Away with the fairies

By the time I tottered off to my room the hour was late, and I was rather feeling the various effects of

• more than two pints of cider
• a couple of hours of very vigorous dancing
• learning a couple of new songs from Mr.Nolan,

not having a timepiece with me I had no idea what time it was when I was shaken awake by Mr.Connelly, but as he yelled at me that the tavern was afire my nostrils confirmed the tang of smoke in the air. The decision to sleep in my long-tailed shirt meant that I didn't have to worry about decency in the midst of the emergency, but even as I was pulling my knee-britches on Mr.Connelly asked me to help him save the strongbox which held his wife's few items of jewellery, and most of the family's savings.
I should explain at this point that the tavern was built into the side of a steep hill, so the window of my upstairs room opened perhaps six feet above the ground level, and it was through my room that Mr.Connelly urged his two older children to make their escape, their terrified mother accompanying them with baby Sean held tightly in her arms.
In the Connelly's private apartment we took hold of a small wooden chest no more than eighteen inches in any dimension by my reckoning, with sturdy black iron handles. But for its small size it still proved surprisingly heavy. At some length, between the two of us we manhandled the chest out of the window and dropped it to the ground where I was almost certain it would burst, but the iron bands on the lid, and around the sides held it firm.
Mr.Connelly insisted that I should jump next, and that is where things began to get confused. I wasn't confident about jumping even such a short distance to the ground and was trying to pluck up courage, that much I remember clearly. But then I think I was pushed.
Whether I landed badly, I'm not sure, but I don't remember anything between hesitating in the window, and waking. The next morning, when I woke I was cold, stiff and still only partly dressed. And laying on the hay in the hayloft of the stables opposite the tavern. Of course, my first thought was to look for the Connellys and see how badly the tavern had been damaged, and that was when I got the biggest surprise.
The building itself showed no signs of fire, but searching around to the rear of the building, the window of the room which I had occupied was ajar, and while I was out there, Angus the apprentice and potboy came down the hill, carrying a basket of fresh eggs and whistling cheerfully.

"'tis a fine clear morning for the fresh sweet air, is it not?"
I asked Angus if anything ... had happened last night, and of course he wanted to know why I might think anything had. So I was obliged to recount most of my recollection of events to him.
His face took on a thoughtful expression: "Well, I would say it is possible, though some might disagree, that the fair folk played a trick on you last night."
After that, there was no stemming the tide of gossip from the pub and I left as soon as was decently possible, but not without a fair bit of good-natured mirth at my expense; Mr.Connelly was kind enough to reassure me that his family's wealth was quite secure. But what concerned me more were the few, mostly the womenfolk, who crossed themselves and lowered their gaze as I left the village.

Still in Ireland

some notes on the history of Irish dance
a tantalizing glimpse of the history of firefighting in Ireland
                   

The    written content of this work is licensed under a Creative    Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.       

Away with the fairies

By the time I tottered off to my room the hour was late, and I was rather feeling the various effects of

• more than two pints of cider
• a couple of hours of very vigorous dancing
• learning a couple of new songs from Mr.Nolan,

not having a timepiece with me I had no idea what time it was when I was shaken awake by Mr.Connelly, but as he yelled at me that the tavern was afire my nostrils confirmed the tang of smoke in the air. The decision to sleep in my long-tailed shirt meant that I didn't have to worry about decency in the midst of the emergency, but even as I was pulling my knee-britches on Mr.Connelly asked me to help him save the strongbox which held his wife's few items of jewellery, and most of the family's savings.

I should explain at this point that the tavern was built into the side of a steep hill, so the window of my upstairs room opened perhaps six feet above the ground level, and it was through my room that Mr.Connelly urged his two older children to make their escape, their terrified mother accompanying them with baby Sean held tightly in her arms.

In the Connelly's private apartment we took hold of a small wooden chest no more than eighteen inches in any dimension by my reckoning, with sturdy black iron handles. But for its small size it still proved surprisingly heavy. At some length, between the two of us we manhandled the chest out of the window and dropped it to the ground where I was almost certain it would burst, but the iron bands on the lid, and around the sides held it firm.

Mr.Connelly insisted that I should jump next, and that is where things began to get confused. I wasn't confident about jumping even such a short distance to the ground and was trying to pluck up courage, that much I remember clearly. But then I think I was pushed.

Whether I landed badly, I'm not sure, but I don't remember anything between hesitating in the window, and waking. The next morning, when I woke I was cold, stiff and still only partly dressed. And laying on the hay in the hayloft of the stables opposite the tavern. Of course, my first thought was to look for the Connellys and see how badly the tavern had been damaged, and that was when I got the biggest surprise.

The building itself showed no signs of fire, but searching around to the rear of the building, the window of the room which I had occupied was ajar, and while I was out there, Angus the apprentice and potboy came down the hill, carrying a basket of fresh eggs and whistling cheerfully.

"'tis a fine clear morning for the fresh sweet air, is it not?"

I asked Angus if anything ... had happened last night, and of course he wanted to know why I might think anything had. So I was obliged to recount most of my recollection of events to him.

His face took on a thoughtful expression: "Well, I would say it is possible, though some might disagree, that the fair folk played a trick on you last night."

After that, there was no stemming the tide of gossip from the pub and I left as soon as was decently possible, but not without a fair bit of good-natured mirth at my expense; Mr.Connelly was kind enough to reassure me that his family's wealth was quite secure. But what concerned me more were the few, mostly the womenfolk, who crossed themselves and lowered their gaze as I left the village.

