ICH LOGO

Essays and Such

Irish Cultural Society

of San Antonio Texas

 ICH LOGO

Promoting Awareness of Irish Culture

A Pot of Pourri
by Robert Slattery
Some of this-n-that

Potpourri

Collected by Robert Slattery




Trivia and not so trivia
In Ireland, electric light switches are up when off and down when 
on. 
All electric units are powered by 220 volts (110 volts in USA), 
unless you have a transformer; shavers/hairdryers etc. will not 
work.
Video tapes bought in Ireland may not work here, 
unless they are labeled so.
A US Gallon is approx. 6.5 pints of an 8 pint Irish gallon 
(imperial measure).
Gasoline is approx. 3 times the cost in real terms/measure as 
in the US.  
Restrooms are marked MNA(women).and FIR(men).
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Drinking, Fighting, and Partying
Patrick's Day cards no longer concentrate on drinking and partying, 
thanks in large part to the efforts of the A.O.H and other Irish 
organizations. Many of the leaders in business, politics, the arts, 
the professions and the church are of Irish heritage. Currently 
(OCT 1999)  there are three Irish plays running on Broadway and 
many more local productions throughout the states. Today the 
Irish in America rank #2 behind the Jews in per capita income.

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Ireland Ranked #12 worldwide
The following is taken from John Leo's column in the U.S. News & 
World Report, August 9, 1999, "More PC (Politically Correct) 
Follies". Listed among such follies as Outlawing Hate in Santa 
Cruz, CA and Milk is a Racist Beverage is He rents a car, though 
Irish.   After Sean McGrath, 33, was charged with drunken-driving 
manslaughter, relatives of the deceased sued Dollar Rent A Car, 
charging that the agency should have known McGrath was prone to 
drink because he is from Ireland. After some outrage from 
Irish-Americans, the observation about Irish drinking habits was 
dropped from the suit.
	The truth of the matter is that Ireland ranked #12 in per 
capita consumption of alcohol by European countries in a 1997 
report by alcoweb.cam.   Ireland was well behind such countries 
as France, Spain, Denmark and Germany. Who do you suppose is 
responsible for giving the Irish the bad rap?
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October, 1999 news1etter
Ivan Magill
Did you know? -Irishman acknowledged as father of modern 
anesthesia:  Ivan Magill, born in Lame, Co. Antrim, 1888, started 
working with anesthetics at the end of WW1. His techniques 
allowed patients to breathe during operations. Prior to this, 
anesthesia was as likely to be administered by a passing porter 
wielding a bottle and a rag, and there was a fine line between 
giving enough anesthetics to put them to sleep and giving a 
fatal dose. In the 1930s, Magill invented the sophisticated 
breathing and anesthetic delivery system which made chest and 
heart operations possible. 
Read Mary Mulvill's award-winning book, Ingenious Ireland 
Publishers: TownHouse. 2003.  (Irish America, Sept./Oct. 2003)
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Robert Emmet Stands Tall in Nation's Capital: The bicentennial 
of the execution of famed Irish orator and revolutionary Robert Emmet 
was commemorated on Sept. 17,'03 in a ceremony at the Washington D. C. 
statue erected in his honor. The ceremony was held in the Dupont 
Circle Park where Emmet's bronzed likeness has stood for over 30 
years. Spearheading the event was the Embassy of Ireland, whose 
offices stand just two blocks from the statue. Irish Ambassador 
Noel Fahey, was on hand for the rededication. In Washington D.C., 
the Robert Emmet statue is one of four identical casts created by 
Irish born sculptor Jerome Connor. The other three statues are 
located in Dublin, San Francisco and Emmetsberg, Iowa. (Irish 
America, Sept./Oct. 2003).  See Emmet's story.
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Banshee: Irish, bean, (ban) woman + Gael, sith, (shee) woman. 
A female spirit whose wailings forewarn families of the coming 
death of a member.
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ICSSA Newsletter June 2002
Old Irish wakes: windows and doors were  left open to let the spirit 
of the dead depart. In County Sligo, as soon as the breath had left 
a sick person, the bed was carried out & if there was high ground 
nearby, it was burned there.
Just before the moment of death, the sick person was laid on the 
floor to ease the escaping spirit. Then, two people were sent out 
to tell the news of the death. Livestock, as well as neighbors, 
were informed.  When the body was washed and laid, a plate 
containing tobacco or salt was placed on the corpse.  Any snuff 
left over from the wake was carefully collected. It was believed 
to have curative properties. Those who followed the hearse to the 
graveside always carried a piece of salt to protect them from evil 
spirits.

