When I was young, I recall being intrigued by a poster in the Post Office warning farmers that they could be prosecuted for having noxious weeds growing on their land. The full list I have forgotten but it certainly included ragwort, dock and, I think, thistle. We are constantly trying to eliminate weeds from our gardens. Sometimes I find this hard to do because these so-called weeds are often beautiful and were once used widely in folk medicine and for other uses.

Ragwort, with its bright yellow, daisy-like flowers and toxic leaves, was regarded as a fairy plant to be treated with caution. It is known in Irish as Buachalán Buí, with alternative names such as Balcaiseán, Bóthanán, Buafalán, Gaosadán, Coiseog Bhuí and Las San Séan (Plant of St James). In English it has several alternative names including Bohalawn, Fairy Horse, James’ Weed, Ragged Jack, Staggerwort, Yellow Boy, etc.

In ancient Ireland it was believed that ragwort was used like a horse by the fairies to ride around on. Their favourite time for doing this was Hallowe’en and many stories tell of unfortunate people abducted and forced to ride around with them all night, only to wake the next morning exhausted, clutching the ragwort in their hands. However, the fairies could also be more generous. A well-known folktale relates how a fairy host takes a man with them on a magical journey. They give him a special cap and tell him to mount a ragwort as if it were a horse. He finds himself flying through the air and landing in a wine cellar in a foreign country. There he drinks his fill, but the next morning he finds himself alone and is then arrested for breaking into the wine cellar. He is sentenced to be hanged, but before the rope can be put around his neck, he manages to reach into his pocket and put on his fairy cap. He is lifted up into the air and brought back home, to be left standing beside the ragwort at the very spot where he first met the fairies. An old song describes the fairy ride: ‘Is gur shiúil mé na cúig cúigí; Is gan fúm act buachallán buí’ (And I travelled through all the provinces with nothing under me but the ragwort). A Sligo saying reflected the caution generally shown in Ireland towards ragwort: ‘Don’t call it a weed, though a weed it may be, ’tis the horse of the fairies, the booholaun buidhe’.

In the Scottish highlands, it was said that the fairies sheltered beside the ragwort on stormy nights, and also rode astride it on their journeys in the Hebrides, from island to island. Witches and warlocks were also believed to ride around on ragwort stems, as well as the more usual broom. A poem by Robbie Burns describes the devil and his witches and warlocks riding together: ‘Let warlocks grim, an’ wither’d hags / Tell how wi’ you on ragweed nags / They skim the muir (moors) an’ dizzy crags / Wi’ wicked speed.’ In Scotland, after the battle of Culloden, the victorious English are said to have named the garden flower ‘Sweet William’ in honour of their leader, William, Duke of Cumberland. The defeated Scots (who were massacred cruelly by the English) retaliated by giving ragwort the name ‘Stinking Billy’. Alternatively, the Scots maintained that the spread of ragwort throughout Scotland was due to the rampage across the land by the Duke of Cumberland’s troops during the Culloden campaign. Ragwort is the national emblem of the Isle of Man, perhaps because of the island’s nickname, ‘Ynn Ellan Shiant (The Fairy Isle).

Ragwort’s association with the fairies was believed to give it other magical properties. A Donegal folktale tells of a man with fairy power who used to turn a bunch of ragwort into the form of a pig. The man brought the ‘pig’ to a fair and sold it, but as the unfortunate buyer was driving it home, he crossed running water and the ‘pig’ instantly turned back into a bunch of ragwort. In places it was believed to be bad luck to strike a cow with the flowers of ragwort because it meant the ‘wee folk’ would be sure to come and steal the cow’s milk.

Ragwort was called the ‘herba Sancti Jacobi’ (the herb of Saint James) whose feast day is July 25 when the ragwort is in full bloom. Interestingly, in view of the ragwort’s role as a ‘fairy steed’, St James is said to be the patron saint of horses.

Ragwort is despised by farmers because its leaves are toxic to livestock. Despite this, ragwort features in several Irish cures. The leaves were used in many places as the basis for poultices and the juice was used for curing cuts, sores and inflammation, including burns, scalds and boils. Perhaps because of its yellow colour, ragwort was also considered as an effective cure for jaundice. Ragwort was also used for treating coughs, colds, sore throats, rheumatism and sore joints. In West Cork, ragwort was used to make brooms and brushes for sweeping the house. In Scotland and Ulster ragwort was put in with oats when they were stored to keep mice away.

It was while reading the compelling story of Puerto Rico’s nationalist failed uprising against American colonialism that I stumbled onto a connection between the leader of the uprising, Pedro Albizu Campos, and Eamon de Valera. Nelson Denis, author of ‘The War against all Puerto Ricans’ wrote that ‘Albizu Campos had helped Eamon de Valera draft the constitution of the Free State’ – which of course is incorrect because Dev and his anti-treaty republicans bitterly opposed it. But like all historians, we carry that most necessary trait – curiosity. While Nelson Denis may have erroneously mentioned the Free State constitution, he certainly was correct that Albizu met Dev, and what’s more, modelled his Puerto Rican revolution on the 1916 Rising. 

It turns out that Campos was something of a child genius and despite his improvised background, gained entry to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After serving patriotically and bravely in World War One for the US, he returned to Massachusetts, this time completing his law degree in Harvard in 1921, becoming the first Puerto Rican to graduate from that great institution. It was here in Harvard, where he met Eamon De Valera who of course was engaging in a fundraising American tour between June 1919 and December 1920. There is British Pathe footage of the massive crowds that assembled to meet and support Dev in Boston, where he was welcomed with vibrant enthusiasm by adoring Irish Americans, many first generation émigrés or descendants of The Great Famine.

Swept up by a wave of Irish euphoria, it seems Campos was well placed to meet and learn from Dev about the Rising in 1916, Sinn Fein and the Irish War of Independence that was in full sway at this time. Looking closer at Nelson Denis’s footnotes, he mentions a Puerto Rican writer with Irish heritage – Aoife Rivera Serrano’s, quoting her book ‘Ireland and Puerto Rico; The Untold Story’ in reference to this event. Digging a little deeper, I went in search for more of this, only to find that Ms Serrano has also published (in 2012) a book entitled ‘The Quickening of Albizu Campos: How Fenianism Galvanized the Last American Liberator’. In it she claims that Albizu was influenced by Fenians. They were very active in American circles since 1870, under the flagship of Clan Na Gael, and were the supporting body that organised Dev’s tour of America. In that book she reveals how Campos was initially exposed to ‘members of the American Anti-Imperialist League and Irish American Union, whom Campos encountered in Harvard Library’. From them, Albizu Campos would learn that many Irish soldiers ‘fought for the Union to learn skills they could take back to Ireland in the struggle’, something he would do in his own homeland. Whatever the Irish connection, there is certainly one thing both movements for independence shared – tiny resources against a mighty adversary.

One of his greatest attributes was his rhetorical and oratory skills. At a lecture in the Sanders theatre at Harvard, he was outspoken in support for Irish independence. Lord Miller, a British imperialist nobleman in attendance, admitted ‘it was the most brilliant speech on the matter I ever heard’. Campos would also visit the Irish dominated administrative wards in Boston to canvass for money for Sinn Fein and the Irish revolution. 

The geopolitical situation in 1898 brought into conflict, the once mighty but increasingly brittle Spanish imperialistic powers, with the world’s fastest growing military power, the USA. The Americans also ‘liberated’ the Philippines in that year yet continued to occupy them until finally relinquishing power in 1946. In 1898, they also added Hawaii and Puerto Rico to their imperialistic real estate. The irony in Puerto Rico’s case, was that the Spanish had promised the islanders independence not long before the Americans ‘liberated’ them from Spain. 

