The Joys of Local Journalism (or How I Discovered I Was Heir to the Throne of Camelot)

Local Man Arthur O'Neill

I mentioned a while back that I’d recently found a new job. Well I haven’t lost it yet, I’m glad to report. It’s up at my local newspaper, where I’ve worked on and off over the years. I love where I live and I love being a journalist so it’s pretty much perfect really. Especially when you get stories like the one I wrote last week; the one where I found out that not only was King Arthur actually an honest-to-god real-life person, but he was from Inishowen!  And there’s more - it turns out there’s even a chance I’m descended from him. You could be too! Seriously folks, the King Arthur.

Let me explain. According to new research by English historian Dane Pestano, Arthurian legend may very well have originated from a historical sixth-century High King of Ireland. Said king being Muircertach MacErca, who ruled from An Grianan and was the great-grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages. For any of you  not familiar with him, Niall was a legendary Ulster king who was apparently quite the ladies’ man. Genetic studies have found that around 20% of males in the north of Ireland and south-west Scotland carry his Y-chromosome and it’s believed up to six million people in the world today could be descended from him. As I said, he must’ve got around a bit.

An Grianan- the original Camelot?

That means there’s probably a fair chunk of the population round these parts who are related to MacErca too. Until recently not much was known about him, but a few years back Mr Pestano uncovered a lost tale in an old manuscript which led him on his Arthurian adventure. In his short book, Dane explains how the life MacErca, who also ruled from Grianan, almost exactly mirrors that of the man the Welsh and Britons knew as Arthur. Drawing upon both historical record and old folktales, here are just some of the links he identifies:

• MacErca was supposedly the first Christian king of Ireland and ruled at the same time as the mythical Arthur;
• His name can be translated as ‘Arthur’ and his wife’s name mirrors that of Gwenevere when translated into Welsh;
• As a child he was fostered by a driud;
• He conquered Gaul and assumed sovereignty of Britain, The Saxons, Scotland, The Orkneys, and Denmark;
• He was in possession of the Lia Fáil (the Stone of Destiny);
• There was a Merlin-type character, the bishop Cairneach, who guided him in his conquests and who could apparently perform magical feats;
• The idea of Morgan LeFey may also have originated here since there is one folktale which tells of a fairy woman who tried to seduce then murder MacErca;
• Finally, according to legend MacErca succumbed to the symbolic ‘triple death’.

MacErca was also the grandson of Eoghan, whom Inishowen is named after, and he was the uncle of another famous local lad, St Colmcille (aka St Columba), who had the gift of prophecy and was a bit of an Irish Nostradamus.  I think the Glastonbury tourist board are going to have to review their brochures because if MacErca is indeed Arthur then his links to this area are incredible. When I was chatting to Dane on the phone about his work he said that Bettina over at Guarding Grianan Aileach may even have discovered the actual Round Table at the ring fort. How cool is that!

I think by now you lot know how much I love history and folklore, especially anything to do with Grianan, so you can imagine how excited I was about this story. I’m such a geek I was as thrilled working on it as someone else might’ve been if they’d gotten to interview their favourite actor or singer or something. Niall and Arthur are like celebrities to me :) 

 I think everyone at the paper thinks I’m a wee bit loopy for getting so excited about it, but I’m not just saying this - I think it’s the most fun I’ve ever had writing a story.  I even discovered a new favourite word, toppling ‘troglodyte’ from it’s long-held first place spot. It’s ‘Galfridian’, as in ‘pre-Galfridian’ meaning ‘existing before Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his famous twelfth century work on Arthur’.  Nice, isn’t it? The stories about MacErca are pre-Galfridian.

Dane’s introductory book, ‘King Arthur in Irish Pseudo-Historical Tradition’, is available to download or order here. It’ll soon be on Amazon etc too and I’ll add those links as soon as I get them. He plans to publish a full edition next year so watch this space.

Seasonal Irony

Image via inishowennews.com

Well people, the rain’s back and so am I! Thank the heavens for it too - the rain that is, not me being back (I might be a bit ditsy but I’m not that self-absorbed).  And for once I’m not alone in rejoicing at the return of the clouds; it must be the first time in history people were actually praying for rain in Ireland. Things were getting a bit hairy there for a while!

