Poet, Madman, Scoundrel

by David Slattery

  89 See Family Ties in Chapter 6 for details on Dominic Behan and his writing brothers.

  90 The International Tourist Trophy (TT) race for motorcycles is held annually on the Isle of Man. The first race was held in May 1907 and was called the International Auto-Cycle Tourist Trophy. The event was organised by the Auto-Cycle Club for road-legal touring motorcycles with exhaust silencers, saddles, pedals and mud-guards. The course was 10 laps of 15 miles and 1,470 yards.

  91 The junior race was for bikes with a 350 cubic centimetres (cc) engine size and the senior race was for 500cc bikes.

  92 See Battle Dresses in Chapter 3.

  93 Dora Ratjen took part in the women’s high jump in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. As she was later revealed to be Heinrich Ratjen, her fourth place finish seems disappointing. In mitigation, Heinrich had been brought up by his parents as a girl. Just to complicate matters, the East Germans may have been using actual women athletes but turning them into men. For example, East German Heidi Krieger won the 1986 European women’s shotput championship. Heidi officially became Andreas Krieger after a sex-change operation in 1997. But he claimed he had been given so many steroids by his coaches without his knowledge that he had begun to develop male characteristics.

  94 See Murder in a Time of War in Chapter 1 for another example of this common Irish legal defence.

  95 Is chess a sport? It was an exhibition event at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Many countries, including some you would have actually heard of, officially recognise it as a sport, so who am I to quibble? I sweat every time I play chess, if that counts for anything.

  96 Technically, buccaneers were pirates of the West Indies during the seventeenth century, but the name has come to describe all pirates, even Irish ones.

  97 Cromwell’s Parliament had passed an Act resolving to redeem captives in 1640. Cason was chosen to lead the mission. He wrote a book about his experiences in 1647 – Relation of the Redemption of Captives in Algiers and Tunis, With a List of Captives Redeemed and Prices.

  98 Approximately €11,000 in contemporary currency values.

  99 A privateer was a privately owned ship authorised by a government to attack foreign shipping. It was a convenient and cost-effective way of mobilising forces without having to spend always scarce public money. It also allowed a country to avoid officially committing resources to a conflict, thereby facilitating deniability when something inevitably went wrong. Prize money from captured cargo and vessels was distributed amongst the owners, officers and crew. This was how Brown became rich.

  100 In the seventeenth century there was a failed attempt to register all seamen of the British commercial fleets as a potential source of manpower for the naval warfare branch of the British forces, the Royal Navy. While transfers from the merchant to the Royal Navy were often voluntary, they were sometimes forced (pressed) in times of military need. King George V bestowed the official title “Merchant Navy” on British merchant shipping after the First World War.

  101 The term “poop deck” comes from French and refers to the deck formed by the roof of a cabin built in the rear of a ship. As this is where a boarding force or party might expect to find the captain, it is traditionally the site of the most impressive swordplay in pirate films.

  102 The term “grenadier” also derives from French, from the word “grenade”, because this force originated in the seventeenth century for the purpose of throwing grenades.

  103 Approximately €2,000 in contemporary currency values.

  104 Sailing ships were driven by wind power. When wind gave way to steam power, there was competition between the paddle design and the now familiar three-bladed screw propeller or Archimedean propeller. A tug-of-war was arranged in 1845 between the propeller-driven Rattler and the paddle-powered Alector to decide the matter. The Rattler decisively won, making the propeller the ubiquitous means of propelling boats through water today.

  105 Approximately €1.5 million in contemporary currency values.

  106 About €400,000 in contemporary currency values.

  107 See footnote 28. The Fenian Brotherhood was an Irish organisation founded in America in 1858 to support Irish republican activities.

  108 Approximately €800,000 in contemporary currency values.

  109 See A Poet in a Bomb Factory in Chapter 1 for details of Emmet’s rebellion.

  110 Approximately €2.2 million in contemporary currency values.

  111 Stoker is the author of Dracula, perhaps the most famous Irish book. See Chapter 6 for more details on Irish horror writing.

  112 The Allied Forces were the United Kingdom including the Dominions of the British Empire, France and Russia, with America joining them in 1917.