Their freedom from Spain was only the beginning of their colonisation by the US. Within a decade of saving them, their Spanish tongue, like Irish, was slowly being obliterated. (The Spanish as we know were as bad a coloniser as any country and had long wiped out the indigenous Taino tongue from memory). An act in 1902, made law that all public office, courts and local government departments use English as a coequal language. By 1909, English had become the dominant language of instruction in schools. Later, The Puerto Rican flag and their national anthem, ‘La Borinquena’, was outlawed under the 1948 Gag Law (‘Ley de la Mordaza’). By 1922, the year Albizu formed the PR Nationalist party, the country was declared a territory by the USA supreme court, as it remains to this day. This means that the protective rights of the American constitution did not apply to the people. Economic hardship already a factor in life, became worse particularly for the sugar cane workers which was the dominant employer. Without the protective rights, they endured colonial taxes, devaluing of the peso all intended to squeeze them out of land ownership, only to be hoovered up by large American corporations, intent on gaining access to the ludicrous cash crop and creating American monopolies. By 1934, 80 percent of the sugar cane farms were owned by American syndicates and it would even get worse.

Albizu became a champion of the workers and, using his lawyer credentials, tried to help the workers and backed their strikes. In an age where communism was growing globally, any nationalist movement that had a socialist agenda as part of its manifesto, was easily tarnished with the stigma and threat of red terror. This is what would happen to Campos and his nationalist party to try to discredit his socialist agenda. Even today, some in Puerto Rico only know him erroneously as a ‘communist agitator’. What Campos was witnessing, was the development of a feudal type grip over Puerto Rico that was not only impoverishing the natives and enriching the Americans, but also attempting to eradicate any sense of national identity. Puerto Rico was ruled by a set of military governors in those days, rather than civic politicians. The most notorious was General Blanton Winship, whose goal was to crush the labour strikes, and to dismantle and destroy the nationalist party, which had been gaining popular support. In moves reminiscent to British rule in Ireland, Winship imprisoned leaders, prohibited public demonstrations and banned speeches at funerals (Campos would have known and understood the power of those such as O’Donovan Rossa’s funeral and Thomas Ashe’s funeral, as powerful catalysts for the Irish revolution movement).

Winship’s iron rule was best demonstrated by the 1937 Ponce massacre, where 17 civilians, including a child of seven, were shot dead and clubbed in the streets while out demonstrating. Over 200 more were injured by the Insular police force sent there to crush it. This too had shadows of the cold-blooded massacre of twelve Irish civilians in Croke Park in 1920, at the hands of the Auxiliaries. In both cases there were false claims by the ruling authorities of shots being fired at the police forces.  Neither were there repercussions for the ruling power. However, unlike Ireland, the Ponce massacre, was erased from popular history, and would have remained so, if it was not for the amateur footage taken by a young film maker, Juan Emilo Viguie.  Despite having actual evidence of the atrocity, he knew to release it publicly would have led to its censorship or destruction by the omnipotent power that was the USA. Albizu and other leaders would be rounded up, exiled or imprisoned. But their spirit would live on and would re-emerge in the 1950 revolution.

Albizu had to painstakingly build up the movement once again that had been savagely suppressed. But worse was to come. It was the era of the Red Scare all over the US, which had created a culture of paranoia against anyone who was un-American. US intelligence agencies increasingly monitored and infiltrated nationalist movements during the early Cold War period. The US was now the global dominant power after World War Two and the nationalist movement was poorly armed and low in numbers. Albizu knew any rising would only be a way to draw the world’s eyes to the cause of freedom and abuses within Puerto Rico, similar to Easter 1916. The revolution was easily put down, not before the town of Jayuya was bombed from the air, the only time the US has bombed its own citizens (again – parallels to the British burning of a British city – Cork in 1920).  What garnered even more attention was how close two Puerto Ricans came to successfully assassinating the president Harry Truman, days later.

Unlike MacSwiney, or Padraig Pearse, or Tomás Mac Curtain – the US would not make a martyr of Campos. He and the other nationalist were not shot but arrested. The men were locked into cells in horrendous conditions in San Juan, in what we must not forget was American territory and under American law. Many of the men were tortured to ‘supply names’ of other nationalists, including methods such as electrocution. It had mirrors of a cold war movie, but it’s not the maligned Soviet’s doing the torturing, but the so called ‘good guys’.  The strangest event were the lesions, headaches and burns Campos was getting, but not from overt abuse. Doctors (selected by the USA) declared he was going mad but when he finally got independent medical attention, via massive international pressure, his wounds were akin to radiation exposure. The United Nations denounced it as torture and demanded his extradition abroad in 1952 but to no avail. The swelling, burns, headaches continued until he eventually suffered a stroke, which silenced the most outspoken voice of Puerto Rican nationalism. By 1956 he was dead and with him a nationalist dream for independence. But unlike the Irish story where from the attempts to silence our martyrs, grew screams for freedom; the echoes of the ghost of Campos, sadly are still only a whisper today.

This tradition of goodwill and generosity continued down through the centuries through periods of prosperity and dark times of famine. What is most remarkable is that the warmest hospitality was often to be found amongst the poorest of the poor. In Irish tradition, hospitality was not merely a virtue, but a duty. Indeed it could be said that the Irish had an almost superstitious fear of turning the stranger away from the door: Who knew who the stranger might be?

The duty of hospitality is beautifully expressed in the following lines, translated into English by the Celtic scholar, Kuno Meyer.

‘Bid the guests welcome, though they should come at every hour / Since every guest is Christ – no trifling saying this, / Better is humility, better gentleness, better liberality toward him.’

The responsibility for dispensing hospitality rested most heavily on the hosteller (in old Irish ‘brughaidh’). There were five or six ‘bruighean’ (hostels) in ancient Ireland. The host had to keep open house for all corners, closing the door against none, and he had to keep no reckoning no matter how often a guest chose to come, or how long he stayed. Each hostel had to have in readiness a hundred servants and a hundred domestic animals of each king: cattle, pigs, horses, sheep, goats, hens, bees, as well as a hundred beehives.

Occasionally hospitality was abused, as is shown in the story of Buchet. Buchet was a kind and generous host but his hospitality was abused by the twelve profligate brothers of his dearly loved foster-daughter, Eithne. There was not their like in Ireland for high living and extravagance and they frequently descended on the unfortunate Buchet with a host of servants, consuming everything within reach. Before long Buchet was ruined and was forced to sell his land and herds and to move to a woodman’s cottage near the seat of the high king at Kell’s, Co. Meath. This story, however, has a happy ending. King Cormac, riding in the forest, met the bewitching Eithne and made her his queen. He gave Buchet the bride-price of his foster daughter, including herds of cattle, bronze cauldrons and so much gold that Buchet could scarcely carry his wealth back to his former home. Ever afterwards, it is said, Buchet continued to keep open house and each night entertained as many as came. Fifty musicians played for the guests and there was so much song and music that, to this very day in folklore, men still speak with wonder of the ‘melodies of Buchet’s House’.

The rights of hospitality in medieval times can be broken down into three main sections: the right of any traveller to food and lodgings, the right of a king or overlord to billet his servants – known as ‘coshering’ and the right of a lord to be entertained by his tribesmen. ‘Filí’ (poets) with their retinue were always welcomed by chieftains. The chieftains or kings were afraid that they would be satirised by the ‘file’ if  they were less than generous. Some of the poets became so demanding that the chiefs met to consider banishing them completely. At the Council of Dromceat they met and couldn’t agree on what to do. They sent for Colmcille who had departed to Iona off the west coast of Scotland. Colmcille returned and pleaded on behalf of the poets, so they were allowed to continue.