For anyone not from these parts, we’ve been having some trouble with gorse fires recently. These past weeks of hot, dry, windy weather saw them popping up all over the British Isles. Donegal was quite badly hit, and while we were lucky enough to only have a few minor blazes in our immediate area (like the one photographed above), a large chunk of the rest of the county was ablaze. From our upstairs window you could see hills burning across the lough.  ‘The fires of Bealtaine’ as a friend on Facebook called them. Indeed.

Not to worry, though, for the rain has returned, Ireland is once more her soggy (if a little smouldering) self, and all is right with the universe again. Well, aside from the fact that thousands of hectares of bog, woodland and forest have been decimated. Not to mention those wee chicks in their nests and all the other little unfortunate critters caught up in the flames. There may not have been any humans killed, but there’s fear now that some rare native bird species may have been completely wiped out. Devastating stuff altogether. 

Anyway.

Right, so I’ve been trying to think what I’ve been up to since I last made a proper post, as opposed to one where I just came on to blog about how I’ve not been blogging enough. Let’s see, what have I been at? Well, I’ve joined a local camera club, which has been both fun and educational in equal measure. Basically it just involves a bunch of super-cool folks sitting around looking at and talking about photographs.  And drinking tea. What more could a girl ask for? Here’s one of my photos from last week, the theme was ‘macro’. It’s not great, but, as I said, I’m learning loads from the group.

I’ve also been helping  my fiance’s dad out with a history and heritage group he’s involved with and I’ve found out some really interesting stuff about local ley lines and stone circles after he discovered these maps in an old book. The zoomed-out one charts the astronomical connection between several megalithic sites in the wider area, while the close up one concerns a circle just nearby my house!  I love this stuff…

In other news, any corrupt politicians or scandalous personalities in my vicinity should beware, I may soon be returning to the world of local hackdom. It’s all still up in the air at the minute but fingers and toes are crossed! I’ll keep you posted on any developments.

Finally this evening - last but certainly not least, and all that - I want to say a big happy HELLO to my latest follower, Libithina! Aside from having a really beautiful name, this lady also has several wonderful blogs to peruse. Here’s her profile link because I couldn’t decided which site to share. You see, my friends, the lovely Libithina is my 200 th follower! As such I’d just like to take this opportunity to say I LOVE YOU GUYS!

Thanks so much to each and every one of you who take the time to call into this little corner of webland. I can’t for the life of me think why anyone would want to, but I am really truly grateful to all who do. I’ve made some great friends here over the past year and it amazes me that I keep meeting new ones. I have to admit, I do feel a tad guilty since I’ve been such a bad blog buddy lately.

As I said though, I’m back now, and this weekend I’m making a point of catching up with you all - new friends and old!  Until then!

Barking Mad

The stuff of memories?

So it’s the start of National Tree Week everybody! Great, right? Well please forgive this particular leaf lover for not getting too over excited.  Sure I’m all for celebrating our wooded wonders and I give a big virtual pat on the back to those lovely folk over at the Tree Council of Ireland, they do good work. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to kick off their well intentioned week with a rant. 

You see I’m finding it very hard at the minute to muster up any national pride in the way our country cares for trees, especially since it’s recently been revealed that we’re planning on selling them all off! Well, maybe not all of them exactly, just our remaining forests.  Over a million acres to be precise. Kind of ironic when you consider the theme for this year’s week is ‘Celebrating Forests for People’.

Regular readers to this blog will have heard me lamenting our embattled trees before. Irish trees were arguably the biggest losers of the Celtic Tiger era and its head long rush towards development and ‘progress’, and I had hoped the recession might have provided them with some respite from the builders’ bulldozers. Unfortunately that appears to have been a rather naive notion.

Yup, Ireland’s forests are now up for sale along with everything else in the country, reduced to nothing more than a commodity to be monopolised by private investors.

In fairness, the plan isn’t necessarily to chop all the forests down. Well it is actually, but not in the way you might think. Apparently interest has been expressed in the prized lots by a Swiss finance company called Helvetia Wealth, who own the International Forestry Fund. Interestingly, the IFF is now chaired by former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern (those of you after a cynical chuckle should read the laudations for him on their website).  

