected. Some places have a small tray or saucer near the cash register for you to leave change, which is divided among the employees at the end of the day. If you have a very helpful taxi driver or get exceptional service in a restaurant a tip would be nice and no one will take offense.

It is not unusual to see a van pull up and a man in a white coat get a side of beef or the carcus of a hog from the back of the van, hoist it on his shoulder and carry it into a butcher shop. In butcher shops you will see the meat hanging and the butchers cutting off what they need to fill an order.

In shops and grocery stores you will see unwrapped loaves of bread and rolls and you pick out the one you want.

In cafes and resturants there are open bowls of sugar and often small pitchers of milk left on the tables.

On homes you will see open drains outside the house where 'clean' used water, such as from the washing machine, drains.

In America we are conditioned to believe these things are unsanitary. This is NOT the case in Ireland. Ireland as a whole is one of the cleanest places you will ever see. The food handling practices are very strict and safe. Many of these people have University degrees in food handling and their health standards are very high. Resturants are extremely clean and most American resturants would not be able to pass the strict inspections here. I have yet to see a dirty public toilet. The Irish people are extremely clean and are very proud of their country and do everything to ensure visitors have a pleasant and healthy stay.

Even though English is the language you hear most often there is American English and European English and there are a few words that have a different meaning. For instance:

If you hear someone mention 'crack' they are not arranging a secret drug buy! It is spelled 'craic' and is Irish for friendly banter.
Cheers (and on the rare occasion ta) means thank you.
Something that is really good can be brilliant or grand.

In restaurants, especially fast food, you will be asked if it is for here or take away. In Ireland it is not to go or take out, but take away.
French fries are 'chips' (except in Burger King and McDonalds) and potato chips are 'crisps'.

If you need to find a rest room ask for the toilets - usually the bathroom is the room in a house where the bath tub resides.
A pitcher is a jug, like a jug of milk or cream (or even beer)
Diapers are nappies and a baby bed is a cot, not a crib
A day care or nursery is a creche
Homes in Ireland do not have yards, they have gardens. A yard is an enclosed, sometimes paved over, commercial area.
There are no parking lots either. There are parking spaces or car parks (most often a parking garage)

In most areas there are no parking meters but parking is NOT free. You must go into a shop and buy a parking disc which is a piece of paper that you punch out the date and time you parked then place it on the dash of your car so that it can be read through the windshield

Which brings up they are not windshields here but wind screens. The boot is the trunk and the hood is called a bonnet. Oh, and tires are tyres and gas is pertrol. Gas stations are pertrol stations. If you ask where the nearest gas station is you might get either a puzzled look or directions to the nearest place that sells natural gas for heating!

If you hear something you are uncertain about, ask. The Irish have a wonderful sense of humour and are very friendly and out going, and they are pretty much used to tourists asking all kinds of questions or directions.

Be prepared to fall in love with Ireland and finding yourself a bit sad when it is time to head home. Many a visitor has a tear rolling down their cheek as the plane soars out over the coast, leaving the Emerald Isle behind, including me everytime I head 'home' to the states for a visit.

The Last wolf in Ireland

Transformation into wolves is a favourite subject of Irish legend, and, many a wild tale is told by the peasants round the turf fire in the winter nights of strange adventures with wolves. Stories that had come down to them from their forefathers in the old times long ago; for there are no wolves existing now in Ireland.



A young farmer, named Connor, once missed two fine cows from his herd, and no tale or tidings could be heard of them anywhere. So he thought he would set out on a search throughout the country; and he took a stout blackthorn stick in his hand, and went his way. All day he travelled miles and miles, but never a sign of the cattle. And the evening began to grow very dark, and he was wearied and hungry, and no place near to rest in; for he was in the midst of a bleak, desolate heath, with never a habitation at all in sight, except a long, low, rude shieling,* like the den of a robber or a wild beast. But a gleam of light came from a chink between the boards, and Connor took heart and went up and knocked at the door. It was opened fit once by a tall, thin, grey-haired old man, with keen, dark eyes.

"Come in," he said, "you are welcome. 'We have been waiting for you. This is my wife," and he brought him over to the hearth, where was seated an old, thin, grey woman, with long, sharp teeth and terrible glittering eyes.

"You are welcome," she said. "We have been waiting for you - it is time for supper. Sit down and eat with us."

Now Connor was a brave fellow, but he was a little dazed at first at the sight of this strange creature. However, as he had his stout stick with him, he thought he could make a fight for his life any way, and, meantime, he would rest and eat, for he was both hungry and weary, and it was now black night, and he would never find his way home even if he tried. So he sat down by the hearth, while the old grey woman stirred the pot on the fire. But Connor felt that she was watching him all the time with her keen, sharp eyes.