	Old Irish wakes were important social occasions.
"More matches were made at wakes than at wedding," remarked Maria 
Edgeworth.
Wake games were played & directed by a man known as a "Borkeen. " 
They included riddles, jokes, singing, dancing and even wrestling.   
These were usually reserved for the death of an old person,  who 
had enjoyed the normal span of life.
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ICSSA Newsletter June 2002
John Twohig
Did you know? A two story limestone house built in San Antonio in 
the 1840s by Irish born John Twohig was moved in 1941 to the 
grounds of the Witte Museum. It is now used as office space and 
the house retains its original layout and exterior color scheme. 
Twohig served in the Siege of Bexar, was captured in General 
Adrian Woll's 1842 invasion but made a daring escape from a Mexican 
prison.  Originally his house was on the west bank of the San 
Antonio River facing St. Mary's Street. He established the first 
breadline in America ("The Breadline Banker of St. Mary's 
Street," 1936, SA Public Service Co.). In  1870, Twohig "was among 
the 100 wealthiest men in Texas."   (San Antonio Express-News) 
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ICSSA Newsletter June 2002	
Michael Cudahy
Immigrated from Kilkenny Co. in 1849, built the world's first cold 
storage warehouse after he and his two brothers went into the meat 
packing business. The family made a fortune and established the town 
of Cudahy WI, which today has 20,000 inhabitants.
(Cudahy is a version that takes many forms, including Coady, Cody, 
Cuddy and McGillicuddy.) Lawrence of  Arabia (Thomas Edward Lawrence) 
was born in Tremadoc, Wales, on August 16, 1888. He was the 
illegitimate son of Thomas Robert Tighe Chapman, an Anglo-Irish 
landowner from Killua  Castle,  Devlin, Co. Westmeath, and Sarah 
Junner, a governess. Also in the cast: Anthony Quinn, of 
Irish-Mexican descent.   (Ireland's Own, 1998)
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Few people who use these expressions in their everyday 
language have any idea that they originate in Ireland.