 

Speaking of their website, after reading it one could be forgiven for being a tad optimistic about the future of our forests; lots of talk of sustainability and ethical and environmental consideration, pictures of bluebell carpeted woods, details of how entire local economies can flourish around the forests themselves… It all sounds quite reasonable, doesn’t it?

You’ll have to pardon my scepticism, but I find it hard to be convinced that a multinational corporation driven solely by profit garnered from timbering has the best interests of our country’s natural heritage at heart.  My suspicion was further heightened by the ‘terms and conditions’ you have to agree to before even logging into their site, basically a disclaimer which warns that not everything on the website should be taken as set-in-stone fact. I think that one was aimed at the investors, but it still takes the shine out the silver lining I highlighted above.

You know it’s issues like this that have me itching all the more to get my journalism boots back on. So far the Irish media have paid little attention to the plight of our forests, but I suppose why would they if it wasn’t sent out pre-explained in a press release? Investigative reporting was already on its last legs but I think the recession has finally killed it off. Newsrooms are just so short staffed theses days that editors can’t afford to give their reporters the time needed to look into these things properly. Ah, but I digress…

 

Back to the trees! So I realise a lot of you fellow inhabitants of this soon-to-be-not-so-emerald isle will already be up to speed on all this thanks to the petition doing the rounds on Facebook. Those of you from further a field that are interested can find out more here at The Woodland League, where you’ll find a copy of the petition to our president. Feel free to sign it! The more countries that say no to this carry on, the harder it’ll be for leaders to get away with it elsewhere. And doubt for a second that similar shenanigans aren’t afoot in your own respective backyards!

The British public have already shown that it’s possible to get governments to change their minds on these matters, now it’s Irelands turn to take back the trees. We’re only a little country, and from what I can see our leaders rarely listen to anything we say, so we could do with all help we can get. I thought maybe I might be able to rally some international support from all you lovely blogger folk? Especially you American ones, our government has always done everything you Yanks have told it to ;) So sign up, pass it on, and help us save our forests! The Irish nation thanks you in advance.

By The Light Of The Silvery Moon

Being a trained journalist and still pursuing my increasingly futile quest to gain employment in that area, I try to keep myself fairly up-to-date with what’s going on in the world. So how the hell did this pass me by? Maybe because it’s out of this world, he he he. (Sorry, that was uncalled for.) Still, can’t believe I missed this one. And the science section’s one of my favourites too! I even remember them launching this rocket and everything:

 

Silver found on Moon – and you thought it was made of cheese

www.independent.co.uk

 

Did you read it, did you hear? The moon is actually made of silver! Ok, so there’s only trace amounts of it in the lunar soil but let me have my notions.  It’s silver I tells ya! Realistically though folks, perfectly lovely as that thought is and all, how long do you give them before they start mining?

p.s You’d think if I was talking about a news story tonight there may just be another wee topic that should have my attention. I wonder, whatever could it be… Ah who cares about it anyway, the moon is made of silver! La la, la la la…

A Rant of Epic Proportions

 

I’m in the mood for revolution tonight. And I’m not talking about an ‘oh, lets make some placards and hold a rally’ type thing. I mean a full blown ‘bring down the government, overhaul the entire system’ job. Peacefully, of course. In fact, in my new regime all those who even acknowledge so-called political violence as a means to an end will be rounded up for a little dose of re-education. Such braindeads are one of the reasons I’m in such a riled up mood this evening, but I’ll get back to that in a minute.

Anyway, it all started off this morning when I opened my local paper to discover a story on the removal of a local “eyesore”. Said “eyesore” can be seen in the photo above which I took during a lovely sea mist last spring. It looks even more beautiful during a high tide or bathed in evening sunshine and I had hoped to get more shots of it throughout the seasons, but now I’ll never get the chance. *sigh*

“It’s only a boat, not worth getting that worked up over,” I hear you cry, but no, it wasn’t only a boat!  It was local landmark, beached on some rocks just by the bridge that takes you into our wee town. For myself and so many others it was one of those little signs that let you know you were home after a long trip away. It had been there for as long as anyone I know can remember. And two days ago it was bought for five euro, demolished and carted off to be sold on for a healthy profit as scrap metal. So far the only people I’ve heard calling it an eyesore were those who took it away.