Then a knock came to the door. And the old man rose up and opened it. When in walked a slender, young black wolf, who immediately went straight across the floor to an inner room, from which in a few moments came forth a dark, slender, handsome youth, who took his place at the table and looked hard at Connor with his glittering eyes.

"You are welcome," he said, "we have waited for you."

Before Connor could answer another knock was heard, and in came a second wolf, who passed on to the inner room like the first, and soon after, another dark, handsome youth came out and sat down to supper with them, glaring at Connor with his keen eyes, but said no word.

"These are our sons," said the old man, "tell them what you want, and what brought you here amongst us, for we live alone and don't care to have spies and strangers coming to our place."

Then Connor told his story, bow he had lost his two fine cows, and had searched all day and found no trace of them; and he knew nothing of the place he was in, nor of the kindly gentleman who asked him to supper; but if they just told him where to find his cows he would thank them, and make the best of his way home at once.

Then they all laughed and looked at each other, and the old hag looked more frightful than ever when she showed her long, sharp teeth.

On this, Connor grew angry, for he was hot tempered; and he grasped his blackthorn stick firmly in his hand and stood up, and bade them open the door for him; for he would go his way, since they would give no heed and only mocked him.

Then the eldest of the young men stood up. "Wait," he said, "we are fierce and evil, but we never forget a kindness. Do you remember, one day down in the glen you found a poor little wolf in great agony and like to die, because a sharp thorn had pierced his side? And you gently extracted the thorn and gave him a drink, and went your way leaving him in peace and rest?"

"Aye, well do I remember it," said Connor, "and how the poor little beast licked my hand in gratitude."

"Well," said the young man, "I am that wolf, and I shall help you if I can, but stay with us to-night and have no fear."

So they sat down again to supper and feasted merrily, and then all fell fast asleep, and Connor knew nothing more till he awoke in the morning and found himself by a large hay-rick in his own field.

"Now surely," thought he, "the adventure of last night was not all a dream, and I shall certainly find my cows when I go home; for that excellent, good young wolf promised his help, and I feel certain he would not deceive me."

But when he arrived home and looked over the yard and the stable and the field, there was no sign nor sight of the cows. So he grew very sad and dispirited. But just then he espied in the field close by three of the most beautiful strange cows he had ever set eyes on. "These must have strayed in," he said, "from some neighbour's ground;" and he took his big stick to drive them out of the gate off the field. But when he reached the gate, there stood a young black wolf watching; and when the cows tried to pass out at the gate he bit at them, and drove them back. Then Connor knew that his friend the wolf had kept his word. So he let the cows go quietly back to the field; and there they remained, and grew to be the finest in the whole country, and their descendants are flourishing to this day, and Connor grew rich and prospered; for a kind deed is never lost, but brings good luck to the doer for evermore, as the old proverb says:

"Blessings are won,
By a good deed done."

But never again did Connor find that desolate heath or that lone shieling,* though he sought far and wide, to return his thanks, as was due to the friendly wolves; nor did he ever again meet any of the family.

Source: Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland by Lady Francesca Speranza Wilde

*shieling - this was also the word for a temporary hut built for domestic or agricultural use and associated with a pasture to which animals were driven for grazing.

ED. NOTE: This is an edited version

Irish Wolfhounds

"Gentle when stroked, fierce when provoked", appears on the coat of arms of early Irish kings along with a shamrock and a harp. It's a lovely poetic line but it doesn't tell us how or when the Irish Wolfhound became a part of Ireland's history and heritage.

Through ancient woodcuts and writings, historians have determined that the breed existed as early as 273BC - and probably much earlier. For example, when the Celts sacked Delphi in 600 BC, one survivor was impressed enough to leave an account of the huge dogs who fought alongside their masters.
Before Christ was born, Julius Caesar mentions them in his "Gallic Wars", and by the year 391 A.D., the breed was known in Rome, when the first authentic mention of it was written by the Roman Consul, Quintus Aurelius, who had received seven of them as a gift which "all Rome viewed with wonder." Later still, the dogs were brought to fight and die for the entertainment of the crowds in the Circus Maximus.

As time went on, the Celts were driven back into Brittany and the British Isles. Their gentle giants went with them. Ownership of these great hounds was highly restricted. They were sent as much-coveted gifts to emperors, kings, nobility and poets and their chains and collars were often of precious metals and stones.

“I will give thee a dog which I got in Ireland. He is huge of limb, and for a follower equal to an able man. Moreover, he hath a man’s wit and will bark at thine enemies but never at thy friends. And he will see by each man’s face whether he be ill or well disposed to thee. And he will lay down his life for thee.” (from "The Icelandic Saga of Nial”)

They were held in such high esteem that when disputes arose over them, not only individual combats but full scale wars often occurred.

