The Celtic Times

GAA not approached by AFL over player plan

GAA not approached by AFL over player plan: GAA not approached by AFL over player plan

From the Chapel Gates of Cooraclare to the plot to seize America - the story of Brigadier General Martin Meaney

Brian Boru, King of the Gaels, and Imperatoris Scotorum

Fierce combat raged throughout the day until the Norse and Leinster lines finally broke and they were set upon unmercifully by the Dalcassians. It was nonetheless a pyrrhic victory as three generations of the Dál Cais dynasty were killed. Toirdealbhaigh, Brian’s grandson was found in a river bed with his hands entangled in the hair of a dead Viking. Murchad, leader of the Dál Cais army in the field was also slain and his father, the seventy three year old High King of Ireland was felled by the fleeing Viking Brodar. It was a disaster for Ireland and for Dál Cais who never fully recovered from this blow. It was his personal qualities that had carved out the greatness which Brian had attained in life, and this greatness was to die with him in Clontarf. He was described in the Lives of the Irish Saints ‘Blessed Brian Boru, King and Martyr’. The ancient chroniclers described Brian as the ‘over king of the Irish of Ireland and of the foreigners and of the Britons, the Augustus of the whole of north-west Europe’. His feats of war and enlightened leadership have ensconced Brian’s name in all that is forever Ireland.

Happy Birthday to the Great Dalcassian, Muhammad Ali , now lets do away with the lip service - VIDEO

Where Atlantis met the Cliffs of Moher – John Philip Holland the inventor of the submarine

  Finally, to the anointed PR asses in the DAAA, when you are bankrolling the next glorification of Dublin Airport in your televised advertisements to the expense of Shannon International Airport (which somehow also belongs in your remit, for the now) please at least do us the courtesy of not hijacking work that is not of your own doing, especially confusing some of the public by presenting JP Holland and his inventions as some kind of Dublin Airport marketing ploy, or a Dalcassian clarification session similar to 1014 will have to be revisited again. Slán tamall and Happy Thanksgiving.

'Gentlemen, you have a country' - Thomas Davis, a real Irish president

I can only think one amongst them would. These questions have not been generally asked; just all decentskin, soapy stuff, and nasty, personal guff which has little or no public relevance. And that’s exactly what many reckon we will get, all airs of decency and dignified irrelevance. Davis sought to foster a nationality of the spirit of Ireland. That can-do, self governing, independent thought and action is exactly what we need in the wake of the economic collapse, not just confined to the citizens of the twenty six county state but extended to and embracing the cherished diaspora who are going to be targeted as part of a multimillion euro tourism campaign for the 2013 Gathering. They need, we all need a president to not just symbolise this, but to become this. We have a country still.

Exiled Gaels and sporting rebels of Ireland - part III

PS: Congratulations to Clondegad GAA for attaining Clare senior status recently when annexing the Talty Cup; it is some parish to hold two vibrant senior teams, Lissycasey being the other - together they'd rule Munster football although the steadfast sons of Kilmurry Ibrickane may have a say yet on that for some time to come!!

Exiled Gaels and Irish sporting rebels: part 2

Irish heritage website of the week - Ireland's National Museum

The restoration of the ruined heart of the midlands, St Mel's, and the New Ireland of Auckland

This is a town and a county where man has found God, craic, tax havens and all the leisure the lordly Shannon can throw up. A place where the land has given up live fish to saints - let that be an image for the resourcefulness that’s required ahead. A place with soul.

Exiled Gaels and sporting rebels - Exotic stories of Gaelic and indigenous games

Histories and folklore, stories and legend abound about the ancient Gaelic sports of Ireland. These native games have a rich modern history, peopled by famous names and fabled places, from Ring and Mackey, Purcell and Stockwell to Thurles, Croker and Clones on a mid summers day in the Red Hand Province. The four seasons speak of the feats and fame, infamy and lows in the vernacular world of Irish sport. These contests have earned its association a rightful place as a dynamic force in today’s Irish society.

Yet within the quilted patchwork of these indigenous games and memories, seldom is noticed a binding thread, which, when unraveled, takes you to the essence of our sporting traditions. Buried within the modern lore of our national games lay exotic histories which span across the world, from Batman’s Hill in Melbourne and the hallowed walls of Jerusalem to the Bocas Juniors of Diego Maradona in Buenos Aires; from the glittering floodlit nigh time glory of nineteenth century Madison Square Gardens experienced by once starving Irish peasants to the Parisian playing fields of the French Sun King.

One word leaps consistently from these obscured gems of Irish history amidst the tales of valour, struggle and joy – indomitable. Though defeat and victory may define the two sides of a sporting coin, these games, to borrow an iconic quote from an iconic Scouse sporting figure of another code, weren’t about life and death – they were much more than that.

In the footsteps of saints, scholars and sinners - A Celtic camino

Confessio Patricus, the written confessions of St Patrick, have a special resonance today, in this the age of damning reports from Raphoe to Cloyne on an infected church in an era of overwhelmingly disinterested, disconnected younger generations and demoralized older ones.

Patrick apparently was an unbecoming upstart figure to his clerical peers in the mid fifth century, and the Confessio was all about setting the record straight from his own perspective. A fifth century tribunal response, if you like, where the once enslaved Briton shepherd boy of part Roman stock (some sources indicate Kilpatrick, near Glasgow was his birthplace) sets down in his own hand the circumstances that led to his mission to Ireland and how he went about answering the call.

Indeed Dáibhí Ó Croinín a superb lecturer who could entice 9am attendances on hazy Friday mornings in Galway, quipped that Patrick, must have been the only citizen of the Roman empire to have been made a slave and live to tell the tale. It is also a strongly held viewpoint by Ó Croinín and prominent scholars of this period that Patrick the man, arrived into an Ireland that already had embryonic Christian communities and that aspects of these early missions are later combined within the persona of Patrick.
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What presidents, poets and celebrities say about the Irish

Romantic Ireland is far from dead and gone, yet

Honourable mention would also have to be given to one of the first practitioners of Gaelic games, Setanta, who, it is chronicled, after one display of skill was greeted by many bare breasted women. The love affair of Tristan and Isolde would also feature prominently in the international section along with Bernardo O’Brien who was the first European to encounter and document the hardy Amazonian women that he encountered almost 400 years ago before moving onto the modern section. I would be far too ignorant to even advance suggestions at this point in time for the modern gallery without due reference to Amy Andrews elsewhere in this parish who would be a far more reliable judge. Over to Fáilte Ireland to commission feasibility study.

The Orange Sash and the clash of the ash - The Munster Boys of Melbourne, 12th July 1843-44

The Orange sash and the clash of the ash

-The Munster Boys of Melbourne, 12th July 1843-44

The Munster Clans from far and near,

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