Hornpipe Magazine, Irish Culture abstracts, Vol. 7.

Crannog site reveals resourceful ancient Celts
by Erin Reilly

The structural changes of society from hunters to agrarians manifested a great interest in livestock. Cattle was a source of wealth. As Celts began to increase their interest in cattle-raising, warfare over cattle was a cause form great concern and need for protection.

The introduction of iron weapons led to more sophisticated defensive structures. Stone forts or cashels (Irish caiséal from Latin castellum) are the obvious surviving monuments of the Iron Age but in the lakes region there abounds another structure of considerable interest - Crannogs. Since they could be reached only by boat or footage, they generally couldn't shelter all the animals but often rescued villages during attack.

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Consider reading this article with parental guidance and discussion, perhaps lighting a candle for peace.

...[The] futile August killing of innocent children created a revolt of a different kind. Outraged parents had enough and the news impelled over one hundred thousand who surged against the violence encasing

Northern Ireland

. Immediately they petitioned and packed chapels. Families of all religions came together to grieve and rally for peace. They wanted unarmed lives and jointly walked in areas where they could have been shot. They faced the fear. In shock and courage, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan inspired a year of marches. Ordinary individuals believing it time to make a difference.

Catholics and Protestants interviewed remained openly akin in their feelings: We recognize violence will not deliver justice; Over 3300 deaths deeply test families here who deserve a new day; In the name of humanity, the people of

Ulster

want a nonviolent community. Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan vowed to launch a movement that would end sectarian fighting between the Roman Catholic minority and the Protestant majority.

Volume 7, Issue 5

Holiday symbol keeps, 'til you eat it all'
part fact, part legend, part fruitcake

In Virginia they soak within brandy; in Kentucky, they saturate inside bourbon. In other regions the marinagde of choice consists of sherry or cognac, or sopping in wine or port. At Christmas in Ireland, Irish whiskey suffices, of course. A full bodied vintage, nearly tannin, like a quality of wine needs time for the tastes to meld and render the product tolerable. The product? Fruitcake.

Fruitcake flavors arise from papaya, pineapple, cherried sweets, citrusy orange peel, raisins and roasted nuts, and heady spices fully fired in liquor. The fruitcake is tarred, stewed and consecrated, brooding before it matures. The flavors can lure one into its dark, intense aroma, though the result resembles a stone pillow of paté. Repositioning solid fruitcake summons the ultimate test for a public relations or advertising agency.

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The ethereal sound of a harp’s haunting melody has marked ages in courts of king and Ireland conqueror with a regal presence. During the golden age of the harp in the 15th - 17th centuries no court in Europe was without a harper. Singularly unique few instruments match the harp’s appeal as an acoustical accompaniment to a bard—keepers of history and tradition.

By tradition it is an indigenous instrument that has been elevated to symphonic status, perhaps not as popular as say the violin but non-the-less a treasured art. The modern definition of a harp is an instrument with a plane of strings running perpendicular to the sound box or resonator. This separates harps from lyres, violins, guitars and hammered dulcimers, all of which have strings parallel to the soundboard.

Reincarnation: A sensational story of Bridey Murphy

November 29, 1952, Morey Bernstein placed Virginia Tighe into a deep hypnotic trance. Bernstein, an amateur hypnotist, had finally found someone willing to try what believers in reincarnation call “past-life regression.” Through the power of hypnosis, he believed, he could lead Tighe back through time and into her previous life. To his delight, she soon told him she had previously been Bridey Murphy, an Irish woman who lived between 1798 and 1864. When it became public a few years later, the extraordinary story of Bridey Murphy took the nation by storm.

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Vol 7, Issue 5

Sixty-three years ago this month, in December 1942, the #1 song in America was Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas.”

