Tipp woman (28) was burned to death by her family, who believed her to be possessed by a fairy

On March 15, 1895, Bridget Cleary, the 28-year-old wife of a copper went missing from her cottage near Clonmel in County Tipperary. Days later her body was found in a shallow grave, burned to death by her husband and family members who suspected her of being possessed by a fairy.

Cleary, called “the last witch burned in Ireland,” was the victim of dangerous superstitious beliefs. Her story has become part of Irish folklore, and her tragic tale has been immortalized in the children’s rhyme “Are you a witch or are you a fairy, Or are you the wife of Michael Cleary?”

Books have been written about her and filmmakers are currently trying to raise funds to make a movie loosely based on her story.

Real illness - pneumonia or tuberculosis

Cleary and her husband Michael were a well-off but childless couple. Bridget was a dressmaker who made additional independent income from keeping hens. According to accounts, she caught a cold that possibly developed into pneumonia or she may have had tuberculosis.

As her condition worsened, her husband and her uncle, Jack Dunne, began to circulate the story that Bridget had been taken by fairies and the woman in the bed was a changeling. According to Irishidentity.com, herbal cures were forced down her throat and she was held over the fire while being asked repeatedly if she was a changeling. Several family members assisted and neighbors were present the evening before her death as more tests were conducted on her.

On March 15, her husband set fire to her nightgown and threw lamp-oil on her.

“She’s not my wife,” he said. “You’ll soon see her go up the chimney.”

Family hiding the body

He forced one of her brothers to carry her to a shallow grave. Some time afterward, it was reported to the local priest that Bridget had been burned to death by her husband and other family members. The priest went to the police who found her charred body and arrested nine people, including Bridget’s family members, neighbors and friends, in connection with the murder. Michael Cleary served 15 years for the crime after which he emigrated to Canada.

According to the New York Times, the case was used as a weapon against Irish Home Rule, asking how could a people who still believed in fairies and spirits be trusted to govern themselves in the modern world? Two books, both published in 2000, “The Burning of Bridget Cleary” by Angela Bourke and “The Cooper’s Wife Is Missing” by Joan Hoff and Marian Yeates, have examined the newspaper coverage of the Cleary case and look at Bridget’s death in the context of what was happening in Ireland at the time.

Waking the Witch

In 2014, filmmaker Neil O’Driscoll raised funds for a new movie that uses the Cleary case as the backdrop of a modern psychological thriller. According to Fundit.ie, the film, called ‘Waking the Witch,’ is about Marianne, “a teenager killing time on her summer holidays by accompanying her uncle on a research trip, delving into the life and death of Bridget Cleary, the last witch burned in Ireland. Marianne is also dealing with the memory of a traumatic incident, and the effort of repressing it is causing psychological schisms.

“Marianne, instead of confronting her problems, immerses herself in preparations for the midsummer festival. She's intrigued by the bohemian lifestyle of her uncle and his friends, and captivated by a young artist she encounters. As the fractures in reality increase in frequency, she starts to sense that she has more in common with Cleary than she'd like.”

Here is the trailer for the film:

'Waking The Witch' trailer from Neil O'Driscoll on Vimeo.

* Originally published in 2014.

Ireland is known for its rainy weather but these storms were unusual in their strength and destruction

Today, August 25, marks the anniversary of Hurricane Charley, which had devastating effects. Winds of 65.2mph and rainfall peaking at 280mm in Kippure, County Wicklow, resulted in the breaking of daily rainfall records and dangerous flooding, inundating over 450 buildings.

In Bray, the River Dargle overflowed, flooding some areas with almost two meters of water, leading to the evacuation of 1,000 people. At least five people were killed and $9,279,000 was allocated to repairs.

Charley was not the only major storm to batter Ireland. The island has been battered by a few fierce storms.

Here is a list of Ireland's worst storms and winters ever recorded:

1. The Night of the Big Wind - 1839

The Night of the Big Wind was a massive hurricane that swept over Ireland on the night of January 6, 1839.

Up to 300 people died, tens of thousands were left homeless, and winds reached well over 115 miles per hour in a category three hurricane. Twenty-five percent of the houses in Dublin were destroyed and 42 ships were sunk.

The storm began after a period of very odd Irish weather. A heavy snowstorm on January 5 was followed by a balmy sunny day, almost unheard of for that time of year.

Some people claimed the temperature reached as high as 75 degrees and the heavy snow of January 5 totally melted.

During daytime on January 6, a deep Atlantic low pressure system began moving across Ireland, where it collided with the warm front. The first news of bad weather was reported in County Mayo. The steeple at the Church of Ireland in Castlebar was blown down.

As the evening wore on, the winds began to howl and soon reached hurricane force. The arrival of the hurricane force winds would never be forgotten by those who lived through it.

The Dublin Evening Post described its arrival with the following: “about half past ten it rose into a high gale, which continued to increase in fury until after midnight, when it blew a most fearful and destructive tempest.”

In Dublin, crowds flocked to the old Parliament House in College Green to hide under the portico, believing it to be one of the few places strong enough to withstand the storm.

Read more about the weather here

2. The Big Snow of 1947

Anyone who lived through the blizzard of 1947 will always have it ingrained in their memory. The harsh conditions and the scarcity of fuel and food made life difficult for both man and beast.

The extreme weather began at the end of February 1947 and continued well into the month of March. The snow and wind were quite severe on the last Friday in February.

The snow fell intermittently until the Monday, when a blizzard set in with strong cold winds and harsh daytime snows – this continued for twenty-four hours nonstop. The blizzard was driven by a fierce east wind and swept the country on the Tuesday.

It paralyzed road and rail services and brought all traffic to a standstill. Huge snow-drifts, some up to fifteen feet high, were common in many areas.

The cold weather began around the middle of February and lasted through March. Up to 600 people are said to have died.

3. Hurricane Katia - September 2011

Hurricane Katia battered Ireland and wreaked havoc across the country. Hurricane-force winds and giant waves led to transport chaos, fallen trees, damaged buildings and flooding.

The government’s weather forecasters, Met Eireann, issued an extreme weather warning amid predictions of storm gusts of up to 80mph battering the west and northwest coasts.

Peak winds of 71mph swept across the rest of the country thanks to the tail end of Hurricane Katia, which was classified a category four hurricane when it had hit the US coastline earlier that month.

4. Worst Winter on Record - 1963

The winter of 1962/1963 continues to be talked about in Ireland – and with good reason. It remains the coldest winter on record in Ireland and the UK since records began, according to IrishWeatherOnline’s Patrick Gordon.

The consistency of low daily mean temperatures that set in during the Christmas period of 1962, which lasted right up to the middle of March, was truly remarkable.

Snow showers continued to fall in counties Wicklow, Waterford, Wexford, Cork, Tipperary, Limerick, Kildare and Kilkenny, which added to the already significant accumulations in these areas and further isolated rural areas. In Europe, it was reported that at least 500 people died due to the intense cold that set in during late December.

5. Hurricane Charley - August 25, 1986

A hurricane downgraded to an extratropical cyclone, Charley brought heavy rainfall and strong winds to Ireland and the United Kingdom and was responsiblefor at least 11 deaths.

In Ireland, the rainfall set records for 24 hour totals, including an accumulation of more than 7.8 in (200 mm), which set the record for the greatest daily rainfall total in the country.

Across the country, the rainfall caused widespread flooding, including two rivers bursting their banks. In the United Kingdom, the storm downed trees and power lines and caused rivers to flood.

Read more about the weather here

* Originally published in November 2011.

A powerfully poignant yarn about the special little village of Kiltyclogher in Co. Leitrim touched my hard enough heart. The story related how the surviving 233 residents in the village are using all the force of modern media tactics to try and preserve their future wellbeing.

They were warmly inviting folk from anywhere in the world, but maybe especially from Irish cities where housing is today a major problem to come down and settle in Kiltyclogher and infuse the place with new life and a brighter future.

Can I say straightaway that is a special offer indeed.  No matter where you are now residing, either overseas or in an Irish or British city, and despite resettlement problems of one kind or another, I can state without fear of contradiction that Kiltyclogher and its communal heart of pure gold has almost certainly more to offer you and yours than you can bring to it.

I know Kiltyclogher well for many years and will admit to being biased in its favor. That bias was created by the warmest of memories from the time I was a young man growing up just across the border in Co. Fermanagh.