During the 3rd or 4th century, the famed Irish poet Ossian celebrated the mighty mythical warrior and huntsman, Finn, son of Cumall. Finn was chief of the High King Cormac, commander of the armies and master of the hounds - 300 adults and 200 puppies. According to legend, Finn’s favorite hound, Conbec, could head off and bring back any stag in Ireland to Finn’s main pack. It was said that “no hound but Conbec did ever sleep in the one bed with Finn.”

The ancient Irish word for hound is "cu". In those days, it was common for warriors and even kings to place the preface "Cu" in front of their names, the implication being that they were as worthy of respect as a cu. A well-known Irish epic is the legend of CuChulainn (koo-hoo-lin), perhaps the most famous of the old Irish heroes.

As the story goes, he came to the castle of a King, but his entrance was barred by a huge hound. He battled with the dog for a day and a night before he was finally able to kill it. Then, in typically Irish fashion, he was filled with remorse that he had been forced to slay so fine and noble a beast. To make it up to the King, he resolved to act as the King's hound for a year and a day, and so he came to be known as CuChulainn, "Hound of Cullain".

Another story involving the Irish Wolfhound took place in the 13th century. LLewelyn, Prince of North Wales, had a palace in Beddgelert. One day he went hunting without Gelert, his faithful hound, who was unaccountably absent. On Llewelyn’s return, the hound was stained and smeared with blood; joyfully, he sprang to meet his master. Alarmed, the Prince, hastened to check on his infant son. The cradle was empty and the bedclothes and floor were splattered with blood.

The frantic father plunged his sword into the hound’s side, believing the hound had killed his beloved son. The Wolfhound’s dying call was answered by the child’s cry. Llewelyn searched and discovered his son, unharmed. But nearby the child, lay the bodies of several wolves, slain by Gelert. It's said that the the Prince was so consumed by remorse and shame, he never smiled again.

Hunting and fighting filled the life of the early Irish, and master and hound alike excelled in both hunting and on the field of battle. So it was not unusual that Irish Wolfhounds were so highly prized for their hunting prowess, particularly in pursuit of the wolf and the now extinct gigantic Irish elk, which stood about 6 feet tall at the shoulders. Historically they were referred to as "Irish Greyhounds," "the Greyhounds of Ireland," "the Great Hounds of Ireland," and "Big Dogs of Ireland." They were so popular that many of them were exported and by the 17th century, the breed was almost extinct. In fact, a directive was issued in 1652, banning the transportation, i.e. exportation, of Irish Wolfhounds from Ireland.

Writes Oliver Goldsmith in his 1770 Animated Nature, “The last variety and most wonderful of all that I shall mention is the great Irish Wolfdog, that may be considered as the first of the canine species...bred up to the houses of the great...he is extremely beautiful and majestic in appearance, being the greatest of the dog kind to be seen in the world ...they are now almost worn away and only very rarely to be met with.”

We owe the preservation of the breed to Scottish Deerhound breeder, Capt. George Augustus Graham, (1833-1909), a Scottish officer in the British army who collected the last remaining specimens and over a period of 23 years began a breeding program which re-established the Irish Wolfhound. Graham collected over 300 pedigrees which he then published. It was under his supervision that the first breed standard was set forth.

Today, of all the animals cherished in Ireland, dogs appear to be the most revered and of these, only the Irish Wolfhound appears as a symbol, at one time or another, on everything from jars of Tulamore Dew whiskey to every piece of Belleek Pottery. The Irish sixpence once featured the likeness of the international show champion - Finbarr. And, in 1983, Ireland commemorated her enduring love and homage for the breed she claims as her own, by issuing a postage stamp which featured the Irish Wolfhound.

Perhaps one of the most touching uses of the Wolfhound as an Irish symbol is the statue in the Gettysburg National Battlefield in Pennsylvania. Sculpted by W. R. O’Donovan in memory of the fallen soldiers of the 63rd, 69th and 88th New York infantry - the Irish Brigade - it features an Irish Wolfhound in mournful respect, lying at the base of a Celtic cross. The monument is located midway between the Wheatfield and the Rose farm.

"And all their manners do confess that courage dwells in gentleness..."

The Miss of Ireland

Things I loved about Ireland:
1) The community feel of the pubs Bars in Ireland are places where the whole community gathers together nearly every night to enjoy one another's company over a few pints and some good music. The whole town loves being together. Everyone is invited to be part of the action and to tell their stories around the community fire and to join in singing songs and just reveling in the experience of being together. I don't EVER get that feeling in New York. My cousin,took my wife and me to a wonderful pub filled with good music, good beer, and fun people.

2)
The Book of Kells On display at Trinity College in Dublin are several beautifully handwritten and handbound gospel books. These were often taken by missionaries from place to place hidden under their robes for easy travel.