Like many American Christmas hits (including “Rudolph” and “The Christmas Song – Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”), “White Christmas” was written by a Jewish songwriter. Irving Berlin, born Israel Baline in Siberia in 1888, arrived in

America

with his family in 1893. They settled on New York’s Lower East Side, then the largest Jewish enclave in the world. Although most of the Irish who once dominated the district had moved away, one Irish family lived in the same building as the Balines on Cherry Street. They took a liking to the young “Izzy” and often invited him into their apartment. Thus it was in December that he witnessed his first Christmas in

America

– a warm and delightful experience he never forgot. Later as an adult, he married Irish Catholic Ellin Barrett and because they raised their children as Christians, he learned to love the holiday (albeit, its secular trappings) all the more.

The declaration by the Irish Republican Army of an end to its armed campaign claims the republican struggle for a united Ireland will now continue only through democratic politics. But how will the IRA’s leadership ensure that the “battle” it has withdrawn from in Ireland will not continue as a “war” against

Britain

and its influence in the North? IRA history, both distant and recent, indicate disarmament assurances of the Sinn Fein political wing led by Gerry Adams may not necessarily backed by the Army Council or the general membership of the IRA.

The announcement in the IRA declaration signed “P. O’Neill,” a presumed non de plume for its leadership, commits the group to putting its weapons down, with verification by an international commission, along with two witnesses from the Protestant and Catholic churches. There will be no photographs as demanded months ago in earlier negotiations. This is a strategic stroke leaving the IRA disarming on its own terms rather than being dictated to, a nuance not likely to be altogether lost on its supporters and detractors.

At 7:30 on Sunday Morning the lines of cars were beginning to back up the exit ramp to Lakefront Festival Park. It was the final day of the Milwaukee Irish Festival, a three-day event that attracts enthusiasts from all over the country.

The legendary and oldest Irish Festival in the America celebrated its 25th anniversary by convening some of the most popular Irish folk acts of all time with the likes of Liam Clancy of the famed Clancy Brothers, Evans & Doherty, Tommy Makem, Schooner Fare, Paddy Reilly and the Green Fields of America with Jean Butler. The celebration this year is nostalgic and re-captures the past by filling stages with Bing Crosby impersonator, Bob Pasch and a U2 tribute band. Not to be missed is the Chicago’s Standby Productions present Sister Bernie’s Bingo Bash, a participatory music and laughter-filled bingo game.

Milwaukee Irish Fest’s gift to Irish President Mary McAleese is a hand-sewn quilt called “Interpretation of Love.” The colorful quilt features many handprints representing the ethnic festival communities of Milwaukee.

Stitched onto the quilt are the of President McAleese “Across the bridge of hope to peace and understanding,” reflecting the theme of her presidency “building bridges..."

In August, 1906, the family of banker Charles Henry Warren thought they had solved a big problem. Searching desperately for a cook at the height of the summer season on Oyster Bay, they found one who seemed perfect for the job. Mary Mallon had ample experience and seemed pleasant enough. And best of all, she could start right away. Unfortunately, it was what they didn’t know about Mallon that mattered most: she was a carrier of typhoid bacilli.

Knock, Ireland is the home of a very special place where the Blessed Mother, St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist is said to have appeared to 15 people whose lives at the time were filled with desperation and extreme hardship. On a wet Thursday evening on August 21, 1879, the trio appeared in a blaze of heavenly light at the south gable of the Church of St. John the Baptist.

The Apparition was seen by the townspeople who ranged in age from six years to seventy-five. The witnesses were in pouring rain for nearly 2 hours, reciting the Rosary.

Before there was a glut of cable television’s political babblers, before there was Foreign Policy magazine, the National Review, the pre-eminence of New York Times editorial page or the power of the Washington Post, there was one journalistic voice that kept the nation’s attention. Martin Dooley, an imaginary Irish immigrant and Chicago barkeep held forth, first in a newspaper column in the Windy City and shortly in national syndication.