I will factually record here a few of those to support my point. For example when I was a cub reporter for The Fermanagh Herald, learning my trade, I came to know a Michael Shanley who was then the headmaster of the local vocational school and who, in many ways, in his time and season, was virtually as much a patriot to his people as local son Sean MacDiarmada, the Easter Rising hero was away back in the GPO in 1916.

Shanley, an educator in the widest sense of the word for all his students, maybe saw through the decades ahead to the point where Kiltyclogher would be brought to its knees by enforced emigration. With few jobs locally in north Leitrim in the county called always the Cinderella County, Shanley not alone promoted Kiltyclogher through the local and national press at every opportunity, but also prepared his young students for the challenges which the wide world would throw at them when they left home, even if they were fortunate enough to only have to travel to Dublin.

In the square in Kiltyclogher there is a unique statue in honor of Sean MacDiarmada who, like the young generations after him, had to leave Kiltyclogher as a youth to gain further education and opportunity in the Dublin of his day. The statue is unique in its simplicity. He is rendered as he was, a slight enough country boy with a wistful and even sad expression on his stone face.

You could be forgiven for thinking he also foresaw the harsh social and economic times ahead. Michael Shanley told me long ago that MacDiarmada, a special friend of the old Fenian Tom Clarke, fell victim to polio as a young man and though he was in the GPO for the fighting, he could not man a front line post because he could barely walk without the aid of a cane.

To the best of my knowledge that is accurate. But he did his bit in the post office as best he could, cane and all and, it is recorded locally, faced the inevitable firing squad with great bravery in the end. 

Another Kiltyclogher memory from my youth has always stayed with me. We Fermanagh lads would cross the border on Sunday nights to dance and chase girls in the fabled Ballroom of Romance in nearby Glenfarne.

One night one of our number was leaving home a Kiltyclogher girl after the dance and our old banger of a car broke down totally in the heart of the village in the small hours of the morning. No cell phones back then to summon aid, and none of us were able to get the car going again.

However, hearing the battery rapidly going flat, a local man came out unbidden from his home in which a party was being held, called a neighbor who was a mechanic, and invited the four of us to his house party. There was music and dancing on the stone floor, great craic everywhere.

We were welcomed, fed and watered, and it was with the greatest of difficulty that we were able to press a 10 shilling note into the hand of the mechanic when he got our old car going again.

And the people of that house waved us away from their door as we departed, and warned us for God's sake to be careful crossing the bloody border down the road. Kiltyclogher that night, for sure, was better craic than the Ballroom of Romance.

That kind of generous friendship, with the best of music and dancing at the drop of a hat, garnished every visit I ever made afterwards to Kiltyclogher.

Sadly these were few because, like the village youth, I also had to move away from the north west to make my living. But you don't forget villages and communities with that kind of spirit.

To my certain knowledge, despite the dwindled population, it survives to this day, and already there are outside folk who moved to Kiltyclogher in the recent past, notably creative people like artists and musicians who are already contributing to a people and place which refuses to lie down and die. And Kiltyclogher, I am sure, will rise above its current pressures.

Again, poignantly, the locals are worried because there were only 15 pupils in their two-teacher primary school when the summer holidays came. The future of one of the teachers, maybe even the future of the school itself, is threatened unless other families with young children boost the numbers when school resumes in September.

Given the energy which a resilient people are pumping into their current campaign, I hope and pray that there is a transfusion of new young blood into the benches in the next few days. That hopefully will happen.

Then maybe, after all these years, visitors to Kiltyclogher might be able to spot the beginnings of the ghost of a smile on the young stone face of Sean MacDiarmade. I will keep ye posted.

While you enjoy your day, we encourage you to take every opportunity possible to slip a well-known phrase into conversation: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

The famous phrase is used internationally to describe how various things and people may seem differently beautiful from one person to the next. But you may not know that these words of wisdom came from the pen of 19th century Irish novelist Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, who we celebrate today as “The Duchess who wasn’t.”

Although only living until 42 years of age, The Duchess, the name she often used to remain anonymous, has at least 57 works attributed to her name and could have many, many more pieces of writing published, as much of her earliest work was released completely anonymously.

Although not known for her great character development or depth to her stories, Hungerford nonetheless became a highly admired and sought-after romance writer in the closing stages of the 19th century, earning her mentions in other famous works such as James Joyce’s “Ulysses”, where she and her most famous novel “Molly Bawn” cropped up in chapter 18.

It read: "...Molly bawn she gave me by Mrs Hungerford on account of the name I don't like books with a Molly in them like that one he brought me about the one from Flanders..."

Born the eldest daughter of a Church of Ireland Minister in 1885, Margaret was raised in Rosscarbery, Co. Cork, where she showed her writing talent from an early age, putting together pieces for her friends to enjoy and winning many writing competitions at school.

Read more: The top twenty books every Irish American should read

Her father Canon Fitzjohn Stannus Hamilton was from Dunboyne in Co. Meath and it is believed she would have had a fairly comfortable lifestyle throughout her childhood as the daughter of a minister, affording her a greater education than the majority of children in Ireland at the time, just less than a decade after the Great Famine.

She married Dublin solicitor Edward Argles when she was only 17 years old in 1872, living with him in Dublin and quickly having three daughters, Daisy, Reine and Elsie. Their marriage was to be short lived, unfortunately, and Margaret found herself widowed with three small children under the age of six when she was aged just 23.

Hoping to carve out a living for herself and her children through the writing talent she had shown in school, Margaret took up her pen with renewed vigor and returned to her family home at Milleen House in Rosscarbery. Already writing throughout her first marriage, her career took an upswing with the publication of her first novel “Phyllis” closely followed by the book which would bring her her fame “Molly Bawn”.

On her return to Cork, Margaret struck up another relationship, with the eldest son of the local landlord, much to the dismay of his mother.

Thomas Henry Hungerford lived in Cahermore House, situated just around the corner from where Margaret lived, and as a member of the well-known Hungerford family, it can be presumed he had already met with the local Protestant Minister's daughter before her move to Dublin.

As the eldest son of Henry Jones Hungerford and Mary Boon Couper, Thomas Henry had trained for the army but his family were reluctant to let him go, his father refusing to give him the money for his commission when it was time for him to leave.

Traveling to fight in the Boer War in South Africa in 1881, he was promptly called home by his mother, who claimed she was worried about his father’s behavior, only to reach Cork and discover his mother had simply designs to marry him off to another rich young lady: Miss Townsend of Derry House.

Thomas Henry was quick to turn down the marriage with Miss Townsend (who would later marry George Bernard Shaw) and his mother was left appalled when he went on to secretly marry his neighbor Margaret in London while she was on a business trip to meet with publishers, a widowed writer with three children regarded as a disagreeable match for her eldest son.

Read more: Famous quotes from the most influential Irish authors

Married again in 1882 just a decade after her first marriage, Margaret returned to Milleen House where her next two children Henry and Vera were born. The wrath of her mother-in-law failed to wane, however, and with Margaret fearing to be in the same room as her, the couple and the five children relocated once more to St.Brenda’s House in Bandon, Co. Cork (now called Overton House).

It was here that Margaret is said to have been at her most happiest, giving birth to one last son Tom and continuing to write for eight years in St. Brenda’s before her untimely death from typhoid fever, aged 42, on January 24, 1897. She was in the middle of completing her book “The Coming of Chloe” when she died.

Relying on flirtatious dialogue and delicate love scenes, Margaret’s style of romance novel were very much in vogue, keeping with all the upright morals appropriate to the time. They were seen to be entertaining and charming and captured the essence of the fashionable society of the day, often using settings in Ireland.

Writing articles, short stories, and novels on commission, she is most remembered for her character Molly Bawn, an Irish girl who riles up the temper of her lover with her flirtatious manner and her apathy for the normal social conventions of late 19th century Ireland. It was also in this book that the phrase “Beauty is on the eye of the beholder” was first coined.

Setting aside three hours each morning for her writing in a highly organized room, surrounding herself with reference books, Margaret was often published under “Mrs. Hungerford” but it is as “The Duchess” we will remember her today.

 H/T: TheIrishStory.com

* Originally published in 2016.

Today is the 95th anniversary of the 'Big Fella's' funeral when a fifth of Ireland’s population came to pay their respects

Today marks the 95th anniversary of the funeral of Michael Collins, the beloved Irish Republican freedom fighter.

