History

St. Ailbhe

Bishop and preacher, one of the saints whose life has been woven into the myths and legends of Ireland. He was a known disciple of St. Patrick, and is called Albeus in some records. What is known about Ailbhe is that he was a missionary in Ireland, perhaps sponsored by King Aengus of Munster. He was also the first bishop of Emily in Munster, Ireland. Legends and traditions abound about his life. One claims that he was left in the woods as an infant and suckled by a wolf. This legend is prompted in part by Ailbhe’s later life. An old she-wolf came to Ailbhe for protection from a hunting party, resting her head upon his breast. He is supposed to have been baptized by a priest in northern Ireland, possibly in a British settlement. The so called Acts of Ailbhe are filled with traditions that are not reliable. Ailbhe was noted for his charity and kindness, as well as his eloquent sermons. He is beloved in Ireland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 19

1757 – Having been funded by a bequest from Jonathan Swift, St Patrick’s Hospital for the insane, Dublin, is opened
1889 – Seán Keating, painter, is born in Limerick
1880 – Parnell delivers his famous speech at Ennis in which he introduces the term for non-violent protest – boycotting. Parnell asked his audience, ‘What are you to do with a tenant who bids for a farm from which another has been evicted?’ Several voices replied, ’shoot him!’ Parnell answered: "I wish to point out a better way, a more Christian way which will give the lost man an opportunity of repenting. When a man takes a farm from which another has been evicted, you must shun him on the roadside, on the streets, in the shop and even in the place of worship by putting him in a "moral Coventry." You must show him your detestation of the crime he has committed"
1881 – Kate Coll and Juan Vivion de Valera are married in St. Patrick’s Church, Greenville, New Jersey. Just over a year later the couple give birth to Éamon
1905 – Death of Dr. Thomas Barnardo. Dublin-born Barnardo opened his first home for destitute boys in Stepney in 1870
2000 – Aodhnait Fahy, Ireland’s top student is given £30,000 to allow her to pursue the course of her dreams at Oxford University. She swept the board in this year’s Leaving Cert with nine A1s – the highest ever result in the country
2000 – Fishermen all around the coast tie up their boats in protest at the £15 million hike in their fuel bill which, they claim, will put many of them out of business before Christmas.

In Tribute to W.B.Yeats
by Hartson & Helen O’Doud

 

 

 

He was born on June 13th, 1865 and he died on January 28th, 1939.
On the Dublin road, a few miles out of Sligotown, in Drumcliff and its famous churchyard is where William Butler Yeats is buried. St. Colmcille founded a monastery here in A.D. 574 and there is a fine high cross to mark the spot.

Although William Butler Yeats was not born in Sligo, he started going there as a boy with his parents who were both Sligonians. He wrote a number of poems about Sligo, including the very popular Lake Isle of Innisfree.
The central theme in Yeats’ poems is Ireland, its history, folklore and contemporary public life. In 1917, he married Georgie Hyde-Lee; they had a son and a daughter. Yeats received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.
He died in France and his body was taken home to Ireland at his own request, to be re-interred in Drumcliff where his grandfather had once been rector. The inscription on his gravestone reads:
Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death.
Horseman, pass by!
W.B.YEATS
June 13th 1865
January 28th 1939
 
 

 

The Lake Isle of Innisfree
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree.
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made.
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wing.
I will arise and go now. For always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavement gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

 
 

 

Irish Folklore

So much of Ireland’s History was passed down in the forms of story, poetry and song.

The following speaks of the teaching of English in Irish schools and the notches placed on the sticks worn around the children’s necks

A Grafted Tongue
by John Montague

(Dumb,
bloodied, the severed
head now chokes to
speak another tongue -

As in
a long suppressed dream,
some stuttering garb -
led ordeal of my own)

An Irish
child weeps at school
repeating its English.
After each mistake

The master
gouges another mark
on the tally stick
hung about its neck

Like a bell
on a cow, a hobble
on a straying goat.
To slur and stumble

In shame
the altered syllables
of your own name:
to stray sadly home

And find
the turf-cured width
of your parents’ hearth
growing slowly alien:

In cabin
and field, they still
speak the old tongue.
You may greet no one.

To grow
a second tongue, as
harsh a humiliation
as twice to be born.

Decades later
that child’s grandchild’s
speech stumbles over lost
syllables of an old order.

 

"To be Irish is a Blessing, To be a Hibernian is an Honor."