Volume 7, Issue 3

Irish Poet Laureate Brinsley Sheridan passes away

Brinsley Sheridan, poet laureate in exile of Monahans, Ireland, passed away from cancer in April, 2004, in London in his bed with his beloved wife, Valerie, and daughters standing by him. Brinsley was exemplary of the kind of artists that have forged unbreakable links among the Irish people throughout the world. His poetry and music enlightened and entertained so many for his 54 years that the Concert for Brinsley was held May 1st in London. It is a fitting tribute to a man who devoted himself for much of his life to helping those whose lives had taken a bad turn find a new rhyme and a new rhythm for living. Hornpipe Associate Editor Edd O'Donnell was a trans-Atlantic colleague of Sheridan's and offering this piece for the concert as Hornpipe offers it here for our readers.

Sheridan's Passing

He came to spiritual consciousness in a walnut paneled waiting room
Much like the ones outside the courts where he'd occasionally been in thrall
He didn't have his glasses and was alarmed until
He realized his vision was now perfect — all was in focus

An unctuous looking soul stood behind a counter opposite him
Every now and then the man would sonorously call out a name
One of the others would somnambulantly approach the counter
Each was asked a question and directed to one of two doors

...

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Volume 7, Issue 3

Travel Writer Pete McCarthy Dies

What can you say about a writer who talks his publisher into letting him travel the country drinking in every bar named McCarthy?

American born Pete McCarthy died last fall of caner at the age of 52. Born to an English mother and Irish father, he was a writer, broadcaster, comedian and hugely popular performer. His success in life came when he moved overseas and hosted the Channel 4 series Travelog and BBC Radio 4 panel show X Marks the Spot. However, his best selling book McCarthy's Bar thrilled the world.

It was his offbeat sense of humor that worldwide audiences around the globe enjoyed who were either Irish, part Irish or who embraced the Celtic alternative to the Anglo-Saxon rulebook. Pete did not travel first class and it was his mode of travel on suburban trains, transatlantic planes, and storm tossed ferries, in cheap student accommodation and very definitely on the London underground that caused seismic public laughter.

McCarthy's Bar is an entertaining meander across the Irish Republic in which he explored his Irish heritage searching for his identity. He traveled from Cork to Donegal, with the premise that you should "never pass a bar that has your name on it". The book sold nearly a million copies and won him the newcomer of the year prize at the British Book Awards in 2002. His more ambitious follow-up book, The Road to McCarthy, took him on a journey across four continents in search of the far-flung Irish Diaspora.

McCarthy's Bar is an entertaining meander across the Irish Republic in which he explored his Irish heritage searching for his identity. He traveled from Cork to Donegal, with the premise that you should "never pass a bar that has your name on it". The book sold nearly a million copies and won him the newcomer of the year prize at the British Book Awards in 2002. His more ambitious follow-up book, The Road to McCarthy, took him on journey across four continents in search of the far-flung Irish Diaspora.

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Billy the Kid: Outlaw legend first generation Irish-American
by Dr. Edward T. O'Donnell

On August 17, 1877, young William Henry McCarty became a killer and outlaw. Attached by a barroom bully in Arizona, the seventeen-year-old killed the man with his pistol and fled to nearby New Mexico where he tried to start a new life as a ranch hand. But he would soon find himself embroiled in a bitter and bloody rancher feud, a conflict that propelled him to national infamy as "Billy the Kid", the most notorious outlaw in the west.

Billy the Kid was born William Henry McCarty to Irish immigrant parents Catherine and Michael McCarty in New York City on September 17, 1859. Like many of their fellow Irish immigrants, the McCartys lived in poverty in a run down tenement on the Lower East Side. When Billy's father died soon after his birth, he and his mother headed west, eventually landing in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

There in 1873 Billy's mother married another Irishman, a miner named William Antrim. Her death the next year from a long bout with tuberculosis hit Billy hard and set him on a downward spiral. He accompanied his step-father to a silver strike in Arizona, near a place called Globe City. His stepfather alternated between abusing and ignoring Billy, leaving him to fall in with a rough crowd in the mining town. By age sixteen, Billy was known as a violent and reckless young man who possessed little regard for authority. Shortly after his arrest for stealing laundry, he set out on his own, supporting himself as a ranch hand, cattle rustler, and gambler.

Liam resumed recounting the disturbing tale of my father’s youth and how he left Ireland never to return. “The rest of what I’m goin’ ta tell now I only know by t’ird and fort’ hand talk but I’ve no cause ta doubt a word of it.”