The story of this little boat, folks, represents all that is and has been wrong with my country for a long time now. For decades I’ve watched the majority of what made Ireland beautiful bring ripped apart in the name of “progress and prosperity”. Ancient trees disappearing in the night to make way for office car parks, charming cobblestone bridges being knocked down for roads that go nowhere, pre-Celtic monuments that have stood for millennia now being let fall to wrack and ruin. And don’t even get me started on the property boom, which has obliterated countryside and urban centres alike with some of the most tasteless buildings on the planet. Seriously, even the Soviets would have thought modern Irish architecture bland.

It’s not as though we don’t have planning and conservation laws, it’s just that if you have the right bank  balance or know the right people you don’t have to worry about them. In fact, from what I can see developers were, if anything, encouraged to flaunt them. Even funded! And they wonder why the country is going down the tubes. Forget global recession, this place is a mess all of our own making. We can moan about the bankers all day long, and rightly so too, but there’s so much more wrong here than just financial corruption. There is a deep rooted cultural and political apathy that is so pandemic I can’t see anyway of recovering from it. We don’t deserve to be prosperous if this is what we do with our wealth.

But then maybe I’m just extra mad today because right after reading the news about my beloved boat I got a text that instantly threw all my Halloween plans out the window. You see that little scary video I posted a few days ago was supposed to be a prelude to a month of terror and madness that I was going to bring to you courtesy of The Loom of Doom, a haunted house event I was supposed to be taking part in. (I was going to be one of the evil nurses!) Sadly, it has had to be called off, brought down in a tangle of red tape and over-priced bureaucracy. Instead of supporting such a positive and potentially lucrative event our local government system has instead made it economically unviable.

Well they’ve certainly shot themselves in the foot with this one. I was helping out with the show’s press work and I can tell you now, the media attention and public support for this project was phenomenal. It was being held in an old Fruit of the Loom factory that at one point not so long ago employed a vast proportion of the town’s population. When it shut a few years back the local economy was devastated, and the building has been lying empty since. The new owners had kindly donated it’s uses free of charge so that it could be put to some positive use, and the sense of community spirit didn’t end there. The entire thing was being financed by the organisers themselves though all profit was going to local charities, and everyone else involved (hundreds of people) were giving their services voluntarily. To top it off, tens of thousands of visitors were expected to descend upon the town in search of a good scare.

It was due to open on Friday and I’d been down looking at the sets and stuff a few times already. Oh my god, the quality of craftsmanship and artistry was nothing short of outstanding. It was going to be so super amazingly fantastic! I was going to wait till it opened to start snapping and sharing it with you, but now I’m not going to get the chance to do that now either. The only ones I have are the two I took to make the poster for the Facebook page I was helping maintain. Forget about how heartbreaking it is for those who put in so much effort, and about the bitter disappointment of those looking forward to attending, what about me and my blog?! I’m going to have to go find new stuff to post for these parties! *steam coming out ears while hammering at keyboard*

Right, I do realise that this has become my all time longest post and I do apologise for that, but I did mention in my opening paragraph that there was one other thing ragging me so I’ll just touch on it briefly. I’m not sure how clued up you all are on the whole Northern Ireland situation, but at the minute there are a bunch of absolute muppets going around trying to restart the whole thing.  I mean it, these people are not only bigoted, hate-filled, braindead shitheads (my polite term for them) but they’re actually even more dangerous than those who came before on account of their unfathomable stupidity.

What they hell are they fighting for anyway? Who exactly are they fighting? They’d probably spin you some bullshit about national self-determination or some such. Actually, they wouldn’t-  that’s much too complicated a term for them to understand. So what is it they want exactly? To ‘blow up Brits’? Yup, that’s more like their kind of language. Why exactly, I have no idea. Also, if that’s the case, then why did they blow up almost thirty men women and children in Omagh ten years ago? Three of those children were from my home town, which is in the Republic of Ireland, and two of them were Spanish. The rest were just locals going about their business, Catholics and Protestants alike, friends and neighbours.