  113 About €450,000 in contemporary currency values.

  114 The Famine, or the Potato Famine, as it is known outside Ireland, was a period of mass starvation and forced migration principally caused by the failure of the potato crop in Ireland between 1845 and the early 1850s. Surprisingly, despite our disastrous historical relationship with this tuber, we remain loyal to the spud as our staple food in the form of boiled potatoes, floury potatoes with a knob of butter, chips, new “soapy” potatoes, patatas bravas, shoelace chips, colcannon, mashed potaotes, chips with curry sauce, wedges, spicy wedges, crisps, baked potatoes, baked potatoes with fillings, roast potatoes, handmade chips, mashed potatoes on pies, seaside-caravan chips with little black spots, and so on.

  115 When Maud was fifteen, she was supposedly 6 feet, 4 inches tall, but as she didn’t fall into the hands of the dreaded anatomists we don’t have a precise measurement.

  116 See The 1916 Battle for the Biscuits in Chapter 1 for details of MacBride’s military and revolutionary career, and his relationship with Maud Gonne.

  117 See the next section, Sticking with Joyce, for details on his muse, Nora Barnacle.

  118 This long poem later appeared under the title “The Riddle by the Late Unhappy George-Robert Fitzgerald Esq. with notes by W. Bingley formerly of London, Bookseller”. It is difficult to single out one verse from this classic but the following conveys the gist:

  Just punishment! When poor despised,

  When rich, not a jot from it:

  Nature ne’er long remains disguised;

  The dog can’t leave his vomit.

  119 Humanity Dick’s devotion to animals was such that he persuaded his tenants to each vote three times for him for election to Parliament so that he could legislate for animal rights. In order to vote more than once without being detected, his voters wore elaborate disguises to the voting booths. Perhaps some of them dressed in gorilla suits.

  120 See A Missing Revolutionary in Chapter 1 for details of several United Irishmen who attended Trinners.

  121 For details of the risks involved in being thrown into chancery and other forms of lengthy litigation see A Missing Revolutionary in Chapter 1.

  122 Scrivener is a historic form of clerk. If you are a clerk try calling yourself a scrivener at parties: it is more erudite.

  123 See The Non-Applications of Engineering in Chapter 7 for the details of Boucicault’s life and work.

  124 See footnote 1 in Chapter 1 for details on the nature of pamphlet wars.

  125 A farthing was a quarter penny, about 40 cent in contemporary currency values.

  126 See The 1916 Battle for the Biscuits in Chapter 1 for details of the week-long conflict in the biscuit factory.

  127 The term “Fianna”, which was used in the names of various organisations, derives from the name for the warriors of Irish mythology, the Fianna.

  128 See Made in France in Chapter 1 for details of what happened to Lord Edward Fitzgerald as a result of Rousseau’s writings.

  129 See Made in France in Chapter 1 for details of the relationship between Fitzgerald and Pamela Sims.

  130 For more on de Valera see The 1916 Battle for the Biscuits in Chapter 1.

  131 See The Dis-United Irishmen in Chapter 1 for information on the members of this fractious politic
al group.

  132 See You Don’t Have to Be Mad in Chapter 6 for details on the life and work of Jonathan Swift.

  133 See Our Waterloo in Chapter 3 for details on the academic abilities of the Duke of Wellington, the Irishman Arthur Wellesley. Amongst his many achievements, he also popularised the Wellington boot.

  134 Currently the Andrews Professorship of Astronomy is an honorary chair at Trinners. It used to be the title given to the astronomer in charge of Dunsink Observatory. From 1792 to 1921 the holder of this chair was also given the title “Royal Astronomer of Ireland”.

  135 The observatory at Dunsink, Co. Dublin was endowed by Francis Andrews, who was a provost of Trinners. The observatory was opened in 1785.

  136 Crystals are classified according to the number of optic axes they have. Thus, a biaxial crystal has two. Crystals are used in the study of optics which – in a particular light – may be illegal. I refer you to the case of Tisdall versus McArthur & Co. (Steel & Metal) Ltd and Mossop [1950] 84 I.L.T.R 173, heard in the Supreme Court before Judges Maguire and Murnaghan O’Byrne Black, where it was suggested on behalf of Tisdall’s injunction to prevent McArthur & Co blocking up three windows in his premises that in some way the whole nature of light was altered by its passage through glass (a type of crystal) – “a proposition which would seem to involve some novel theories in physics. Light may be reflected, refracted or blocked, but the light which emerges from one side of a pane of glass is essentially the light – or part of the light – which impinges on the other side.” The court affirmed the judgment of Kingsmill Moore that all arguments based on physics should be dismissed. In Ireland, the laws of physics must yield to the laws of the land. Therefore, as I understand this judgment, you are legally obliged to ignore physics so don’t even enquire about bi-axial crystals for fear of arrest.