3) Blarney Castle Kissing the Blarney Stone was fun but the view from the top of the Castle was amazing. This castle is the third structure to be built on this land and has been standing here since the 1400's.

4) Melleray Abbey A Cistercian monastery where my father used to travel for silent prayer time and sometimes even helped with the farming was a pleasent stop on our travels. We even got to watch and pray with the monks during their afternoon hour of prayer. The Abbey has been here since 1832.

5)
Gaelic Somehow I understood a bit of this without ever studying the language. My dad spoke Gaelic but has forgotten a lot of it. Seeing my family name in Gaelic here on their tombstone left me with a profound feeling of ancestry.


6) Killarney National Park A rickety horse and buggy ride through the Muckross Estate which is part of the park gave us a real old-time feel for the ancient country



7)Kilkenny Castle One of the coolest places ever. A great tour of this castle is a must. The castle was bought by the powerful Butler family in 1391, and their descendents continued to live there until 1935. Maintaining the castle became such an enormous expense so most of the furnishings were sold at auction. The city bought the castle in 1967 for the sum of 50 pounds (now about $75 US).

8) Waterford Crystal My cousin, is a glassblower and he always tells me that he's fascinated by watching people in the crystal factory...especially since he breaks a lot of it on purpose every day.


The one thing I missed about the States Signs and directions. Street signs in Ireland are non-existent. Asking someone how to get to a location is nearly impossible. The answer is usually "Oh, it's just on the other side of the river and there ya are!" Of course the five turns you have to make never come up.

The Windmills of my Mind

Why not take a trip to the windmills of your mind and enjoy the Festival that started them all.






Rose of Tralee Intenational Festival is one of Ireland's premier flagship festivals with an international element that makes it uinique. Visitors throughout the world return for a taste of its magic. The best in Irish and international music acts and even to its parades fireworks display and nightly seisiúns.

Contact Niamh Hallissy
Phone 066-7121322
Fax 066-7122654
Address Ashe Memorial Hall
Denny Street
Tralee
County Kerry
Email Contact this facility by e-mail
URL www.roseoftralee.ie
Something to write home about!

Party time!

KILKENNY ARTS FESTIVAL 2005

The 2005 Kilkenny Arts Festival will run from Friday 12 to Sunday 21 August.
Kilkenny Arts Festival 2004 was a huge success. The festive atmosphere infused the streets of this, Ireland's most spectacular medieval city. Over 10 days 235 events took place in and around the city, and around the county. Playing host to Ireland and the world's finest artists, the 30th anniversary festival proved that Kilkenny really is a magical festival, in a vibrant city, and a must for 2005!


"For three blissful days, Kilkenny Arts Festival changed the way I saw the world"
Arminta Wallace, The Irish Times
"The rapid rise of a serious rival to the Edinburgh Festival"
Samantha Ellis, The Guardian (London)

"this year's programme of events for the Kilkenny Arts Festival is darn impressive"
Dermot Keyes, Munster Express

Bring your Card! Enjoy!

Do you wanta dance?

Irish step dancing has been around since the late 18th century, and is continuously changing and evolving as time goes on. The recent success of big stage shows such as Riverdance and Lord of the Dance has catapulted Irish dance into the limelight and brought previously unequalled popularity and interest. Irish dancing has been described as "ice of the body and fire of the feet," because of the intricate footwork and energetic leaps coupled with a rigid upper body. Dancers perform both solo and as part of a team.
Early dance consisted of three forms: the hay or hey, the rinnce fada, and the rinnce mor. The first, hey/hay comes from the French 'haie'- stakes in a row or fence. It was used when referring to a line of dancers, similar to those seen in modern theatrical productions. The next, the rinnce fada has been paralleled to, "...answering to the festal dancing of the Greeks [which] seems to have been of the nature of the armed dance with which the Grecian youth amused themselves during the Siege of Troy" (The Wild Irish Girl, 1806). The third and final, rinnce mor is described by John Playford, dance historian, as a "long dance for as many as will" (1651). It is thought to have been a wild processional type of dance.


Irish dancing was accompanied by music played on the bagpipes and the harp. In the houses of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, the master often joined with servants in some of the dances. Dancing was also performed during wakes. The mourners followed each other in a ring around the coffin to bagpipe music.

Where we live

"A Continuity of existence
Still remained in me,
which I do not deny."
- Fintan, the Great Rememberer
Céad Mile Fáilte to Ancient Ireland ~ Welcome! I am deeply grateful for my Irish emigrant ancestors who struggled to survive in dignity. Were it not for their perseverence, stamina and pure will to live, I wouldn't be here today. There isn't one day that goes by that I don't think about what they endured so that their descendants could enjoy a better life. All of my websites are created in their honor.