I’ll tell you why they did it, because they’re idiots who grew up spoon fed nationalistic propaganda from a generation who are so bitter about the past they can’t let it go. Calling them misguided fools is much too soft, though, because last night they almost caused a repeat of the Omagh tragedy when they planted a car bomb just down the road from here in Derry. Right outside a bloody hotel of all places! There were American and Japanese tourists inside and everything. But that wasn’t their intended target, we’ll probably never know where was. Just like that Saturday afternoon in Omagh, this bomb had been abandoned in the wrong place. It’s thought those responsible were spooked by a police presence further down the road. So what did they do? They ran away and left it outside some busy shops and a building full of foreign nationals. Yes boys, you are true patriots.

Thankfully, the car was reported as suspicious and the surrounding area evacuated. It’s a miracle nobody was seriously injured. It’s still really very worrying. I don’t get spooked by terror warnings on the news and I don’t buy into media fear mongering, but when you realise there are idiots like this operating close by it is a little scary. Stupidity is a very dangerous thing, and when it’s backed up with explosives it’s lethal.  These people might be a tiny minority but even the littlest things in the universe can be deadly.

Anyway, sorry this post has been so, so long. When I said it was going to be ‘epic’ I didn’t really mean it literally! I think I just needed to vent a little. I’ll be back tomorrow with some lighter stuff but for now I need to go recover.

Slow News Day

While out on my regular job hunting quest this evening I came across this in the funnies section of HoldtheFrontPage.co.uk.  Maybe it’s just the resulting lunacy that comes from filling out one too many application forms but I just can’t stop laughing every time I look at this, a genuine news story from The Harrogate Advertiser. (Notice underneath there's even a helpful little 'banana facts' sub-section.) Ah, the joys of local journalism. Please someone give me a job! I’ll hunt you down square satsumas or polka dot pears or whatever fruity freaks there are to be found!

Carlsberg Don’t Do Strikes…

…well usually, but when they do they’re probably the best strikes in the world. Just had to share this. Those crazy Danes!

Carlsberg staff strike over ban on drinking at work
Thu Apr 8, 2010 11:29am EDT

COPENHAGEN (Reuters Life!) - A few hundred warehouse workers and drivers at Danish brewer Carlsberg halted work for a second day on Thursday to protest a company decision to limit beer drinking at work to lunch breaks. Read More

A Pot O’ (Fools) Gold

Image via Extraordinary Intelligence

A rather pitiful attempt at an April Fools gag by Ireland’s national broadcaster (made even sadder by the fact that if it were true we’d be in much better shape).

Leprechauns to bail out Government

Thursday, 1 April 2010 10:38

The Leprechaun community is to give its pots of gold to the Government to help cover the cost of recapitalising the banks...Read More

Yippee!

Finally, confirmation: HBO Will Play ‘Game of Thrones’

I'm so excited. If they do as good a job with this as they did with ‘Rome’ then I may wet myself. It's being  filmed  in Belfast. Me thinks I might have to grab my freelance journo hat and take a wee run up for a visit!

Newsy Art

I’ve got such a pile of old newspapers lying around my house and I know I could recycle them but I like to use them for stuff, like collages or wrapping paper. I’ve never done anything as creative as these, but then I’m not an uber gifted and renowned artist like Andrea Dezso. The girl can turn her hand to anything, from writing to sculpture to embroidery. She’s got the sort of talent people sell their souls for.

A Familiar Story

Buy a print of this photo here

Now I like to think of myself as a pretty level headed person. I might wax on about fairies and fantasy, full moons and flowers, but generally I know the difference between imagination and reality. And when it comes to matters of the soul I like to keep my mind open. I do not follow any religion nor ascribe to any doctrine, though I do contemplate the spiritual from time to time.

I also like cats. I remember once doing a church gate collection for charity. It was at a late mass in a country chapel one winter. Lucky old me was stuck up at the back entrance. Right by the graves. In the dark. On my own. When a little moggy came along I thought ‘great, a wee bit of company’, but from there things just got spookier.

