Forgotten History

[Mythopoeika]

Mercury?

 

[ramonmercado]

Be interesting to hear the defence here, some of the land seizures continued well into the 20th Century, Vid at link. (Link is a bit unwieldy due to it being in Breaking News.)

Kenyan victims sue Britain over colonial land seizure​

Kenyans who were forcibly evicted from the Rift Valley by British colonisers have filed a case at the European Court of Human Rights, according to their lawyers.

They argue that the UK’s treatment of their complaints has violated the European Convention on Human Rights to which the UK is a signatory.
The lawyers also said the UK Government had refused to engage with the victims or their representatives, and a request in May 2022 to meet Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was refused.

"The UK Government has ducked and dived, and sadly avoided every possible avenue of redress. We have no choice but to proceed to court for our clients so that history can be righted," lawyer Joel Kimutai Bosek said. "We have taken all reasonable and dignified steps. But the UK Government has given us the cold shoulder. Our people have no choice except to take them to court," Kericho county Governor Paul Chepkwony said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world?ns_m...049de259a1fa43751d1372&pinned_post_type=share

 

[ramonmercado]

A podcast with Paddy Cullivan.

But who covered up what and why? Who did kill Michael Collins and did anyone stand to benefit most from his death?

In the latest episode of In The News, art historian and performer Paddy Cullivan tells Conor Pope that he has uncovered documentation in British and German archives which casts doubt on the guilt of the leading suspect Dennis ‘Sonny’ O’Neill.

In the News is presented by reporters Sorcha Pollak and Conor Pope.

You can listen to the podcast here:

APPLE

SPOTIFY

RSS

ACAST

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/in-the-news-who-killed-michael-collins-1.4657622

The enigma remains even after 100 years.

Ronan McGreevy visits Béal na Bláth ahead of the centenary in search of the truth about an assassination whose impact is still felt today​

Sat Aug 20 2022 - 05:00

Béal na Bláth must have some claim to be the saddest place in Ireland. It wasn’t just Michael Collins who was killed there at twilight on August 22nd, 1922. Hope died too, according to many of his contemporaries, along with the prospect of reconciliation between the pro- and anti-Treaty sides, and an end to partition. Collins’s death unleashed a new and savage phase of the Civil War, with executions and counter-reprisals which poisoned Irish society for generations.

Michael Collins was killed in Béal na Bláth during the Irish Civil war 100 years ago, his relatives and historians recount his final movements.

The famous silhouette of Collins striding purposely, taken at Portobello Barracks just a few weeks before he died, is everywhere in this part of west Cork. It’s on the signpost denoting the Michael Collins trail, it’s on T-shirts sold in Clonakilty where there is an ongoing exhibition into his life and death. At Béal na Bláth crossroads there is a gift shop in a Portakabin selling souvenirs. On Sunday in Newcestown there will be a world-record attempt at the largest ever gathering of people who share Michael Collins’s name. ...

https://www.irishtimes.com/history/...red-years-on-the-question-remains-unanswered/

 

[ramonmercado]

The enigma remains even after 100 years.

Ronan McGreevy visits Béal na Bláth ahead of the centenary in search of the truth about an assassination whose impact is still felt today​

Sat Aug 20 2022 - 05:00

Béal na Bláth must have some claim to be the saddest place in Ireland. It wasn’t just Michael Collins who was killed there at twilight on August 22nd, 1922. Hope died too, according to many of his contemporaries, along with the prospect of reconciliation between the pro- and anti-Treaty sides, and an end to partition. Collins’s death unleashed a new and savage phase of the Civil War, with executions and counter-reprisals which poisoned Irish society for generations.

Michael Collins was killed in Béal na Bláth during the Irish Civil war 100 years ago, his relatives and historians recount his final movements.