In the Middle Ages, the hostel keeper (successor of the earlier ‘brughaidh’) was expected to keep open house. His table was usually lavish and he particularly welcomed powerful chieftains, princes and their servants and men of letters (poets, bards). However, any traveller could expect, not only free board and lodgings, but a warm welcome, be he beggar, wandering student, itinerant musician, juggler, clown, priest, or soldier. This was a natural result of the times; bad roads, lack of transport and political divisions, which made any man thirty miles from his native place, a foreigner. It was generally held by experienced travellers that food, lodgings and general comforts were best provided when a woman, be she wife or mistress, oversaw the servants and supervised the kitchens.

Perhaps the best remembered account of a great banquet in the old Irish traditions, and one that went into folk history, was that of Brian Ó Ruairc who, at Christmastime in the year 1951, held ‘open house’ int eh great hall of his castle at Dromahair, Co. Leitrim. The occasion was later celebrated in the folk song, ‘Pléaráca na Ruarcach’ and still later immortalised by Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, when he described it in verse.

The Great Famine of 1845-49 was to change everything and customs and traditions that had survived for two thousand years were swept away. Never again would unstinted and prodigal hospitality be taken for granted.

Gerard Shannon, author of ‘Rory O’Connor: To Defend the Republic’, writes on the connection between Dick Barrett and the subject of his new book, Rory O’Connor

The public memory of the Irish republican and revolutionary Dick Barrett looms large over Cork, especially the west of the county, during the revolutionary period of the early 20th century. Born in 1889, in Hollyhill, Ballineen, Co. Cork, Barrett, by the time of the Irish War of Independence, would emerge as a prominent leadership figure in the Cork No. 3 Brigade that encompassed West Cork. He would be the brigade’s quartermaster and later would ascend to the staff of the First Southern Division under General Liam Lynch. His comrade Peader O’Donnell later remarked how Barrett had once been close to Michael Collins, on the pro-Treaty side, and recalled Barrett as “a keen, searching mind with strong conspiratorial genius.”

Barrett remains best known for the circumstances of his death at the height of the Irish Civil War, when Barrett was opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, regarding it as a betrayal of the Irish Republic as declared in 1916. On December 8, 1922, Barrett was executed before a firing squad along three other prominent republicans and anti-Treaty IRA leaders: Joe McKelvey, Liam Mellows and Rory O’Connor. All four had publicly opposed the Treaty and creation of the Irish Free State, a British dominion consisting of twenty-six counties of Ireland (the remaining six counties encompassing Northern Ireland). The National Army had imprisoned all four shortly after the defeat at the anti-Treaty IRA’s Four Courts garrison, of which Barrett was part, at the beginning of the Civil War. 

Their execution was an illegal reprisal, and on the instruction of the Irish government at the time headed by WT Cosgrave. Of particular cruelty was the fact the four men were put to death for an incident none of them had a part in: The assassination of pro-Treaty TD, Seán Hales, by members of the anti-Treaty IRA, the day before. Hales, in a great irony had been a close friend and comrade of Dick Barrett in the West Cork Brigade prior to the split over the Treaty. Hales’ family would even publicly condemn the executions of Barrett and the other three men.

Hales had been shot on Dublin’s quays because of orders issued by the anti-Treaty IRA leader, Liam Lynch. Lynch strongly opposed new government legislation that had allowed for the executions of republican prisoners, which had included the leading figure Erskine Childers. However, the executions of Barrett and his three comrades were illegal and outside the parameters of this. Their deaths were intended to demoralise the anti-Treaty members still fighting and prevent further shootings of pro-government TDs. In one of his last letters, addressed to his fellow prisoners in Mountjoy, Barrett wrote: “I hope you will all live through to the Faith of our National Fathers and when called on to do a great thing for Ireland, you will face it manfully. Do not bear ill will or dream of reprisals, the cause is too holy for ignoble deeds.”

Among the men executed with Barrett, most ambiguous today is undoubtedly the popular memory of Rory O’Connor. Ironically, at the time of his death at the age of 39, O’Connor was perhaps the best known of the four men. His background suggested an unlikely revolutionary, the son of a wealthy, prominent, Dublin-based solicitor. O’Connor had risen in the ranks of the Volunteers and became the IRA’s Director of Engineering. He also masterminded several high-profile prison escapes of republicans and IRA operations in Great Britain. O’Connor was also the first of the IRA’s General Headquarters Staff to oppose the Treaty. In April 1922, O’Connor would direct members of the IRA’s Dublin Brigade to seize the Four Courts complex on Dublin’s quays in defiance of the new pro-Treaty government. The Four Courts would be where Mellows and O’Connor would be arrested several days after the fall of the garrison at the start of the Irish Civil War on 28 June 1922. 

Most poignantly, one of those ministers that approved their executions months later was Kevin O’Higgins, then Minister for Home Affairs. Only over a year before, Rory O’Connor was the best man at O’Higgins wedding – several weeks before the signing of the Treaty. Both men shared a genuinely warm and close friendship. Days after O’Higgins wedding, he wrote to O’Connor and referred to him as “the bestest best man that ever rounded up a bridegroom”.

Over a year later, O’Higgins agonised over the decision to execute the four men. There was no signing of a death warrant as persists in popular lore, but O’Higgins was without question part of the collective cabinet decision, and the death of the four men became a central component of his legacy. Nearly five years later, and four years after the end of the civil war, O’Higgins was assassinated by members of the IRA’s Dublin Brigade while walking the streets of south Dublin – a particularly violent result of the executions on December 8, 1922. 

Gerard Shannon is the author of ‘Rory O’Connor: To Defend the Republic’, now available from Merrion Press.

Why is it inevitable? Simply put – what makes an empire, breaks it. An empire is built on the manipulation, suppression and exploitation of other peoples. It is only a matter of time – it could be decades, even millennia – before the suppressed will no longer put up with those injustices. From that friction, come the sparks that will burn red; the hot passions of resistance.

The Irish road for independence took many forms over eight centuries: diplomacy, politics, boycotts, monster meetings, economic wars, and outright rebellions. The War of Independence was all the more remarkable given the size of the opponent that the Irish had to overcome and lack of resources they had at their disposal. It was a David versus Goliath tussle. We must be careful not to underestimate just how inspiring that victory was for so many countries, who themselves were under the yoke of foreign rule. India is often cited as an example of one such country who took their inspiration from the Irish. Sir Henry Wilson, British general, imperialist and chief tormentor of the Irish rebels during the War of Independence, declared, ‘If we lose Ireland, we lose India’. How prophetic those words were. A prominent Indian nationalist, called V.J. Patel travelled to Ireland four times throughout the 1920s and 1930s, as he was a keen follower of the Irish independence movement. Not only that, he also formed part of an Ireland-Indian independence league who met in Dublin in 1932 and with De Valera. One British diplomat observed that ‘the Congress Party (the main Indian Party during British rule) are largely founding themselves on the methods by which the Irish Free State secured practical independence of Great Britain’. This type of relationship continued with the official visit of another Indian nationalist, Subhas Chandra Bose, who sought to learn from Ireland the methods to break the chains of their imperialist jailers. 

However, what is lesser known is the story of Pedro Albizu Campos, another revolutionary influenced by the daring resistance of the Irish. This Puerto Rican fought one of the mightiest empires of all – the United States of America. He met Eamonn De Valera and both influenced each other. Yet there was no fairytale ending for Campos, and Puerto Rico today is as far away from Independence as it ever has been, partly down to systematic years of making it too reliant on the USA, as well as the erosion of its identity and development of economic dependency. It’s part of the imperialistic playbook. Ireland itself was on a similar course to be subsumed as a province of the UK until the formation of the Gaelic League, the GAA and the significant development of the Irish Parliamentary Party, all in and around the 1870s and 1880s. The zenith of British colonial rule had been reached – the Irish language was on its knees. Education of the masses was conducted through English. Cricket (I kid you not), was the most popular sport in Ireland. Local governance was in the hands of the aristocratic unionists, while national politics was firmly ensconced in Westminster, in London.

