Ok, this is the beginning of the chat board I talked about in the Life, Universe, etc. For the next month, I'll be using it to collect data for a project for school. The idea is to put stories, links to stories, historical sites, etc. of Celtic, Irish and Irish-American folklore that are important to those of Tir, the context of the first telling, and the importance of it to you.

For example, one of the stories my grandmother tells is of a negative connotation regarding the "wearing of the green." During the early days of the battles between the Protestants and Catholics, the Catholic homes were marked with a green "X" on the door. And those families were treated badly by the Protestant officials. When the family left Ireland and came to the US, they denounced their Catholic heritage. They settled into an Irish community and celebrated all the traditional Irish holidays, but refused to wear green on St. Patrick's Day because they didn't want to acknowledge their Catholic past. I was probably 5 when I first heard that story when I wanted to get a green dress to wear to school. I thought the story was absolutely ridiculous, because I thought we should be proud to display where we came from.

That's just an example, and I'm sure everyone at Tir can top that story. Remember, the facts of the story don't have to be true or false, but the original teller must have had a reason or belief behind the telling of the story.

Once again, thanks for the help on the project.

how about Australian Irish, or Canadian Irish? .. would these be any use to you? ....

All of it would be helpful lacie. The point I'm trying to prove in the paper that despite our different backgrounds, we share a common lore, it'll comes to our Irish ancestory or interest in the Irish. In a way, I'm trying to show that a chat room of regulars is it's own community.

BACKGROUND TO THE NORTHERN IRISH CONFLICT

Ulster is one of four provinces in Ireland. Geographically it is in the north of the country and takes in nine counties: Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Derry, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Monaghan and Tyrone. Of these nine counties, six are in the political and administrative unit which since 1921 has formed the state of Northern Ireland.

Before the plantation of Ulster in the early seventeenth century, Ulster was the most Gaelic part of Ireland and had successfully resisted English colonial ambitions. The relationships between Ulster chiefs and those in the rest of Ireland were not close, except when they faced each other across battlefields. Links with Scotland were close; western Scotland and eastern Ulster exchanged immigrants many years before the middle ages.

The dominance of the O'Donnells in Donegal, the MacDonnells in Antrim and the O'Neills in Tyrone gave Ulster some stability and produced military cohesion against Queen Elizabeth I's armies. It took nine years and a blockade to bring the Ulster chiefs to their knees.

There had been earlier plantations throughout Ireland which had succeeded in confiscating land and grafting on a new aristocracy. The Plantation of Ulster in 1609 was comprehensive. The leaders of the Ulster families were forced to flee to Europe and their land confiscated. By 1703, only14% of the land in Ireland remained in the hands of the Catholic Irish, in Ulster the figure was 5%. The Plantation of Ulster attempted to attract not only British gentry but colonists of all classes. The colonists were Protestant and represented a culture alien to Ulster. This policy of comprehensive colonisation was a result of the advice of the Solicitor General to King James I, and was an attempt to replace one entire community with another. The Catholic Irish remained in conditions which emphasised their suppression. They were relegated to a state below servility, because the Planters were not allowed to employ native Irish as servants in the new Plantation towns which they built. The towns were fortresses against the armed resentment of the Irish. In rural Ireland, they were banished from the land they had owned and worked and were settled on inferior, boggy land usually in mountainous regions.

The sum of the Plantation was the introduction of a foreign community which spoke differently, worshipped apart, and represented an alien culture and way of life. The more efficient methods of the new farmers, and the greater availability of capital which allowed the start of cottage industries, served to create further economic differences between Ulster and the rest of Ireland, and between Catholic and Protestant within Ulster. The deep resentment of the native Irish towards the Planters, and the distrustful siege mentality of the Planters towards the Irish, is a crude interpretation of the contemporary Irish problem.

The next two centuries supplied many dates essential to the conflict. The Rising of 1641 against the Planters caused a massacre of Protestants, and the Cromwellian conquest in the 1650s resulted in a massacre of Catholics.

The Battle of the Boyne in 1690 has been sanctified in murals on a hundred gable walls as the victory of the "Prods" over the "Micks" when William of Orange defeated King James II.