Also, as an Irish-American author and educator, I'm interested in keeping our rich Celtic heritage alive in our society. I have tried to create a site that will facilitate research into our fascinating Celtic culture and history.

This page is under permanent re-construction since I'm always searching for the *best* resources the Net has to offer on Ancient Ireland. I have a great interest in Ancient Éire and invite you to enjoy all that is presented here....Lots more will follow.


"The great old Irish houses, the proud old Irish names,
Like stars upon the midnight, today their lustre gleams,
Gone are the great old houses - the proud old names are low
That shed a glory o'er the land a thousand years ago.
..... wheresoe'er a scion of those great old houses be,
In the country of his fathers or the land across the sea,
In city or in hamlet, by the valley, on the hill,
The spirit of his brave old sires is watching o'er him still."

Home sweet home

It seems three Irishmen, Sean, Michael and Tim, passed over at the same time. Upon encountering the Pearly Gates, they were met by ST. Patrick himself, and he addressed the boys thusly: "Lads, I'm here to welcome you to heaven where you will spend eternity. Just remember one thing, when you go through these gates, don't step on any of the ducks or you'll be punished for eternity. Sean went in first and was amazed to see that the entire ladscape was encompassed by ducks, and try as he might, sure enough he stepped on one. He was immediately joined by one of the homliest colleens he's ever laid eyes on, and she said,"Well love, you stepped on a duck and now we're together for all time."And of course the exact same thing happened to Michael only his companion was even the worse for wear. By this time Tim was absolutely terrified. And he gingerly managed to make it most of the way across the court without stepping on a single duck. Suddenly, his arm was taken by a young lass. Tim looked over and beheld the most beautiful, graceful, blue-eyed woman he's ever seen in all his life. He gasped, "I don't understand it!" The young beauty answered, "Well I'm sure I don't either, I was walking along minding my own business, when all of a sudden I stepped on a duck."

All things Irish

The Cat and the Dog
Long ago the dog used to be out in the wet and the cold, while the cat remained inside near the fire. One day, when he was “drowned wet,” the dog said to the cat, “You have a comfortable place, but you won’t have it any longer. I’m going to find out whether I have to be outside every wet day, while you are inside. The man of the house overheard the argument between the two and thought that it would be right to settle the matter. “Tomorrow,” said he, “I will start a race between ye five miles from the house, and whichever of ye comes into the house first will have the right to stay inside from then on. The other can look after the place outside.” Next day, the two got themselves ready for the race. As they ran toward the house, the dog was a half -mile ahead of the cat. Then he met a beggar man. When the beggar man saw the dog running toward him with his mouth open, he thought he was running to bite him. He had a stick in his hand and he struck the dog as he ran by. The dog was hurt and started to bark at the beggar man and tried to bite him for satisfaction. Meanwhile the cat ran toward the house, and she was licking herself near the fire and resting after the race when the dog arrived. “Now,” said the cat when the dog ran in, “the race is won, and I have the inside of the house for ever more. “-

As the Irishman said to William Wallace in "Braveheart" -- " The Lord said he can get me out of this one, but he's pretty sure you're messed up" and another one " In order to find his equal, an Irishman is forced to talk to God"

The Story of Fin MacCumhaíl
Cumhal Macart was a great champion in the west of Ireland, and it was prophesied of him that if ever he married he would meet death in the next battle he fought. For this reason he had no wife, and knew no woman for a long time; till one day he saw the king’s daughter, who was so beautiful that he forgot all fear and married her in secret. Next day after the marriage, news came that a battle had to be fought. Now a Druid had told the king that his daughter’s son would take the kingdom from him; so he made up his mind to look after the daughter, and not let any man come near her. Before he went to the battle, Cumhal told his mother everything,-- told her of his relations with the king’s daughter. He said, " I shall be killed in battle today, according to the prophecy of the Druid, and I’m afraid if his daughter has a son the king will kill the child, for the prophecy is that he will lose the kingdom by the son of his own daughter. Now, if the king’s daughter has a son you must hide and rear him, if you can; you will be his only hope and stay."
Cumhal was killed in the battle, and within that year the king’s daughter had a son. By command of his grandfather, the boy was thrown out of the castle window into a loch, to be drowned, on the day of his birth. The boy sank from sight; but after remaining a while under the water, he rose again to the surface, and came to land holding a live salmon in his hand.

The grandmother of the boy, Cumhal’s mother, stood watching on the shore, and said to herself as she saw this: "He is my grandson, the true son of my own child," and seizing the boy, she rushed away with him, and vanished, before the king’s people could stop her.
When the king heard that the old woman had escaped with his daughter’s son, he fell into a terrible rage, and ordered all the male children born that day in the kingdom to be put to death, hoping in this way to kill his own grandson, and save the crown for himself.
After she had disappeared from the bank of the loch, the old woman, Cumhal’s mother, made her way to a thick forest, where she spent that night as best she could. Next day she came to a great oak tree. Then she hired a man to cut out a chamber in the tree.

