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Iere [boodskap #2992] |
Di., 25 November 2003 13:13  |
Ben
Boodskappe: 38 Geregistreer: November 2003
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Why are Irish folk songs so gloomy?
While rooting for my ancestry in Ireland, I found the answer to this time
old question. As if the potato famine of the 1840s wasn't enough, before
that there was defeat by the Protestant English, introduction of harsh penal
laws and 'plantation' of English settlers. This particular episode was
sealed with the virtual genocide of the Irish by that great democrat, the
fanatically reformist Oliver Cromwell and his Roundhead army.
At the siege of Drogheda, he personally instructed his troops to "spare no
man, woman or child." Those who did survive were dispatched as slaves in
English slaving ships to Barbados. Many Irish names and customs survive on
dinky Montserrat island. Before Cromwell it was the Normans (soon after 1066
and all that) who hacked their way through the Celtic chieftainships to
found most of the major towns. And before them it was the terrible Vikings
whose feared longships came silently up the rivers to pillage, rape and
plunder.
While plundering the abbeys, which they found to be laughably soft targets,
they invented the 'death angel': a Viking wielding two battle axes would
hack though the ribcage of a kneeling monk, compliantly waiting for his head
to be chopped off, and rip his lungs out his back. The poor abbot's last
breath would set his lungs aflutter, like pathetic, bleedingwings.
Between 455, when St Patrick broke the spiritual power of Celtic druids to
found a Christian dynasty, and the arrival of the Vikings around 800, things
were relatively bloodless.
And then there was all that trouble in 1916 with Michael Collins and Eamon
de Valera and the boys in the Dublin Post Office, followed by civil war and
British reprisals in the 1920s. Fourteen of the leaders were shot, but
finally Collins and De Valera went on to lead the Irish Free State republic.
See the 'Great Irish pub crawl' starting on page 123. Fiddle-de-dee!
From the editor (Getaway - Nov 2003)
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Re: Iere [boodskap #3066 is 'n antwoord op boodskap #3060] |
Wo., 03 Desember 2003 22:19  |
Lorinda
Boodskappe: 557 Geregistreer: Augustus 2003
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"Roely" skryf in boodskap news:bqj8sb$22dga6$1@ID-187610.news.uni-berlin.de...
>
> "Ben" wrote in message
> news:bpvkh7$g0o$1@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net...
>> Why are Irish folk songs so gloomy?
>
>
> Over Ieren gesproken: ik lees nu een boek van Joseph O'Connor: Inishowen.
> Kennen jullie dat?
>
> Roely
>
>
Ja, ek het baie van die boek gehou, veral die humor. Hy is een van Ierland
se bekendste skrywers. Hy het ook 'n tyd vir die Dublin Sunday Tribune
geskryf. Het jy ooit Y8s=+! (Yeats is dead) gelees? Hy was die redakteur
daarvan (dit was 'n spanpoging tussen 'n hele klomp skrywers )
Lorinda
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