The aftermath of William of Orange's victory at the Boyne was much more important than the campaign. It was a mark of the sustained hostility between Planter and Gael that the Penal Laws were enacted by the Irish parliament in Dublin. The laws accentuated the differences between the Irish establishment and its opponents. Having established an exclusively Protestant legislature in 1692, a comprehensive series of coercive acts against Catholics were implemented during the 1690s. Catholics were excluded from the armed forces, the judiciary and the legal profession as well as from parliament; they were forbidden to carry arms or to own a horse worth more than £5.00; Catholic bishops and clergy were banished in 1697; Catholics could not hold long leases on land or buy land from a Protestant; when Catholics made their wills, property had to be divided equally among children, unless the eldest conformed to the Anglican faith; they were forbidden to run schools or to send their children abroad to school. The Penal Laws entrenched the divide between Catholics and Protestants and strengthened Irish Catholicism by adding a political component to it.

During the second half of the eighteenth century relations between the religious communities in Ireland were in a situation of considerable flux. Acting as a counterbalance to tendencies dividing Catholics and Protestants, the coerced and the coercors, was the rivalry between Presbyterians and members of the Church of Ireland. The fact that there were also penal laws against the Presbyterians which excluded them from a share of political power created a Catholic-Presbyterian relationship which was sometimes closer than that between the Protestant sects.

The early success of the Society of United Irishmen in attracting both Presbyterians and Catholics into a revolutionary republican movement during the 1790s appeared to indicate a new Irish cohesion which disregarded religious denominationalism and was determined to establish an independent republic of Ireland. The abortive 1798 rebellion, best known for the Catholic rising in Wexford, also included risings in Antrim and Down. Thirty Presbyterian clergymen were accused of participation, three of them were hanged, seven imprisoned, four exiled or transported and at least five fled the country.

Such a simplistic interpretation of the late eighteenth century ignores the existence of strong community divisions. Secret organisations such as the Defenders and Peep o' Day Boys were formed in rural areas to prevent tenancies from passing into the hands of the other religion. There were persistent and occasional bloody skirmishes waged against each other. A skirmish in County Armagh led to the formation of the Orange Order, which attempted to unite all brands of Protestantism by stressing the common interests of all Protestants.

Early tolerance of Catholics in Belfast was related to their numbers in the city. In 1707, George McCartney, the Sovereign of Belfast, reported "thank God we are not under any great fears here, for... we have not among us seven papists". The industrial expansion of Belfast at the beginning of the nineteenth century attracted large numbers of Catholics to the city. Between 1800 and 1830 the proportion of Catholics in Belfast rose from 10% to 30% and the first signs of serious urban conflict occurred.

The same period saw considerable changes within the Presbyterian church as the liberals were challenged theologically and politically by the hard-liner Henry Cooke who was closely involved with the Orange Order. Cooke and his supporters were victorious. The liberals under Henry Montgomery broke away and formed the Non-subscribing Presbyterian Church. The community divisions began to assume a form similar to one that is well known today.

Most of my cultural & political thought is because of the proceeding. Being raised in a small Co Tyorne town untill I was 14 and laterbeen involved in the political struggles of the civil rights movement in the nineteen sixties you can see how my thinking is is a lot different to most of the Irish-Americian and Southern Irish in Tir.

In later posts I will try to give you a flavour of the Ulster folk-lore, heros, villians and stories that I was brought up with.

Ireland , they say is the land of happy wars and sad love songs.. one of the sad love songs my mother would tell was the story of Tomas Costello..

Tomas Costello was a handsome and athletic young man, a champion wrestler and one of the finest horsemen in the land. He fell in love with Una MacDermott, the daughter of wealthy parents. Disapproving of Tomas, the girl’s parents would not allow them to marry. Una’s sorrow was so great that her health began to fail, and she died of a broken heart. She was buried on an island in Lough Key. Tomas did not attend the funeral, knowing that he would not be made welcome by her family. One night, he attempted to swim across to the island but was drowned by a great wave.
We were told many stories like this when we were growing up, as I think of them I will post them here

The favorite stroies that we were told as childred were those of Tir Na nOg.. ....