Today Puerto Rico feels and smells like a piece of America: big cars, ubiquitous American chain stores, the American dollar. Baseball is their number one sport. (brought in by the Americas after occupation in 1898).  It has territory status, and thus is not a State. The US district courts operate in English though the primary language spoken by most residents at home is Spanish. The people have been given American citizenship since 1917, yet strangely they can’t vote in the Presidential elections or even be represented in Congress, yet are subject to their laws. Puerto Ricans don’t pay federal income tax, but neither do they benefit from federal funding in key areas such as Medicare or food stamps. The country’s largest party is the pro-American statehood status PNP (Partido Nuevo Progresista) whose candidate for governor won with over 50 per cent of the vote against an alliance party that includes the sovereign seeking, Independent Party PIP (Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño) on about 30 per cent. Is Puerto Rico past its moment in history where independence no longer matters? Or, is it at that point of its journey that Ireland faced in the 1870s/80s from where it sought to break from its Britishness or remain pacified and tamed.

Most Puerto Ricans like the idea of being able to work and travel in the USA and the separatist question is not an issue – depending on who you speak with. A younger generation are beginning to look into their past and connect to their Taino indigenous ancestors, though the language they spoke, sadly has become extinct. They are the generation similar to many people in Ireland who struggle to get on the housing market, made even harder by it becoming a holiday destination for wealthy mainland Americans who can benefit from ‘ACT 60’. This is a tax break on investment income, which is great for investors and people with excess money, but it means young people on local wages cannot compete and are driven out of the market. Now I know Ireland has faced its own housing problem, but without representation in Congress, how can the average Puerto Rican make their voice heard in the American Congress, which after all can overrule any laws made at a local level by the island’s parties? The aforementioned Alliance party [with the PIP] have at least made some groan in getting investors to legally invest more in local employment. 

Never has the need to know one’s history been so important, and perhaps the strongest indication of Puerto Rico becoming just another State was brought sharply into focus by a chance meeting I had with an 83-year-old Puerto Rican man. Sometimes it sounds cliché to say can we really know who we are if we don’t know our past? After striking up a convivial conversation, I was hungry to delve into the island’s past. I asked him what he thought of the ‘Ponce Massacre’ of 1937 where sixteen men, one woman and one child, were shot dead, and 200 more wounded, by police acting on the orders of the Military Governor Colonel Winship, who was appointed to the role by president FD Roosevelt. He stared at me as if I had slapped him in the face. “What is the ‘Ponce Massacre’?” He beckoned his family over, and three generations of puzzled eyes wondered how an Irishman might know more than them.

The answer was found in a corner book store, on a narrow street in San Juan, after another conversation with a guide in the local museum. When I asked her why the museum has such little information about Puerto Rico modern history, she asked me if I had read ‘Guerra Contra Todos los Puertorriqueños: Revolución y Terror’? With some luck I found the English translation ‘War Against All Puerto Ricans Revolution and Terror in America’s Colony’. It was here I learned about The Ponce Massacre, Pedro Albizu Campos and Eamonn De Valera, the economic exploitation of the sugar croppers for American companies, the laws that banned Puerto Ricans from speaking Spanish or even possessing a Puerto Rican flag, the mass round-ups, the inhumane incarcerations, the torturing of prisoners and the destruction of any revolutionary fervour. Perhaps the most terrifying thing is that the Americans even buried the history so deep, that the desire for independence has been forgotten by generations. This deserves its own telling and I intend to bring it to life in next month’s issue To do it justice, it needs a deep delve, but I had to paint the context of this most astonishing history. Its author, by the way, is not some underground radical. Nelson A. Denis is a writer, editor, film maker and served as an elected assemblyman for New York in the state legislature. It’s a remarkable story made all the more remarkable that it was the Irish Revolution that inspired Alibizu Campos in his attempt to overthrow an empire.

Thanks to four DNA testers, who have West Cork O’NEILL connections, we have now confirmed (or genetically proven prefer) the outline story for the origins of some of the O’NEILLs in West Cork. The latest piece of the puzzle landed the day before St Patrick’s Day. All four have taken the male DNA test known as ‘Big Y’.

‘Big Y’ is a male line DNA test provided by FamilyTreeDNA (FTDNA) and is currently the most detailed test of its kind. For the last 500 years or so, this essentially ties all unbroken male lines to family names. All four O’NEILL testers show that their male lines are genetically connected and unbroken.

The most recent result is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, it identifies a single C16th male (MRCA: Most Recent Common Ancestor) who was the father of two sons, whose lineages became O’MAHONY and O’NEILL. This confirms the detailed genetic work done by the O’NEILL project at FTDNA and matches the various annals of Irish history that document the split into both family names known today.

Two additional testers surnamed MAHONEY and MAHANEY connect with the four O’NEILLs at this historical period, estimated to be around 1550 from DNA alone. (Please refer to my previous articles regarding the deeper historical connection.) The tested MAHONEY traces his origins to Maryland in the US at about 1760.

As previously reported, a letter written by a member of the O’NEILL family from Knocks, outlined the basic story of a young boy arriving in West Cork following the Siege of Limerick (1690) and settling in Garranes and Ballinard. While it has been a challenge to match all the detail from the letter, it has been possible using standard atDNA tests to connect O’NEILLs from Knocks with those from Derrimilleen, Reenroe & Cashelisky, and to some overseas branches.

The young lad, Sean O’NEILL, married and was reported to have had five sons. These children were likely born in the 1720-1730 period. This is now confirmed by the Y-DNA tree. All four O’NEILL testers with West Cork origins connect at a single male MRCA, estimated from just DNA alone, to about 1650. This is likely to be Sean or his father. The testers then split into two pairs.

The two testers from Derrimilleen and Knocks share the same natural genetic mutation. The two other testers, who’s surnamed became O’NEIL (with one ’l,’ due to emigration to the UK and US) share an additional natural genetic mutation downstream of this, which supports their family narrative. The latter pair share origins from a man born around 1720 who settled in Drimoleague, before his descendants moved and settled at Cashelisky adjacent to their cousins at Reenroe. This indicates that their ancestor was most likely a son of Sean. The other pair are known to descend from the man known as Felim or Filem Mor (‘Big Felix’) of Ballinard.

A genetic framework now exists for anyone wishing to investigate their West Cork male lines (O’NEILL or O’MAHONY) to check whether they tie in or not using Y-DNA, specifically the Big Y test. Normal customer atDNA tests (as provided by FTDNA, Ancestry and MyHeritage, and so on) can help tie lineages together in the post-1800 period.

I am grateful, through my previous articles, that O’NEILL descendants have shared their family stories. They remain of interest but ideally would be supported by both atDNA and Y-DNA tests at some time in the future. Hopefully, the success of this project will encourage others to DNA test.

One of the main features of ‘collecting’ O’NEILL lineages in West Cork is that most seem to have a Felix in them. My current total is around 40 people of that name. Most of these lineages cannot be connected on paper to the main framework and it is noted that three of Seans sons are yet to be accounted for, so highly suggestive many O’NEILLs in the region may actually be genetically part of the same family. Of course, there will also be those families of the name that have different origins (not from Sean) but may find themselves connecting a little further back.

As a final comment, I would like to mention the ‘rule of three’. For both of the established O’NEILL branches, and the pair of MAHONEYs, there are currently only two tests for each. Once a third tester on any of the branches comes in then the Y-DNA project will provide even more detailed mapping downstream of the already established ancestors. This opens up more rigorous genetic support for any paper trail undergoing research.

If anyone wishes advice on how best to join the project(s) and test for their genetic origins, please contact me.

