More wit & wisdom from the Irish ~

On Writers:

"A writer without a cat risks taking himself too seriously." 

~ Garrison (Kildare) Reed

"My dad's a writer.  His favorite expression is: 'The pen is mightier than the sword," which I believed for a long time.  Until I moved into the city.  And I got into a fight with this guy.  He cut me up real bad, and I drew a mustache on his face.  And then I wrote him a nasty letter."

~ Kevin Brennan

"There is only one trait that marks the writer.  He is always watching.  It's a kind of trick of mind, and he is born with it."

~ Morley Callaghan

"Writers aren't exactly people. . . they're a whole lot of people trying to be one person."

~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

~ Irish-American Funny Quotes by Merrit Malloy, Sterling Publishing Co., 1994

March 17 will be St. Patrick's Day ~

Folks are wearing the green this week.  An old Hallmark Canada greeting card honours the Irish with the Legend of the Shamrock.

There is an honored legend from Ireland's ancient lore

Of how St. Patrick drove the snakes from Erin's lovely shore.

The wee folk were in danger from the serpents all around

That hid beneath the rocks and always moved without a sound.

But then when good St. Patrick came to preach and labor there,
He brought the shamrock with him which he planted everywhere.
And as the shamrocks flourished, all the snakes began to flee
Until they reached the shore, where they were swallowed by the sea.

Sure an' the wee folk marveled, and they asked St. Patrick why.

"The shamrock represents The Trinity," was his reply.
"Just as three shamrock leaves are joined onto a single stem,
The Trinity is three in one, and God is all of them.
The serpents learned its sacred power in Eden long ago

And cannot bear to stay here now because they fear it so."

And ever since St. Patrick drove the serpents all away.

They've ne'er come back to Ireland's shores, not to this very day.

~ Author unknown.

Encyclopedia ~

For the first time in two hundred and forty-four years, Encyclopedia Britannica will stop printing.

(CBC News, March 14,2012)  http://www.britannica.com/

Smile For Today ~


In keeping with his ideas on the dignity of labour, John Ruskin encouraged his Oxford students to try their hand at manual work.  He hit on a scheme of building a road from the village of North Hinksey to Oxford to provide the villagers with a direct route.  Among the undergraduates he recruited was Oscar Wilde.  The charms of manual labor wore off after a while and the road was never completed.  The line of the road was still visible in the mid-1960s.  Perhaps even remnants today!


Source:  THE LITTLE, BROWN BOOK OF Anecdotes, 1985, Clifton Fadiman,
~ J. Ruskin (1819 - 1900) British critic & social reformer.  Professor of Fine Arts at Oxford.

Talbot Road* as a Result of the War of 1812?

"Ever mindful of the sparse settlement of Ontario and the threats to British prestige in Canada during the War of 1812 and more lately in the Rebellion of 1837, the government determined on a policy of road building in order that troops might be moved more quickly from one part of Upper Canada to another.  The road from Canboro and Simcoe was graded for this purpose by negro labour.  One of the workman is said to have been bitten by a rattlesnake in Walpole and to have died from the effects.  It was the building of this road which resulted in Cayuga becoming a village rather than Indianna.
When the Hamilton and Port Dover Road was built where the two roads crossed, Jarvis sprung up."

~ The Early History of Haldimand County, John Russell Harper, Sachem Print, 1950
(1914 - 1983) b. in Oneida Twp., graduate Caledonia High School. Archaeologist, Chief Cataloguer & Registrar of ROM, Art Historian.  Bio. on Wikipedia.

By Russell Harper

* Hwy. #3

In his book A Field Guide to Irish Fairies, Bob Curran attempts to identify the fairies that one is "most likely to encounter." He cautions against examining them too closely, however, because of a warning once given Irish poet W. B. Yeats by the Queen of Fairies, through a Dublin medium.  "Be careful, and do not seek to know too much about us!"

Following are nine Irish fairies for whom one has to be on the watch:  The Grogoch, the Grey Man, the Sheerie, the Changelings, the Pooka, the Merrow, the Banshee, the Leprechaun (sometimes described as Ireland's National Fairy) and the Dullahan.

Fairies can be "wilful and capricious creatures, easily offended and quick to anger."  There was a time when they were so feared that one did not speak the name "fairy."  More flattering terms were used, such as the Gentry and the Good People.
As March 17 approaches, use caution and be aware!

* Published by Chronicle Books, 1997.

In A Field Guide to Irish Fairies*,  Bob Curran attempts to identify the fairies with whom one is most likely to run into.  But first, where did fairies come from?
My favourite explanation is that they are "fallen angels, those who sat on the fence during the great rebellion in Heaven and were thrown out for their indecisiveness. . .
"There were not, however, consigned to Hell with Lucifer and his followers, being neither good enough to be saved or bad enough to be lost.  St. Michael, the patron saint of all fairies, interceded with God on their behalf and they were given the dark and remote placesof the earth in which to dwell, well away from human habitation.  Some were granted the depths of the oceans and became merfolk; others were sent to the lands under the earth (this explains the fairies at the bottom of our garden) and became goblins and trolls.  Others were granted the air and became spirits and sheeries.  Others were given the harsh and barren areas of the countryside and became leprechauns and grogochs."

Tomorrow:  The thirteen types of fairies.

Published by Chronicle Books, 1998  http://www.chroniclebooks.com/