Tir Na nOg, the Land of the Ever-Young, lies to the West, seen by humans through a chill sea mist, a land of eternal Springtime, where all is peace and happiness. No map made by human hands could guide you there...it is only by the will of the faerie folk that one may enter that enchanted domain. The Irish call them Tuatha de Danann, the children of the Goddess Danu: protected by her powerful Magick and given the Blessed Isle on which to live, they represent to humankind the epitome of Beauty, Perfection, and Joy. No ploughing, no work is needed to make a living in Tir Nan Og: the faerie make love, have feasts, hunt and even play at war with one another--those that die one day are resurrected the next morning to join in the fun again. Occasionally, they grow curious about the humans who live on the other side of the Great Mist, or need to strengthen themselves with a fresh and vigorous human bloodline--and that is when they step out of their dark forests, through the silvery mist to be called into Legend...

Funny thing ..the land beyond the Great Mist turned out to be North Americia..*s

ahh, Cao .. i want to live there!! Tir na nOg. Can i bring my kids and my favourite, most loved friends? .............................. Tir na nOg sounds just the place for me right now. Is there a spell that will take me there? ... please??????????

Henry Joy McCracken ..An Ulster Hero....

If we succeed today there will be sufficient praise lavished on us; if we fail, we may expect proportionate blame. But whether we succeed or fail, let us try to deserve success.
- Henry Joy McCracken. 7 June, 1798.

Killead village (outside Antrim) was where the (Huguenot) Francis Joy settled his family in 1697. Forty years later, the Joys moved to Belfast, where they founded the world's oldest English-speaking newspaper: the Belfast Newsletter.

Ann Joy became the wife of Captain John McCracken, one of Belfast's eminent presbyterian businessmen, a retired mariner (who founded the Seaman's Mission). Their fifth child - Henry Joy McCracken - was born on 31 August, 1767.

By the time he had reached early manhood, Henry Joy McCracken was a prominent Belfast cotton manufacturer. For children (and adults) of his workforce, he established Belfast's first non-denominational Sunday School (1788, in High Street's Old Market House) and set about personally teaching them skills of reading and writing. Also for the poor, he established a lending library. He believed passionately in the inherent democratic rights of man.

One of the first, idealistic recruits of the Belfast United Irish Society (1795), Henry Joy's radicalism led to his imprisonment in Kilmainham gaol. Upon his release in December 1797, McCracken learned that the United Irish might expect support from a French expeditionary force by April-May, 1798.

The Ulster Executive of the United Irish delegated McCracken to liaise with the National Executive in Dublin. He asserted confidently that he could co-ordinate an uprising of both United Irish and some 7000 (Catholic) Defenders with the arrival of French troops. In the event, however, he was to lead very few Catholics at the Battle of Antrim.

When the French failed to appear, and those who had planned to lead an uprising on 23 May resigned, McCracken was catapulted into planning, leading and executing the uprising in Antrim.

Those eager for conflict found in their new leader a young man whose "eye beamed with a fire that animated his soul. His cheek was pale but his heart was strong and knew no fear. On his finger he wore a little gold ring bearing the green enamel shamrock and the words- 'Remember Orr'."

Following the Battle of Antrim, a disillusioned McCracken lamented how their cause had been betrayed by treachery.

On July 17, 1798, Henry Joy McCracken was executed in front of Belfast's old market house (today's High Street entrance to Corn Market), where Henry Joy had once taught Sunday School.

   

THE BATTLE OF ANTRIM...
On the morning of June 7, Major Seddon at Antrim Castle learned (from Gen. Nugent's messengers) that an attack on the town was imminent and that reinforcements had been dispatched. The drums at Antrim Castle beat the call to arms.
80 of the Antrim Yeomanry - the local defence group, loyal to the Crown - assembled almost at once. Lieut. Arthur Macartney (son of Antrim vicar, Dr. Macartney) marshalled his small force of Royal Irish Artillery.
Seddon imposed a curfew on the town and ordered an immediate search of the Presbyterian Scotch Quarter (now Church Street).
News arrived that the entire countryside about Antrim was moving with men in arms. The yeomanry were assigned to positions in the main street in front of the castle's battlemented garden 'Battery' wall.
Troops arrived, escorting magistrates from Ballymena (Robert Gamble and Jas. S. Moore, respectively- a lieutenant and captain of the Dunseverick cavalry). They had no knowledge that anything other than the county magistrates' meeting was planned for Antrim that seventh day of June. They did not know that General Nugent had cancelled the meeting; but then, neither did the United Irishmen!
Yeomanry searching Antrim's Presbyterian Scotch Quarter discovered that known radicals were absent from their homes. Then, several pike-heads hidden in a garden were uncovered. Lieut. Arthur Macartney promptly torched the property, which fire eventually gutted seven other of the thatched cottages. A dense pall of smoke engulfed the district.
Sentries posted east of the town (in the Belfast direction) reported sightings of thousands of heavily armed United Irishmen heading towards Antrim.
By the Quaker graveyard, about a mile east of Antrim,Henry Joy McCracken unfurled the green banner of the United Irishmen.
When McCracken's force arrived on the hill above Antrim town - on the Moylinny Road - the unexpected sight of fires raging through the Scotch Quarter bewildered them. (Many deserted, including almost a quarter of the Ballyclare contingent- whose banner boasted 'Fear No Danger'!)
For thirty minutes McCracken's 'Army of Ulster' hesitated from proceeding farther; a half hour which would later prove decisive in determining the outcome of this day's events!
The stage was now set for Henry Joy McCracken to activate the historic Battle of Antrim...