Questions for future articles can be emailed to DNAmatchingprojects@gmail.com. Private client services available. Follow the West Cork DNA blog on Facebook ‘My Irish Genealogy and DNA’.

Jessie Buckley has recently entered the hallowed pantheon of great Irish actors. Victory in the 2026 Oscars, in one of the blue ribbon events that is best leading actress, was achieved by her empathetic performance as Shakespeare’s wife, in the movie ‘Hamnet’. She is now occupying that rarefied place, up amongst the greats of Irish entertainers such as Cillian Murphy, Brenda Fricker, Daniel Day-Lewis, Neil Jordan, George Bernard Shaw, and Cedric Gibbons who, incidentally, is also credited with conceiving the design of the Oscar statute. 

Aside from being just old-fashioned good entertainment, are movies and books that have a historical backdrop, a help or a hindrance? Jessie Buckley’s victory has drawn even greater attention to the book ‘Hamnet’, written by Maggie O’Farrell in 2020. It has already made its way onto the English Leaving Cert curriculum, which of course is a tribute to the work’s literary value and popularity. But how true to life is it and should that matter? In this article, I want to explore a number of texts that are grounded in historical events or based upon a historical person and explore the positive and negative aspects upon their readerships. 

Let’s start with the novel ‘Hamnet’. Little is known about Shakespeare’s family life aside from a few basic facts. He got married at 18 to an older woman, Anne Hathaway, and had a number of children, including twins, one which was christened Hamnet. Shakespeare was the son of a glover who struggled financially and his son Hamnet did die during the time of the plague. A few years later he wrote, ‘The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.’ It may surprise you that, in terms of biographical accuracy, we don’t know much more about his family life. O’Farrell is particularly effective in how she fuses her understanding of Elizabethan society to enrich the backdrop of the book, enabling the reader to form a picture of how people lived and toiled in daily life. Her understanding of the horrors of the plague are well-researched and no doubt one of her main attributes was leaning into some Shakespeare’s very own narratives. O’Farrell imagines that William and Anne planned to get pregnant to force their marriage against the will of their unsupportive parents, which mirrors the storyline of a courting couple in a Shakespearean play called ‘Measure for Measure’. O’ Farrell also reimagines their youthful courtship along the lines of another of his better known plays, ‘The Taming of the Shrew’. The difficulty now, is that many readers/viewers are already forming the idea that this is how it actually happened.

On a positive note, any ‘historical’ book (or movie) that inspires someone to read, can only be a good thing. Perhaps many a generation, who were scarred from studying Shakespeare to simply pass an exam, may feel inspired to pick up Hamlet. Outside the cauldron of an exam, it remains a most wondrous and beautifully-penned play. Those who only watched the movie Hamnet, may well decide to take a chance with O’Farrell’s book, and enjoy engaging with the novel. The problem for some historians arises when fiction is conflated with truth. A good friend of mine was surprised that during a discussion of ‘Hamnet’ at her book club, some readers took umbrage with how horrid Shakespeare’s father was and wondered how on earth he went on to become a writer, forgetting that the depiction of his father is purely fictional. I have heard others profess the theory that the death of his son, Hamnet, inspired the great bard to write the play Hamlet – beautifully romantic, but a wholly invented narrative. It illustrates how the fiction can obscure the fact. We know nothing of their relationship and, by the time Shakespeare was writing Hamlet, his star had risen and he was writing commercially successful plays for the Globe Theatre. The novel/movie hinges greatly on a romantic ideal, of a grieving Shakespeare using his pain to exercise his own loss, by exploring the father-son relationship in his play Hamlet (and also the fact that the names are so similar has added fuel to the speculative fire). It’s a frivolous theory but, will probably seep into people’s take on Hamlet. To further puncture this romantic bubble (sorry), King Hamlet and father of prince Hamlet is a self-confessed sinner who, when appearing to his son as a ghost, briefly recounts the horrors he endures in purgatory, paying for the horrid sins he committed in his life, before weighing down his intellectual but ill-equipped son, with the burden of revenging his murder.  For all that we admire about young Prince Hamlet, he also shows himself to be a heartless brute to his ex-girlfriend Ophelia and mother, a coward, a procrastinator, and ultimately a murderer of innocent men. Is all this inspired by the memory of his eleven-year-old son? Closer to the truth is that Shakespeare – buoyed by the success of plays like ‘Romeo and Juliet’ – knew how to conjure up a great tragedy and was astute enough to give Elizabethan audiences what they held dearly: a good old supernatural plot, that would draw audiences into the Globe theatre and money into his pocket. He repeated the trick with more zest in the play ‘Macbeth’, not just with ghosts, but adding witches, continuing a winning formula. What O’Farrell has shown is how research and imaginative writing can transport people back to a bygone world. 

Perhaps the queen of this style of historical fiction was Hilary Mantel with her ‘Wolf Hall’ trilogy, also based in Tudor times. Her novels revolve around the relationship between King Henry VIII, and his chief minister Thomas Cromwell [not to be confused with Ireland’s nemesis Oliver Cromwell], during that tenacious reign where Henry moved heaven and hell to get his way and remarry, brutally disposing of wives like confetti, all in pursuit of an heir. This novel also leans into imagined fictions and invented conversations that bring the work alive. However, Mantel’s history is a lot more solid, as she works within the court politics, religious animosity between Catholicism and the emerging Protestantism and the well-documented annulments, executions and deaths that the helpless queens had to endure at Henry’s hands. Mantel [who almost bought a house in Ardfield, now occupied by a friend of mine, who never tires of telling me this] was of course a master of historical fiction and, in my opinion, a more nuanced and able writer than O’Farrell. Although she has a lot more material to work with than O’Farrell had, boy does she weave a most believable world of Tudor sexual morasses, politics and power plays. Like any historical fiction, no doubt people will quote her book, saying Thomas Cromwell said ‘this’ or ‘that’, without considering the dialogue is a figment of her well-researched imagination. 

Irish great, Colm Tóbín, is famously known for his historical fiction which he would claim is ‘inspired’ by the writings of those he depicts, such as the great German writer Thomas Mann in the novel ‘The Magician’ and American writer Henry James in ‘The Master’. Similar to Mantel, his research is extensive and he ‘finds’ the voice of both protagonists in his stories, sticking closely to real life narratives of events in their lives but finding that Midas touch, that breathes life into his characters and narrates them in a way that invites us to become a voyeur into their private world. That’s the real power of historic fiction and, in this case, Tóbín may well lead his reader to the actual novels written by Mann and James, once their interest is tickled by the power of his storytelling.

Another novel that has the perfect pitch between historic fact and imagination is the novel ‘HHhH’  by Laurent Binet, who brilliantly captures the days running up to the assassination of SS commander, Reinhard Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague, in 1942. That for me is the closest anyone has gotten to the perfect blend of history and narrative, capturing real events, the real time line and real people into a storytelling thrilling novel style, as opposed to a standard biography or history. I would totally recommend it for those interested in the mind-set of the Nazi regime and how it was controlling many parts of Europe. 

Closer to home and more problematic in my opinion is the Michael Collins movie directed by Neil Jordan. We are used to movies taking some liberties but the Collins movie goes to town. If it was just any movie, one might just accept that’s part of Hollywood playbook, but given that Collins is such an important historical figure and studied in schools, the movie has led to misleading information in the public discourse. There are more holes in it than Swiss cheese and, perhaps the most dangerous one connects De Valera’s appearance in Béal na Bláth with giving the order to assassinate Collins. For the record, while Dev was in West Cork on that day, it was Liam Lynch who was in charge of the anti- treaty IRA and their military strategy, as well as local commanders on the ground. Dev was not consulted or listened to on military matters, most certainly not at Béal na Bláth. The 1970s-style car bombs blowing up agents at Dublin Castle, while cinematically spectacular, was historically cringe worthy nor was Collins in the GPO during the 1916 Rising. The movie has had such a misleading impact that recently, while on a school tour of Glasnevin Cemetery, the tour guide, standing at Collins’ grave, told us that an American woman had recently arrived with flowers for the grave of Liam Neeson. I carefully reminded the group not to include that in their Leaving Cert answers! 

