#Today in Irish History

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in Irish History | 1 May (Bealtaine):

Beltane, Lá Bealtaine, the first day of Summer in modern Ireland was celebrated by the Celts, and is now also celebrated by Neopagans and Wiccans. 1169 – A small party of Normans arrive on the southern coast of Co Wexford and established a bridgehead for further invasions. 1171 – Diarmaid MacMurrough, king of Leinster, died in Ferns, Co Wexford. Strongbow was his (disputed) successor…

[werewolfetone]

Sooo lucky for all of us that henry joy junior died before it was possible for him to start some sort of awful little podcast

[pallases]

HEHE

[1m-facts]

Read the remaining facts, plus myths, quotes, faqs and an epic quiz at: 50 Facts About the Emerald Isle: Unveiling the Magic of Ireland

[cillianmurphysdimples]

"Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly, did they sound the death march as they lowered you down? Did the band play The Last Post in chorus, and did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?"

[hockles]

this song makes me emotional every time

[tmarshconnors]

Happy 12th July 2024!

And here's to King William of glorious fame And the Protestant Boys who rejoice in his name And here's to the Lodges of Orange and Blue For they are the boys that are loyal and true NO SURRENDER! Happy Orange Day! On this date, July 12, in 1690, Protestant William of Orange, a Dutchman, defeated Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland. William became King William III of England, Scotland and Ireland, nicknamed as 'King Billy, ensuring that the British monarch would always be a Protestant.

[thereofrin]

My husband fr

[strawb3rryqueer]

Hozier's mention of the word "hushpukena" (a Choctaw word) in the song Butchered Tongue was, of course, not a random decision. In a song about the pain of being disconnected from your ancestral language and culture as a result of colonization and oppression from outside forces- which is something that both Irish and Native American people have experienced to varying degrees. Not only do Irish and Indigenous people have this shared history of colonization at the hands of the British, but Irish and Indigenous communities have a long history of support for one another.

The usage of "hushpukena" is even more specific and important because it calls back to the mutually positive relationship between Irish and Choctaw people specifically. During the Great Hunger in Ireland, the Choctaw Nation donated $170, which is more than $5,000 in today’s money, to aid the Irish. Out of all American aid given to Ireland during the famine, the donation from the Choctaw Nation was the largest donation given.

In 1990, leaders from the Choctaw Nation visited County Mayo in Ireland to participate in the first annual Famine Walk. In 1992, Irish people visited the Choctaw Nation and participated in a trek to commemorate the Trail of Tears. Also in 1992, a plaque commemorating the Choctaw's aid was installed in the house of the mayor of Dublin. In 1995, the Irish President Mary Robinson visited the tribal headquarters of the Choctaw Nation to thank the Choctaw people for their aid. In 2017, a sculpture named "Kindred Spirits" was built in Cork, Ireland to commemorate the Choctaw's aid and to continue friendship between the two communities. In 2018, the Taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland visited Choctaw tribal headquarters and stated,"A few years ago, on a visit to Ireland, a representative of the Choctaw Nation called your support for us ‘a sacred memory’. It is that and more. It is a sacred bond, which has joined our peoples together for all time". In 2020, more than $1.8 million was raised by Irish people as aid for Native American people (specifically the Navajo and Hopi) during the pandemic, to help provide food, clean water, and health supplies.

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in Irish History | 28 May:

1590 – Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, agrees to abandon further attempts at extending his territory in the north, and undertakes to force his people to adopt English laws and customs. 1713 – William Molyneux, the fourteen-year old son of Sir Thomas Molyneux, a former MP, is killed when a leaden image falls on him in a garden near Dublin. 1779 – Birth of poet and songwriter, Thomas Moore, in…

[werewolfetone]

Anyway. do any of yous think henry grattan and henry flood ever explor-- [GUNSHOTS]

[flaynbestgirl]

being a fan of fire emblem makes taking an interest in theology a gd minefield

[the---hermit]

07|01|2025

I took way more time than expected to write down my list of key words, but they are very useful, and it's a way of reviewing as well so good enough. Today I managed to finish that task, and I must say I am happy with how I worked today. This week I'd also like to do another outloud review for my history of Sabaudian states materials, and then hopefully start working for my other exam. If I end up feeling like I cannot take the other exam on the date I had decided I'd have the option to take that exam at the beginning of February. That isn't ideal and I'd rather avoid that, but I have the option just in case. I wish I was more confident for the exam season, but overall I don't feel as good as I usually do.

Today's productivity:

read first thing in the morning

finished the list of key words

went for a walk with a friend during my lunch break

texted my tattooist to know whether she has the drawings for my tattoos but sadly I'll have to wait a few more days to see them

Irish on duolingo

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for asking my partner not to talk about how happy he is that Ghandi was assassinated?

I hope this doesn't get too long! 🍀

I (26, F) am Irish Australian, my partner (33, M) is Sikh. He's shared many beautiful things about his culture with me, and has a thoughtful way of describing the relationship between Sikh history and current culture.