Thousands lined Sackville St (O’Connell St today) in Dublin’s city center for his funeral in August 1922, to pay tribute to “The Big Fellow,” a hero in the fight for Irish independence and a man who worked hard for the benefit of Ireland in the establishment of the Irish Free State.

Some 500,000 people, almost a fifth of the population of the country at the time, attended his funeral ceremony in Dublin’s Pro Cathedral, among them foreign and Irish dignitaries.

Born in 1890, the Corkman came from a family of republicans and served as Joseph Plunkett's aide-de-camp in the General Post Office (GPO) in Dublin during the 1916 Rising.

After his internment in Frongoch prison camp in Wales, Collins returned to Ireland and soon emerged as a major leader following the execution of the republican movement’s leadership in the aftermath of the Rising.

Named as Minister of Finance by Eamon de Valera in 1919, Collins’ influence on the fight for freedom continued to grow after his success in engineering de Valera’s escape from Lincoln Prison in England.

Collins also acted as Director of Intelligence for the Irish Republican Army during the War of Independence, organizing a special assassination unit called The Squad expressly to kill British agents and informers.

Collins left school at just 15 years of age, but despite that, such was Collin’s strategic prowess that he was named as one of the Irish delegates to travel to England to negotiate with the British government when a truce was called in 1921. The negotiations eventually led to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which saw the establishment of the “Irish Free State” and the partition of Ireland into North and South.

Collins was a prominent advocate for the Treaty, despite referring to his signing of the agreement as being akin to signing his own death warrant, and he was one of the main political figures on the Pro-Treaty side of the Civil War that followed the implementation of the Treaty.

Unfortunately, Collins lost his life during the course of the Civil War at the hands of those who had fought alongside him in the War of Independence.

Traveling in a convoy through Béal na mBláth, Co. Cork, Collins had been convinced “they won’t shoot me in my own county.” The convoy was ambushed by anti-Treaty forces, however, and Collins received a single gunshot wound to the head that killed him instantly.

He is believed to have been shot by fellow Corkman Dennis “Sonny” O’Neill, a former member of the Royal British Constabulary who had fought for the British Army during World War I. O’Neill joined the IRA in 1918 and joined the anti-Treaty side during the Civil War.

Ireland’s loss was sorely felt and crowds flowed onto Dublin’s streets to say goodbye to their hero in a public funeral. His body had been transported by sea from Cork to Dublin and he lay in state for three days in Dublin City Hall, where not only republicans but British soldiers filed past his coffin to pay their respects.

Collins was laid to rest in Glasnevin Cemetery alongside all those national heroes who fought for Irish freedom.

* Originally published in 2015.

In March, 2015, the Clarke family from Co. Galway officially became the longest living group of siblings, with five of the 13 brothers and sisters all living to celebrate their 100th birthdays.

After months of campaigning by their relatives, the siblings’ achievement was finally recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records.

The Clarke siblings were born and raised on a cattle farm in Loughrea, Co. Galway. There was an early precedent for their astounding longevity – their mother, Margaret, also lived to be 100.

Joe, Charles, Pat, James and Madge, the only girl, have 504 years of life between them, the Irish Times reported last weekend. That’s over half a millennium.

Joe, the eldest, lived to be 101. Charlie lived to 100, Pat died at 102, and James died in 2009 at the age of 103.

James, who emigrated to the US and lived in The Bronx, celebrated his 100th birthday there in 2006. At the time, the Clarke family thought they had secured the record because of their mother’s wonderfully long life, only to learn that it strictly applied to siblings.

See More: Happy 113th birthday to the longest living person in Irish history (PHOTOS)

Madge caught up with her brothers last year, when she celebrated her 100th birthday. Shortly after, her son Joe Fanning went about collecting all the information necessary to prove their claim.

“Anything at all that would prove that these people had reached 100. It was just the birth certificates and the death certificates; I had to get it all out. I gave them as much as I could,” he told the Irish Times.

“I was extremely happy and proud for them because it was something that we were looking at for a number of years. They were just a phenomenal family and now it’s a reward for them that they have this record.”

He said that each of the siblings possessed incredible faith. “They had this great patience and an ability to communicate with you. They would always make you feel at home; their door was always open and there was tea in the pot on the table,” he added.

At her 100th birthday party, his mother’s words of advice were, “Never give out. . . . You never give out about anybody or speak badly about anybody; you speak nicely about everyone.”

* Originally published in March 2015

Ancient Ireland is filled with countless stories and histories of the land that now many are unfamiliar with. The Iron Age was the time in point in which the Druids made up the higher-educated tier of Celtic society. They were poets, doctors, and spiritual leaders that led people to seek a higher spirituality and education.

Druids were documented as far back as 25,000 years ago in caves across Europe where paintings of wild animals were sprawled across the walls. For the Druids, an important practice was rebirth which was first recognized around 3000 BC . Candidates who wished to be reborn would crawl into the caves to be reborn into the light of day. In Ireland's Newgrange in County Meath, the winter solstice sunrise shines through a perfectly placed shaft which fills the chamber with light at dawn.

Irish Druids derived from the times before Christianity had already been established. Prior to when Christianity was introduced, information was exchanged through the oral tradition which left us with little to no documentation for Druids teachings, religion and spirituality . Celtic and Druid continued to be documented and preserved by Christian clerics who recorded old stories and myths told by the Druids.

It wasn’t a quick process to become a Druid either. The process took over 20 years of such topics of astronomy, astrology, medicine, history, and law. The education process was all oral, and the Druids would sing to their students and in response the students would repeat the lesson in the chorus.

Although there are still tons of mysteries behind the life and teachings of Druids, there is a lot to be learned. The documentation that we do have is fascinating and is indicative of just how brilliant the intellectual minds of our ancestors are.

What do you know about ancient Ireland? Let us know in the comments.

A John F. Kennedy Presidential summary outlining his accomplishments and the timeline of the 35th President.

The John F. Kennedy presidency was a helter-skelter ride from the Kennedy campaign to the Cuban Missile Crisis right up until Jack Kennedy’s tragic assassination. Jackie Kennedy and her husband’s time in the White House are a subject of much curiosity to many but no need to read a John F. Kennedy biography! We have all the facts and numbers you need about the United States’ 35th President.

These are the key facts to remember about John F. Kennedy and his Presidency:

Who was John F. Kennedy and what was his family’s history in America?

He was the great grandson of Famine refugees: like so many other Irish people, JFK’s ancestors arrived in Boston poor and penniless but, thanks to luck and hard work, they were fabulously wealthy within a few generations.

The Kennedys’ humble origins remain important to the family and at the height of last year’s refugee crisis his grandson Jack Schlossberg wrote, “If the Kennedys had been barred from entering America after fleeing Ireland during the famine, my grandfather never would have been president.”

What was JFK’s role in World War II?

He served his country with bravery during World War II: at first, it looked like JFK might have to sit out the war behind a desk on account of his bad back but his influential father saw to it that he was given a more heroic job than that.

He was given command of a patrol torpedo (PT) boat in the Pacific and a routine patrol turned to tragedy after a Japanese attack left two of the crew dead.

The crew fought on and struggled towards an island and safety three miles away from where they were rescued. For his bravery under fire, Kennedy was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal.

John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy Onassis

He fell in love with Jackie Kennedy: the only reason there was a Camelot was because the two met, courted and fell in love. As a young Congressman Kennedy and his future bride moved in the same exclusive social circles and they shared a similar devout Catholicism, interest in writing and travel. After his election to the US Senate in 1952, Kennedy proposed but Jackie needed some time to think. She was sent to London to cover the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II for her work. When she returned she had made up her mind and accepted his proposal.

Read more: Unseen photos of JFK and Jackie Kennedy “wedding of the century”

How did the advent of TV influence JFK’s Presidency?

Kennedy won the first TV debate: the 1960 Presidential election introduced a historic game changer into the mix. From now on candidates would be able to debate their policies before an entire nation and telegenic, handsome JFK dazzled viewers watching at home. Vice President Nixon, by contrast, looked nervous and uncomfortable. The verdict was remarkable mainly because most of those who had listened at home on the radio thought Nixon had won the debate. On the radio, the VP seemed assured and in control of his answers, but folks watching at home just saw a sweaty man arguing for a job.