Still in Ireland

some notes on the history of Irish dance

a tantalizing glimpse of the history of firefighting in Ireland

The written content of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

The Minstrel Boy

Since I happened to be in the area, in a manner of speaking, I couldn't miss an opportunity to do some research on a favourite if somewhat neglected, baroque composer. Turlough O'Carolan, whose name is much more well-known and respected in folk-music circles than among musicologists of the classical tradition, is widely held to have been the last of the true celtic bards: a musician and poet who made it his business to glorify in song the nobles who fed him, clothed him, paid physicians to attend him in sickness, and above all, revelled in his finely crafted praises or delighted in his cunning mockery of their rivals!

As usual, a tavern makes a good base of operations, and starting point for my enquiries. The first thing I learn from the landlord of the Cock as a result of asking about Mr.O'Carolan is that I should either make my services indispensable to some family of rank, or learn to brew the finest whiskey in all of Ireland. According to my landlord, Mr.Connelly, since his talents as a harper were recognized by Mrs.McDermott-Roe, Mr.O'Carolan has been greatly in demand at noble houses across the country, and while Mr.Connelly thinks he might be in County Clare as a guest of Lord Inchiquin he admits that the last news he heard of Mr.O'Carolan's whereabouts is more than two months old now.

Evenings in a tavern like this are always entertaining; there's a lot of animated conversation going on over by the snug next to the open hearth, and in the yard outside, two teams of three men each are competing in a game of skittles when Mr.Connelly himself summons me to the bar to meet Feargus Nolan, himself a musician of no small ability.

Mr.Nolan is a smallish fellow with long ginger sideburns, and sparkling blue eyes, wearing a heavy dark blue woolen coat with bright brass buttons, a large package wrapped in canvas standing beside him on the floor.

Mr.Nolan tells me that he has met, and played with Mr.O'Carolan, a most extraordinary fellow who could drink Saint Patrick himself under the table, and still pick a tune as delicately as a faerie, and such a fancy he has, for the most astonishing tales! He would almost as soon play a song for the telling of a tale of mystery and the fey folk as for another glass of whiskey.

I don't have to wait long before Mr.Nolan unwraps his package, placing the canvas neatly folded under his stool as he takes his small clarsach in his lap to play an air and variations on a popular song. And of course, he has a devoted crowd of "groupies" singing along in their native tongue.

In talking to the local people, there are many stories to be recorded, and I know that if I don't come back here, someone else will have to, if we are to ensure these tales are not lost. But a recurring theme, which I want to follow up for myself concerns the abduction and enslavement of those who survived the wars of pacification with England; taken from their homes and shipped overseas to work on plantations in English colonies. At first, it is easy to dismiss the stories as isolated incidents, but as the numbers mount the question begs to be answered: was Jonathan Swift's seemingly ironic proposal that the problems of famine and poverty in Ireland should be solved by making the Irish sell their offspring as a food crop really intended sarcastically?

References

For more information about Irish genealogy (but mainly for the beautiful spiral pattern included above)

Some must-see parts of Ireland

Don't miss Simon Chadwick's Early Harp page, Simon has also produced at least one CD of early harp music.

The written content of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Oh Mr.Porter!

I'm going to break with custom for this entry, and make this both a blog entry, and a review. Since Ireland is only a day or so's steaming from Swansea, it seemed like a good idea to see if I could arrange passage on a collier crossing the Irish Sea since the Irish Republic is remaining neutral during what the Irish, with their delightfully characteristic understatement refer to as "The Emergency". Having made the crossing without any interference from Adolf's U-boats I'm almost in time for Saint Patrick's day, which, rather surprisingly, is not as flamboyant an affair here, as it is, in for example, the United States.

Finding accommodation presented no particular obstacles, and I have a bed and breakfast room for the week at Mrs. Callaghan's house, in a quiet residential street about ten minutes walk from the waterfront. In contrast to the sirens and bombings of London, the most disturbance I have encountered here has been the singing of a couple of inebriates returning from the Cobbler's Rest at the end of Mackintosh Street, and an enthusiastic rag-and-bone man.

Alright, my review: Mrs. Callaghan has been very hospitable in inviting me to join her listening to the wireless in the parlour during the evenings, but last night I accepted the invitation of Michael Connor, an employee of the shipping company with which I came over, to see the latest Will Hay comedy at the Supreme Picture Theatre.

"Oh Mr.Porter!" tells how a ne'er-do-well poor relation of one of the directors of the railway company is propelled into the job of stationmaster at the rural Irish railway station of Buggleskelly: it's a job that nobody really wants, and the last half-dozen stationmasters have either gone missing in mysterious circumstances, or lost their wits as a result of an encounter with the ghostly fiend, One-Eyed Joe, who haunts a railway tunnel beneath a disused mill.

Will Hay is supported by the mischievous talents of Moore Marriott and Grahame Moffatt as the two resident railway porters who seem to have no regard whatsoever for the railway company's regulations!

Mr.Connor was in infectiously high spirits after the picture, whistling a jaunty polka and even breaking into a dance for the last few hundred yards back to Mrs.Callaghan's. I genuinely regretted that it would not be possible for us to "walk out" again as he put it, but at least he granted me the favour of helping me jot down the tune of "The Aberdare Railway" during a short visit to Milligan's Restaurant. I hope you enjoy it, too.

Ticket Office

Oh Mr.Porter! may be available on DVD from Emporium Pictures,
P.O. Box 28,
Somersworth,
NH 03878
USA

I also think it is worth mentioning that Emporium Pictures do far more than just remastering old movies to new media: my experience trading with them has been that they make a real effort to recreate the experience of the period, and I do hope my fellow picture enthusiasts will give them serious consideration when looking for hard-to-find movies.

The written content of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.