For those who thought they knew the history of the humanspecies, the past few years have been especially humbling. Therehas been a torrent of surprising discoveries that has washed awayan awful lot of what we thought we knew, leaving behind both muchmore knowledge and many more questions.
Desperate Amateurs Torrent
The more specialized and sophisticated scientific research becomes, the farther it recedes from everyday experience. The clergymen-amateurs who made 19th-century scientific breakthroughs are a distant memory. Or are they? Paradoxically, in an increasing variety of fields, computers are coming to the rescue of the amateur, through crowd-sourced science.
Last month, computer gamers working from home redesigned an enzyme. Last year, a gene-testing company used its customers to find mutations that increase or decrease the risk of Parkinson's disease. Astronomers are drawing amateurs into searching for galaxies and signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. The modern equivalent of the Victorian scientific vicar is an ordinary person who volunteers his or her time to solving a small piece of a big scientific puzzle.
Haiti's plight is a reminder there is nothing new about bioenergy. A few centuries ago, Britain got most of its energy from firewood and hay. Over the years the iron industry moved from Sussex to the Welsh borders to Cumberland and then Sweden in an increasingly desperate search for wood to fire its furnaces. Cheap coal and oil then effectively allowed the gradual reforestation of the country. Britain's forest cover-12 per cent-is three times what it was in 1919 and will soon rival the levels recorded in the Doomsday Book of 1086.
The Irish retreating before the storming party, their ardour hurried them on into the town, whilst the regiments ordered to support them stopped short at the counterscarp, and they who led the attack were all either killed or wounded. The defenders, having rallied, returned with renewed and desperate valour to the breach, the women even mingling in their ranks, and sharing in the fight; and, after three hours uninterrupted firing, insomuch that the smoke that went from the town reached in one continued cloud to the top of a mountain at least six miles off, the besiegers were forced to retire to their trenches, having expended all their ammunition. Some powder taking fire in a small work called the Black Battery, that had been seized by the Brandenburgh Regiment, most of these soldiers were blown into the air. A truce demanded by King William the next morning, for burying the dead, was refused; and, notwith-standing he offered the Irish favourable terms, to which Lord Tyrconnell was willing to accede, Boislieu, the governor, determined to hold out to the last, justly regarding, although the cause of James was desperate, the capitulation of Limerick to be fatal to it.
A party of soldiers were brought from Limerick for the purpose, who soon completed the work, and the trim grassy aisle replaced the legends commemorative of the old fathers and feudal chiefs. Some monumental and confessional niches have escaped, and may still be seen. In the cloisters I found two little carved fragments; one of these was an escutcheon charged with a cross saltire; the other, a figure in rude bas-relief about eighteen inches high, representing a grey friar, as appears from the costume. These abbies were founded by the Earls of Kildare, and were granted, on the dissolution of monasteries, to Sir Henry Wallop. The ruins of an extensive castle also stand within Mr. Quin's demesne. In the wars of Elizabeth's time it was a post warmly contested by the Irish and Spanish followers of Desmond with the English, who were driven to extremes by a blockade, and out of necessity compelled to hazard a desperate excursion into the Knight of Glen's country, where a severe skirmish of eight hours took place, in which the English came off without much loss, having killed fifty of their opponents. Shortly after the death of Desmond it was seized by the Lord Kerry, and the garrison put to the sword, but Captain Zouch obliged him to abandon it.
The fathers 0'Healy and O'Rourke, who had become sureties for Desmond's loyalty, were executed, and his infant son was sent a state-prisoner to the Tower of London. Even as an additional goad to drive Desmond to desperate measures, the Earl of Ormond, his former rival, was named to take the field against him. So violent was the animosity existing between these two noblemen, that when, on a former occasion, they had agreed to a public reconciliation under the decision of a Special Commission, an aperture was cut in a door for them to shake hands through, each fearing to be poignarded by the other.