When all was finished, and there was a nice room in the oak for herself and her grandson, and a whelp of the same age as the boy, and which she had brought with her from the castle. She said to the man: "Give me the ax which you have in your hand, there is something here that I want to fix." The man gave the ax into her hand, and that minute she swept the head off him, saying: "You’ll never tell any man about this place now."

One day the whelp ate some of the fine chipping left cut by the carpenter from the inside of the tree. The old woman said: "You’ll be called Bran from this out." All three lived in the tree together, and the old woman did not take her grandson out till the end of five years; and then he couldn't walk, he had been sitting so long inside. When the old grandmother had taught the boy to walk, she brought him one day to the brow of a hill from which there was a long slope. She took a switch and said: "Now, run down this place. I will follow and strike you with this switch, and coming up I will run ahead, and you strike me as often as you can."
The first time they ran down, his grandmother struck him many times. In coming up the first time, he did not strike her at all. Every time they ran down she struck him less, and every time they ran up he struck her more. They ran up and down for three days; and at the end of that time she could not strike him once, and he struck her at every step she took. He had now become a great runner.

When he was fifteen years of age, the old woman went with him to a hurling match between the forces of his grandfather and those of a neighboring king. Both sides were equal in skill; and neither was able to win, till the youth opposed his grandfather’s people. Then, he won every game. When the ball was thrown in the air, he struck it coming down, and so again and again, never letting the ball touch the ground till he had driven it through the barrier. The old king, who was very angry and greatly mortified at the defeat of his people, exclaimed, as he saw the youth who was very fair and had white hair: "Who is that fin cumhal {white cap}?" The punning resemblance suggested the proper name for the boy: " Ah, that is it; Fin will be his name, and Fin MacCumhail he is," said the old woman. The king ordered his people to seize and put the young man to death, on the spot.

The old woman hurried to the side of her grandson. They slipped from the crowd and away they went, a hill at a leap, a glen at a step, and thirty-two miles at a running-leap. They ran a long distance, till Fin grew tired; then the old grandmother took him on her back, putting his feet into two pockets which were in her dress, one on each side, and ran on with the same swiftness as before, a hill at a leap, a glen at a step, and thirty-two miles at a running-leap. After a time the old woman felt the approach of pursuit, and said to Fin: "Look behind, and tell me what you see." "I see," said he, " a white horse with a champion on his back." "Oh, no fear," said she; "a white horse has no endurance; he can never catch us, we are safe from him." And on they sped. A second time she felt the approach of pursuit, and again she said: "Look back, and see who is coming." "I see, a warrior riding on a brown horse." "Never fear," said the old woman; "There is never a brown horse but is giddy, he cannot overtake us." She rushed on as before. A third time she said: "Look around and see who is coming now." Fin looked and said: " I see a black warrior on a black horse, following fast." "There is no horse so tough as a black horse," said the grandmother. "There is no escape from this one. My grandson, one or both of us must die. I am old, my time has nearly come. I will die and you and Bran save yourselves. (Bran had been with them all the time.) right here ahead is a deep bog; you jump off my back, and escape as best you can. I’ll jump into the bog up to my neck: and when the king’s men come, I’ll say that you are in the bog before me, sunk out of sight, and I’m trying to find you. As my hair and yours are the same color, they will cut it off, and take it in place of yours, and show it to the king; that will satisfy his anger."

Fin slipped down, took farewell of his grandmother, and hurried on with Bran. The old woman came to the bog, jumped in, and sank to her neck. The king’s men were soon at the edge of the bog, and the black rider called out to the old woman: "Where is Fin?" "He is here in the bog before me, and I’m trying can I find him" lamented the old woman. As the horse man could not find Fin, and thought the old woman’s head would do to carry back, they cut it off, and took it with them, saying: "This will satisfy the king."

Fin and Bran went on till they came to a great cave, in which they found a herd of goats. At the further end of the cave was a smoldering fire. The two lay down to rest. A couple of hours later, in came a giant with a salmon in his hand. This giant was of awful height, he had but one eye, and that in the middle of his forehead, as large as the sun in heaven. When he saw Fin, he called out: "Here, take this salmon and roast it: but be careful, for if you raise a single blister on it I’ll cut the head off you. I’ve followed this salmon for three days and three nights without stopping, and I never let it out of my sight, for it is the most wonderful salmon in the world."

The giant lay down to sleep in the middle of the cave. Fin spitted the salmon, and held it over the fire. The minute the giant closed the one eye in his head, he began to snore. Every time he drew breath into his body, he dragged Fin, the spit, the salmon, Bran, and all the goats to his mouth; and every time he drove a breath out of himself, he threw them back to the places they were in before. Fin was drawn time after time to the mouth of the giant with such force, that he was in dread of going down his throat.

