Letters to the Editor: Links between Marengo and Rebel County are not ‘just folklore’
Bred in Wexford, Marengo is said to have been brought by train to Glencairn station and by road to Bartlemy.
In Bartlemy we are not agitating for an equine reburial, removal, rehousing, or re-stabling. We say let "sleeping horses lie" and if the London National Army Museum wants to keep the ancient bones then tally-ho, but describing links between Marengo and the Rebel County as "just folklore" is a bit too dismissive.
I’ve heard of no one who contradicts the seed, breed, and generation of Marengo. Bred in Wexford and brought by train to Tallow Rd (Glencairn) railway station near Tallow, Co Waterford, and hence by road to Bartlemy, the story of the horse’s subsequent sale has been handed down from generation to generation hereabouts.
We still have a copy of the Litograph which tells of the horse’s sale here in Bartlemy.
I’ve heard it said that it was some entrepreneurial pedlar in the early 1800s got this printed and went around to different fairs with the ‘message’, 'Marengo sold at Bartlemy', at Cahirmee, at Ballinasloe etc etc.
If this was the case, surely such a print would have surfaced decades ago in all the places ‘claiming’ Marengo? but no such parchment exists anywhere except in Bartlemy.
I rest my case.
As an Irishman, I was happy to get on the train with my Polish wife and head to central London. It was a good decision. The atmosphere was electric, contrary to the weather.
Isn’t it unfortunate that the hand of reconciliation is quickly pulled back by the left-leaning republican types when it suits them?
The unionists on this island and the regular centre and centre-right folk see how the left behave when they see monarchs being crowned and we think wow, the left isn’t as ‘huggy and inclusive’ as it likes to portray.
It seems strange not to extend this allowance to property owners who register with the Residential Tenancies Board and pay tax on all rent collected.
Perhaps such a move might stem the flow of small landlords from the rental market.
A small gesture like this could address the problem of thousands of empty houses all over the country and help the critical situation for tenants.
Also isn’t it time to give tenants renting under the rent-a-room scheme some basic tenancy rights?
In light of this and the current zeitgeist of setting historic wrongs to right, it is also time for the British monarchy to repay the Catholic Church for the millions of pounds stolen by King Henry VIII when he broke from Rome, repatriate monastic lands and properties seized, issue a formal apology (which has never been forthcoming), and add several hundred years of interest, for good measure.
Those who argue it was too long ago and "we don’t know exactly what was taken" are wrong on both counts.
Firstly, the example of people toppling statues of former slavers in Liverpool as part of Black Lives Matter shows the passage of time is apparently of little consequence.
Secondly, we know precisely what was taken because prior to his seizure of monastic lands and valuables, Henry VIII sent his agents to every monastery in the country to draw up lists of what they had so he’d know what was there to grab when the time came. Many of those lists survive to this day.
There is no question that were it not for this audacious act of daylight robbery the English monarchy would have been much poorer and perhaps even unable to expand and colonise as it did in subsequent centuries.
Now it’s time to say sorry and return what was wrongfully taken to the rightful owners.
But what really fascinated me was the unexpected finale. After Frank had killed Bren and shot himself we saw what looked very like one of those near-death or actual-death experiences where someone has a sensation of hurtling or floating through a tunnel, seeing a bright light, and maybe celestial or angelic beings.
Having read a lot about this phenomenon, it jolted me to see it feature, albeit subtly and briefly, in this riveting series.
The “tunnel” has passed into popular culture, as evidenced by the transcendental ending of this otherwise blood-soaked and reasonably true-to-life crime drama.
What might await those involved in organised crime on the other side of the tunnel is another matter.
There might, for all I know, be a “gangster’s paradise”... but I doubt it!
Emmanuel Macron’s recent visit to China was the first real break we have seen from Europe’s subservience to the US in quite some time and it was a welcome one. We would be much better served by a media willing to scrutinise the regular bad faith in which this US administration deals and the sheer desperation of Martin and Varadkar to appease them.
Without holding China up as a panacea, it highlighted an overwhelming need for Europe to walk its own path and to not blindly follow an administration that has shifted a large amount of its military resources and focus towards Asia, encircling China in the process.
The unravelling of the so-called Rules Based International Order is welcomed everywhere outside of the so-called ‘garden’ that is the collective West.
While notions of a multipolar world in which there are competing powers will not automatically bring about peace and stability, it is at the very least a state of international relations worthy of real and meaningful debate rather than the fear of China that is increasingly commonplace and comes with corrosive consequences.
Whatever ghoul in RTÉ denied the thousands of licence-holding hurling fans throughout the country this televisional feast, in favour of blanket coverage of that spectacular irrelevancy across the pond, will not be welcome in Pana later this year to mark the crowning of the 2023 All Ireland hurling champions.
One is not amused, boy!