Ultimately anything that gets you reading fiction or interested in history is a good thing in my opinion, as long as you do a little bit of your own research and discover what is real and what is entertainment.

An archaeological survey at Cape Evans, Antartica, has uncovered a ski pole belonging to explorer and Courtmacsherry native Patrick Keohane. As reported in The Explorer Newsletter, the remarkable discovery was made by archaeologist Emma St Pierre. The ski pole has Keohane’s hand-carved initials on them.

Born at Barry’s Point just south of the village of Courtmacsherry, Patrick Keohane was a Petty Officer on Scott’s Antarctic ‘Terra Nova’ expedition between 1910 and 1913.

St Pierre told The Explorer that “Finding this ski pole was the highlight of my season on the ice. It is rare to uncover an item that can be directly linked to an individual, so this felt incredibly special. To find it amongst all the bamboo scattered around the site was a real moment. Thinking that this pole may have been used during Scott’s journey to the Pole is both exciting and deeply meaningful.”

Keohane was one of 15 men chosen to set out with Scott from their Cape Evans base on the 900-mile journey to the South Pole.

Keohane initially assisted with the ponies before moving into the man hauling sled teams once the ponies had been put down. Although disappointed to be turned back 350 miles short of the Pole, this decision ultimately saved his life, as the small polar party that continued sadly never returned. Keohane later joined the search party that found the bodies of Scott, Dr Edward Wilson and Lieutenant Henry Bowers in their tent.

Keohane’s ski pole has been stabilised for interim storage and will be scheduled for conservation work in the upcoming season.

A statue of Keohane erected between Broad and Blind Strand in Courtmacsherry, shows him looking across the water at the place of his birth.

In the past the marriage banns were read from the altar by the priest on three consecutive Sundays. These called on the faithful to come forward and declare if they knew of any impediments to the proposed marriage.

The bride never saw her groom after midnight on the wedding day. In weddings of the distant past, the bride left for the church mounted behind her father on a horse. She returned on her husband’s mount. Young men who had been invited to the wedding joined in ‘res na mbuidéal’ (the bottle race). They galloped through the fields and the first one at the church received a bottle of whiskey or poitín. With the advent of horse-drawn vehicles, the bride and her father left their home in the family trap. Their relatives followed and friends along the route joined the cavalcade. The groom, in his family’s trap, came last. Sometimes, musicians played in traps or even led the processions.

The wedding feast took place in the bride’s home. As the bride entered the home, her mother broke a light cake over her daughter’s head to ensure a life of plenty. The wedding feast lasted all evening and night; often the guests didn’t leave until the following morning.

In less affluent times, many households could only afford to invite close relatives, so mischievous, adventurous youths hid their features under long conical straw hats and gate-crashed the celebrations. The tradition developed and these ‘straw-boys’ became a feature of weddings. They wove ornamentations in their hats and tucked straw into their waist belts before grabbing musical instruments and arriving with great hilarity into the home. They were tolerated for the entertainment they provided. The group always included a seanbhean gáiritheach (laughing old woman) and a seanfhear saibhir (wealthy old man) and, at the height of the celebrations they would, respectively, dance with the groom and the bride. This would pass on to the couple long life, with a fair share of wealth and happiness. In some parts of Munster, the entertainment provided by the straw boys was called ‘bococking’ because a bacach (lame person) in the cast provided most of the fun. If the hosts did not treat the straw boys well, they climbed on to the roof and covered the chimney with sacks to smoke out the wedding party.

One old tradition states ‘marry in May and rue the day’ while another states ‘marry in April if you can, joy for maiden and for man’. Another custom was called ‘aitin (eating) the gander’ where the groom was invited to the bride’s house the day before the wedding and a goose was cooked in his honour. This is where we get the expression ‘his goose is cooked’! it was considered unlucky to marry on a Saturday and those who married in harvest would spend their time gathering. It was thought to be lucky to get married during a ‘glowing moon or a flowing tide’.

‘Would you like to be buried with my people?’ was an unromantic form of proposal, but if a young bride died, it was the custom to bury her with her own people. This may have happened to avoid embarrassment in the event of her husband remarrying and burying another wife.

Brides often carried a real horseshoe for luck, turned up so the luck would not run out. In olden days, couples ate oatmeal and salt at the start of the wedding reception when each would eat three spoonfuls as protection against the ‘evil eye’.

Mead was one of the oldest drinks in Ireland and it was traditionally drunk at weddings to promote virility. It was also drunk from special goblets a month after the wedding – ‘mí na meala’ (honeymoon). Traditionally this was to offer protection from the fairies coming to spirit the bride away and is where we get today’s ‘honeymoon’ from.

There are many proverbs in Irish concerning love and marriage. Here is an interesting one: ‘Is flame, fear teach gan bean’ (empty and cold is a house without a woman). A few other examples include: ‘Nil aon leigheas ar ghrá ach pósadh’ (There is no cure fr love except marriage). ‘Níl lia ná leigheas in aghaid an ghrá (there is no physician or cure for love).

At the wedding feast (bainis) a common toast was: ‘Slíocht sleachta ar shlioch bhur sleachta’ (may you have children and your children have children). Another proverb advises against marrying for money: An té a phósann an t-airgead, pósfaidh sé óinseach; imeoidh an t-airgead agus fanfaigh sn t-óinsaeach (the one who marries money gets a fool for a wife. The money will go but the fool will remain).

We also know that some of his manuscripts were written in Rosscarbery and that he was friendly with the poet, Diarmuid Ó Dálaigh, from that parish. The so-called hedge schools weren’t permanent; often the teacher taught only in the summer months. So it is possible that Ó Coileáin lived for periods in Rosscarbery. However, folklore connects him almost exclusively with Myross, so it was there, almost certainly, he spent most of his life.

He married a Coughlan girl from the area and they had either three or four children. Séan had the reputation of being “a bit of a ‘réice’ (rake)”; he used to be ‘árramhachán’ carousing in Union Hall, Leap, Rosscarbery and Skibbereen, sometimes not returning to his school for weeks. About a half-mile north of Stookeen Church there was a ‘síbín’ (shebeen) called Poll’s Shebeen where he used to drink. His wife, tired of his irresponsible behaviour, left him and returned to her own family. Séan was soon living with his wife’s sister, with whom he had a daughter. This relationship was also unhappy, probably because of Séan’s behaviour; so angry was she that one day, when Séan had gone missing again, she burned down the house, undoubtedly containing Séan’s books and manuscripts.

In 1814, when he was 60, Séan moved to Skibbereen, where he lived with his daughter (by his second wife). She had married an O’Driscoll man and lived in High Street. Séan Máistir (Master John), as he was always called, taught here for a few years and here he died on April 18, 1817. Séan Ó Driscoll, grandson of Séan Máistir, taught a school in Skibbereen for a while. He became involved in the Fenian Movement with O’Donovan Rossa. Apparently, he lost his job and emigrated to the USA, where he died about 1891. This man or his brother told Peadar Ó hAnnrachain that many of his grandfather’s books and manuscripts were stolen the night of his wake.

In all only eleven complete manuscripts of Ó Coileáin survive, nine of which were written between 1773 and 1781, a copy of his famous poem, ‘Macnamh an Duine Dhoilíosaigh’ that he sent to the poet Donncha Ó Floinn in Cork and some notes that are in the British Library in London. We know that he visited other poets, particularly Micheál Óg Ó Longáin (1766-1837), Donncha Ó Floinn and Séan Ó Mulláin, all from the Cork city area. We also know that Ó Longán and Ó Floinn borrowed manuscripts from him. We know that Ó Longáin visited Ó Coileáin in Myross and that he composed a ‘tuireamh or marbhna’ (lament) for him when he died. Another poet who composed a lament was Dónal Ó hIarfhlaighte (Donal Herlihy) who lived in Rosscarbery.

