[kenberg]

 PassedOut, on 2013-November-02, 11:08, said:

I remember a couple of girls telling me that also, way back when.

About their hanged great grandfathers?? I must have led a very sheltered life! I was just told when she had to be back home.

[Scarabin]

 USViking, on 2013-November-02, 09:22, said:

Being Irish you should know the historical facts, but I have a problem believing this. Although the English hanged far too many Irish as late as the Easter Rebellion ca. 1916, I wonder if any 19th-20th century Roman Catholic (Arch)bishops were among the victims. I googled it, and the Wiki article on the Archbishopric of Armagh (one of the world's most preeminent, having been established by St. Patrick himself) which names all of the AB of Armagh does not mention any having been hanged in the 50 or so years leading up and including the Easter Rebellion era, as I think it surely would.

Per Wiki AB of Armagh Oliver Plunkett was executed in 1681, but in London. He was canonized in 1975 as the first new Irish saint in 700 years. I imagine his reputation in Ireland is exceeded only by that of St. Patrick and that most if not all Irish who share his last name claim descent from him. That would be despite the proscription against sexual activity by RC clergy, Plunkett seeming to have been the kind of man who would have conformed to all the requirements of his calling.

Apologies, I never queried the celibacy angle. The early 1950's were a gentler time and it would have seemed rude. Add to this, we did not have the internet then and starting inquiries at home would have raised eyebrows. It's possible also that memory has faded over the years and it may have been an uncle,etc?

Some Irish stories are like parables: they don't stand up to close scrutiny.

[Scarabin]

Someone sent me 3 or 4 messages/emails commenting on my views re great commanders and while reading them I seem to have clumsily got rid of them. Any suggestions how to recover these?

[PassedOut]

 kenberg, on 2013-November-02, 11:49, said:

About their hanged great grandfathers?? I must have led a very sheltered life! I was just told when she had to be back home.

Some girls just don't want their parents to know who they are dating, or so it seemed to me at the time...

[kenberg]

 Scarabin, on 2013-November-03, 02:23, said:

Someone sent me 3 or 4 messages/emails commenting on my views re great commanders and while reading them I seem to have clumsily got rid of them. Any suggestions how to recover these?

a. As someone who is frequently clumsy, I'll be overjoyed to see new suggestions. I was going to watch a recorded movie the other day and deleted it.

b. I imagine you know this, but deleting e-mails usually puts them in trash for a period of time and they can be recovered from there. At least gmail woks that way, and I imagine other things do. You and I are not the only clumsy keyboarders in the world. Message of other sorts I don't know.

[Scarabin]

Thanks. I think they were chat messages but it's OK now.

[Scarabin]

The trouble with esoterica is that it's a very loose definition. I do not know if this really fits.

David Chandler,the historian, frequently quotes Puysegur as a contemporary authority on Marlburian warfare, and says his great merit is that he describes warfare as it is/was not as he thought it should be. He also records that Puysegur gave very bad advice & information to other French leaders, particularly at Oudenarde.

I think of this sort of snippet as esoterica but maybe this is idiosyncratic?

[Scarabin]

A last word, and probably the last word, on esoterica (since I always knew this bird might not fly.)

Did you know that the tune Napoleon used to whistle, "Marlbruck sén va-t-en guerre", has come down to us as "For he's a jolly good fellow". Makes him seem almost human,somehow.

I am pretty sure I got this from Barbara Tuchman.

[Scarabin]

I have always liked this story, although I'm not entirely sure why, of an English aristocrat or politician who was a contemporary of the great Marlborough and who went mad:

One night there was a great commotion in his bedroom. When the rest of the household burst in they found him, dressed in a nightshirt, holding a candle in his left hand, and a sword in his right, standing over an empty corner of the room. "Don't move you foul fiend" he snarled "or I'll run you through."

[Vampyr]

When I lived in Russia, some of my young students asked me if I had heard of the Great Patriotic War. Known elsewhere as World War II.

[Scarabin]

 Vampyr, on 2014-March-09, 19:44, said:

When I lived in Russia, some of my young students asked me if I had heard of the Great Patriotic War. Known elsewhere as World War II.

Was your stint in Russia connected with "glasnost"? Around the time I retired, Americans were going to Russia to help start a capitalist economy.

[Cyberyeti]

I'm learning a fair bit about Hungarian history from an odd source. I've recently discovered the folk metal genre of music and many of the songs have a historical basis. They particularly seem to like setting poetry to music. But I've learned about the following:

The first 3 are poems by Arany János - Music by Dalriada

A failed assassination attempt on the king of Hungary in 1330 and its gruesome aftermath - Zách Klára
The siege at Dregel in 1552 where around 100 troops held off many thousands of Turks for sefveral days - Szondi Két Apródja
The Austro-Hungarian king asking the poet to write a poem of praise for him, and the poet writing a tale of the oppression of the Welsh by the English king as a metaphor for what was being done to the Hungarians - A walesi bárdok (the Welsh bards)

Then a couple more from Dalriada that are not from poems

The siege of Belgrade, where a brilliant general and a priest who rounded up a huge peasant army held off the Turks - Hunyadi és Kapisztrán Nándorfehérvári Diadaláról
The journey of friar Julian in 1235 from Hungary to eastern Russia to find the Magyars that didn't come West 400 years earlier - Julianus Útja