John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis

After America’s failed invasion of Cuba, the Soviet Union moved to place a number of ballistic missiles on the island just 90 miles away from the Florida coast. The move caused panic in Washington and the wider world and led to a period of intense negotiations between the two countries. Many despaired that nuclear warheads would inevitably shower down upon the citizens of the United States but eventually the USSR agreed to move the weapons away. In exchange, America declared the US would never again invade Cuba.

Could JFK have survived his assassination?

Irishman William Greer was JFK’s driver on the day he was shot. He was trained by the Secret Service to speed up his car in the event that any kind of disturbance. However, after the first shot was fired instead of putting his foot to the pedal he slowed down. Was this a fatal error? We will never know for sure.

Visit the Irish Great Hunger memorial in New York’s Financial District without ever setting foot in Manhattan.

Just north of Battery Park, New York’s Irish Great Hunger memorial in the city’s Financial District is a must-see park for any visitor to the city. If a trip to Manhattan is not on the cards, however, this brilliant video from Curbed NY will show you every nook and cranny of this beautiful piece of rural countryside Ireland nestled within the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple.

The Irish Great Hunger Memorial New York sits on a half-acre site, transforming a part of the city into a perfect haven for Irish people and lovers of Ireland alike as they search the wild Irish field, stocked with plants and shrubs similar to those found in the Emerald Isle, for their particular Irish county stone. When the memorial was first being developed, then Irish President Mary McAleese wished to send a gift, sourcing a stone from each of the 32 Irish counties and engraving it with its county title before the artist set them at various points around the ground for visitors to explore.

Read more: New York’s Irish Famine Memorial re-opens after $5m renovation

The main focal point of the memorial, however, is an original Irish 19th-century cottage which was shipped brick by brick from the west coast of Ireland across the Atlantic to New York and reconstructed to pay tribute to the some one million people who died and one million people who emigrated during the Great Hunger in Ireland during the 1840s. The memorial also remembers, however, that hunger is still far from eradicated from the world, calling attention to the various countries still suffering through famine in words visible through glass under the limestone plinth as you walk into the cottage entrance.

Designed by artist Brian Tolle, the cottage featured in the memorial is, in fact, a building that belonged to the family of his partner in Ireland. In a beautiful gesture of “the family that stayed, giving to the family that left,” they allowed the transportation of the 1820s cottage to play the central role in the Hunger Memorial.

Bringing together the 1820s cottage with stones from around Ireland and 500-billion-year old rocks from Kilkenny, Totte has succeeded in his artistic goal: creating a place of commemoration and contemplation about world hunger.

First opening in 2002, the downtown Manhattan memorial was closed throughout 2016 and much of 2017 for a $5 million, year-long renovation before opening again last July 28. Now standing at the site for 15 years, Hurricane Sandy had hurried along the decay of the memorial leaving it with waterproofing and drainage issues and forcing it to close.

Irish legends and myths have provided generations of storytellers with epic magical tales and characters full of bravery, passion, and loyalty

Irish folklore, legends, and myths are loved across the world for the imagination and significance in which they bring us closer to ancient times. For many years, Irish storytelling was always a spoken word and never written down. Instead, the stories were passed down from generation to generation. Such is the influence that ancient Irish myths have played in our culture, that many of the most popular Irish names today are taken from the characters of Irish legends such as heroic Fionn Mac Cumhail. 

Here are our favorite Irish legends and myths that will let you in on another side to Irish history and culture:

Finn MacCool (Fionn Mac Cumhaill)

Finn MacCool accidentally gained all the knowledge in the world. He gained an understanding of the past, present, and future because of the magical salmon in which he ate from the River Boyne.

The Children of Lir

The Children of Lir follows four siblings, three boys, and one girl. Their mother died but their father Lir, quickly remarried Aoife, a woman filled with jealousy over the kids and began to plot their murder. The children end up being turned into swans because Aoife wants love from Lir. However, things do not go in her favor.

Read more: Irish myths and legends - the giant and the baby

Oisín of Tír na n-Óg

Oisín who was a warrior with the Fianna and one day met Niamh Cinn Óir. She invited him to her home which was under the waters of the lake, in a place called Tír na n-Óg (the land of the young).

Fairies

Rooted in Celtic folklore, fairies are the most magical and mystical of myths. One of the most fascinating things about Irish fairies is that they can take any form but most often appear as humans.

Read more: Top ten stories and figures from Irish mythology

Cú Chulainn

Cuú Chulainn was born as Setanta, the son of human parents but he was renamed Cú Chulainn (meaning "The Hound of Cullen") after killing Culann's own dog with nothing but a sliotar and hurl. He went on to work for Culann to pay him back for killing his hound, and the Irish hero battled many monsters and heroes for his boss.

The Banshee

The bean-sidhe (evolved to Bean Sí, literally meaning fairy woman, and then anglicized to Banshee) is a fairy who may have been an ancestral spirit appointed to warn members of certain ancient Irish families of their time of death. She appears in one of three guises: a young woman, a stately matron, or a raddled old hag.

The Legend of Diarmuid & Grainne

Labeled as the great romantic legend of Ireland, the story follows the love triangle between the warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill, the princess Gráinne, and Diarmuid Ua Duibhne.

What are your favorite Irish legends and myths? Let us know in the comments section, below.

Be careful! The Ivory Coast flag is very like Ireland's with one distinct difference

With hundreds of countries across the globe, it’s not surprising that there is some overlap in color scheme and design. One of the most confusing and similar flags are the Irish flag and Ivory Coast flag. However, there are some pretty different meanings behind the flag colors and design, despite both having three vertical stripes of green, orange, and white. The main difference between the Ivory Coast flag and Irish flag is, of course, the color order but there are also massive differences in their histories. 

So don't be like one Dublin pub who flew the completely wrong flag, get your facts straight for the Ivory Coast vs Ireland flag-off: 

The Ivory Coast Flag

The meaning of the flag is represented through the tri-colors. The orange shade represents the savanna grasslands, while the white is symbolic of the country's rivers, and the green represents the coastal forests. The background of this flag is very much to do with the geography and nature of the country whereas the Irish tricolor has a much more political twist. 

The Ivory Coast flag was designed in the like of the French Tricolore (the country was a French colony) and officially adopted on December 3, 1959, when the Côte d’Ivoire (the official name for the Ivory Coast) just a few weeks before it became a fully independent country. 

The Irish Flag

Like the Ivory Coast, the Irish flag’s meaning is represented through the tri-colors as well. The green shade represents Irish Catholics and the republican cause,  the orange represents the Irish Protestants, and the white represents the hope for peace between them. 

Bratach na hÉireann was flown publicly for the first time during the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848, on March 7, in Waterford City, at the Wolfe Tone Confederate Club. It was flown by Thomas Francis Meagher, then a leader of the Young Irelander movement, who would go down in history as Brigadier General Thomas Francis Meagher of the Union Army during the American Civil War.

When Meagher hung the tricolor in Waterford, it boldly flew for eight days and nights until it was taken down by the British. It wasn't until after the 1916 Easter Rising and partition, however, that the tricolor began to be fully adopted as the new Irish flag. The previous design involved an Irish harp on a completely green background. 

Read more: Do you know the story behind the Irish flag?

Have you made the mistake of mixing up these flags? Let us know in the comments.

In military historian Tom Burke’s new book Messines to Carrick Hill: Writing Home From the Great War, he quotes the gripping real life letters of Michael Thomas Wall, a young Irish officer enlisted in the Royal Irish Regiment during World War I.

Like so many young people of his era Wall, who hailed from a happy middle-class family in Carrick Hill, north Co. Dublin, was seduced by the thought of high adventure and glory in the front lines of France and Belgium.

But his youthful ardor soon cooled when he reached the smoking battlefields and saw the daily unspeakable pointless slaughter. The harsh reality awaiting him and tens of thousands of other young men quickly cured him of his romantic fantasies.

The utter betrayal of the World War I generation to the murderous war machine is a subject we should tell and retell until the end of time, to lament their cruel fates and perhaps give some pause to our own gung-ho compatriots. 

Burke uses Wall’s own vivid letters as his primary source and follows the handsome young officer’s progress on the southern end of the Ypres salient.

From wanting to go to war and see the wider world, soon all the disillusioned young Wall wanted to do was go home.  He writes about St. Patrick’s Day and how it passed almost unnoticed at the front. He writes about the friends of his youth he encounters on the front lines.

At home, his mother was having Masses said for him to bring him safely back.   She kept every one of his letters in a dedicated tin box, even when they had nothing much to say or report, because they were living links to him. She treasured that.