Once settled in Dublin, my father went directly to Michael Collins and became a messenger for his network of spies and assassins. He maintained his electrical apprenticeship but Collins engineered a second job for him in the stables of Dublin Castle, then the seat of the British control of Ireland. The Anglo-Irish governor-general and his family lived in a wing of the castle and the only daughter, 16-year-old Fiona Butler, was a regular fixture at the stables to take care of her black mare. She quickly showed an interest in the strapping good looks of the black Irish boy from Donegal. And, despite his enmity toward anyone other than blood Irish, he was smitten by the lithe, blood girl, telling himself she would offer new sources of intelligence for Collins. They started riding out to the park together almost daily.

It is at this time that Liam believed that my father was assigned by Collins to kill a politician who was trying to play Collins off against other rebel groups in preparation for the moment when Collins, or one of his men, might show a chink in the wall of secrecy that surrounded his operation and, thereby, be snuffed out. Reports later told Liam that the errant politician had been found with his throat slit and his tongue cut out, a punishment generally used on traitors. Liam indicated that my father had probably done this sort of dirty work a few more times at Collins bidding, including eliminating republicans who sold out to the British.

"The Celts sometimes engage in single combat during their feasts. Arming themselves, they engage in mock-fights and sparring sessions with each other. Sometimes, however, wounds are inflicted and these mock-battles lead to real killing unless the bystanders restrain the combatants." (thus saith Poseidonios in Athenaeus 4.40)

Ancient Celtic drinking parties were spirited affairs in more ways than one, and bizarre enough to catch the attention of several ancient authors. We have very little in the way of identifiable archaeological remains of feasting, but many if not most grave goods appear to be connected with drinking. We will look here at finds from several mostly female rich tombs dating from the late sixth to the mid fourth centuries BCE in Germany and France. Early Irish and Brittonic tales have been used to flesh out our picture of the banquets of continental Iron-Age Europeans, conveniently dubbed the "Celts" after Herodotus. The use of much later, Christian, biased, and highly exaggerated and fanciful Insular literature to attempt to reconstruct Iron Age practices is of course a questionable enterprise. Yet if one postulates a degree of cultural continuity and a core of ancient truth, it is tempting to give it a try, with caution. A tiny selection of these three types of material, archaeological finds and ancient Mediterranean and Insular texts, is drawn upon here to suggest aspects of the feasting habits of late Hallstatt - early La Tène continental Celtic elites.

Modern scholars have focused primarily on the sociopolitics of Celtic feasting: the importance of the ability to throw various types of royal feasts to the establishment and retention of the ruler's legitimacy, and the use of feasts in mobilizing work parties, etc.. We will take these aspects as read and strive for a more differentiated view of the banquet. Honey mead, beer and bragget were drunk by the peoples inhabiting Iron-Age Europe, with wine as an expensive import, beginning before 600 BCE. Both Massaliot and Italian wine amphorae have been found in enormous numbers at sites in France, while sites in Germany contain far fewer amphorae. Beer was the beverage of the working folk, while expensive wine and mead were preferred at the elite feasts. Mead, the more intoxicating and perhaps more numinous, was indulged in on the eve of battle, often to unfortunate excess.

The Irish Hunger Memorial takes its name from the Irish term for the famine of 1845 - 52, "An Gorta Mor" — The Great Hunger. The creation of artist Brian Tolle stands on a half-acre site at the corner of Vesey Street and North End Avenue in Battery Park City, adjacent to One Financial Center and the Hudson River.

The size of the cultivated area of the Memorial is significant. In 1847, Sir William Gregory proposed an additional clause to the Irish Poor Law stipulating that no person occupying land of more than one-quarter acre was eligible for any relief. This law had a devastating effect. The Memorial is devoted to raising public awareness of the events that led to the "Great Irish Famine and Migration" when a blight destroyed the Irish potato crop, depriving Ireland of its staple food. By 1847 millions were starving and dying.