You see, the cat was more interested in the graves than in me. Two graves in particular, that weren’t even close by each other. I watched it move between the pair, stopping at each one for a while before returning to the other. It was as if it was relaying messages, or paying respect. Something. After my stand was over I went and investigated. Guess what- the dates of death on both headstones were the same year and the ages close. Both were men. Buddies, perhaps?

Anyway, I just thought that an interesting little anecdote to introduce the following article about a cat with an uncanny ability. It’s a fascinating story.

Doctor casts new light on cat that can predict death


SYDNEY (Reuters) - When doctors and staff realized that a cat living in a U.S. nursing home could sense when someone was going to die, the feline, Oscar, was portrayed as a furry grim reaper or four-legged angel of death. Read More

Changing Times

Right, so I’m not sure what the rules are on this sort of thing, nor do I care (I’m a rebel, you see, a real bad ass), but I’ve replaced the post that was here.

Previously I had up a tongue-in-cheek, letter-to-the-editor type article by Newton Emerson for the Irish Times. I thoroughly enjoyed the piece, which is why I posted it in the first place, but on reflection it didn’t quite fit in with the rest of my stuff. To start with, it could’ve only really been appreciated by someone familiar with the subtle ridiculousness of Irish history and politics. Plus it was so long it took up half the page. (If you’re intrigued you can read it here.)

Instead I’ve put up another news story from the same week that made me smile just as widely, and will be appreciated by anyone in their right mind. I find one’s attitude towards tea to be a strong measure of one’s character. Maybe that’s just another Irish thing.

Anyway, here you go, the news I’ve been waiting for. Finally, they’re saying something I love is good for me!

Drinking eight cups of tea a day 'reduces heart attack and stroke risk'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ 

Drinking up to eight cups of tea a day offers "significant health benefits", including a lower risk of heart attack and stroke, according to research. Read More

Our hearts are broken, yet there is still hope.

Pictures from the PA via The Irish Times

My fiance laughs at me every time I talk about football, but he doesn't know about this blog so I might get away with this...

So 82% of French people want the match replayed, Sarkozy has apologised to Brian Cowen, and now even Henry himself has called for a rematch (even if he did wait until after he was sure it wouldn’t happen).

Here at home they’re protesting the French embassy and there’s petitions for a replay flying all over the place.

It won’t happen, will it?

For years I’ve bemoaned the apathy that abounds in this country, where the general population have put up with- worse, they’ve endorsed- a regime that would make the most corrupt African dictator blush. Sure, everybody's disgruntled now things have gone belly up, but we've had a totally inept government since long before I was able to vote with hardly a peep out of anyone about it.

Now, it seems, the Irish have grown themselves a back bone and all over a silly game of football. No, not a silly game, a brilliant game, played out by heroes who for an hour and a half gave a nation hope.

We were robbed, and we should be going to South Africa. All based on that one little match, granted, but the fact that we had a lethargic qualifying campaign (the French did too) in no way diminishes the verity that that game was OURS.

What people don’t realise, though, is that they were never going to let us win. ‘They’ being that pervasive entity known as FIFA. I’m not saying that they fixed the match or told Henry to cheat, That Incident aside, the officials were only a little bit biased across the two legs.

But there’s simply too much money involved for FIFA to allow a little team like Ireland to triumph over the former world champions. We’re not brand-able enough. That’s why the governing body decided to seed the play-offs half way through the group stages. They changed the rules after the game had started!

Now that they’ve got what they wanted they hide behind their rule book, ignoring their own mantra of ‘fair play’.

Will we stand for it? It would appear not! And the French, it seems, have too much honour to accept their tainted victory so they may even back us up.

Tomorrow they march from Lansdowne, who knows what might happen. It’s a small hope, very small, but hope nonetheless.

So Sweet

Here's a something I found on holdthefrontpage.co.uk a while back and thought it was so lovely I saved it. The journalism website had it in their funnies section 'cause of a subbing error which labelled it an obituary but I'm a bit blinded by the sentimentality of it. I've been going out with my fiance since I was 16 and we were supposed to get married next year but the recession has killed that idea. Ah well, I've waited this long, what's another couple of years?