Each time the postman arrived she prayed to hear a new report from him. Then one day in June 1917 an official looking envelope arrived bearing her name.

She sat down at the table with her heart racing, Burke writes. Written over the top of the letter were the words, “Telegram. No Charge for Delivery.”

Written in dark pencil were the words, “To Mrs. Wall, Carrick Hill, Malahide, County Dublin. Deeply regret to inform you 2nd Lieut. M.T. Wall Irish Regiment was killed in action June 7. The Army Council express their sympathy. Secretary War Office.”

Youth, when it’s prevented by war from reaching full maturity, stands among the worst tragedies that life can offer us. The perfunctory words must have felt like a slap.  Burke takes one Irishman’s story and manages to quietly convey the epic scale of the whole tragic enterprise.

Dufour, $29.

Victims of the September 11 attacks are remembered in memorials across Ireland

In the 16 years since the attacks on September 11, 2001, memorials both big and small have been built throughout the United States and across the globe. The most immediate ones were impromptu – garlands draped on a parked car it became clear no one would claim, notes and photographs taped to fences and walls around New York City, candles placed outside of Ladder Company fire houses.

Others came in time. With the realization that so many people would not be coming home, names were added to lists that grew longer and longer. Names of firefighters, of executives and their staff members, of police officers, of building workers, of airplane passengers, of Pentagon officials – 2,973 in total. Their names are now engraved and commemorated in hundreds of permanent memorials in the most directly devastated areas – New York, New Jersey, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania – and in some less expected places, providing a lasting reminder of the global effect of the September 11th attacks.

Five such memorials have been built in Ireland. At least 18 Irish citizens – 7 born on the island of Ireland – died that day, as did scores of other people of Irish descent – from many of the financial workers in the upper floors of the Twin Towers to a significant number of the brave FDNY and NYPD members who tried to rescue them.

Ireland’s national monument to the most Irish of the U.S. Army’s Infantry Regiments, the Fighting 69th, also serves as a tribute to the civilians who perished on 9/11 and to the soldiers of the 69th who were among the first military units to respond following the attacks, and who have served in the war in Iraq. Located in Ballymote, Co. Sligo, the memorial was dedicated in August 2006 by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and family members of Irish-American victims of 9/11, including Jack Lynch, the father of Irish-American firefighter Michael Lynch, who was killed during the collapse of Tower 2.

The monument consists of a copper cylinder, which is intertwined with steel donated from the wreckage of the World Trade Center. Etched images of Sligo native and Civil War Brigadier General Michael Corcoran, one of the commanders of the Fighting 69th, adorn the structure.

Co. Kildare pays tribute to the 402 public officials who died during the 9/11 attacks

In Donadea Forest Park, Co. Kildare, a pair of scaled down limestone replicas of the Twin Towers stand in a clearing surrounded by oak tree saplings. Officially presented on September 21, 2003, the memorial towers are engraved with the names of the 402 public officials who died during the attacks.

The inspiration for the memorial was Sean Tallon, a young fireman whose family had emigrated from Dondea to New York, who had frequently visited his grandparents in Dondea. At the ceremony, Kildare Mayor Michael Fitzpatrick said “We wanted to do something to remember Sean and his colleagues and all the other public officials who died that day. This wonderful memorial is the result.”

Glendalough, Co. Wicklow, one of Ireland’s most well-known places of Christian pilgrimage, offers visitors a quiet space to contemplate the events and aftermath of 9/11. Part of the larger spiritual journey of the Glendalough Hermitage Centre’s meditation garden, Br. Joseph McNally’s sculpture of the towers “marks the tragedy and challenge to peace posed by this event and is located in the context of a path reflecting on the defining choices we make.”

FDNY Chaplain Fr. Mychal Judge is remembered in two Irish memorials to September 11

Those words could just as easily be applied to FDNY Chaplain Fr. Mychal Judge, whose defining choice to help those in need and to offer comfort in times of trouble ultimately lead to his death on the morning of September 11th. Two memorials in Ireland recognize his incredible journey and testify to his lasting influence. 

The son of immigrants from Co. Leitrim, Fr. Judge began his seminary training at age 15 and was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest thirteen years later, in 1961. A dedicated Franciscan, he was also one of the Order of the Friars Minor, and served at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi on West 31st Street, right across from the Engine Company 1/Ladder Company 4 firehouse.

In September 2001, Fr. Judge had been Chaplain of the FDNY for 9 years – always there for victims, firefighters and their   families. He was in the lobby of the North Tower, delivering prayers and aid, when he was crushed by debris from the collapse of the South Tower at 9:59 am. His body was recovered and was among the first to be carried out of Ground Zero, which made Fr. Judge, on the official record, victim 0001.

The people of Keshkerrigan, Co. Leitrim, the town Fr. Judge’s father left in 1926, and which he had visited the year before, built a memorial in his honor and in remembrance of all those whose lives were lost. The Fr. Mychal Judge Peace Garden sits on land that belonged to the Judge family, on the shores of Kesh Lake, just outside the main village. Fr. Judge’s twin sister, Dymphna Jessich, traveled from New York for the inaugural commemoration ceremony on September 11, 2005, and donated the flag that covered Fr. Judge’s casket to the town of their father’s ancestors. The memorial was hailed by Michael Daly of the New York Daily News as “An Irish Tribute that Gets it Right.”

Across the island, in Kinsale, Co. Cork, a second Irish memorial honors Fr. Judge and the firefighters he both worked with and befriended. The Ringfinnan Garden of Remembrance contains 343 trees – one for each of the firefighters and first responders lost. It was initiated by Kathleen Murphy, a nurse in New York City who was born in Kinsale and whose family continues to live there. The first tree was planted just two months after 9/11, in  November, 2001, and the garden was officially dedicated on March 10, 2002.

* Originally published in 2011.

The evening of 10 September was warm and still. Aoife Keane, a twenty-year-old Dublin psychology student, the daughter of my friend Michael Keane, former editor of the Sunday Press newspaper in Ireland, arrived to stay with us for a few days. It was her first time in New York. We went out onto our little balcony and she gazed up in wonder at the lights of the twin towers high above us. The building was constructed without light switches and the lights were never extinguished, day or night. She said, “I am going to go to the top tomorrow morning.”

Aoife was still asleep the next day in the guest room, and Zhanna, my wife had gone to her office uptown, where she worked as director of development for the Geneva-based International Baccalaureate, when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower at 8.46 a.m., laden with 10,000 gallons of fuel. The plane had flown past my apartment block, but downtown Manhattan is a very noisy place and I don’t remember hearing it as I worked on an article on how the economic downturn was affecting New York’s restaurants. When the bang shook our building, I thought, from years of monitoring the sound of explosions, that it was a bomb.

I jumped up and saw a gaping hole near the top of the north tower, the nearest of the two towers, with flames and black smoke pouring out. I made several quick telephone calls, to my news desk, to my Irish Times colleague Paddy Smyth in Washington DC, and to Zhanna. I also called RTÉ, to which I often gave interviews, to alert them to what had happened. It was almost two o’clock in the afternoon in Ireland. They asked me to go on air immediately. Just before the broadcast I heard the RTÉ announcer report a newsflash about an aircraft hitting the World Trade Center. Only then did I realise what it was.

I woke Aoife after the interview. “Get up, something terrible has happened,” I said. At this stage I didn’t know if it was an accident or an attack. From the living room window I trained my old pair of Russian military binoculars on a man at a window of the north tower. He was standing on a window ledge of the ninety-second or ninety-third floor, hanging out above Vesey Street 300 metres below. There was black smoke pouring from the row of narrow, vestry-like windows beside and above him. He was waving a white cloth. It looked like his shirt. He was in his thirties, I would say, and a little overweight.

Then Aoife said with a gasp, “There’s another plane!” United Flight 175 skimmed over the Hudson River to our right and smashed into the south tower between the seventy-eighth and eighty-fourth floors, creating a huge orange and black fireball and showering Broadway with flaming debris. There was no doubt now that this was an act of war and I recall thinking that there would be terrible retribution. We watched helplessly as dozens of heart-wrenching individual tragedies were enacted within our gaze. More people appeared at upper-storey windows crying soundlessly for assistance. We saw five fall to their deaths in a short space of time. Flames began to leap from the side of the nearby Marriott hotel, drenched with burning fuel. About two dozen fire engines came wailing down West Side Highway and screeched to a halt outside the north tower. Scores of firemen ran into the buildings laden down with gear.

