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The Irish had developed an important monastic settlement here long before the Anglo-Normans arrived. Although archaeology finds evidence of some industry upon the site of the monastery, there was no town or city extant.
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• The Anglo-Norman "invasion" commenced in 1169 — about 200 soldiers landed in the southeast, at Wexford.
• Around 1172, Richard de Clare (Strongbow) built a wooden tower on the current site of the Kilkenny castle....
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The Vikings also established the now-important seacoast cities of Wexford, Waterford, Cork and Limerick.
The Vikings' interaction with the Kilkenny region was limited to warfare and raiding.
The location of Kilkenny — inland — put it out of the range of interest for the Vikings — at least as a potential settlement.
The Vikings' principal interest in Kilkenny would have been the chance to rob it — although, curiously, there is no record that they ever sacked the monastery here.
Monasteries were the prime targets of the Viking raids in Ireland — as they would be, [...] repositories of different kinds of wealth [treasure, food, slaves etc.]
It's possible that the powerful local king, Cerball McDunlaigh [and his Ossory,] the local kingdom ... was too powerful [for the Vikings at the time of the peak of their Irish raiding.]
In any case, the Vikings' influence upon (what would become) Kilkenny city was relatively minimal — except that Viking raids might in a sense have been the "making" of Cerball McD-.
...Ossory, comprising the approximate modern Co. Kilkenny plus about half again northward.
When the Anglo-Normans arrived, in from the southeast, having landed in Wexford with a small force, they found the important monastic settlement, the See of the Bishopric of Ossory. They set up a fort about a half-kilometer downstream, on a hill beside a bend in the river Nore.
[Charles Haughey] enriched himself by tens of millions of pounds received many fine gifts, designated land gaeltacht tax free;* and also established conditions which would allow for economic growth of country.
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Maybe work on the aul website a bit. Reworking editing from oldest forward; link items.
In a room full of Irish people who would agree on most everything, you'd find an argument about Charles Haughey.
Controversial Paradoxical
A man of the people who bilked the public coffers of tens of millions of pounds at a time when the country had a third-world economy.
Ah, I swear to God, I don't have time to work. Between doing and not doing, my time is occupied. So. Well.
"The Man They Couldn't Hang"
Lies are the first beneficiary of war.
Momentary pleasure, peace of mind.
Art, color, pictures, sound. Lights, camera.
Sex. Affection, emotion
Expression
Speak up
Okay. Ballistic Missile Defense makes sense now.
Ronald Reagan was a senile old coot who brought his talent as a B-grade movie actor into the U.S. presidency where he became a cowboy film star [in] the world's biggest venue.
One of his trademark crackpot ideas was [Ballistic Missile Defense], nicknamed the "Star Wars" program.
The ... proposition that you could shoot down a missile with a missile was, in the 1980's, a bold concept indeed. Ludicrous, one might even say.
The couple across the way — I'm on Bus Eireann — [are] annoying. She's got a glassen cackle-giggle, and he's got his hairy head buried in her. Kissing making out making sweet grappling swack.
Transgressive, redemptive.
The moral the story the legend.
I met up B_ and a friend of his. Brian mentioned my website. Told me he's my # 1 fan — taking the piss sorta well okay. He was complimentary.
— 4:00 PM Friday afternoon; beer garden all to myself at Tynan's Bridge House. This because it's today's Germany v. Argentina, in the first match in the World Cup semi-finals.
... makes no difference. I'm writing. That's what I need to do.
The walk down here, I got a little bent out of shape. The being in public. That jams me.
A woman stopped dead-stop dead-center small sidewalk James' Street, rooting digging into her purse. No apparent awareness that somebody is coming, wants to pass, get out of the dead-center way and show a little consideration — that's normal. It's no sense in getting upset about it. No sense at all. It's Irish — and here I am in Ireland....
I told myself this morning that I wouild see K_ on the town today. So I did. I just saw her going in to the Good Earth store. Momentary opted go on walking. So trapped I woulda been, going in there to follow her.
She looked very good. So that's fine.
Moderate imminent score this film with beautiful music.
I've begun a project of excerpting from my physical notebooks.
My long habit.
I've long been accustomed to writing in scrappy cheap notebooks for nothing but the pleasure that I get from it.
"Pleasure" is a strong word, but apt. Often, a sitting with a cup of somehting to drink and a notebook and a pen, has let me find a state of peace and fluency that I could not get otherwise.
I write without stopping, ideally — this most easily happens in a good little cafe, with a cup of coffee or tea and after an easy perusal of a newspaper.
Piss sit comfortably find a seat, better position move yokes around a bit on tabletop.
Make a bit of extra room — swipe the penstroke.
"God loves a tryer"
(But not a chancer)
Eoin, the Wicklow lad I met off the bus in Killarney and with whom I drank and traveled onward a further day, told me that the Killarney National Park is representative of Ireland as a whole before human depredation, in this one sense — that it is bedecked with deciduous trees.
A squirrel — Eoin told me — could have hopped, pre-homo sapiens, from one end of the island to the other on the trees that covered the place.
The destruction of forests began long ago. Naturally — in a land where politics is infused in every matter[,] inseparable from laughter and sport[,] clarity is a puzzle.
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