The famous silhouette of Collins striding purposely, taken at Portobello Barracks just a few weeks before he died, is everywhere in this part of west Cork. It’s on the signpost denoting the Michael Collins trail, it’s on T-shirts sold in Clonakilty where there is an ongoing exhibition into his life and death. At Béal na Bláth crossroads there is a gift shop in a Portakabin selling souvenirs. On Sunday in Newcestown there will be a world-record attempt at the largest ever gathering of people who share Michael Collins’s name. ...

https://www.irishtimes.com/history/...red-years-on-the-question-remains-unanswered/

More grist to the conspiracy mill.

MacDara Ó Conaola recounts the story passed down through his family about the night that his grand-uncle's father Albert Power RHA made Michael Collins' death mask in Dublin.

My grand-uncle John and I were great pals. We had time for each other and had similar interests and views on life.

Within the family, we called him John, but his ''real'' name was James, James Power, which, for continuity purposes, is how I will refer to him from now on.

James Power (1918-2009) was a renowned sculptor and painter from Berkeley Road in Dublin. He attended the National College of Art in his teens where he studied sculpture under Oliver Sheppard and painting under Seán Keating. He had, however, learned almost everything already from his father, the master sculptor Albert Power RHA (1881-1945). ...

Incidentally, a priest, whose name escapes me now, who was present spoke to James and told him, “I remember seeing your father doing exactly what you’re doing there ... with Michael Collins.’’

He had been present 42 years earlier in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin, where Albert Power, James’s father, took the death mask of Michael Collins. ...

Albert Power, best known for his Pádraic Ó Conaire statue on Eyre Square in Galway, was the leading sculptor in Ireland in the '20s, '30s, and '40s. In the years before and after the Civil War, he worked on pieces of figures from both sides of the conflict. Just earlier in the summer of 1922, in July, he had taken the death mask of Cathal Brugha from the anti-treaty side.


His friend, physician Oliver St. John Gogarty, was at St. Vincent’s Hospital when he arrived there and was with him while he took the death mask of Collins. Power, having studied human anatomy as artists such as Leonardo da Vinci had for centuries before him, appreciated Collins’s “fine ears” and decided to include them in their entirety in the death mask, which was not the usual practice.

When it was time to remove the hardened plaster, Power noticed blood and other matter on his hands and that the back of Collins’s head was split, and that the bandage was to keep the skull intact.

After much maneuvering, Power managed to remove the cast. He remarked to Gogarty that that must have been where he was hit. Gogarty said that it was the exit wound and pointed to a small hole behind Collins' right ear and said that that was where the bullet from the Mauser pistol entered his skull and that the singed hair indicated that he was shot at close quarters.

The most commonly-believed theory surrounding Collins' death is that he was shot by an anti-treaty sniper, although this has never been corroborated and conspiracies about Collins' death have been rife. ...

It was a similar situation in the case of Arthur Griffith who had died just ten days earlier. Present again were Albert Power and Oliver St. John Gogarty. Power took Griffith's death mask. Gogarty, James’s father told him, had mentioned that the condition of Griffith’s skin was consistent with poisoning. ...

https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/others/michael-collins-death-mask

 

[Ascalon]

This is a wonderful article about how, sometimes accidentally, something as valuable as a language can be preserved beyond the collapse of a civilisation.
The article is part of The Immortality Project, a special series to celebrate BBC Future's 10th birthday this year – and the wider BBC's Centenary – by exploring what it takes to have a legacy that lasts not just decades but millennia.

"The messages that survived civilisation's collapse"

 

[staticgirl]

That is a fascinating article. I have sent it on to my mum as she will love this.

 

[ramonmercado]

The 1915 Rising.

Central London's historic Trafalgar Square is set to get a new statue on Wednesday.

But this time, it is not a monument to one of the UK's war heroes or kings. Instead it will be a larger-than-life statue of Malawian Baptist preacher and pan-Africanist John Chilembwe, who fought against British colonial rule. The sculpture, named Antelope, will be the square's newest Fourth Plinth - which is regarded as one of the world's most famous public art commissions.

Since 2003, the Fourth Plinth has been showcasing different pieces of artwork every two years. While it was originally intended to display a statue of King William IV, it remained empty due to insufficient funds and now exhibits temporary art, selected through public consultation and the commissioning group.