 

 

Henry Joy McCracken proposed that his Belfast and Roughfort (Templepatrick, Killead, Muckamore) contingents, together with those from Ballynure and Doagh, would advance into Antrim from its Belfast (east) end.
John Storey (of Island Lodge, a printer in the Belfast office of the United Irish newspaper:Northern Star), confirmed that his men were ready to enter Antrim along Patie's Lane. However, there was no sign of Samuel Orr's Randalstown column arriving at Bow Lane.
To preserve his attack strategy - Storey, Orr and McCracken were to lead their respective columns into the town simultaneously (from three separate directions) - McCracken reassigned some of the Ballyclare company to cut (north) across country and occupy Bow Lane.
Then Henry Joy addressed his army:
Musketeers to the front - Pikes behind there - Gunners to the rear!

Men of Ulster: the hour has come for you to strike the first blow for Ireland and for liberty. Victory is certain.

Musketeers: let every bullet find its mark.

Pikemen: stand firm in the shock of battle and let your trusty blades, forged for you by true and trusty men, be a wall of steel upon which if our foemen rush, they rush to death.

Follow me, my noble fellows, wherever I may lead you.

And let our war-cry be: "Remember Orr!' "


Advance!

At 2.45 pm, massed at the top of Antrim town, McCracken's United Irishmen received the order to advance through the town's Scotch Quarter (Church Street).

Some 800 musketeers marched, six deep in three files, boldly and orderly, ahead of the ranks of men armed with pikes, pitchforks, scythes and loys (turf spades), the old Volunteer cannon bringing up the rear. It was an extraordinary sight.

Some of the more weird stories of Ireland

A holy tree on the Tyrone shore of Lough Neagh near Ardboe was said to bring good fortune to those who hammered coins into its trunk. It eventually died of metal poisoning.

JAMES Byrne, the 7 feet 2 inch 'Irish Giant', died of depression in 1783 after being literally watched to death by the servant of a doctor who wanted his huge frame for dissection.

THE first mummy to be seen publicly outside Egypt was displayed in Belfast in 1824. It is still in the Belfast Muesum

IRELAND'S Atlantis, the legendary city of Hy Brasyl, is reputed to lie beneath the waters of Carlingford Lough.

COUNT Dracula was created by the Dublin writer Bram Stoker.

UNTIL the 1920s, on St. Brigid's Day (February 1st) at Teltown, County Meath, couples could legally marry by simply walking towards each other. If the union didn't work out, they could 'divorce' by walking away from each other at the same place exactly a year and a day later.

THE bullaun stone, which is kept in St. Matthew's Church on the Woodvale Road in Belfast, is said to have the power to cure warts, spots and acne.

THE Electric Brae near Hilltown, County Down, is the only place on Earth where water and other objects appear to roll uphill, in defiance of the law of gravity.

THE folio number of the plans of the Titanic, built at the fiercely Protestant Belfast shipyard of Harland and Wolff, was 390904 which, when read backwards, is said to crudely spell 'NO POPE'.

THE medieval purgatory on Lough Derg, County Donegal, was believed to be one of the two entrances to Hell, Mount Etna on Sicily being the other.

A candle for peace in Northern Ireland

It is my hope and wish that Ireland will be reunited as a 32 county, free country, but not through the use of violence, but by exclusively peaceful methods. I would hope for an inclusive Ireland, where both Catholic and Protestant and all others will be proud and honoured to call home. I hope to see the violence of the past never repeated, and bridges between comunites built, peace will come when trust is created, and while there is the possibility of violence there can be no trust..