  137 I wouldn’t lose sleep over this unless it was the night before a big examination on the physics of light for which I had forgotten to study (the popular stuff of nightmares). From the seventeenth century, the question of the nature of light did keep physicists awake. There were two opposing theories of light. The great Isaac Newton championed the idea that it was composed of particles. On the opposing side, Christiaan Huygens published his wave theory in 1690. He proposed that light was emitted in all directions as a series of waves. Augustin-Jean Fresnel had also independently worked out his own wave theory by 1817. Hamilton’s work in optics contributed to the ever-growing support for the wave theory. However, weaknesses persisted on both sides into the twentieth century when a boring compromise or wave–particle duality position was reached, so that we can now all sleep soundly in the dark – where I remain when it comes to the physics of light.

  138 Complex numbers don’t get their name just from being difficult to understand. These types of numbers are composed of real and imaginary parts. Apparently they are very useful in quantum physics and applied mathematics. It is best to just rub your chin knowingly when you see one.

  139 See Family Ties in Chapter 6 for details of the life and work of Oscar Wilde’s mother, Speranza.

  140 Boyle is the only Irish scientist to have a law called after him. Murphy’s Law – “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong” – doesn’t count. There are two theorems named after Irishmen. John Stewart Bell (1928–1990) developed Bell’s Theorem in quantum physics, which deals with hidden variable theories, whatever they might be. There is also William Hamilton who gets a mention in the Cayley–Hamilton Theorem, which states that every square matrix over a commutative ring satisfies its own characteristic equation, which must be a great relief to all of us.

  141 There are important differences of focus between these two fields which, if ignored, might have brought their enthusiastic practitioners to blows. Phrenology is the detailed study of the shape and size of the cranium as a supposed indication of character and mental abilities. Craniology is the study of the shape and size of the skulls of different human races.

  142 See The Dreaded Anatomists in Chapter 2 for details of the noble profession of stealing bodies and chopping them up in the interests of science.

  143 See Dressing for all Weathers in Chapter 5 and Battle Dresses in Chapter 3 for details of the lengths to which women will go to enter professions traditionally reserved for men in Irish history.

  144 Charles Babbage is considered to be “the father of computing”. He developed the concept of a programmable computer in the 1820s. The design for his first computer had 25,000 parts. If it had ever been built, it would have weighed 13,600 kilogrammes and been 2.4 metres high. He later designed the improved “Difference Engine No. 2”, which was not constructed until 1989–1991. It was built using his plans and the original nineteenth-century manufacturing tolerances. It actually worked. It can calculate to thirty-one digits, which is more than a pocket calculator.

  145 About €450,000 in contemporary currency values.

  146 For more details on James Joyce see Sticking with Joyce in Chapter 6.

  147 This is better known as child-bed fever and was contracted by women during childbirth; it could develop into septicaemia. Famous victims of puerperal fever include King Henry VIII’s mother, Elizabeth, Henry VIII’s wives Jane Seymour and Catherine Parr, the philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, and Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.

  148 This is a form of lymphatic tuberculosis.

  149 Idealism is the view that there is no reality independent of imagination; we can only know a world constructed by the mind. Berkeley believed that other people are just mere ideas in the mind and have no real existence independent of one imagining them.

  150 Here is my philosophy thesis: for every seemingly absurd philosophical idea there is an equal and opposite absurd position. If you think Berkeley’s ideas are rubbish it might be evidence that you are a materialist. Materialists believe that nothing exists, including the mind, except matter and its movements and modifications. In other words, it is the opposite to idealism.

  151 See The Wrong Place at the Right Time in Chapter 1.

  152 See The Dreaded Anatomists in Chapter 2.

  153 Approximately €800 in contemporary currency values.

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