After a few minutes I decided to go to the twin towers myself, and took the lift to the ground floor forty-two storeys below. As I passed through the lobby of my building, a woman was in hysterics; her husband worked in the World Trade Center (he survived). I went to the corner of Vesey Street and West Side Highway. People were running in panic away from the burning towers. Others stood in shock, hands over open mouths, heads craning upwards. A security man pushed me back. Someone screamed, “Oh my God, people are jumping!” More bodies were falling onto Vesey Street and onto the plaza between the towers.

Some fell with arms extended, as if for a crucifixion, taking what seemed like ten seconds to reach the ground. I thought I had better get back to my office. Frankly I was scared that the towers would collapse on top of me or that I would be hit by falling debris.

Also, police officers were closing off the streets and evacuating apartment buildings. I was worried that I would not be allowed back to my office and I felt responsible for Aoife, who, on her own, was witnessing scenes of unimaginable horror on her first morning in New York. I made it back minutes before police ordered all  residents of the building to leave.

I only found out later that the building manager, Rosie Rosenstein, a friend with whom I would occasionally sit on a bench outside and marvel at our good fortune to live in such a wonderful neighbourhood, decided not to mention my presence to the police, because he knew how important it was for me to continue reporting.

Back at my vantage point I noticed a helicopter buzzing low over the north tower. I thought: why doesn’t it take people off the roof, or lower a rope to the windows? I couldn’t know that the doors to the roof were locked and the pilots could not approach because of the heat.

Just before ten o’clock, I saw office workers who had been milling around the lawns of Battery Park suddenly turn and run as fast as they could. The south tower had started to fall. The top seemed to tilt over towards the river, and then crush the whole building beneath it. Jagged pieces of the tower the size of suburban houses crashed onto two fire engines, and engulfed rescue workers on the roadway. A huge cloud of dust and ash rose from the impact, enveloping the Embassy Suites Hotel below and the fifty-storey buildings of the World Financial Center.

I was by now completely numb, working on my reflexes, typing and making calls at high speed. The story was so enormous, I just had to keep my emotions in check, because my responsibilities to my newspaper were so great.

As the dust cleared, I scanned the windows of the still-standing north tower for the man who had been waving an hour before. Incredibly, he was still there, holding desperately on to a pillar between two of the narrow windows, as smoke poured out past him.

He most likely worked for the Marsh & McLennan insurance company, which had offices on several floors at that level. I will never know. As I watched, two bodies fell past him from the higher floors, then two more, and I saw that the tower was shuddering violently.

Much has been written about people “jumping”. I believe that many were clinging desperately to life, but at that moment were simply unable to hold on. Intense smoke and heat and the shaking gave people little choice. They could not breathe and had to crowd onto the window ledges. About 200 people fell to their death that morning, most from the north tower. None were ever classified as “jumpers”, i.e. people who deliberately commit suicide.

The north tower was now in its death throes. The end came at 10.28 a.m. The 110-storey tower imploded floor by floor, spewing out clouds of debris and atomised flesh. The man I was watching descended into the roaring blackness as if on a down elevator. I felt a connection with him. I had been watching him, on and off, and somehow felt he had been looking back at me. It left me with a feeling of guilt in the pit of my stomach, an awful sense of inadequacy and helplessness at not being able to do anything for him. My feelings about that day often come down to that one person and how he suffered.

As the yellow-brown cloud billowed out, rescue workers fled towards the river. Some jumped in and were pulled on board ferry boats. The dense mass of dust approached our apartment until we could almost reach out and touch it. Then it stopped, and retreated slowly, pushed back by a steady breeze from the Hudson. It left a thick layer of ash and dust coating the streets and parks below. It covered the broken bodies on Vesey Street like a shroud.

The grey of the landscape was broken by orange-red flames licking up from cars at Vesey and West Side Highway which had been set on fire by the burning debris. More cars were alight on Greenwich Street. The wide walkway across West Side Highway from the Winter Gardens lay broken on the highway. Beyond it, the Greek Orthodox Church had been crushed out of existence. Thousands of scraps of paper floated in the air like giant snowflakes. Some firemen stood in Greenwich Street, stunned, coated from head to foot in dust.

The local telephone lines were cut when the towers collapsed, and the mobile telephone network was overwhelmed, so I could not contact anyone in New York after that. But the long-distance service and broadband still worked. I was able to call my family, keep up contact with my office in Dublin, send digital photographs, and do more radio interviews throughout the afternoon. People who have forgotten anything I ever wrote tell me they recall these broadcasts. I always avoided emotion in radio interviews, but that day, when describing events on RTÉ, I remember involuntarily saying “Oh my God, this is terrible” as I saw more bodies falling to the pavement below.

All afternoon I struggled to match the drama and awfulness of the occasion in my reports. Aoife had a shower around three o’clock. For months afterwards it bothered her, irrationally, that she had done that, while so many people had died outside the windows.

Throughout this time a fire raged through No. 7 World Trade Center, a forty-seven-storey building that housed the diesel fuel tanks of the city’s emergency command centre, inexplicably located in this likely terrorist target by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani against the advice of his officials, though he would deny that later. At 5.20 p.m. it collapsed, falling straight down onto Greenwich Street. On its own, such an event would have made world headlines. In falling it smashed an electricity sub-station and cut off the electricity to our building. It was time to leave.

Carrying computer and overnight bags, we stumbled down forty-one flights of concrete emergency stairs in the dark. I kept thinking what it must have been like for those fleeing down the stairwells in the World Trade Center. I found Zhanna at a police barrier outside; I hadn’t been able to get through to her all afternoon and she had managed to make her way downtown past several roadblocks.

The three of us trudged north through streets clogged with emergency vehicles and exhausted firemen. Beyond the outer police cordon, groups of residents stood looking in stupefaction towards the smoking ruins. A car driven by Chris Coyne, a worker from St Vincent’s Hospital, stopped and took us as far as Greenwich Village. They had been prepared for mass casualties, he said, but few were admitted. People either died or escaped.

Though within walking distance of the gigantic pyre, a few people were dining at open-air wine bars in 10th Street in the heart of Greenwich Village, as if nothing had happened. We met up with Irish Times stringer, Elaine Lafferty, for a kerbside meal at a tiny restaurant called The Place. The actress Helen Hunt and another woman were at the next table. Here a rather surreal event took place, given the day that was in it. A fight broke out between a waiter and another diner, which spilled past us onto the pavement. We abandoned our table and Helen Hunt disappeared along the narrow street as chairs and bottles flew through the air. Someone said, “Get the cops,” as if there would be any available police to tackle a minor fracas, which in any event ended almost as soon as it had begun.

We got another ride uptown and managed to find rooms in the W Hotel on Lexington Avenue in midtown Manhattan. I thought we might be able to return to our apartment the next day but we were to spend ten days there.

I turned our room into the temporary Irish Times office. After a week, a bill was slipped under the door asking for immediate payment, since the amount exceeded $5,000, mainly due to the frequent use of the international line to which I had hooked my computer. I went to see the manager in the lobby, explained my situation, and asked if he could cut a deal on the telephone charges. He beckoned me to sit down. “I’m not going to allow you to leave this hotel . . .” he said (my heart sank), “. . . until we both agree on a reasonable charge for the telephone.” He was as good as his word. When we were allowed back to Battery Park City, he cut the bill almost in half.

The son of a labor organizer, Arthur Sheilds was quick to join James Connolly in the GPO when the 1916 Easter Rising started

Dermot McEvoy is the author of "The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising." This passage is taken from his latest book “Irish Miscellany: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Ireland.” This chapter is entitled “Can’t tell the rebels without a scorecard?”

The motion picture that defines Ireland to many Irish-Americans is John Ford’s “The Quiet Man.” Although made over 60 years ago, many still believe that the sentimental Ireland depicted in the film was the “real” Ireland of the time. It wasn’t—and probably never was. The things about the movie that still resonates is those involved in it, especially its director, Irish-American John Ford, and two of its scene-stealing stars—Barry Fitzgerald and Arthur Shields.

Even today many don’t realize that Barry (real name William Joseph Shields) and Arthur were brothers. Fitzgerald was born in 1888 on Walworth Street in the Portobello section of Dublin. (As a child he played with the younger siblings of James Joyce who he called “a young man with a beard and very clever.”)