When partly cooked, a blister rose on the salmon, Fin pressed the place with his thumb, to know could he bread the blister, and hide from the giant the harm that was done. But he burned his thumb, and , to ease the pain, put it between his teeth, and gnawed the skin to the flesh, the flesh to the bone, the bone to the marrow; and having tasted the marrow, he received the knowledge of all things. Next moment, he was drawn by the breath of the giant right up to his face, and knowing from his thumb what to do, he plunged the hot spit into the sleeping eye of the giant and destroyed it. That instant the giant with a single bound was at the low entrance of the cave, and , standing with his back to the wall and a foot on each side of the opening, roared out: " You’ll not leave this place alive."

Now Fin killed the largest goat, skinned him as quickly as he could, then putting the skin on himself he drove the herd to where the giant stood; the goats passed out one by one between his legs. When the great goat came the giant took him by the horns. Fin slipped from the skin, and ran out. "Oh, you’ve escaped," said the giant, " but before we part let me make you a present."
"I’m afraid to go near you," said Fin; "if you wish to give me a present, put it out this way, and then go back." The giant placed a ring on the ground, then went back. Fin took up the ring and put it on the end of his little finger above the first joint. It clung so firmly that no man in the world could have taken it off. The giant then called out, " Where are you?" "On Fin’s finger," cried the ring. That instant the giant spring at Fin and almost came down on his head, thinking in this way to crush him to bits. Fin sprang to a distance. Again the giant asked, "Where are you?" "On Fin’s finger," answered the ring. Again the giant made a leap, coming down just in front of Fin. Many times he called and many times almost caught Fin, who could not escape with the ring on his finger. While in this terrible struggle, not knowing how to escape, Bran ran up and asked: "Why don’t you chew your thumb?"

Fin bit his thumb to the marrow, and then knew what to do. He took the knife with which he had skinned the goat, cut off his finger at the first joint, and threw it, with the ring still on, into a deep bog nearby. And again the giant called out, "Where are you?" and the ring answered, " On Fin’s finger." Straightway the giant sprang towards the voice, sank to his shoulders in the bog, and stayed there.
Fin with Bran now went on his way, and traveled till he reached a deep and thick wood, where a thousand horses were drawing timber, and men felling and preparing it. "What is this?" asked Fin of the overseer of the workmen. "Oh, we are building a dun for the king; we build one every day, and every night it is burned to the ground. Our king has an only daughter; he will give her to any man who will save the dun, and he’ll leave him the kingdom at his death. If any man undertakes to save the dun and fails, his life must pay for it; the king will cut his head off. The best champions in Ireland have tried and failed; they are now in the king’s dungeons, a whole army of them, waiting the king’s pleasure. He’s going to cut the heads off them all in one day." Why don’t you chew your thumb?" asked Bran.
Fin chewed his thumb to the marrow, and then knew that on the eastern side of the world there lived an old hag with her three sons, and every evening at nightfall she sent the youngest of these to burn the king’s dun. "I will save the king’s dun," said Fin. "Well," said the overseer, "better men than you have tried and lost their lives." "Oh," says Fin, "I’m not afraid; I’ll try for the sake of the king’s daughter."

Now Fin, followed by Bran, went with the overseer to the king. "I hear you will give your daughter to the man who saves your dun," said Fin. "I will," said the king; "but if he fails I must have his head." "Well," says Fin, "I’ll risk my head for the sake of your daughter. If I fail I’m satisfied." The king gave Fin food and drink; he supped, and after supper went to the dun. "Why don’t you chew your thumb?" said Bran; "then you’ll know what to do." He did. Then Bran took her place on the roof, waiting for the old woman’s son.

Now the old woman in the east told her youngest son to hurry on with his torches, burn the dun, and come back without delay; for the stirabout was boiling and he must not be too late for supper. So he took the torches, and shot off through the air with a wonderful speed. Soon he was in sight of the king’s dun, threw the torches upon the thatched roof to set it on fire as usual.
That moment Bran gave the torches such a push with her shoulders, that they fell into the stream which ran around the dun, and were put out. "Who is this," cried the youngest son of the old hag, "who has dared to put out my lights, and interfere with my hereditary right?" "I," said Fin, who stood in front of him. Then began a terrible battle between Fin and the old woman’s son. Bran came down from the dun to help Fin; she bit and tore his enemy’s back, striping the skin and flesh from his head to his heels. After a terrible struggle such as had not been in the world before that night, Fin cut the head off his enemy. But for Bran, Fin could never have conquered.