His fame as a poet, teacher, scholar and wit spread all over Carbery during his lifetime and his poems and doings were kept alive in the oral literature (béaloideas) well into the 20th century, as we have seen. It is said that scholars came from all over Carbery to his school; one of them, Donncha Ó Seachnasaigh from Reavouler, parish of Kilmacabea, became a well-known poet himself and he also wrote a lament for Séan Máistir. Daniel Donovan, in ‘Sketches in Carbery’, refers to him as “The Silver Tongue of Munster”. The great scholar John O’Donovan, translator of the ‘Annals of the Four Masters’, described  Ó Coileáin “as the last scholar, poet and historiographer of Carbery”. There were many other poets in West Cork in that era and later but none reached the excellence of Ó’Coileáin’s best work.

He is best known as the authors of two great poems, ‘Macnamh an Duine Dhoilíosaigh’ (The Musing of a Melancholy Man), also known as ‘Caoineadh Tig Molaga’ (Lament for Timoleague Abbey) and ‘An Buachaill Bán’ (The Fair-haired Boy). He translated ‘The Exile of Erin’ by Campbell into Irish and translated ‘Agallamh an othair leis an mBás’ (The Dialogue of the Patient with Death) into English) into English. Among his other writings which survive are: 1. A small Irish grammar, entitled ‘The Elements of the Irish Language’. 2. A dialogue on the invention of letters and the Commencement of the Irish Language. 3. A book on Ogham entitled ‘Of the cryptography or sacred and mysterious writing of the Irish called Ogham’.

He was also interested in history, folklore and genealogy. He wrote an account of the McCarthys of Gleann a Chroim, a branch of the McCarthy Reaghs, whose territory was in the Dunmanway area. He also wrote a history of the genealogy of the O’Donovan clan, particularly the Clan Cahill branch, on whose ancient territory he resided, their main castles being in Castledonovan near Drimoleague, Rahine in Myross and ‘Cloch an tSráid Bhaile’ (Glandore Castle). He entitled this work ‘O’Donovan’s pedigree, from the earliest accounts to the present time, collected from the public records, authentic manuscripts, well-attested pedigrees and personal information. By John Collins, antiquarian.’ He had begun to write a history of Ireland in Irish and had done some work on an English-Irish dictionary.

He also wrote poems of lesser quality than his great poems; among these are ‘O Mo Lao, mo chailín’ (O, my love, my girl) and ‘Bláth na Gréine’ (Myross Wood). In English he wrote ‘The Battle of Ross’ and ‘Sweet Castletownshend Demense’. There are many other short pieces in Irish and English, which the old seanchaithe (storytellers) could relate. These lived on in oral literature. Some were written down, but undoubtedly, many went unrecorded and were forgotten. Much of his work must have been destroyed when his house burnt down.

The ‘Machamh’ influenced the Anglo Irish writers of the 19th century; both James Clarence Mangan and Samuel Ferguson translated it into English.

In the poem he contrasts the former glory of Timoleague Abbey with its ruinous state in his lifetime. His passionate feeling, the clarity and fluency of language with which he describes the fate of the Abbey is very powerful and any translation could not do it justice. In the last three verses he comments on his own life and draws parallels between the Abbey’s decline with his own life. Once he was happy and full of life, but now he is old and poor. This is the final verse, followed by Ferguson’s translation:

Atá duaireas ar mo dhreach, / Atá mo chroí ‘na chrotal cnó. / Dá bhfóireadh orm an bás / Ba dhearbh m’fháilte faoine chomhair.’

Woe is written on my visage. / In a nut my heart would lie / Death’s deliverance were welcome- / Father, let the old man die.

Doubt has been expressed about Ó Coileáin’s authorship of the ‘Macnamh’. He was known to be a traditionalist, but it is in this knowledge that the Lament is found wanting. Ó Coileáin would have known of the history of the Abbey and its connection with the McCarthys. Such learning was native to Irish poetry of that era, but not a word is found in the lyrics about the history of the Abbey. The late Pádraig Ó Maidín wrote an exploratory three-part essay in ‘Agus’ (November and December 1962 and January 1963) win which he explores the arguments for and against Ó Coileáin’s authorship. O Maidín concludes that O Coileáin did write the poem. Fr Matt Horgan, who was a priest in Myross and a friend of O Coileáin, visited Timoleague Abbey for the first time on January 14, 1846 and he wrote a letter to the Cork Examiner the following day under the pen-name ‘Viator’. At the end of the letter he wrote: “Timoleague Abbey has been celebrated in recent years by my old, and alas, I must say it, late friend, John Collins, of Myross, one of the best Irish scholars and poets of late times. His musings in the deserted aisles of this ruined Convent are among the finest verses I am acquainted with; they may be seen in Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy and are to the Irish scholar what Gray’s Elegy is to the English. It is a fine, solemn and affecting piece of reflective poetry.

Since the ‘Macnamh’ is so unlike the rest of Ó Coileáin’s writings, it has been suggested that it was a once-off effort, prompted by Ó Coileáin’s reading of Gray’s Elegy written in a Country Churchyard, which he probably got from the same Fr. Horgan, who challenged him to write something similar in Irish. “If this is so, the Macnamh is just as Irish as Gray’s is English,” writes Daniel Corkery.

The faded glory of Timoleague Abbey described in the Macnamh aptly symbolises the decay of language and culture all over Carbery, indeed over the whole country. The poets that followed Ó’Coileáin, with no patronage, little or no education and a dying language, strove to keep alive the tradition of poetry but they never reached the perfection of Ó Coileáin’s best work. One can only reflect regretfully on the vast wealth of song, folklore and oral literature that disappeared in the rapid retreat of Irish, particularly after the Famine. We must be grateful to people like Peadar Ó hAnnracháin and Micheál Ó Cuileanáin, to name but two, who gathered as much as they could.

to be continued…

Pauline Murphy shares the story of West Cork man Patrick Joseph Sullivan who, from modest beginnings on the Sheep’s Head peninsula, went on to emigrate to the United States where he became a successful sheep rancher and later a US senator. It’s also claimed that he was friends with wild west outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid!

Patrick Joseph Sullivan was born on St Patrick’s Day 1865 to John Sullivan and Margaret (née McCarthy) Sullivan on a small farm in Kilcrohane on the Sheep’s Head peninsula.

At the age of 23, Patrick left West Cork for America. His journey began with a difficult Atlantic crossing. After arriving in New York City, he travelled onwards to Wyoming, where he found work as a sheep herder in Rawlins.

Within four years, Patrick had established his own sheep ranch. He later moved to Casper, Wyoming, where he expanded his business interests and became involved in oil. Over time, he became a wealthy and respected member of the community.

Patrick also entered public life. In 1894, he was elected as a Republican to Wyoming’s House of Representatives, serving until 1896. He later served as Mayor of Casper from 1898 to 1900 and returned again to the state House of Representatives. He was known as an approachable and good-humoured man, retaining the charm and wit of his West Cork upbringing. His circle of friends included people from many different backgrounds.

Among those said to have been on friendly terms with Patrick were members of The Wild Bunch, also known as the Hole in the Wall gang. The most well-known of the group, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, reportedly counted the Kilcrohane man as a friend and enjoyed his hospitality.