The elevated limestone plinth memorial contains stones from each of Ireland's 32 counties. Along the base are illuminated frosted glass panels — shadows of text that combine the history of the Great Famine with contemporary reports on world hunger.

Entry to the memorial from the west side river walk is through a tunnel, a formal ceremonial entrance that recalls the court cairn or graves of the Irish Neolithic period that are found in Co. Meath. The passageway ends inside the ruined fieldstone cottage that was brought to New York from the town of Carradoogan near Attymas, County Mayo. Following the path to a sloping landscape visitors rise upward past a ruined fieldstone cottage and stone walls toward a pilgrim's standing stone. At the apex of the Memorial, 25 feet above the pavement, a cantilevered overlook offers views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, emblems of America's welcome to the Irish and to all immigrant people.

As Riverdance arrives at its 10th year of international success, the question remains of how long the show, fashioned initially from a dance number of just several minutes, will be able to maintain its drawing power for North American audiences. The current version of Riverdance indicates that the imagination and drive behind the production will probably only allow it to survive as a wildly popular show for a dozen more generations.

The latest edition of Riverdance treading US boards has changed immensely from the original and yet has stayed much the same as the production that wowed worldwide audiences in its initial international introduction. That means at its heart it is a show about dance — Irish dance.

Granted the flash costumes and amazing aerial feats of Americans Michael Flatley and Fean Butler's creation have given way to accentuation of the muted colors of true Irish dance costuming and focused more closely on Irish dance as a group performance, yet the spirit, power and spectacle of Irish dance and music is no less a moving experience than at any time in the previous decade.

There are several areas in which the 2005 Riverdance has changed and to fans of the show the foremost of these is a special spotlight on the music and musicians heretofore celebrated but not brought front and center stage. With five musicians stacked and lit dramatically at one side of the stage, one gets a hint that music and musicians will play a greater role in this show than previous productions.

Volume 7, Issue 2

Broken Heel

Pitch black still prevailed all around the moving car when my great Uncle Liam's giant hand shook my shoulder. I awoke on full red alert. I knew where I was and had an abiding sense of excitement of what lay ahead has we drove across Ireland in the night to attend the funeral of Owen O'Donnell in Donegal where I would certainly learn more about my father's youth.

"We'll soon be in Donegal and I've a need to tell ya some t'ings before we get much farther on," Liam said, his hawk-like face peering intently at me through the dark. He offered a flask and I took a swallow to wash the sleep taste from my mouth.

"I'm goin' ta be talkin' fast right now, lad, and I'll remind ya to hold yer questions until I ask for 'em," he said and took a deep breath.

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Eamon de Valera – Man of Influence
Erratic DeValera’s vision inexorably moved Ireland to her ultimate destiny

During his lifetime and posthumously, Eamon de Valera is generally regarded as the most influential person in the history of 20th century Ireland. That said, it is important to note that while deV, as he liked to be called, was revered above all others, aside from the fiery Michael Collins, his blunt exercise of power, his insistence on enforcing the laws of the Roman Catholic church in Irish society and his suspected role in the assassination of Collins, his chief rival, have left deV’s legacy shadowed in history at best.

At various times a mathematician, teacher and a politician he served as Irish head of government on three occasions, as second president of the executive council (original name for the prime minister) and the first Taoiseach (prime ministerial title after 1937). He ended his political career as president of Ireland, serving two terms from 1959 until 1973. Eamon de Valera was also the chancellor of the National University of Ireland from 1922 until 1975.

An increasing number of people of Celtic heritage are being diagnosed with a hereditary disease called Hemochromatosis, or HHC for short. Hemochromatosis is a disorder in which the body absorbs more iron than is healthy from food. It is most common in those of Celtic origin, and since the highest incidence of the disease does in fact occur among the residual Celtic populations in the UK and France (6.88 percent), it is also becoming known as the Celtic Curse.

Normally any iron not used by the body is excreted, but the system of an individual with hemochromatosis stores excess iron throughout the body, including the liver, pancreas, skin, and other organs with eventual detrimental effects. HHC is inherited, so it begins to slowly affect one’s health from birth. What can you do if diagnosed with HHC? Seek treatment or die early. It is this serious.

