Bairbre Sheridan
I am a retired teacher of English and History with time to explore further. I've visited Tasmania and St. Petersburg and live in Strasbourg so I'm interested in issues of identity and war experience.
Location Ireland,then Strasbourg since October 2013.
Activity
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Irish missionaries such as St Columbanus played an important role in ecclesiastical and even court matters in Merovingian France. Ireland missed both the Romans and the Dark Ages.
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In the 1970s I visited a mountain hut high in the Bernina area of the Italian Alps. The drop from the toilet seat to the glacier below seemed about 2,000 ft. The facilities may have been modernised in the meantime.
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In the 1970s I visited a mountain hut high in the Bernina area of the Italian Alps. The drop from the toilet seat to the glacier below seemed about 2,000 ft. The facilities may have been modernised in the meantime.
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On the other hand, T.B. seems to have had stronger links with literature, Poor Keats, not to mention the Brontes.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Lynne Salter
'For example, in a church.."
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Bairbre Sheridan made a comment
I am a retired teacher of History and English. Early and medieval is my favourite period in Irish history but I have a great deal to learn about the Dark Ages in Europe.
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Bairbre Sheridan made a comment
The material was good, the educators were good but the course lacked energy and did not really engage me , unlike some Future Learn Courses. I never felt part of it, perhaps because some of the videos and the book were outside the course itself. To me, the course felt like a by product, incomplete in itself.
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It was a big deal when you had to walk through a difficult environment. At least you had to cover a good distance.
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Hardly a stroll. However I absolutely agree that we should not be sent to an online book, free or otherwise. The course should be able to stand alone with its own videos,never directing us to move to YouTube for the most interesting visuals.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to jane carroll
As for inventing the meringue!
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I was thinking of Drombeg too Lorna but I hadn't reached your comment. Unfortunately I can't remember the literary reference for heating stones for the bath thousands of years after the Mesolithic era.
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The technique of using hot stones to cook large pieces of meat,wrapped in straw or reeds, in lined trenches of water, worked well. These trenches are known as 'fulacht fia' in Ireland and there are thousands of examples with burned stones nearby. The same technique, possibly the same site, could be used for a hot bath. Cooking food seems to have been more...
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The technique of using hot stones to cook large pieces of meat,wrapped in straw or reeds, in lined trenches of water, worked well. These trenches are known as 'fulacht fia' in Ireland and there are thousands of examples with burned stones nearby. The same technique, possibly the same site, could be used for a hot bath. Cooking food seems to have been more...
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Peat can develop around rocks and stones and indeed it can grow over stone walls as can be seen in the Céide Fields in North Mayo.
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Carved from an antler?
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But it would certainly have to be made off site.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Martin Hill
If we preserved everything would there be any room for us?
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Excuse the typo; bog bodies are interesting but I hate them.
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If we dig we cannot avoid the macabre. Still gold chalices and ornaments are certainly more attractive than bog bodiez.
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The platform perhaps.
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Lascaux is surely more eye catching and involved far less excavation.
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It also shows the importance of preserving archives.
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Bairbre Sheridan made a comment
I'm amazed at the destruction of archives.
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Bairbre Sheridan made a comment
I'm sorry to hear that the museum rejected John Moore's archive and that it appears to have been lost.
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I am proud that MacLeod was awarded the international Impac Dublin Literary Award for 'No Great Mischief' in 2001.
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Bairbre Sheridan made a comment
Great course and I really appreciated the fact that the presenters did not come across as ego trippers, unlike some FutureLearn courses I have done.
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Bairbre Sheridan made a comment
I enjoyed the course very much. What next?
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Certainly, since truth can be stranger than fiction and human beings can always provoke humour, often black.
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Improved sources are not the only change in the understanding of history. Unfortunately new biases and fresh propaganda can play a role too.
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The film 'Michael Collins' sparked off a lot of interesting analysis. I hired a small cinema to bring half the school to see it. Those were the days.
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Some serious history books are very well written and easier to follow than some modern novels.
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Yet there was something about'Shakespeare in Love' that seemed to me to echo the spirit of the Elizabethans. The 'present from Stratford' particularly appealed to me. Pity Stoppard never took on the clans.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
A shining example...
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Sarah Hearn
Female Irish slaves certainly contributed to the Icelandic gene pool.
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Bairbre Sheridan made a comment
I was fascinated at the difference between the Old World and the New.
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Bairbre Sheridan made a comment
I was fascinated at the difference between the Old World and the New.
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I was often taken aback at how much my pupils has learned from the Simpsons.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Jen Boyle
Sometimes eviction is totally justified.
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I had forgotten how much I loved that book when I was young and it certainly inspired me to visit Scotland as soon as I left school.
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The best Scottish books I have read are by Alistair MacLeod who wrote about Cape Breton. His novel, 'No Great Mischief' is good and his collection of short stories,'Island' is superb. He was born , lived and died in Canada, nevertheless he is a great Scottish writer.
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The landscape was wild and natural needing no Capability Brown or Grecian folly to make it perfect. I'm with Byron in preferring untouched wilderness to managed landscape.
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Good to hear a voice on the English side.
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Bairbre Sheridan made a comment
I would have been hiding in a ditch,wrapped in a plaid,eating my last oatcake.
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And we can only get closer. We will never have the full picture.
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It even happened to famous Irish people so Seamus Heaney had to protest at being included in British poetry collection.
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Me too.
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On my first ever trip to Scotland in 1969 I walked out to the battlefield from Inverness with my sister. We were so interested in Scottish history but it was an anti climax. Time to visit again as soon as feasible.
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Despite the military disasters of 1690 and 1691 the Stuart cause was not forgotten in Ireland. It lived on in the political Gaelic poetry, the Aisling, where Ireland appears and longs for the return of the Stuarts to solve her problems. An aisling is a dream and clearly this was not a very realistic scenario but it inspired some fine poetry.