Have a look at http://www.capecod.net/~jcyr/stories.htm

The stories and poems are 'reengineered' but give a flavour of some Irish legends.

Those pages (above) are more influenced by lore than describing it.

Look at http://indigo.ie/~legends/ for some original tales.

And see http://faeryland.tamu-commerce.edu/~earendil/faerie/Croker/index.html
for the beginnings of an old book on Irish fairy stories

As a boy one of my favorite places for playing was Tullyhogue Fort, this was less than 2 miles from where I lived in Cookstown ,,I didn't know then that this place had such historical significance..

Tullyhogue Fort
Probably an Iron Age sanctuary originally, this was later to become the inauguration place of the O'Neill chieftains of Tyrone. Here at the clan seat of O'Hagan, hereditary stewards to the O'Neills, the ceremony was conducted in the presence of the assembled under-chiefs, with the recipient installed in an ancient stone chair said to have been blessed by St. Patrick. The Great Hugh O'Neill was himself thus enthroned at Tullaghoge in 1593. That the inauguration chair, a rough construction of stone slabs, was in existence as late as the beginning of the seventeenth century is known from a contemporary map which depicts the chair on the hill below the fort; this accords with an account of it having been broken on the orders of Lord Mountjoy in 1602, a year before the collapse of the earldom of Tyrone.


 

a couple of sites worth checking out

http://www.free-eire.org/Free-Eire/other/ire_links2.html

http://www.luminarium.org/mythology/ireland/

Emigration from Ireland to America - a brief historical background

Large-scale emigration from Ireland to North America began in the 1720s and throughout the remainder of the eighteenth century involved many thousands of settlers, mainly from Ulster, who sought land and a new way of life on the Appalachian frontier. These early pioneers were predominantly Presbyterian and became known in their adopted country as the Scotch Irish.

Interrupted only by the American War of Independence (1775-83) and the Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815), the great tide of emigration continued into the nineteenth century as America began to attract immigrants from all parts of Ireland. Historians have estimated that on the eve of the Great Famine (1845-9) there were as many as half a million Irish in the New World.

The Great Famine, as is well known, resulted in a mass exodus from Ireland as starving and destitute people sought refuge in the ever-expanding industrial cities of the eastern United States. The exact numbers will never be known but it is believed they may have been in excess of 1.5 million.

In 1784 when Hugh O'Donnell, an Irish Catholic priest educated in exile in Salamanca, built Belfast's first Catholic church, St. Mary's in Chapel Lane, the Catholics numbered a mere 1,300 in a total population of about 15,000 citizens. But the Protestants overwhelmed O'Donnell with generous subscriptions to his building fund. William Bristow, Episcopalian Vicar of Belfast, paid for the pulpit of St. Mary's out of his own pocket. The day when St. Mary's was opened, Sunday 30 May 1784....At least half the congregation in the church that morning, it was said, were Protestants.

Modern Irish Folklore ...
On May 22 1971 more than 40 women’s liberation militants returned to Dublin from Belfast with a huge stock of contraceptive devices. Customs officials tried to confiscate some of the devices, but the women began hurling the contraceptives to hundreds of of other women who were waiting inside the railroad station.

Also in 1971 - Outraged Derry women tied Martha Doherty, 19, to a lamp post, shaved her head, and covered her with tar for dating a British soldier. She subsequently married the soldier.

In his pamphlet on the Jesuits,
Protestant leader Rev. Ian Paisley argues that the Order is not even Christian. Although the Jesuits claim that their sign - IHS - stands for ‘Jesus Hominum Salvator (the Latin ‘J' being written as ‘I'), Paisley believes that it actually stands for ‘Isis, Horub, Seb': the pagan Egyptian trinity of the Mother, Child, and Father of the Gods. ‘IHS pays the semblance of a tribute to Christianity, but they are in reality the substance of devil-worship. The cloven hoof is upon them.' Thus Rome is not, as liberal Protestants would avow, a permitted variant of Christianity. It is not Christian at all and never has been.

In 1970 - At a Ballymena horse fair, Paisley threw a bible at the head of Donald Soper, a visiting ecumenical Methodist Minister

Ian Paisley was once a member of the Shankill Road Lodge of the Orange Order and a lodge chaplain, but he resigned from the Order when the County Grand Lodge refused to expel Sir Robin Kinahan for attending a funeral service in a Roman Catholic chapel.