Chilembwe's five-metre statue will mark the first of an African in Trafalgar Square. Cast in bronze, Antelope restages a famous photograph taken in 1914 of Chilembwe standing next to British missionary John Chorley, outside his church in Mbombwe village in southern Malawi.

In the picture, Chilembwe is wearing a wide-brimmed hat, breaching a colonial rule which forbade Africans to wear hats in front of white people.

IMAGE SOURCE,WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Image caption, John Chilembwe, seen with John Chorley, led an uprising against colonial rule

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-62824881

 

[ramonmercado]

I'm watching it now on 4oD.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/rich ... r-park/4od

The remarkable thing is that the first thing found in the first trench they dug has proved to be the King's remains.

What's more

This is perhaps the best evidence ever recorded of an intuition being proved true. Very Fortean!

Come on Randi, where's the million dollars!

After the movie, a court case.

A university academic has said he is likely to take legal action against the makers of a new film about Richard III, which he said was "littered with inaccuracies".

Richard Taylor was part of the University of Leicester team that found and identified the king 10 years ago. A character bearing his name features in the film The Lost King, starring Steve Coogan and Sally Hawkins.

But Mr Coogan has said: "The university are responsible for their own undoing." ...

But the university said claims its staff sidelined Ms Langley and took the credit for the find are "far removed" from the truth.

Mr Taylor, former deputy registrar at the university, told the BBC he had felt "absolutely shell-shocked" by the way he was portrayed.

He said: "I think the film is inaccurate, and I think the writers have been very reckless in how they've put it together. Anybody who knows me knows my integrity is important to me. There are lots of people I have to work with who don't know me - what are they to think, seeing a film like that?"

Mr Taylor said the film-makers had not sought to speak to him at any point.

"The film is littered with inaccuracies," he said. "It makes up a scene where I mimic Richard III's disability, and have to be told by Philippa that it's wrong to equate physical characteristics with evilness. That is the most hurtful personally and the most damaging reputationally. It is not true; it did not take place. I'd hoped my concerns would have chimed with Steve Coogan, who had his privacy invaded by newspapers over phone hacking. To see him on the other side of the fence now, doing this to me is quite frustrating. I feel kind of powerless in the way Steve would have felt."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-62833429

 

[uair01]

Khrushchev, while speaking about the mistakes of Stalin, somebody called out, "Why then, didn't you do anything to stop him?"

Khrushchev responded, "Who said that?" A long silence overtook the room.

Then Khrushchev said, "Now you know why we didn't dare try to stop him."

 

[uair01]

From this excellent book:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36447149-the-royal-art-of-poison

In 1518, when Francois I of France visited his mistress, the alluring twenty-three-year-old Francoise de Foix, dame de Chateaubriant, her secret lover, one Admiral Bonnivet, quickly jumped out of her bed and hid himself in her large fireplace. Luckily, it was summer and the hearth was filled with scented pine branches behind which Bonnivet concealed himself. Unluckily, the hearth also served as a latrine, and before making love to his mistress, the king unknowingly urinated on poor Bonnivet hiding under the boughs, soaking him to the skin, and in this uncomfortable and stinking position he had to remain all night listening to the sighs and grunts of his mistress having sex with the king.

 

[Kondoru]

There is a moral to this, I am sure.

 

[Swifty]

It's not big and it's not clever .. our past WW2 perpetually thirsty Prime Minister

"We try to match Winston Churchill drink for drink - send help"

 

[uair01]

About the city of Loreto. From this excellent book:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show...d?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=ws96i2AO6p&rank=1

Its only claim to fame, and indeed the only reason for the town’s existence, was that at its epicenter stood the holy house of the Virgin Mary, the one-room stone building in which she was thought to have conceived Jesus, and where she had raised him. It was believed that angels, seeing the Muslims chase out the last Crusaders in the Holy Land in 1291, lifted the Virgin’s house and carried it westward to safety, placing it first in Slavonia – present day Croatia – and three years later plucking it up again and setting it gently down on the hilltop of Loreto.
Recent scholarship has shown that the story is not as ridiculous as it first appears. A family named de Angelis, which ruled the Greek kingdom of Epirus, brought the stones back from Nazareth with the aid of the Knights Templar. The stones were first unloaded in Slavonia, and three years later they became part of the dowry of Margherita de Angelis when she married an Italian prince. Uprooted once again, they found their permanent home in Loreto. Given the legendary flight, more recently the Virgin of Loreto was made the special patroness of aviators.