He was followed eight years later by his brother, Arthur. (Their house, right next to the Jewish Museum, is today marked by a plaque.) Their father, Adolphus, lists his occupation in the 1901 Census as “Press Reader,” but he was well-known in Dublin as a labor organizer.

One of the big secrets of the family is that, although the brothers made their living in part playing Catholic priests, they were all Church of Ireland. (It should be noted that their mother, Fanny Sophia, who was born in Germany, lists her religion in the 1911 Census as “Agnostic.” Their sister Madeline lists her religion as “Spiritualist”—very outspoken for women in early twentieth-century Catholic Dublin!)

How Arthur Shields ended up fighting in the Easter Rising

Arthur Shields is one of the great stories of twentieth century Ireland. He became involved early at the Abbey Theatre and worked there as an actor, director, and stage manager. (He was known as “Boss” Shields.) But, still unknown to many, is that he was also a patriot. In 1916 he was a member of the Irish Volunteers and was prepared to fight on Easter Sunday when the orders were countermanded.

Read more: Easter Rising 1916.

On Easter Monday the revolution was on again, and Shields went to the Abbey and retrieved his rifle from under the stage. He went around the corner to Liberty Hall and joined with James Connolly’s Irish Citizen Army. (Connolly, an ardent socialist and master labor organizer, admired his father and congratulated Arthur on his parentage.)

He then marched to the General Post Office in Sackville Street where he fought before evacuating on Friday. He was sent to Stafford Prison in England with another famous rebel—Michael Collins—and from there they were both sent to the Frongoch prison camp in Wales. Both would return to Dublin by the end of 1916, Collins to terrorize the British and Shields to return to the Abbey stage.

William Shields—known as Will to his friends—worked in the Irish civil service in Dublin Castle, which must have been an interesting place during the War of Independence. After the Easter Rising, he joined his brother at the Abbey and befriended a playwright by the name of Seán O’Casey. While Arthur, tall and lean, was the romantic star of the theatre, Barry Fitzgerald—he took the pseudonym because he was still working in the civil service while moonlighting as an actor—was short and quiet, but had a comic magic that today would be simply translated as “star power.”

Barry’s relationship with O’Casey would soon have Ireland’s foremost playwright writing parts for him, including Captain Boyle in "Juno and the Paycock" and Fluther Good in "The Plough and the Stars". In fact, when that play premiered at the Abbey, riots broke out and little Barry could be seen boxing outraged theatre-goers who attempted to take the stage.

Read more: Top ten Irish movies of all time (VIDEOS)

In his wonderful book, "Hollywood Irish", Adrian Frazier makes a very salient point about the two kinds of people—Catholic and Protestant—working at the Abbey. O’Casey, also a Protestant, burst on the scene after the Irish civil war with "The Shadow of the Gunman" and became the most prominent Irish playwright since John Millington Synge (also a Protestant).

Shadow was followed by "Juno and the Paycock" and then by "The Plough and the Stars". Plough proved to be an incendiary play in the Dublin of its day. It questioned much of the nationalistic dogma of the time and brought an earthliness—it contained whores, drinkers, and looters—that upset much of the hierarchy in both government and Church.

It also created a chasm at the Abbey. The Catholics actors were very dubious and nervous about some of O’Casey’s tenets as expressed in Plough, while the two Shields brothers sided with their friend O’Casey. This chasm turned into an open wound when the Abbey, under Yeats and Lady Gregory, rejected O’Casey’s "The Silver Tassie".

The Sheilds brothers move to America

The Shields brothers and O’Casey started to look for greener pastures. Fitzgerald and O’Casey found them in London, while Shields, for the moment, remained at the Abbey. But the (barely) state-subsidized Abbey was in terrible financial shape and it was decided that the Abbey Players would go on the road to America to keep the theatre afloat.

After the repressive, smothering atmosphere of Catholic Dublin in the new Irish Free State—Arthur Shields famously said that he didn’t want to “say your prayers in Gaelic”—the United States seemed wonderful and invigorating. It also gave the Shields brothers a chance to make real money for the first time, something almost impossible in their itinerant trade back in Dublin. America also contained something called “Hollywood” and the lure would take several years, but finally seduced, first Barry, then Arthur.

Both worked in John Ford’s film version of "The Plough and the Stars". While Arthur continued with the Abbey Players in many capacities, Barry stayed in Hollywood where after appearing in "Bringing Up Baby" with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, he became a familiar face. The brothers would be reunited for Ford’s "How Green Was My Valley" and "The Long Voyage Home". With the advent of World War II, they were stuck in America and continued to work, mostly as reliable character actors.

Fitzgerald’s big break came when he was cast as the ancient Father Fitzgibbons (although he was only 56 at the time) in "Going My Way". To put it mildly, he stole the picture from Bing Crosby and was nominated for two Academy Awards, as Best Supporting Actor (which he won) and Best Actor (which Crosby won).

(It’s interesting to note the disparity in salary: Crosby was paid $150,000, while Fitzgerald only pulled down $8,750.) Fitzgerald’s dual nominations forced the Academy to change the rules in that no one actor could be nominated in two categories for the same role.

The Oscar made Fitzgerald a star and he went on to receive top billing in movies, including the seminal "Naked City" (1947). In this innovative Mark Hellinger production, filmed on the streets of New York in documentary style, Fitzgerald plays a tough New York homicide detective out to solve the murder of a model. For its time the film is full of forensic science. The movie led to the television series "Naked City" and without it, there would be no "Law and Order" and "CSI". In fact, Jerry Orbach’s "Law and Order" detective Lennie Briscoe owes a lot to Fitzgerald’s Lieutenant Dan Muldoon.

Fitzgerald made a lot of films—some pretty good like "And Then There Were None" and "Union Station" and some awful like "Top o’ the Morning"—between "Going My Way" and "The Quiet Man". Shields meanwhile found steady character work in over thirty films and TV work during the same period. But John Ford’s "The Quiet Man" was to be the apex of both their careers.

"The Quiet Man" remains one of the most beloved films of all time, but it is interesting culturally as well. Fitzgerald plays the roguish matchmaker Michaleen Oge Flynn while Shields plays the kindly Protestant minister, The Reverend Mister Cyril Playfair. Another Abbey player of renown, Eileen Crowe, plays Rev. Playfair’s wife, while an Abbey up-and-comer by the name of Jack MacGowran made his movie debut, playing the fawning little squint, Ignatius Feeney.

"The Quiet Man", ironically, represents a changing-of-the-acting-guard for the works of both Seán O’Casey and Samuel Beckett. O’Casey wrote parts for Fitzgerald, which, in the years ahead, would be played by MacGowran. (MacGowran was on Broadway playing Fluther Good in "The Plough and the Stars" when he passed away from pneumonia in New York in 1973 at the age of 54; his last movie part was in "The Exorcist".)

And in the years ahead MacGowran would become Samuel Beckett’s favorite actor and Beckett would write parts specifically tailored to MacGowran’s talents. “Author and actor are so commonly rooted in spirit,” wrote Mel Gussow in the New York Times in 1970 about MacGowran’s one man show, Jack MacGowran in the "Works of Samuel Beckett", “that if Beckett were an actor he would be MacGowran, and if MacGowran were a writer he would be Beckett.”

After "The Quiet Man" Fitzgerald’s career tapered down and he made only four more films and a few television appearances. He died in Dublin in 1961. Shields continued to work steadily, especially in television. His last film appearance was with Charlton Heston in "The Pigeon That Took Rome" in 1962. Unsurprisingly, he played a Vatican priest, Monsignor O’Toole. He died in 1970 in California.

The Shields brothers are buried side-by-side in Deansgrange Cemetery, Blackrock, Dublin. Barry Fitzgerald headstone lists only his birth name, William J. Shields. Both, home at last.

---

Dermot McEvoy was born in Dublin in 1950 and immigrated to New York City four years later. He is a graduate of Hunter College and has worked in the publishing industry for his whole career. He is the author of "The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising," "Terrible Angel," "Our Lady of Greenwich Village," and "The Little Green Book of Irish Wisdom." He lives in Greenwich Village, New York.

* Originally published in February 2015. 

You think you've got some weird stuff floating round your head? Have you met the Irish?

Irish are known worldwide as dreamers, indeed a famous poem begins ‘We are the Music Makers, and We are the dreamers of Dreams.”