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Before settling in France James 11 brought an army to Ireland and was defeated most memorably at the Battle of the Boyne by William of Orange. Interestingly William was supported by the pope who was at odds with Louis XIV of France who backed James. Complicated alliances only sometimes motivated by religion.
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Bairbre Sheridan made a comment
Clearly it was crown policy to undermine the clan system but social and economic factors were also important.
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Bairbre Sheridan made a comment
Clearly it was crown policy to undermine the clan system but social and economic change were also important.
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The expensive clothes and alien titles showed how far the chiefs had moved from their people and must have provoked fury.
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Plotting the demise of the expensively dressed Archibold and Lady Anne?
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Greedy chiefs like Ruairidh Og played their part too.
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Greedy chiefs like Ruairidh Og played their part too.
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Bairbre Sheridan made a comment
Royalists were briefly better for Ireland.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Andrew Mackillop
Why use the American 'civilize'? More cultural colonialism.
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Bairbre Sheridan made a comment
How dare any group, in their ignorance, take on the 'civilising' of another.
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The Mc Donalds?
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How involved were the clans?
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The Spanish Civil War is so complicated, the more you read the less you understand. I came to more or less the same conclusion about the Wars of the Three Kingdoms at the age of 13 but the Thirty Years War beats all.
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Sadly the principal group of Ulster planters were lowland Scots.
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What is 'civilised'?
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It depends on what you mean by 'education'.
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And Ireland......
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James was a very clever but dangerous man.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Jason Freeman
In the C18 Irish lament, 'Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoghaire' the bereaved poet describes drinking her murdered husband's blood. Eibhlin Dubh Ni Chonaill was a formidable woman and a powerful poet from the very south of Ireland. Once again we see cultural links between Gaelic Scotland and Gaelic Ireland.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Jason Freeman
In the C18 Irish lament, 'Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoghaire' the bereaved poet describes drinking her murdered husband's blood. Eibhlin Dubh Ni Chonaill was a formidable woman and a powerful poet from the very south of Ireland. Once again we see cultural links between Gaelic Scotland and Gaelic Ireland.
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Thank you very much Barbara for that link. The bubonic plague arrived in Ireland in 1348 and mainly affected the ports of the east coast and market towns. The Gaelic Irish who lived in scattered settlements were less affected.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Derek Charlton
Sorry about unintended repetition. It's all very well in old poems and songs....
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Derek Charlton
Some old genealogies, preserved in Poetic form in Ireland traced ancestry to mythological figures. That was the kind I had in mind rather than those verified by modern research.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Derek Charlton
Some old genealogies, preserved in Poetic form in Ireland traced ancestry to mythological figures. That was the kind I had in mind rather than those verified by modern research.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Derek Charlton
Some old genealogies, preserved in Poetic form in Ireland traced ancestry to mythological figures. That was the kind I had in mind rather than those verified by modern research.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Derek Charlton
The genealogies could be falsified to bolster a historical claim to power.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Roderick Clyne
Macpherson did not invent Ossian/Oisin. He is an essential part of the Fiannaiocht which long predated the C18 Scottish writer. It was part of the oral tradition in both Scotland and Ireland. Irish monks committed some of it to writing and legitimised their interest in Pagan tales by arranging for Oisin to return from Tir na nOg to meet St Patrick., Agallamh...
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Roderick Clyne
Macpherson did not invent Ossian/Oisin. He is an essential part of the Fiannaiocht which long predated the C18 Scottish writer. It was part of the oral tradition in both Scotland and Ireland. Irish monks committed some of it to writing and legitimised their interest in Pagan tales by arranging for Oisin to return from Tir na nOg to meet St Patrick., Agallamh...
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Did the Black Death have much effect on rural Scotland?
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'His Bloody Project' came into my mind too.
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'His Bloody Project' came into my mind too.
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And much more.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Jan Tappan
Poetry was more important when so much had to be committed to memory. Originality however was not at a premium.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Jan Tappan
Poetry was more important when so much had to be committed to memory. Originality however was not at a premium.
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Bairbre Sheridan made a comment
There are so many similarities between society in Gaelic Scotland and Gaelic Ireland. I knew about the learned classes, poets, doctors and legal experts but did Scottish clans also have erenaghs,(airchinnech),lay lords of the church? My family held that hereditary position as followers of the much more powerful O'Reillys in Breifne until the Reformation. Some...
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Some of the Macs are Irish.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Lucy Grant
Had society elsewhere really become more civilised?
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Plantation also caused so many problems in Ireland.
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Dun Éistean seems a bleak and inhospitable place now but corn was grown there or nearby. Climate change must have made a huge difference to the feasability of tillage. It would be very interesting to undertake a comparative study with Dun Briste and the Céide Fields in North Mayo. Nowadays they are more accessible, (depending of course on where you are coming...
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We will never have the full picture.
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We will never have the full picture.
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Archaeology can only give us a partial answer.
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Complex but not always innovative.
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At that time the poets may have been more useful.
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Propaganda was always important.
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Primogeniture did not apply, did it?
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Tanaiste?
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Bairbre Sheridan made a comment
I am surprised at the adjective 'chiefly'. Would 'lordly' be a reasonable and more elegant synonym?
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Was it to strengthen alliances and provide hostages if such allegiences threatened to break down?
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Oran do mhac mhic Ailean was a poet and he had to flatter his patron; that was his function. Duncan Forbes was a senior judicial officer and a moderniser. It probably suited him too to flatter his patron/employer.
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Bairbre Sheridan replied to Christina Paterson
The Norse were important in Scotland long before the Normans invaded England.
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Bairbre Sheridan made a comment
Clann/family