 

[uair01]

In relation to recent tragic events:

In 1575, Pope Gregory’s master of ceremonies had written, “If a solemn festival be anywhere held, or if there be a confluence of people on occasion of any public rejoicing or spectacle, or the funeral procession of some cardinal or dignitary, whatever the cause may be, the roads and open spaces are so packed with the crowd of vehicles that it becomes impossible for foot passengers to move along; nay, even public ceremonies and processions are interfered with, to the great inconvenience and scandal of all, sometimes even with danger to life.”

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show...od?from_search=true&from_srp=Aw83n9iv0z&qid=1

 

[Kondoru]

Back to the city of Loreto;

Stirring tale of Historic Building Conservation that it is, (and many may agree), wasn't Marys family rich, and so unlikely to live in a one room property?

 

[ramonmercado]

I dont know how widespread the knowledge of this is, i had certainly never heard of it.

Today marks the 100 year anniversary of the 'Tulsa Massacre' in which over 300 black Americans in an affluent area were killed and much of the area was burnt to the ground.

"The Tulsa race massacre took place May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of White residents, many of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked Black residents and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, US.[10]Alternatively known as the Black Wall StreetMassacre, the Greenwood Massacre, the Tulsa Massacre, the Tulsa pogrom, or the Tulsa race riot,[11][12][13][14][15][16] it marks one of "the single worst incident(s) of racial violence in American history".[17] The attack, carried out on the ground and from private aircraft, destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the district – at that time the wealthiest Black community in the United States, known as "Black Wall Street".[18]"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre

The graves of more victims rediscovered.

The search for remains of victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre has discovered 21 additional graves in the city’s Oaklawn Cemetery.

Seventeen adult-size graves were located on Friday and Saturday, Oklahoma state archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck said on Monday. Additionally, the city announced on Tuesday that four graves, two adult-size and two child-size, had been found.

The coffins, then the remains, will be examined to see if they match reports from 1921 that the victims were males buried in plain caskets.

“This is going to be part of our process of discriminating which ones we’re going to proceed with in terms of exhuming those individuals and which ones we’re actually going to leave in place,” Ms Stackelbeck said in a video statement.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40997579.html

 

[uair01]

I (*not me uair01) eventually found this article on black Cohens, which says that about 4,000 of the 87,000 Cohens in America are black. Some of them are descended from a Cohen in South Carolina who married a black woman in the 1800s, and others are descended from a Cohen who was a pirate in the Caribbean (really!) Most are not Jewish.

From here (mostly boring politics):
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/my-california-ballot-2022

 

[Victory]

There were a number of Jewish Caribbean pirates, who attacked Spanish vessels after their families had been expelled from Spain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_pirates

 

[maximus otter]

…Jewish Caribbean pirates…

Where is Mel Brooks now that we need him?

maximus otter

 

[AgProv]

Trying to nail the story that on Sunday December 7th 1941, a civilian pilot living in Honolulu decided to take his private plane up for a joyride, which turned out to be more than he anticipated. He spent three hours in the air, unable to land and unable to find an alternative airstrip, dodging both Japanese aircraft (most of whom refrained from shooting at him, probably because a clearly civilian aircraft would have been a waste of ammo), and also at peril from American anti-aircraft guns that considered anything up there was a legitimate target. Apparently he was able to do a crash-landing at the end, and came out alive. (From what I read, his plane had a few bulletholes and a collapsed undercarriage, but was repairable).