But what are the top ten Irish dreams, and what do we make of them - including the nightmares?

The Celts as always had an answer:

Dream of an argument with a family member

Can mean a family secret that you need to tease out and explore with that person.

Dream of water

Concern about an upcoming journey or fear of drowning, a common nightmare as many Irish cannot swim.

Dream of a new love

May signify unhappiness in a relationship and a hidden desire to move on.

Dream of clouds

Maybe a fear of something you are covering up or a depression you are feeling.

Dream of money

Almost always about financial insecurity, especially if often repeated. A sign to try and make things better.

Dream of wild animals

Something dark and primitive in your soul, some secret desire deeply buried trying to get out.

Dream of death

Health anxiety about you or a loved one, especially if you are falling in the dream.

Dream where you see yourself

Can signify a serious mental problem, we are not supposed to see ourselves in dreams.

Dream of a dead person

Someone trying to reach you beyond the divide, listen carefully and try and remember the message.

Dream of you naked or missing a clothing item

You do not feel competent in an important part of your life, work, love or home. Work on it.

Fourteen of the 16 executed leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising are buried in Arbour Hill but it has been almost forgotten by tourists and locals alike. 

After the Guinness Brewery, perhaps the most visited Dublin tourist attraction is Kilmainham Gaol, where 14 of the 16 Irish rebels of 1916 were executed. Today Kilmainham is so popular you need to book in advance to view the 18th-century prison, home to men, women, and children who dared to cross British jurisprudence so cruelly aimed at the Irish.

Kilmainham has been “home” to such Irish patriots as Charles Stewart Parnell, Eamon de Valera, and the indomitable Ernie O’Malley, who made a daring escape in 1921. Perhaps the only prominent revolutionary who didn’t do time there was Michael Collins, who had an aversion to British prisons. It is a haunting tour, one that should never be missed on a visit to Dublin.

Included in the guided tour through this gruesome place is a visit to the Catholic chapel where Joseph Mary Plunkett and Grace Gifford were married hours before Plunkett was executed. The highlight of the tour is a walk through the Breakers' Yard where the rebels were shot. Kilmainham is, indeed, Ireland’s chamber of horrors.

Quicklime Graves at Arbour Hill

What is not discussed much is the burial place of the fourteen rebels executed at Kilmainham. Immediately following their murders, their bodies were rushed across the Liffey River to Arbour Hill, another British barracks and military prison. Brian Barton in his “From Behind Closed Doors: Secret Court Martial Records of the 1916 Easter Rising” (Black Staff Press) remarks about the burials: “The bodies were then taken to Arbour Hill for burial. But clearly, the procedures did not run entirely smoothly…for whatever reason, no labels were affixed to the [first] three bodies [Padraig Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, Tom Clarke].”

The following day the first three were quickly followed by (4) Edward Daly, (5) Michael O’Hanrahan, (6) Willie Pearse, and (7) Joseph Mary Plunkett. After a pause, (8) John MacBride, (9) Eamonn Ceannt, (10) Michael Mallin, (11) Seán Heuston, (12) Con Colbert, (13) James Connolly and (14) Seán MacDiarmada joined the deadly chorus. For good measure, the bodies were covered with quicklime to hasten their rapid deterioration.

Why were the British in such a rush to bury the rebels? And why didn’t the British want to turn over the bodies to the families for a Christian burial?

It is obvious that the reburial of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa the previous August at Glasnevin Cemetery was still stuck in the British craw. Padraig Pearse’s famous speech—“…the fools, the fools, the fools, they have left us our Fenian dead”—had caused a sensation and galvanized nationalist Ireland. The British obviously wanted no more parades of dead rebels cascading through the narrow streets of Dublin. They wanted the 14 martyrs gone and rapidly forgotten. And strangely enough, today, this is what has happened.

I happen to love the old neighborhood of Arbour Hill, which borders Stoneybatter where my great-uncle Charlie Conway lived for many years, commuting by bicycle across the Liffey to his job as a policeman at the Guinness Brewery. Arbour Hill and Stoneybatter are funky neighborhoods, two of the oldest in Dublin. With their low-slung buildings and narrow streets, you are brought back to another Dublin, an older, more remote Dublin, although you are only a ten-minute car ride from busy O’Connell Street.

On my last visit to Arbour Hill on a beautiful summer’s day with my cousin Terry O’Neill, I was overcome by two things: the immense quiet and peacefulness of the cemetery, and even more so by the fact it was deserted. We were the only two people there. Maybe the British got their wish, while Kilmainham is remembered for its brutality, Arbour Hill is somehow forgotten although fourteen of the heroes of 1916 rest there.

JFK did not forget

But the men of 1916 were not forgotten by one Irishman. On his visit to Ireland in 1963, President Kennedy, even with a packed schedule, made sure to go to Arbour Hill. He was accompanied by Irish Taoiseach Seán Lemass, a veteran of the 1916 fighting and a man who knew many of the men buried here from his time in the Irish Volunteers. The President laid a wreath, then walked along the graves, starting with Padraig Pearse at the top left, and is seen reading the names of the rebels in front of where they were buried.

So, next time you’re in Dublin, pull a JFK. After visiting Kilmainham, take a quick taxi ride across the Liffey and go to Arbour Hill Memorial Park. Admission is free and they even have a guided tour every Sunday from March through October.  

Prove the British wrong—don’t forget the brave martyrs of 1916.

Dermot McEvoy is the author of "The 13th Apostle: A Novel of Michael Collins and the Irish Uprising" and "Our Lady of Greenwich Village", both now available in paperback, Kindl, and Audio from Skyhorse Publishing. He may be reached at dermotmcevoy50@gmail.com. Follow him at www.dermotmcevoy.com. Follow "The 13th Apostle" on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/13thApostleMcEvoy/. 

IrishCentral, in association with Amarach Research, Glucksman Ireland House NYU and UCD Clinton Institute, is undertaking a survey of the Irish community in the United States and offer those good enough to share their views the chance to win a pair of round-trip flights to Ireland.

Our aim is to better understand the views and values of the younger generation of Irish in the United States and we want to hear from you.

This survey focuses on the views of those aged 18-45 as we are seeking to understand the perspective of younger Irish Americans.

If you are eligible to complete this survey and do so, you will be entered in a free draw for round trip flights for two to Ireland.

Click here to participate in the survey

We think that there will be real benefit for the Irish American community in having its voice and views heard. The survey will take approximately 20 minutes to complete.

Please rest assured the individual responses are confidential, and we will only be publishing overall findings.

Good luck, and thank you for sharing your thoughts! 

Click here to take the survey

IrishCentral, in association with Amarach Research, Glucksman Ireland House NYU and UCD Clinton Institute, is undertaking a survey of the Irish community in the United States and offering the chance to win a pair of round-trip flights to Ireland to participants.

Our aim is to better understand the views and values of the younger generation of Irish in the United States and we want to hear from you.

This survey focuses on the views of those aged 18-45 as we are seeking to understand the perspective of younger Irish Americans. To be clear - we deeply value our readers who are 46+! This survey stems from an earlier one we conducted in which the greatest number of excellent, thoughtful responses came from an older demographic. We are conducting this under 45 survey so that we can get an even clearer sense of the links and differences between the generations. 

All those who are eligible who complete the survey will be entered in a free draw for round trip flights for two to Ireland. So don't put it off. Your dream trip awaits.

Click here to participate in the survey

We think that there will be real benefit for the Irish American community in having its voice and views heard. The survey will take a short time to complete.

Please rest assured the individual responses are confidential, and we will only be publishing overall findings.

Good luck, and thank you for sharing your thoughts! 

A little over a month ago, three IrishCentral staff members spit in special DNA kit vials and sent them off to be tested by Ancestry.com. Today we find out our results. 

Who's the most Irish out of all of us? Who's the most diverse? Where in Ireland do we each have the strongest roots? Where else in the world did our ancestors come from? Will there be any shocking surprises? 

Join us for a Facebook Live reveal! We'll be sharing what we already know about our ancestry, reading the results out loud anonymously, and then attempting to figure out to whom each of the DNA Ancestry profiles belongs. We'll also be sharing some additional insights courtesy of Ancestry.com. For example, did you know that the average person from Ireland has 95% Irish DNA? 

Have you ever had a DNA profile done? Tell us what you learned in the comment section! 

This post is proudly produced in partnership with Ancestry.com. Unlock your ancestry with a DNA test.