In 1893, Patrick married Hanora Mahoney, known as Nan, who was also from West Cork. The couple had five daughters: Margaret, Patricia, Eileen, Catherine and Evangeline. In 1909, Patrick built a large red-brick home for his family on the corner of 10th and Centre Street in Casper. The house still stands today and is now a registered historic home in Wyoming.

Despite his success, Patrick also experienced personal loss. In 1914, his youngest daughter, Evangeline, died at the family home in Casper at the age of 12, having been ill for some time with heart trouble. The National County Tribune of June 18, 1914 reported on her funeral, noting the many floral tributes and the large number of friends who attended to offer their sympathy to the family.

Patrick remained active in political life. He was Wyoming’s delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1912 and again served as state delegate in 1916. From 1924, he was appointed as a member of the Republican National Committee representing Wyoming.

In December 1929, he was appointed to the United States Senate to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Senator Francis Warren. He served until November 1930, when Robert Carey succeeded him. Time Magazine of December 16, 1929 described him as a wealthy sheep rancher who had prospered through oil and noted his Cork origins and straightforward manner.

After leaving the Senate, Patrick returned to his business interests. In April 1935, while on a Spring visit to Santa Barbara, California, he suffered a heart attack and died on April 8 at the age of 70. The body of the popular West Cork man was returned to Wyoming, where he was laid to rest in Highland Cemetery in Casper following a large funeral.

What binds all the great philosophers from Aristotle to Peter Singer is a voyage of self-discovery. Despite the many centuries and cultural nuances that separate them, time and time again, a common theme that emerges from so many of them, is to be virtuous and selfless. Aristotle believed that happiness comes from service to the community. Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas, said the key energiser is love and thus acts of love towards humankind. The great fifth century Chinese philosopher Confucius preached that a person becomes whole when they fulfil responsible roles in society in a selfless way. Twenty-first century sage Peter Singer puts it that basically one wants to feel there is more to life than just consuming products and generating garbage. He asks what greater motivation can there be than doing whatever one possibly can to reduce suffering and pain?

The recent pairing of the Republic of Ireland soccer team and Israel in the same group has, once again, highlighted the tensions between the two nations that has developed since Israel’s military incursions into Gaza. It’s probably not a bad thing, since it has turned the spotlight back on the conflict that a UN report has called genocide, seeing that it has dropped out of the media cycle. Yet there have been 600 deaths and counting since Israel agreed to stop the bombing and a ceasefire. So what’s this got to do with a bunch of philosophers?

Prior to the draw, League of Ireland clubs such as Saint Patrick’s Athletic have bravely brought a case to UEFA against Israel’s continued participation in both international and club football. The case is black and white. In summary, the argument revolves around the fact that Israel’s continued participation is a direct breach of article three and four of UEFA’s statutes. By allowing Israeli clubs in occupied Palestinian territory, to participate in European competitions, UEFA are in breach of these statutes and indeed international law. By coincidence the recent draw has escalated this case further but so far both the Irish Government and the FAI have decided not to take a stand. Supporters of the boycott favour UEFA taking the lead on this with a ban – like they did previously with Russia and Yugoslavia – but Israel seems exempt from these rules. So what happens next? The Irish woman’s basketball team, when faced with this uncomfortable fixture, fulfilled it, in spite of many of the young women speaking out against it. Basketball Ireland said it would “damage the sport” and thus the game went ahead.  Will our government take action?  Mary Lou has said we should give Israel “the red card”, whereas Simon Harris said, “Ireland would miss out” The FAI likewise have said they “have no choice”. Will individual players take it upon themselves to take a stand? It’s difficult on one level given many may feel it could damage their career, but should we listen to the great men and women who believe that virtue and selflessness will lead to a fulfilled life above everything else? 

This article will look at some sportspeople who made the decision to do what they felt was right, even if it could have led to their own personal ruin. History has been kind to them for their brave actions and, in times of great moral ambiguity, we need more of our heroes to stand up. 

Muhammad Ali 

By 1967 there were almost half a million soldiers fighting in Vietnam. Black people were drafted in disproportionate numbers, something that Martin Luther King Jr highlighted in a famous speech he gave at the Riverside church in New York in April 1967. Always conscious of keeping the white political elite on board, he risked sanction with his direct confrontation; “We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.”

Muhammad Ali would take it further, which ultimately led to the loss of his boxing world title and his arrest and deny this brilliant and charismatic athlete from performing in a boxing arena for a further three-and-a-half years. Just a few short weeks after King’s speech, he refused to be drafted, as it went against his religious beliefs and, like King, his moral outlook. On April 28, he declared to the world “The real enemy of my people is right here (USA). I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality.”

Tommie Smith and John Carlos

Mexico City 1968. America marvels at the performances of their 200-metre sprint team. Carlos claims the bronze and Smith the gold, breaking the world record in the process. Since then there have been thousands of American medal winners that most people have forgotten, but these two athletes will be remembered forever for their brave stance. They walked into the area, shoeless, as a symbol of the poverty that had engulfed their communities. (Vietnam was costing the state 30 billion dollars a year and LBL’s ‘great society’ project was bankrupt). Carlos wore a necklace to symbolise lynching. More symbolically, they raised their clenched fists in the manner of the civil rights group, the Black Panthers, after they received their medals and during the national anthem. Afterwards they were sent home in disgrace, received death threats and endured financial hardship. When Smith was asked if he regretted that salute, he replied, “The only regret was that it had to be done.”

Tony Ward 

In 2026, Irish rugby has been obsessing about who should be the Irish number 10 for the national team – Jack Crowley or Sam Prendergast. There was a similar conversation in the early eighties, when Tony Ward and Ollie Campbell were the darlings of that era. They were both so good that they were selected for the Lions tour to apartheid South Africa in 1980. Both men jumped at the highest accolade in rugby, but it would have a negative effect on Ward. The reality of the situation appalled the young man: “When we arrived in Johannesburg airport I came face to face with the reality of apartheid when I went to the toilet and saw the sign ‘Whites only toilet – No Blacks’.” The following year, trade unions, the government and the Catholic church called on the IRFU not to tour South Africa. It fell on deaf ears and unbelievably they still went. Not Tony Ward (and a dozen others). After what he had seen firsthand, he refused to travel and his international rugby career was never the same again after. 

Naomi Osaka 2020

Osaka is one of the highest profile players in the women’s tennis circuit, winning four grand slam titles. During the US open of 2020, she wore seven masks bearing the name of black victims shot dead by police, to shine a light on the continued police violence in the USA that has been particularly hard on immigrants and the black community. In an interview she said, “For me it’s just spreading awareness. I feel like the more people know the story, then the more interesting or interested they’ll become in it. It’s quite sad that seven masks aren’t enough for the amount of names.” That was the same year the high profile case of George Floyd was choked by police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020 on the streets of Minneapolis, where this last month Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good were killed by federal agents. Has anything changed? Thankfully Osaka’s career was not negatively affected for her brave stance.

Vladyslav Heraskevych 2026

Heraskevych, a Ukrainian Winter Olympic athlete engaged in a similar protest as Osaka’s. On his helmet, he wore what he called a ‘helmet of remembrance’ depicting twenty-four of his friends that have been killed by Russia in the war on Ukraine. He was disqualified from the competition on the grounds that the Olympic committee does not allow signs of political, religious or racial propaganda to be displayed. Heraskevych said it was to honour his dead friends and refused to back down. The IOC disagreed and he lost his Olympic dream because of his moral stance. 

It’s an eternal question that never goes away. Should sport and politics mix? Perhaps instead we should ask the question: Is every platform a legitimate one to voice concerns, raise awareness and shed light on injustice? Sadly, for many who have used their fame for such things – be it writers, sports people or musicians – the consequences have been negative. One thing is for sure, the aforementioned examples have lived up to the ideology of some of the greatest philosophers. What is it all about – love, selflessness, the service of your community and the betterment of all our lives. That is true happiness.