 

[EnolaGaia]

Trying to nail the story that on Sunday December 7th 1941, a civilian pilot living in Honolulu decided to take his private plane up for a joyride, which turned out to be more than he anticipated. ...

There were multiple civilian aircraft aloft during the Pearl Harbor attack - some of which were shot down by the Japanese. Here's an overview of the civilian aviation incidents that day:

CIVILIAN PILOTS UNDER FIRE AT PEARL HARBOR
https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media...07/civilian-pilots-under-fire-at-pearl-harbor

The most Fortean civilian pilot story from December 7th is Fortean because of the illustrious female pilot involved - Cornelia Clark Fort.

https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/7-december-1941-3/

 

[Swifty]

The Real Lucy

It was rumored more than a little that the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, was about an acid trip,and that the title was a code for LSD. However, it’s also been made quite clear that this isn’t so.

The story goes, John Lennon’s son Julian brought a painting he recently completed home from school. John asked the young boy about the image, and Julian replied it’s Lucy, in the sky with diamonds.

Lennon liked the imagery of the title so much he penned the now classic tune.
The lyrics are a description or a response, John Lennon insisted consistently to a picture painted and brought home by his at the time almost four-year-old son Julian of young Lucy O'Donnell, a classmate of his at Heath House nursery school.

The young Lucy, that was the inspiration for the painting of which the tune came from ultimately grew up and got married becoming Lucy Vodden. She sadly passed away after a history with lupus, in London in 2009. She was 46 years old.
The lovely lady with Kaleidoscope eyes

 

[Floyd1]

The Real Lucy

It was rumored more than a little that the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, was about an acid trip,and that the title was a code for LSD. However, it’s also been made quite clear that this isn’t so.

The story goes, John Lennon’s son Julian brought a painting he recently completed home from school. John asked the young boy about the image, and Julian replied it’s Lucy, in the sky with diamonds.

Lennon liked the imagery of the title so much he penned the now classic tune.
The lyrics are a description or a response, John Lennon insisted consistently to a picture painted and brought home by his at the time almost four-year-old son Julian of young Lucy O'Donnell, a classmate of his at Heath House nursery school.

The young Lucy, that was the inspiration for the painting of which the tune came from ultimately grew up and got married becoming Lucy Vodden. She sadly passed away after a history with lupus, in London in 2009. She was 46 years old.
The lovely lady with Kaleidoscope eyes

​

Yes, John always said that that was the case. He even started to check all the other Beatles songs to see if they spelt anything out, but they didn't.

 

[Swifty]

Yes, John always said that that was the case. He even started to check all the other Beatles songs to see if they spelt anything out, but they didn't.

Apart from HELP that is.

 

[Floyd1]

Apart from HELP that is.

They're actually spelling NUJV in semaphore on the cover of the album, not HELP.

 

[Swifty]

They're actually spelling NUJV in semaphore on the cover of the album, not HELP.

With the arm waving about thing isn't it?. The song's still called HELP though.

 

[uair01]

Contributing to the spiralling sense of dread within the city was an alarming mix-up, never fully explained, at the SovInformBuro radio network. On 16 October, the opening day of the Moscow panic, the loudspeakers broadcasting the morning news suddenly broke off and a song began playing. Many atfirst assumed it to be the patriotic Soviet song,‘The March of the Airmen’, but the melody was wrong and only some recognised it as the‘Horst Wessel Lied’, the anthem of the Nazi party from1930to 1945. Had the Germans already begun to take over the city? Moments later the song cut out and the announcer returned to the morning news without any explanation.1

David Stahel
Operation Typhoon

 

[ramonmercado]

More grist to the conspiracy mill.

MacDara Ó Conaola recounts the story passed down through his family about the night that his grand-uncle's father Albert Power RHA made Michael Collins' death mask in Dublin.

My grand-uncle John and I were great pals. We had time for each other and had similar interests and views on life.

Within the family, we called him John, but his ''real'' name was James, James Power, which, for continuity purposes, is how I will refer to him from now on.