In June 1963, Pope John XXIII, the Pope who had called the second Vatican Council, died. Terrence O'Neill (then Prime Minister of Northern ireland) sent the following message of condolence to Cardinal Conway, the Vicar Capitular of the archdiocese of Armagh: ‘Please accept from the Government of Northern Ireland our sympathy on the great loss which your Church sustained on the death of your Spiritual Leader. He had won wide acclaim throughout the work because of his qualities of kindness and humanity.'
The Unionist Lord Mayor of Belfast had the Union Jack on the City Hall lowered to half-mast. Paisley reacted quickly by calling a rally in the Ulster Hall and then leading a march to the City Hall to protest ‘at the lying eulogies now being paid to the Roman antichrist by non-Romanist Church leaders in defiance of their own historic creeds'.


In October 1988, Paisley was beaten and carried unceremoniously out of the European Parliament meeting in Strasbourg, France. The occasion was a speech made by Pope John Paul II before the Parliament. As the pope began his message, Paisley stood and held up a red sign painted in black letters with the words "John Paul II ANTICHRIST." Paisley shouted, "I refuse you as Christ's enemy and Antichrist with all your false doctrine."

On October 31st 1970's fighting broke out in Derry between Catholics and Protestants following a meeting addressed by the Rev. Ian Paisley, he said at a gathering of 800 followers of the Ulster Protestant Volunteers: "Protestantism in Northern Ireland has been betrayed. We must now be prepared to use the mailed fist."
The Ulster Constitutional Defence Committee (UCDC) was the controlling mechanism of the Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV), whose members pledge that when the authorities act contrary to the Constitution of Northern Ireland, the UCDC will take whatever steps it believes are necessary to expose such unconstitutional acts...the power of the UPV was such that it met in Orange Lodges, athough the UPV officials were rarely the same as lodge officers the volunteers even took it upon themselves to discipline errant supporters.
However good the intentions , some members of the Ulster Protestant Volunteers did not share the chairman's stated views about non-violence. James Murdoch, a Free Presbyterian and a member of the Loughgall UPV, introduced Noes Doherty to James Marshall, a quarryman who said he could provide explosives, and Doherty arranged a meeting between Marshall and a member of the Shankill Road UVF. Although Paisley drove Doherty to his first meeting with Murdoch and Marshall, there is no evidence that he was himself involved in the dicussions. The strongest link between the UPV and illegal acts of violence came with a series of bombings in 1969 which, ironically, the Protestant Telegraph was quick to blame first on the IRA and then on the Eire government. In fact, they had been organized by members of the Ulster Protestant Volunteers. The explosions in March and April of 1969 at an electricity sub station in Castlereagh and at the Silent Valley reservoir in the Mournes were followed by an explosion at an electricity sub-station over the border in County Donegal.....Although a number of members of the UPV were charged with these explosions, all the cases failed because juries were not convinced by the evidence of an Ulster Protestant Volunteer who turned police informer.

(From Patterson, Ulster Folk-Life)
: A woman died, and left her husband sorrowing with a baby boy. His grief was terrible, but quick and sudden, like as such griefs sometimes are. Before his wife was long settled in the old burial-ground of Creggan, his fancy was captured by another, and in a short time he was again before the altar. This second marriage was not so happy as his first, because of Mrs Number Two's jealousy, and the son of the first marriage fared badly at the hands of the stepmother.

This went on until one evening his first wife appeared to him, and told him she was with the fairies, but so unhappy about her boy that she wished to return, and that he alone could help her. He, poor man, was greatly flustered, for what was he to do with two wives, even if they did agree, which was far from likely. However, he promised to rescue her, upon her saying she would be a servant to him and Mrs Number Two all her days, if allowed to look after her boy, and that she would never trouble either of them in any way. There was but one plan of rescue, and that was by aid of the milk of a particular cow in the byre. This milk, too, had to be gathered in a can free from water, as the least drop would prevent the escape, and prove fatal to her. To these conditions her husband agreed, and gave his promise not to mention the subject to a living soul.