The time for the return of her son had passed; supper was ready. The old woman, impatient and angry, said, to the second son: "You take torches and hurry on, see why your brother loiters. I’ll pay him for this when he come home! But be careful and don’t do like him, or you’ll have your pay too. Hurry back, for the stirabout is boiling and ready for supper." He started off, was met and killed exactly as his brother, except that he was stronger and the battle fiercer. But for Bran, Fin would have lost his life that night. The old woman was raging at the delay, and said to her eldest son, who had not been out of the house for years: ( It was only in case of the greatest need that she sent him. He had a cat’s head, and was called Pus an Chuine, "Puss of the Corner;" he was the eldest and strongest of all the brothers.) "Now take torches, go and see what delays your brothers; I’ll pay them for this when they come home."

The eldest brother shot off through the air, came to the king’s dun and threw his torches upon the roof. They had just singed the straw a little, when Bran pushed them off with such force that they fell into the stream and were quenched. "Who is this," screamed Cat-head, "who dares to interfere with my ancestral right?" "I," shouted Fin. Then the struggle began fiercer than with the second brother. Bran helped from behind, tearing the flesh from his head to his heels; but at length Cat-head fastened his teeth into Fin’s breast, biting and gnawing till Fin cut the head off. The body fell to the ground, but the head lived, gnawing as terribly as before. Do what they could it was impossible to kill it. Fin hacked and cut, but could neither kill nor pull it off. When nearly exhausted, Bran said; "Why don’t you chew your thumb?" Fin chewed thumb, and reaching the marrow knew that the old woman in the east was ready to start with torches to find her sons, and burn the dun herself, and that she had a vial of liquid with which she could bring the sons to life; and that nothing could free him from Cat-head but the old woman’s blood.
After midnight the old hag, enraged at the delay of her sons, started and shot through the air like lightning, more swiftly than her sons. She threw her torches from afar upon the roof of the dun; but Bran as before hurled them into the stream. Now the old woman circled around in the air looking for her sons. Fin was getting very weak from pain and loss of blood, for Cat-head was biting at his breast all the time. Bran called out; "Rouse yourself, oh Fin; use all your power or we are lost! If the old hag gets a drop from the vial upon the bodies of her sons, they will come to life, and then we’re done for."

Thus roused, Fin with one spring reached the old woman in the air, and swept the bottle from her grasp; which falling upon the ground was emptied., The old hag gave a scream which was heard all over the world, came to the ground and closed with Fin. Then followed a battle greater than the world had ever known before that night, or has ever seen since. Water sprang out of gray rocks, and cows cast their calves even when they had none, and hard rushes grew soft in the remotest corner or Ireland, so desperate was the fighting and so awful, between Fin and the old hag. Fin would have died that night but for Bran.

As daylight was coming Fin swept the head off the old woman, caught some of her blood, and rubbed it around Cat-head, who fell off dead. He rubbed his own wounds with the blood and was cured; then rubbed some on Bran, who had been singed with the torches, and she was as well as ever. Fin, exhausted with fighting, dropped down and fell asleep.
While he was sleeping the chief steward of the king came to the dun, found it standing safe and sound, and seeing Fin lying there asleep knew that he had saved it. Bran tried to waken Fin, pulled and tugged, but could not rouse him. The steward went to the king, and said: "I have saved the dun, and I claim the reward." "It shall be given you," answered the king; and straightway the steward was recognized as the king’s son-in-law, and orders were given to make ready for the wedding.

Bran had listened to what was going on, and when her master woke, exactly at midday, she told him of all that was taking place in the castle of the king. Fin went to the king, and said: "I have saved your dun, and I claim the reward." "Oh," said the king, "my steward claimed the reward, and it has been given to him." "He had nothing to do with saving the dun; I saved it," said Fin. "Well," answered the king, "he is the first man who told me of its safety and claimed the reward." "Bring him here: let me look at him," said Fin.
He was sent for, and came. "Did you save the king’s dun?" asked Fin. "I did," said the steward. You did not, and striking him with the edge of his open hand he swept the head off his body, dashing it against the other side of the room, flattening it like paste on the wall. "You are the man," said the king to Fin, "who saved the dun; yours is the reward. All the champions, and there is many a man of them, who have failed to save it are in the dungeons of my fortress; their heads must be cut off before the wedding takes place." Will you let me see them?" asked Fin. "I will," said the king.

Fin went down to the men, and found the first champions of Ireland in the dungeons, "Will you obey me in all things if I save you from death?" said Fin. " We will," said they. Then he went back to the king and asked: "Will you give me the lives of these champions of Ireland, in place of your daughter’s hand?" "I will," said the king. All the champions were liberated, and left the king’s castle that day. Ever after they followed the orders of Fin, and these were the beginning of his forces and the first of the Fenians of Ireland.