The Fields Of Athenry: A Journey Through IrelandIn The Fields of Athenry , James Charles Roy leads us through the Irish past and present with the central theme of his own personal experience with the renovation of a run-down castle -- really a crumbled tower -- that he purchased more than thirty years ago. Moyode Castle, located near the County Galway market town of Athenry, was built in the sixteenth century by the Dolphins, an Irish-speaking family directly descended from French-speaking Norman adventurers who had invaded Ireland four centuries earlier. This old tower house and the rich agricultural lands it guards has witnessed every strand of Irish history, from the heroic exploits of Celtic warriors long celebrated by Yeats and Lady Gregory, through the Easter Rising of 1916 when IRA insurgents used the building as a lookout. It stands today as a powerful, timeless symbol of the tumultuous ebb and flow of fortune, both good and bad, that characterizes Irish history. Roy weaves his personal story of the purchase and renovation of Moyode into a wide ranging historical conversation, leading us to a topic of real interest to Ireland today and our sense of history more broadly: the historical nostalgia we attach to Ireland and the fact that our romantic image flies directly in the face of development and boom times in the "Celtic Tiger" of the twenty-first century. Few know, for example, that today Ireland produces and ships more software abroad than any other country in the world with the exception of the United States, though we all know the story of Angela's Ashes. With this theme in mind, Roy leads us to question what attracts us -- or perhaps more aptly him -- to the rubble of a castle from Irish days long past. |
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A Journey Through Ireland James Charles Roy. their circular stairways in place ; carved window mullions , doorways , and fireplaces just where medieval masons set them ; chimneys and gables erect , though tilting . That was essentially ...
A Journey Through Ireland James Charles Roy. their circular stairways in place ; carved window mullions , doorways , and fireplaces just where medieval masons set them ; chimneys and gables erect , though tilting . That was essentially ...
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A Journey Through Ireland James Charles Roy. achieved when one side broke . Tactics did not exist . Great terror fell to any army that ran away in disorder , as the Irish ... medieval world for covetousness . The Irish loved plun- der ; they ...
A Journey Through Ireland James Charles Roy. achieved when one side broke . Tactics did not exist . Great terror fell to any army that ran away in disorder , as the Irish ... medieval world for covetousness . The Irish loved plun- der ; they ...
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A Journey Through Ireland James Charles Roy. - horses either in Scandinavia or the countries they seasonally raided and ... medieval man had with stalking , flushing , pursuing , and then killing wild game . William the Conqueror , it is ...
A Journey Through Ireland James Charles Roy. - horses either in Scandinavia or the countries they seasonally raided and ... medieval man had with stalking , flushing , pursuing , and then killing wild game . William the Conqueror , it is ...
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Contents
1 | |
21 | |
29 | |
de Burgo Burke | 67 |
4 | 113 |
5 | 139 |
Persse Mellows | 193 |
6 | 202 |
Lament | 249 |
the Celtic Tiger | 261 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abbey Anglo-Norman army Athenry Aughrim barons battle Bermingham Burgh Burton Calendar State Papers Carew Catholic cattle Celtic Celts century Charles chieftains Church Connaught Conquest countryside County Galway Crown death Dermot Dermot MacMurrough Dolphins Dublin Dunkellin earl of Clanricard earl's Elizabethan England English farm farmers father field friends Gaelic gallowglasses Galway City Harty Hayes-McCoy horse hunt Irish history Irish Sword James JGAHS John JRSAI Kildare king king's Lady Gregory land later Liam Mellows lived London look lord deputy Loughrea Medieval Ireland Mick motte and bailey Moyode Moyode Castle Moyode House never night Norman O'Connor O'Donnell O'Neill Ormond Persse Portumna Press Protestant Raftery Rathgorgin rebellion Richard Robert Roxborough royal ruin stone Strafford Strongbow sword Thomas Uniacke tion told took tower town Tudors Turoe Stone Ulick Ulster usual wall warrior Wentworth William de Burgo William the Conqueror wrote
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Page 275 - Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus (Boston: Little, Brown, 1942), 567-68; James Lockhart and Stuart B.
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Page 287 - ... of State were examined, the libraries of ancient monasteries were ransacked, and " Mr. Attorney was ordered to get together such documents as the Tower of London could afford, and to send them severally to Ireland under the Great Seal."|[ After much study the Crown, lawyers made out the following " Brief of his Majesty's title to the Counties of Roscommon, Sligo, Mayo, and Galway, in the province of Connaught."^[ King Henry III.
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Page 72 - Mayo of the English (Cong) of St. Ffechine, the Abbey of Athedalaragh (Boyle), Ailfynn, Uaran, Roscommon, with many other churches. God and the patrons of these churches shewed their miracles upon him, that his entrails and fundament fell from his private place, and it trailed after him even to the very earth, whereof he died impenitently, without shrive or extream unction, or good buryall in any church in the kingdom, but in a waste town.
Page 246 - They did not die in anger, or with any sense that Ireland was ungrateful to them, these men. Liam Mellows wrote to his mother : " The time is short, and much that I would like to say must go unsaid. But you will understand ; in such moments, heart speaks to heart. At 3.30 this morning, we (Dick Barrett, Rory O'Connor, Joe McKelvey and I) were informed that we were to be 'executed as a reprisal.
Page 132 - Because, said he (swearing with some warmth), I will cover that part, or any other your lordship shoots at, by hanging out both my daughters in chairs. It is true," adds Castlehaven, " the place was not of much importance ; but this conceit saved it...