This promise he did not keep, though, for he told his wife, and in the byre, when he was not looking, she spilled some water in. This was on Hallow Eve, and he was to know his wife as the fairies rode past that night, because she would be riding on the third grey horse. He waited with the milk on the kitchen dresser, and sure enough, he soon heard them coming, and out he went to the gable of the house, and threw the milk over the lady on the third grey horse. She fell off at once, and there was a great commotion, and in the morning the roadside was covered with blood. The fairies had murdered her, as she said they would if water should be in the milk, and they found out that she had spoken of them to mortals.

Glossary of Useful Northern Ireland Terms:

B-Specials:  A Protestant state militia first formed in 1920 as a backup to police forces in helping maintain Protestant ascendency.  Disbanded after the current Troubles broke out, was reconstituted into the U.D.R. (Ulster Defense Regiment) in 1970.( part of the British Army)

I.R.A: Irish Republican Army.

Provisionals: (Provos) Now the major I.R.A. force.

Sinn Fein: "Ourselves Alone" (pronounced shin-fain) Political Party and wing of the Provisional I.R.A.  Mainly supported by working class Catholics.

I.N.L.A: Irish National Liberation Army.  A splinter group of the I.R.A.
I.R.S.P.: Irish Republican Socialist Party. The political wing of the I.N.L.A

Loyalists: Loyal to the Union (with the United Kingdom), these are Ulster Protestants opposed to a 32 county Ireland (Same as Unionists)

Republicans: Wishing for a united Ireland (32 Counties).
.
Orange Order: (Orangemen) Name taken from the victory of Protestant William of Orange over Catholic King James II..

S.D.L.P.: Social Democratic and Labor Party. Founded in 1970.  Believes that the majority of the people must consent for a united Ireland.  Largely supported by the middle class.

D.U.P.: Democratic Unionist Party led by Ian Paisley

U.V.F.: Ulster Volunteer Force. Formed in 1912 with powerful British and Unionist support to oppse Home Rule. It is now a Protestant paramilitary group who have claimed responsibility for many sectarian killings.

U.D.A: Ulster Defense Association.  The major Protestant paramilitary group.  U.D.A. spokesmen have advocated independence from Britian and Ireland.  Now outlawed, it is alleged to have links with the D.U.P.

U.F.F.: Ulster Freedom Fighters. A U.D.A. group which has claimed responsibility for several sectarian murders.

R.U.C.: Royal Ulster Constabulary. Police force in the six Northern Ireland Counties.

The Canadian Fenian Raids
Captain John O'Neill and 800 veterans of the American Civil War crossed Lake Erie from the United States to attack Canada in 1867. O' Neill's invasion was met by a superior force of Canadian and British troops at a place called Ridgeway. Surprisingly, the out-manned army was able to rout the the soldier's of the Queen.
The idea was to hold Canada (then a British colony) hostage until the English left Ireland for good. They would have succeeded it is thought if it weren't for the fact that 20,000 other troops of the Fennians did not act according to plan and invade Canada as well. This allowed the Canadians and the British to regroup and repulse the invaders. The combined army pushed the invaders back across the border and Captain O'Neill surrendered to General George Meade, who had been sent by the U.S. government to prevent any complications with Britain over Canada.
The attack on Canada provided the Irish, as well as many Americans with a perfect outlet for anti-British feelings. During the Civil War, the North had been angered by the perceived British support for the Confederacy. The South, disappointed by the failure of Britain to come to its aid actively, ignored the Fenians in the initial invasion
The Canadians, for their part were appalled by the invasion and that loose confederation of provinces was jolted into voting for a strong federation sometime later.
The leader of the raid, John O'Neill was sentenced to two years in prison at Burlington, Vermont, for his role in the invasion, but was pardoned by President Grant after serving one month, due in part to pressure from the Irish community.
He tried his invasion again in 1871, attacking the Hudson Bay Company. He was again arrested and released. He spent the rest of his days establishing Irish-American settlements in the state of Nebraska, where a town is named after him.
The 800 man force for the invasion of Canada was the largest force any republician movement has ever put together, For the Easter uprising of 1916, Patrick Pearse and James Connolly could only muster 600 men in Dublin, although the action sparked a guerrilla war that led to the formation of the Irish Free State.
The Fenian attack on Canada was, in a way, the first shot fired in the long struggle that culminated in the treaty of 1922, when the IRA won the withdrawal of British forces from four-fifths of Ireland.