However I get a bit uncomfortable when he talks about how Gandhi was assassinated by a Sikh person. I know enough about Gandhi to be aware that while he might've had some good impact, he had plenty of underreported bad too. But I don't pretend to understand the extent of it all.

I also understand what a complex thing that sort of cultural history is, my family joke about being proud of the assassination of Mountbatten by the IRA. But we keep that talk behind closed doors, it requires more understanding of the Troubles than the average person has. Also, joking about death is a bit nasty unless you know everyone is comfortable

My issue with my partner is that when he talks about Gandhi's death he's not speaking with a historical context. He gets very serious and sits up all tall and says proudly that Sikhs are a warrior race and they fucking delivered. He has done this in company and in private and it's always very intense and a mood killer, he is not joking at all. I think that level of confident pride in the death of another is kinda messed up

So, I asked him to not talk about it in such a full on way. He refused to apologise because he is proud of it and he said that he's glad they did it (I appreciate his honestly there). I asked if he would be pleased to see a similar event play out today, a Sikh assassinating a major political influencer. He said he would be happy and asked the same of me regarding Mountbatten (this had come up in the conversation, obviously I'm paraphrasing, the whole thing was pretty upsetting tbh) and I said no cos it's not an active war. Also, that I don't actually stand behind that I'm just comfortable with the complexity of it to joke with my family and still know people understand where I stand. Like, the IRA killed his kids too. The whole time was fucked.

He said he's not joking. He, gently, said I was being a bit of a hypocrite. He didn't promise to not talk about Gandhi, but hasn't brought it up since. I feel like he's pretty unhappy about it

I dunno, I asked him without really thinking about it all and I think he makes a good point about the Mountbatten parallel. I'm not sure if the difference in my feelings is my own ethics or just me being a bit racist. And it's not his job to make me not be racist if I've got some stuff to work through. But still, I think if it was any culture I'd be uncomfortable with that much aggressive pride in murder. Like, I've grown up in a country without a death penalty, death is not something people can dole out imo, and his approval of it is so absolute and genuine, there's no pulling the punch. Unlike my way of talking about Mountbatten.

So, AITA for asking my partner to stop talking about his pride in a Sikh person assassinating Gandhi?

What are these acronyms?

[anarchotolkienist]

you’re attacking that neopagan kind of birthstone post about druid plants, but could you please elaborate or at least clarify the explicit trope that is being used that has been historically weaponized?

I used to spend about a good third of my time on this godforsaken website attacking that idea, but sure, I'll do it again. This will be a bit of an effortpost, so I'll stick it under the readmore

There is a notion of 'celts' or Gaels as being magicial and somehow deeply in touch with nature and connected to pre-Christian worldviews that the people who decided to make up the "Celtic tree astrology" used. This is also why Buffy used Irish Gaelic as the language of the demons, why Warhammer uses Gaelic as Elvish, why garbled Scottish Gaelic is used by Wiccans as the basis for their new religious construct, why people call themselves Druids to go an say chants in bad Welsh in Stonehenge, or Tursachan Chalanais, or wherever, etc etc. This stuff is everywhere in popular culture today, by far the dominant view of Celtic language speaking peoples. Made up neopagan nonsense is the only thing you find if you go looking for Gaelic folklore, unless you know where to look, and so on and so on. I could multiply examples Endless, and in fact have throughout the lifespan of this blog, and probably will continue to.

To make a long history extremely brief (you can ask me for sources on specifics, or ask me to expand if you're interested), this is directly rooted in a mediaeval legalistic discussion in Catholic justifications for the expansionist policies of the Normans, especially in Ireland, who against the vigourous protestation of the Church in Ireland claimed that the Gaelic Irish were practically Pagan in practice and that conquest against fellow Christians was justified to bring them in like with the Church. That this was nonsense I hope I don't need to state. Similar discourses about the Gaels in Scotland exist at the same time, as is clear from the earliest sources we have postdating the Gaelic kingdom of Alba becoming Scotland discussing the 'coastal Scots' - who speak Ynglis (early Scots) and are civilised - and the 'forest Scots' (who speak 'Scottis' (Middle Gaelic) and have all the hallmarks of barbarity. This discourse of Gaelic savagery remains in place fairly unchanged as the Scottish and then British crowns try various methods for integrating Gaeldom under the developing early state, provoking constant conflict and unrest, support certain clans and chiefs against others and generally massively upset and destabilise life among the Gaels both in Scotland and Ireland. This campaign, which is material in root but has a superstructure of Gaelic savagery and threat justifying it develops through attempts at assimilation, more or less failed colonial schemes in Leòdhas and Ìle, the splitting of the Gaelic Irish from the Gaelic Scots through legal means and the genocide of the Irish Gaels in Ulster, eventually culminates in the total ban on Gaelic culture, ethnic cleansing and permanent military occupation of large swathes of Northern Scotland, and the destruction of the clan system and therefore of Gaelic independence from the Scottish and British state, following the last rising in 1745-6.