by Hook or by Crook
Whatever about how he is regarded in England, you would travel 
many a mile in Ireland to find anyone who had a good word to 
say about Oliver Cromwell.  Some years ago the poet Brendan 
Kennelly wrote a poem inspired by Cromwell's activities in 
Ireland that caused a right uproar for the simple reason that, 
in the opinion of some, it attempted to cast the general in a 
favourable light.
By all events, Cromwell landed in Ireland in 1649, intent upon 
containing the rebellious Irish and putting an end to their 
capers once and for all.  Like the Normans before him, he chose 
to make his landings on the south east coast where there are 
miles and miles of beautiful sandy beaches. Some would tell you 
he made his approach directly to Waterford where there was a 
particular problem to be tackled. Even today, ships approaching 
Waterford harbour leave Hook Head 'on their starboard hand' i.e. 
to their right. Across the harbour mouth, in the vicinity of 
Brownstown Head, was the village of Crook, and asked how he would 
enter the harbour, Cromwell is said to have announced that he 
would take Waterford 'by Hook or by Crook'. In other words however 
he approached the town, either taking a bearing off Hook Head or 
Crook village, he was determined to take the town. Hence the 
origin of the saying 'by hook or by crook'.
There is another school of thought that the term originated in 
England and was used in the context of foraging dead wood for 
burning, cutting it with a hook or removing high branches with a 
crook, which shepherds might well have developed to gain advantage 
over other folk. I prefer the first. It is a better yarn.
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Beyond the Pale
Throughout the fifteenth century, the political state of Ireland was 
unsettled. There was only one place where the king's writ was 
directly effective and that was within the Pale, a ring of 
fortifications surrounding Dublin and built by Anglo-Norman settlers. 
Beyond this, the Lords of Ormonde. Desmond and Kildare were about the 
only strongmen who, were successfully administering the Royal 
Authority. As for the rest of Ireland, the complexity of the 
situation was made clear in a report of 1515 submitted to Henry VIII 
which spoke of 'more than sixty countys, called regions, in Ireland, 
inhabited with the King's Irish enemies and more than 30 greate 
captaines of the Englyshe noble folke that followyth the same Irish 
ordre'. Local wars and feuds were frequent, though they tended to 
follow the style of local cattle raids and not well-orchestrated 
pitched battles.
The Pale extended along a band of the east coast with Dublin at its 
centre. Visitors to Dublin today may visit a section of the old city 
walls which is about the last extant part of the city dating back to 
the pale. Some Tower Houses have survived within the Pale in various 
stages of ruin, but one of the best preserved is found at Roodstown 
in County Louth. Outside the Pale dishevelled merchants would gather 
hoping to do some kind of trading with the wealthy nobles living in 
some style behind the fortifications. They and all outside these 
fortifications were beyond the pale, an expression that lives on 
today to categorise those who are socially unacceptable.
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Steeplechasing
Seekers after the origin of the sport of steeplechasing must go back 
to county Cork and the middle of the eighteenth century.
In the autumn of 1752 two men, believed in some quarters to have been 
prominent landowners and men of substance as well as owners of fine, 
upstanding horses, challenged each other to an extended race on 
horseback over open country and every reasonable obstacle that lay 
between the villages of Buttevant and Doneraile.
The men's names were Blake and O'Callaghan and they agreed that the 
course they would race would include crossing the Awbeg river.
They stayed on course, over four-and-a-half-miles of open country, 
by looking at the steeple of the St. Leger Church in Doneraile as 
they rode the four-and-a-halfmile-long course.
Note: records do not show who won, nor do they indicate any 
possibility that the church in Doneraile whose steeple they eyed 
so carefully during their chase itself lent its name to another 
famous event in British classic racing, the St. Leger. That, as 
the man said, is another story.
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To chance your arm
An ancient door, now reduced to four and a half pine
planks, gnarled and dark brown with age, faces visitors entering 
Dublin's famed St. Patrick's Cathedral. It tells the story of the 
origin of the expression 'to chance your arm' and the key to the 
story is the hole, thirty inches by six, where there once was a 
panel.
In 1492, two prominent families, the Ormondes and Kildares, were 
pursuing a bitter feud. Besieged by Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of 
Kildare, Sir James Butler, Earl of Ormonde, and his followers 
took refuge in the Chapter House of the Cathedral and bolted 
themselves in.
As the siege wore on, the Earl of Kildare concluded that the 
feuding was foolish. Here were two families worshipping the same 
God in the same church and living in the same country, trying to 
kill each other. So he called out to Sir James and, as an 
inscription in St. Patrick's says today, 'underwrote on his honour 
that he should receive no vilanie'.
Wary of 'some further treacherie' Ormond did not respond. So Kildare 
seized a weapon and cut away a hole in the door and thrust his hand 
through. It was grasped by another hand inside the church, not 
slashed with a sword and the door opened and the two men embraced, 
thus ending the family feud.
The expression 'chancing one's arm' originated with Kildare's noble 
gesture. A little card available to all who see the door of 
reconciliation reads, 'there is a lesson here for all of us who are 
engaged in family feuds, whether brother to brother, language to 
language, nation to nation. If one of us would dare to "chance his 
arm", perhaps that would be the first crucial step to the 
reconciliation we all unconsciously seek'.
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