Kilcolman Castle is distant three English miles from Doneraile, and is seated in as unpicturesque a spot as at present could have been selected. Many of the delightful and visionary anticipations I had indulged, from the pleasure of visiting the place where the Fairy Queen had been composed, were at an end on beholding the monotonous reality of the country. Corn fields, divided from pasturage by numerous intersecting hedges, constituted almost the only variety of feature for a considerable extent around; and the mountains bounding the prospect, partook even in a greater degree of the same want of variety in their forms. The ruin itself stands on a little rocky eminence. Spreading before it lies a tract of flat and swampy ground, through which, we were informed, the River Bregog hight had its course, and though in winter, when swoln by mountain torrents, a deep and rapid stream, its channel at present was completely dried up.Sometimes, misguided by the tuneful throng,I look for streams immortalized in song,That lost in silence and oblivion lie;Dumb are their fountains and their channels dry.Joseph Addison, A Letter from Italy, to the Right Honourable Charles Lord Halifax, lines 31-34 (1704).
As a matter of course Youghall submitted to Cromwell, who embarked here for England, after his almost incredible progress through Ireland, that, like a resistless torrent, overwhelmed every attempt at opposition.
Those criminals whose lives have been forfeited in the cause of rebellion, derive no small consolation from the idea of martyrdom, which they imagine they have attained, and in this they are encouraged by the popular voice, apostrophising their shade as that of an hero and a patriot. Their countrymen are called upon to revenge their death, and to recover the estates of their Milesian ancestors, whose spirit has alone descended to them; on that spirit and what it will achieve, many verses are frequently bestowed. It is compared to the mountain-eagle, that, even in bondage, the hand of strangers could not tame; to the mountain-torrent, that would suddenly burst forth with overwhelming inundation, and destroy the lands where the cold hearted Saxons revelled.
In 1605 the city of Cork, with its liberties, were separated from the county of Cork, and made a distinct jurisdiction; but its improvement was retarded by two severe fires, in 1612 and 1622, which destroyed the greater part of the city. During the confusion of politics and parties in the struggle between Charles the First and his subjects, the citizens of Cork remained firm to the royal cause, and even after the situation of that monarch's affairs had become desperate, continued to oppose the parliament. Such conduct may possibly be ascribed to the example of Sir William St. Leger, Lord President of Munster, whose unshaken attachment to Charles has consecrated his memory as a faithful servant and an honest man.
The exertions of some amateurs produced, in 1815, a small exhibition of their own works, jointly with those of the few resident artists, which, perhaps, on account of its novelty, was well attended, and led to the formation of a society for the promotion of the fine arts. Circumstances having placed the management in unqualified and indolent hands, exhibitions were, for two or three seasons produced, so worthless as rather to offend than attract the public. A small subscription had been raised towards its support, sufficient to keep it in existence; but the society has gradually sunk into insignificance, notwithstanding some laudable exertions in its behalf by Lord Listowell, who was chiefly instrumental in obtaining from the King the presentation of a good collection of plaster casts.
A severe skirmish took place here, on the 16th January, 1716, occasioned by a mutiny amongst the garrison of Cork, who left their barracks and encamped on the north side of the city for a few days, whence they proceeded to Glenmire, where they took up a position. On being attacked by some troops with two field-pieces that had arrived in the harbour the same morning, the mutineers, headed by a Dutchman named Garvy, made a desperate stand near the bridge, and their supply of ball cartridge failing, they made use of their buttons as a substitute for bullets, but were obliged at last to give way, and retreated in disorder. Garvy was afterwards tried and shot, with two others of the ringleaders. Numerous relics of this action were ploughed up in 1807, of which I remember having seen a rusty halberd and several grapeshot.
The division between the small chapels on the south side of the choir is by a double row of pillars, forming a kind of open tomb, called the Priest's Wake, from a tradition that the coffins of the clergy remained in it the night previous to interment, which is not improbable. From hence we ascended by a narrow staircase to the apartments over the chapels, to which various, and possibly very erroneous names are now attached, and with some difficulty we made our way to the top of the tower. It commands an extensive and beautiful prospect, including the Rock of Cashel, distant about twelve miles. But the stormy sky cautioned us to seek for shelter, and we had scarcely reached the choir when the storm was renewed with increased violence. The old woman, our guide, crouched on a low tomb to tell her beads, and my companion and I were left to our silent meditations. The rain poured down in torrents, rattling over our heads, beating and splashing against the walls in front, and streaming from off them and the flat grave-stones which covered the whole surface of the abbey; while the wind in furious gusts drove it in clouds of mist through the open tracery of the chapel window upon us; and the slow, harsh, hollow creaking of the boughs of the old trees was an accompaniment in unison with the dreary and melancholy scene around us. 2ff7e9595c
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