To The Raking of the Fire
And the New Flame in the Morning ~

So goes the dedication in H. V. Morton's In Search of Ireland.

"There is a verse spoken by peasants in the west as they rake the embers of their turf fires before going to bed.  It has been Englished as follows:
I save the seed of the fire to-night,
And so may Christ save me . . ."
The farmer rakes his fire after a long evening in a Connemara cabin.  He tidies the little pile of glowing turf, and then he damps it down with ashes in order that the fire might live until the morning.
"This act, which is performed in thousands of white cabins when night comes over the hills is symbolic of Ireland.  The burning peat, one may fancy, is the Gael; the ashes are the centuries of suppression under a foreign power; the darkness needs no comment, and the morning is the Ireland of the future..  When these ashes are raked off in the morning there is a faint pinkish heart of fire in the turf, and the peasants blow upon it until a flame bursts out and new fuel is added on the hearth."

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

The York Grand River Historical Society ~

Tuesday, March 21, 2:00 p.m.  The guest speaker is Gill Biddy.  Subject:  The War of 1812 on the Great Lakes.

This is a thriving group of historians who have produced among other things two books and a set of attractive hasty-notes depicting local historical buildings.

Location:  Andrew's Lodge Hall, Caledonia, on Hwy. 6 opposite Tim Horton's at the tracks.

(Note: The date was incorrectly reported in a local paper. Please note that the historical society always meets on the third Tuesday.)
Photo:  The Grand River at Cayuga ~ lbwalker

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