What's relevant here is that the attitude of Gaelic barbarity, standing lower on the civilisational ladder than the Anglo Saxons of the Lowlands and of England, was continuously present as a justification for all these things. This package included associations with the natural world, with paganisms, with emotion, and etc. This set of things then become picked up on by the developing antiquarian movement and early national romantics of the 18th century, when the Gaels stop being a serious military threat to the comfortable lives of the Anglo nobility and developing bourgeoise who ran the state following the ethnic cleansing after Culloden and permanent occupation of the Highlands (again, ongoing to this day). They could then, as happened with other colonised peoples, be picked up on and romanticised instead, made into a noble savage, these perceived traits which before had made them undesirable now making them a sad but romantic relic of an inexorably disappearing past. It is no surprise that Sir Walter Scott (a curse upon him and all his kin) could make Gaels the romantic leads of his pseudohistorical epics at the exact same time that Gaels were being driven from their traditional lands in their millions and lost all traditional land rights. These moves are related. This tradition is what's picked up on by Gardner when he decides to use mangled versions of Gaelic Catholic practice (primarily) as collected by the Gaelic folklorist Alasdair MacIlleMhìcheil as the coating for Wicca, the most influential neo-pagan "religion" to claim a 'Celtic' root and the base of a lot of oncoming nonsense like that Celtic Tree Astrology horseshit that started this whole thing, and give it a pagan coat of paint while also adding some half-understood Dharmic concepts (three-fold law anyone?) and a spice of deeply racist Western Esotericism to the mix. That's why shit like that is directly harmful, not just historically but in the present total blotting out of actually existing culture of Celtic language speakers and their extremely precarious communities today.

If you want to read more, I especially recommend Dr. Silke Stroh's work Gaelic Scotland in the Colonial Imaginary, Dr. Aonghas MacCoinnich's book Plantation and Civility in the North-Atlantic World, the edited collection Mio-rún Mór nan Gall on Lowland-Highland divide, the Gaelic writer known in English as Ian Crichton Smith's essay A real people in a real place on these impacts on Gaelic speaking communities in the 20th century, Dr. Donnchadh Sneddons essay on Gaelic racial ideas present in Howard and Lovecrafts writings, and Dr. James Hunter's The Making of the Crofting Community for a focus on the clearings of Gaels after the land thefts of the late 18th and early 19th century.

@grimdr an do chaill mi dad cudromach, an canadh tu?

[hearthandheathenry]

All About Imbolc

Imbolc, also known as Imbolg, celebrated on February 1st, marks the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox in early Ireland and Scotland, and also signified the beginning of the first signs of spring after all the harsh winter days. Originally a pagan holdiay in pre-Christian times, there is little in writing about the historic traditions and customs, although many historians believe it revolved around the Celtic Goddess Brigid, lambing season, and cleansing due to observed ancient poetry.

Brigid is a Goddess and daughter of the father-God of Ireland, Dagda. She is associated with quite a few things depending on the sources, but universally associated with wisdom and poetry. Other associations of hers are blacksmithing, protection, domesticated animals, childbirth, fire, and healing. She was also known as a protector of the home and the family.

Once Christianity arose, it is believed that the Goddess was syncretized with the Irish Saint Brigid by Christian monks due to the many overlapping associations. This caused Imbolc to quickly turn into St. Brigids Day and the next day into Candlemas with the rising Christian popularity, enmeshing the holiday associations together.

Today, many people have mixed the traditions and melded many associations from both religious and cultural history to celebrate their own unique way. Common ways to celebrate are making a Brigid's Cross, welcoming Brigid into the home, having a feast in her honor, cleaning the home and oneself, visiting a holy well, and in some parts of the world they still hold festivals and processions carrying a representation of Brigid. Many pagans nowadays are using associations of hers and their connection with nature to create their own ways to celebrate, however, and you can absolutely celebrate however you feel called to do so.

Imbolc Associations:

Colors - white, gold or yellow, green, and blue

Food - milk, butter, cheese, seeds and grains, breads, herbs, blackberries, oat porridge, wild onion and garlic, honey

Animals - sheep and lambs, swans, cows, burrowing and hibernating animals

Items - candles, corn dolls, Brigid's cross, fires, snowdrops and white flowers, crocuses and daffodils, flower crowns

Crystals - amethyst, garnet, ruby, quartz, bloodstone

Other - lactation, birth, feasting, farm preparation, cleansing and cleaning, the sun, poetry and creative endevours, smithing, water

Ways To Celebrate Imbolc:

make a Brigid's cross

light candles

have a feast

bake bread

plan your spring garden

leave an offering for Brigid

make a corn doll

craft a flower crown

clean your home

take a cleansing bath

make something out of metal

have a bonfire

look for the first signs of spring

make your own butter or cheese

do divination work and seek wisdom

write a poem