James Power (1918-2009) was a renowned sculptor and painter from Berkeley Road in Dublin. He attended the National College of Art in his teens where he studied sculpture under Oliver Sheppard and painting under Seán Keating. He had, however, learned almost everything already from his father, the master sculptor Albert Power RHA (1881-1945). ...

Incidentally, a priest, whose name escapes me now, who was present spoke to James and told him, “I remember seeing your father doing exactly what you’re doing there ... with Michael Collins.’’

He had been present 42 years earlier in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin, where Albert Power, James’s father, took the death mask of Michael Collins. ...

Albert Power, best known for his Pádraic Ó Conaire statue on Eyre Square in Galway, was the leading sculptor in Ireland in the '20s, '30s, and '40s. In the years before and after the Civil War, he worked on pieces of figures from both sides of the conflict. Just earlier in the summer of 1922, in July, he had taken the death mask of Cathal Brugha from the anti-treaty side.


His friend, physician Oliver St. John Gogarty, was at St. Vincent’s Hospital when he arrived there and was with him while he took the death mask of Collins. Power, having studied human anatomy as artists such as Leonardo da Vinci had for centuries before him, appreciated Collins’s “fine ears” and decided to include them in their entirety in the death mask, which was not the usual practice.

When it was time to remove the hardened plaster, Power noticed blood and other matter on his hands and that the back of Collins’s head was split, and that the bandage was to keep the skull intact.

After much maneuvering, Power managed to remove the cast. He remarked to Gogarty that that must have been where he was hit. Gogarty said that it was the exit wound and pointed to a small hole behind Collins' right ear and said that that was where the bullet from the Mauser pistol entered his skull and that the singed hair indicated that he was shot at close quarters.

The most commonly-believed theory surrounding Collins' death is that he was shot by an anti-treaty sniper, although this has never been corroborated and conspiracies about Collins' death have been rife. ...

It was a similar situation in the case of Arthur Griffith who had died just ten days earlier. Present again were Albert Power and Oliver St. John Gogarty. Power took Griffith's death mask. Gogarty, James’s father told him, had mentioned that the condition of Griffith’s skin was consistent with poisoning. ...

https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/others/michael-collins-death-mask

A new documentary series The Irish Civil War, narrated by Brendan Gleeson is available at: https://www.rte.ie/player/series/the-irish-civil-war/10001232-00-0000?epguid=IP000067395

Dr Mike Murphy (UCC) with obvious incredulity in his broad (but not rapid fire) Cork accent recounts how Michael Collins toured Cork in an open top car which was painted yellow.

 

[ramonmercado]

The type of activist who are now largely forgotten. This book is welcome.

“Baird’s life is emblematic of this city’s radical Protestant tradition,!

A NEW book exploring the life of Protestant trade unionist, radical, and one-time city councillor James ‘Donagree’ Baird will be launched in Belfast today.

Written by Ulster University Professor Emmet O’Connor, ‘Rotten Prod’ will be launched by Councillor Matt Collins at QUB’s Peter Froggatt Centre at 6pm on Thursday.

A boilermaker in Harland and Wolff ’s shipyard, Baird was one of hundreds of ‘rotten Prods’ who – alongside thousands of Catholics - were driven from their workplace by loyalists in 1920.

The expulsions marked the end of Belfast’s ‘two red years’, distinguished by the massive engineering strike in 1919 and the municipal elections in 1920, in which Baird was elected to Belfast Corporation.

As a leader of the expelled shipyard workers, Baird spoke to the Irish and British TUCs, but Irish Labour had no practical policy on the North and British trade unions feared that confronting loyalists would lose them members.

Subsequently, Baird worked for the National Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union and the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, when he led the farm labourers of Waterford in an epic strike against wage cuts and was nearly elected to Dáil Éireann.

In 1927 he and his family emigrated to Brisbane, Queensland, where his daughters Nora and Helene were decorated by the Australian government for services to music in schools. ...

https://belfastmedia.com/rotten-prod-book-launch

ISBN-13:9781910820858
University College Dublin Press

 

[Swifty]

Did the WW1 trenches Christmas truce football match really happen?