235
John Lynch, exiled to France by Cromwell’s men, lamented the way that Irish was being labelled as a language of sedition.
By 1495 and the reign of Henry VII, attempts to stamp out Irish language and culture in ‘The Pale’, the area of English governance in Ireland, had largely failed. And a good thing too, said Irish priest John Lynch, writing in 1662. Exiled in France thanks to Cromwell’s brutal rampage in Ireland, he decried the politicisation of language by ruling powers.
Picture: © Darren J. Prior, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.
Posted July 27 2022
236
Lionel of Clarence, Edward III’s younger son, went to Ireland as his Lieutenant in order to stop English expats becoming like the Irish.
In 1366, Edward III’s son Lionel presided over a parliament in Kilkenny in Ireland. The issue was the Pale, the area around Dublin that was under English law, and disturbing reports that many Englishmen had so intermingled with the Irish beyond it that one could hardly tell them apart. Amongst several other Statutes, the English were strictly commanded to keep to their own language and customs.
Picture: © Liam Murphy, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted July 26 2022
237
‘Alpha of the Plough’ wished that he had been born with the gift of a winning smile.
For many years, newspaper editor AG Gardiner wrote short essays for the Star under the pseudonym ‘Alpha of the Plough’. The following passage is taken from a reflection on the value of the smile, a reflection that ended with a warning. “Smiles,” he wrote, “like poets, are born, not made.”
Picture: By Eduard von Grützner (1846–1925), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted July 24 2022
238
William Cobbett was delighted with one young woman’s protest against Mr Pitt’s ingenious ways of raising money.
In 1784, the use of a horse for purposes other than farming was subjected to tax, one of Prime Minister William Pitt’s many ingenious tax-grabs. William Cobbett (who blamed the taxes on the national debt racked up by unnecessary wars) chuckled with delight nearly forty years later, when he stumbled across a farmer’s wife making a gentle protest.
Picture: By George Bellows (1882-1925), via the National Gallery of Art (Washington DC) and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted July 23 2022
239
It rankled with Henry II that Wales did not pay to him the honour she had paid to his great-grandfather, William the Conqueror.
When Henry II came to the throne in 1154, Welsh princes no longer paid England the respect they had paid to his great-grandfather, William the Conqueror. But then one of them, Cadwallader, came and begged Henry to help win back his lands from his brother Owen Gwyneth. Henry saw his chance, and at a council in Northampton in July, 1157, resolved to march on North Wales.
Picture: Thomas Pennant (1726-1798), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted July 22 2022
240
Charles Darwin was on hand in 1836 to witness the catastrophic effects of a series of earthquakes in Chile.
On March 4th, 1836, HMS Beagle arrived at Talcahuano Bay by the city of Concepcion in Chile. With that instinct that marks out the hero (and the scientist) Captain Robert Fitz-Roy had sailed there as soon as he felt a series of earth tremors disturb his ship, anchored at nearby Mocha. Naturalist Charles Darwin was on board, and left us his impressions of the impact of the earthquake.
Picture: By Ernest Goupil (1814-1841), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted July 22 2022