Screening studies have shown that hereditary hemochromatosis actively occurs in one in two hundred to one in four hundred Europeans. The carrier rate is much higher however with ratios varying from one in seven to one in ten, depending on the population studied. Blood tests that measure iron levels are used to diagnose hemochromatosis. It is most common among those above the age level of 35 after a lifetime in which iron is stored in various organs, but may also occur among teens with devastating results.

Éamon de Valera: Man of influence
Erratic De Valera's vision inexorably moved Ireland to her ultimate destiny

During his lifetime and posthumously, Éamon de Valera is generally regarded as the most influential person in the history of 20th century Ireland. That said, it is important to note that while deV, as he liked to be called, was revered above all others, aside from the fiery Michael Collins, his blunt exercise of power, his insistence on enforcing the laws of the Roman Catholic church in Irish society and his suspected role in the assassination of Collins, his chief rival, have left deV's legacy shadowed in history at best.

At various times a mathematician, teacher and a politician he served as Irish head of government on three occasions, as second president of the executive council (original name for the prime minister) and the first Taoiseach (prime ministerial title after 1937). He ended his political career as president of Ireland, serving two terms from 1959 until 1973. Éamon de Valera was also the chancellor of the National University of Ireland from 1922 until 1975.

Born in New York City in 1882 to an Irish mother, he claimed his parents, Kate Coll and Juan Vivion de Valera were married in 1881 in New York. However exhaustive searches of church and state records have failed to find either a church or civil record of the marriage. It is now widely believed by academicians that deV was illegitimate. One result of illegitimacy in the late 19th - early 20th century was that one was barred from a career in the Roman Catholic church. Éamon de Valera was a deeply religious man, who in death asked to be buried in a religious habit. There are a number of occasions where de Valera seriously contemplated entering the religious life like his half-brother, Thomas Wheelright. Yet he did not do so, and apparently received little encouragement from the priests whose advice he sought.

VATICAN CITY, April 2 - Pope John Paul II, who led the Roman Catholic church for twenty-six years, died in his Vatican apartment after a debilitating illness. He was eighty-four. Beloved, brave, humble, evangelist, priest, poet, protector of the poor and defender of the faith are a few fitting descriptions for a most visible icon of the twentieth century. Unlike popes throughout history, he did not seclude himself in revered, head of state fashion. John Paul II ushered in a refreshing approach, leading one of the world's largest religions by visiting kings and queens, presidents and dictators, prime ministers, mingling with all peoples no matter their religion - no one escaped his call to moral conscience and universal truths.

With diplomatic ease he addressed controversial social and political issues that will affect the globe for years to come, often taking stands that differed from world leaders. His legacy spanned the terms of five US presidents. John Paul was the first pope to visit the White House, invited by Jimmy Carter in 1979.

"In times of great need, God does send someone," Ronald Reagan said of John Paul. Reagan met with the pope four times and established formal ambassadorial relations with the Vatican, a contentious move. Both had an emotional tie - wounded in assassination attempts in 1981. President Clinton had four visits with John Paul as well. "He obviously disputed the American law on abortion," Mr. Clinton says, "though that did not affect our dealings. He was big in what he believed, yet he would not demean other people."

While the history of many nations is contained in its public buildings or castles, the larger history of Ireland is captured in its churches, monasteries and friaries. From ancient times through modern day the church, first Roman Catholic and later the Protestant Anglican Church of Ireland have been part of a preserved the history of Ireland in their records, building and leaders.

Many historians credit the monks of Ireland with preserving western civilization during the Dark Ages through their transcription of many important documents and tracts into illuminated texts. These holy men worked at their task in solitude and anonymity while much of the known world was transformed into a world of ignorance and superstition that served the purposes of many leaders of the time.

Let’s look at a small sampling of churches that are rife with local, regional and national history in Ireland’s story. They range in age from ancient to relatively modern but they, and many others, are all worth a look to anyone touring Ireland with a historical tack to their travels.