 

For centuries the Banshees terrorized Ireland. Supernatural death messengers, they were Bean Sidhe, or Spirit Women. With the fierce western winds howling outside your house, if you heard her wail, you dared not look out your window for fear of catching an awful glimpse of this ghostly creature combing her long black hair, announcing death or calling the house's very inhabitants to the grave.

The Banshee has no abode of her own and comes near to a house to wail for one who is about to die. Those who have heard how piercing the "coine" the people's lament for the dead can be will realize what a dread visitant the Banshee would be. Those who have seen a Banshee have described her as drawing a comb through her hair, or pulling her hair out in sorrow just like the ancient mourners. The Banshee only haunts the families of the "high Milesian race" that is families whose names are Gaelic by the "O" or "Mac" or similar prefix however it has been known for a Banshee to be granted to certain families of the Norman-Irish stock - the Fitzgeralds have been given one. She is a respecter of persons and only haunts those who are authentically of noble blood.

The Leprechaun
It is incorrect to speak of a company of Leprechauns even though movies and some modern folklore have portrayed them this way. They certainly began their existence as a member of a community as the original name Lu-chorpan, "The Wee Bodies" shows. The name of his nation became corrupted and the corruption suggests that the term "brog" or shoe made part of the name. The Leprechauns then became shoemakers and like all shoemakers were irascible and solitary. The solitary Leprechaun is now shoemaker to the fairies. His haunts are by old castles. If you are lucky enough to see one draw close to him not making a sound. Take hold of him firmly and watch him always and make him tell you where the crocks of gold are hidden. Do not let yourself be distracted by his talk for he will try endlessly to trick you into looking away and in the end he will succeed. When you are finally distracted and look back at where he was he will be gone. The Leprechaun is called "Lurikeen" in County Kildare.

 

Hello, I will do my best, but I am bad at remembering details and even worse at remembering names.

I was told a story of why the hand of Ulster is Red. Their was a boat race between 2 people, whoever touched the ground first, would own the land. The Hero of this story was losing, so with some creative thought cut off his hand and threw it onto the land...

Loreena McKennitt tells of an interesting Hallowe'en custom that takes place on Inishmore, where no one speaks. I will quote "Characters wander into the local pub, have a pint and sometimes dance, but these everyday activities are made surreal by the power of their silence. Outside, the raor of the Atlantic provides a suitable dramatic backdrop."

This story is not etiological in any way. Just a story my mom used to tell me. When her and her sister were little, they had to help with the chores. My aunt was out gathering the fire wood and decided to wander further into the woods. It was a very very cold day. After a while she got tired and sat down and fell asleep. My mother tells me she would have surely died of exposure had the fairies not come to warm her skin.
She even wrote a poem of this one, and swears till this day that it is true.(I am 23)

I hope this helps, and if I can remember anything else, I will come back

The Banshee's are inorganics.Thses are mentioned inthe Last book of CarlosCasatneda.If you enter silent knowledge these beings cannot hurt you.You must overcome fear,power,clarity,and old age.If you have no internal dialog,they can't hurt you.Crystals used against them ,by shattering the crystal in front of you,and screaming with all of your intent,tell it to leave this world ,your intent does not go out void.Irishseer

Caoilte
Thanks for some really interesting stuff. Especially liked the Canadian raid story as it was not something that I remember being mentioned in school history. It was really refreshing to have an ending that didn't result in the heroic leader being executed or jailed for life! Well done to the Americans. Probably, the 300 Irish-American volunteers that went to South Africa to support the Boers against the English, led by Major John McBride, were influenced by this tradition.

One thing though - you say the 800 man force was the biggest Republican insurrection. Surely many of the uprisings in Carlow and Wexford in 98 were bigger? Or were these not technically Republican in intent?

You should all stop talking about fairy stories the simple fact is that the Roman Catholics of the six counties are discriminated against by people who have been placed in power by a foreign government and have no place being there.

My friend and fellow republican, there are many boards devoted to political discussions. This one does not happen to be one of them. If you want to have a literary discussion, join us. If not, I can recommend several very good sites for political debate.

for Caoilte,

Technically Ulster is one of the five provinces of Ireland though we only use/name Four these are:
Ulster
Connact
Leinster
Munster

But the Irish for Province is Cuaigearr (SP?) meaning five. So There was originally Five Provinces

The fifth is Meath and WestMeath. Where sat the king of old.