Cousin Kate’s revelation that my father had been romantically involved with another woman before my mother hit me like an unexpected pie in the face. Given the intensity of my parents’ relationship, I never envisioned for a moment that either of them had ever looked at another. It was like trying to imagine your parents making love. It is impossible to consider.

The shock of that news was exacerbated by Kate’s comment that Manus Butler might have been my uncle and then Manus leaving abruptly with an edge of animosity in his parting comment. Kate must have seen the shock in my face because the glass she shoved across the bar had a triple shot in it.

In a daze, I made my way back to the table where I’d left Liam, Dort and Erl. Liam was across the room now in animated conversation with a group Erl was nowhere to be seen and Dort sat with a quiet, small smile, nursing what appeared to be a Guinness schooner full of hot coffee. He, too, noted the shift in my mien.

“Are ya feelin’ poorly?” he asked as I sat down, adding, “Lots of excitement ‘n’ the change in time from air travel sometimes makes me quaky.”

On June 1, 1866 Irish Americans representing the Fenian movement in Ireland, commanded by General John O’Neill, invaded Canada and captured Fort Erie. Two days later the American Fenian forces defeated English colonial forces at Ridgeway, Ontario, by breaking the legendary “British Square” infantry formation developed by the English Army.

The “British Square” was an iron-disciplined infantry formation that had withstood the charge of Napoleon’s cavalry at Waterloo in 1815 and which went on to develop a legend of being an unbreakable formation. Military texts still repeat the legend of the “unbroken” British Square, ignoring the Battle of Ridgeway. The Battle of Ridgeway was the last confrontation between European military forces in North America, and it came about as part of a revolutionary effort to liberate Ireland.

Following the collapse of the 1848 “Young Ireland” movement, the banner of Irish national independence was taken up anew in 1858 by the Fenian movement. Taking its name from the Fianna, the warrior-guardians of ancient Gaelic Ireland, the Fenian movement was conceived as a trans-Atlantic revolutionary conspiracy, getting resources from the Irish immigrants in the United States. The Civil War presented an opportunity to Fenian leaders in the United States, and regiments of Irish volunteers were recruited for the Union cause by officers who didn’t try to conceal their goal of creating a trained force of veteran soldiers who would then return to liberate Ireland.

In a nation where the most valuable possession is the land, the next priority would be Ireland’s classic racehorses. The Irish love affair with racing abounds with three hundred race meets at twenty-seven tracks. Non-stop racing from March to October rivals all other sporting events. Horseracing even competes in the financial industry.

Horse breeding, training and racing is as significant an economic activity as gambling. Ireland’s breeding stables are among Europe’s finest and are sought after by royalty and racing enthusiasts around the world. Exceptional horses win millions and make millions more providing stud services. Less publicity is given to brood mares, a considerable market as well. With this in mind, breeders are able to breed horses that excel at particular distances or racing styles. America is most famous for thoroughbred racing and the Triple Crown, while harness racing is more popular in Canada and Australia. Jumping and the steeplechase are popular in Europe.

Volume 7, Issue 1

Are our girls growing up too fast?
What if J-Lo suddenly took up Irish dancing?
by Robin Ross

If J-Lo traded her onstage bumping and grinding for good posture, pointed toes, and her flesh-colored spangles for a knee length costume patterned with Celtic knots, the preteen girls in her fan base would rush to follow. Enrollments in Irish dancing classes would soar across the country and parents would be battered with constant requests for spiral perms, if not a wig. During elementary and middle school recess, boys would tire watching female classmates practice the latest treble jig from J-Lo's video - versus suggestive shakes and thrusts. Interesting thought.

This serves to illustrate the enormous influence that J-Lo and her fellow pop culture stars have over young audiences, especially female. Through MTV, the Top 40, prime-time TV, teen magazines, and the advertisements that permeate them all, girls have plenty of chances to find a heroine who seems attractive, exciting, and whose style can be imitated. Is that style a healthy one for a girl of thirteen to adopt?

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