#Irish Land League conflict

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[ceristhehedgehog2]

[REMAKE]

PREISTESS || DC Origins

Mystical Nephilim, bringer of life.

Olive 'Avaritia' Grace is a purifying enchantress who lived in the isolated islands of southern Ireland, with the Irish Christian Coven. She was raised by a period of time with the Coven and her parents, Amphelice and Esmond Grace. From tragedy and fate to safety and a never-ending conflict, Olive would go on an adventurous journey on Earth to discover WHO her family were while finding a home – in bringing hope and joy wherever she walked – as her holy ancestors once did...

Voiced by Ashley Johnson (Pike, LOVM)

Theme: Reasons To Stay. Kate Vogel.

Our story begins millions of years ago, two seraphim were created by the Presence; Galadrie and Amphelice, to act as Earth's land protectors, discreet agents of their creator. They embodied justice and hope to the divided world that would be of humanity.

These two would serve their roles together for many years. Both of them would forge a personal bond that related them to their goals throughout their various missions, aiding worthy humans to spark their virtues in word of their creator.

Except… They hardly know their maker.

Their mission alone was the only thing they were known to do since their existence began. This goal had gotten them through millions of years, with many teachings accounted for by their brothers and sisterly angels to guide them. This endless endeavor would sprout doubt among the two seraphim; Galadrie being the most affected. What was the point of their mission to a battle that never ends? Neither of them knew for sure. Amphelice would assure her companion that whatever awaited them in the end, would be worth the fight. Galadrie trusted her assurance. They were close, after all. But it only lasted for more years at a time…

Until she lost it.

Galadrie committed her first sin; interfering with a society of traffickers and executing them with furious divine flames! Amphelice watched in horror at what Galadrie had done. Murder was a high account of sin. It was against what they were made for! Since that incident, however, it only seemed to get worse. Amphelice tried to help her companion out from her repetitive actions, but Galadrie fell ignorant to her warnings; failed by the pride of her own wrong-doings.

It became so addictive for her… that she began her attack.

In Metropolis.

Galadrie would wage her blind-righteous fury upon the city. She came to the belief humans were irredeemable and therefore, were a mistake to be erased. The Justice League intervened to attack the seraphim, but none of them proved to be enough against her reckoning force. She would request Amphelice to join her. To her, they could be an unstoppable force, the new Gods to recreate the universe in their image. They were sisters, after all. Galadrie loved Amphelice to a point she would recreate for her in their glory. The former was reluctant of this offer, as she faced her companion; knowing that even if she were to purify her, she'd chosen her path proven incapable of salvation, and she was no longer her friend.

So, Amphelice refused.

The surprised Galadrie soon fell into rage and struck her other half. From that moment of their fight, she'd proclaim to have abandoned God in all his holy ways, her role and her believed to be 'sister', even claim onto the new title; Desdemona, in spite of her maker. Galadrie was gone.

Their battle would wage in a heart-wrenching sequence; destroying and shielding everything in their path. Until eventually, with John Constantine's help, Amphelice banished Desdemona to the depths of Hell; to be trapped for the sins she committed. Amphelice was given a request to join the Justice League for her heroic actions that saved the world, which she declined, claiming she didn't deserve the invitation, at the loss of a friend she betrayed.

Amphelice would then travel the Earth alone. The seraphim had grown depressed for the absence of Desdemona. She'd occasionally fallen into doubt of her actions, whether banishing her only friend had truly been the best resort.

[ DESDEMONA'S ORIGINS: COMPLETED.]

Amphelice would eventually find herself in Dingle, Ireland; near a friendly village that resided with laid-back folk. The land having filled with untouched landscapes soothed the seraphim and she grew to reside there for many weeks. Then, she would find companionship in a group of witches who believed in Christianity. She would become close to them in fact, that she would slowly begin to reveal her holy gifts with the witches, and unravel her true identity. Eventually, becoming the founder that would thrive and be known as, the Christian Coven: A clan of isolated witches that were gifted prowess for the mystic arts. She would later meet Esmond Grace, an Irish Gardner who had joined the Coven, and later revealed to have been a passenger of Azarath, the peaceful realm they both found a personal connection through. They'd soon grow an attraction for each other and fell in a requited love.

To say Desdemona was finished, however, wasn't the case: The Fallen Seraphim would plot her escape many times. She made deals with various demons in her prison of Hell, which led her sanity to decline and her immortal body to growl frail and sickly, to what's said as a "ghost" to those near her presence. Her escapes wouldn't last. Amphelice would constantly put her back in her imprisonment, with each failing plan. She would plot for years at a time in her constant containment. Until she found another way through her next escape,

Her other half's nephilim.

Amphelice had longed to conceive a child with Esmond. However, due to the nature of her kind, she was unable to give birth as humans would. The couple would try to form an alternative instead:

Five of the Coven's witches helped to form a sacred creation ritual that would use their magic that included their blood and Amphelice's angelic Grace to forge together this new child; one with a human soul and the Grace of its parent.

This would turn into a success. The couple and the Coven would rejoice by the newly born that formed, of which their seraphim founder would affectionately shower them with joy.

Suddenly, the ritual began to backfire! The five witches that forged this ritual were eradicated with an echoing, fearful cry. Only to leave the forged baby weeping in its birth. Amphelice immediately rushed for her child's aid and was revealed to a horrifying vision sent by her villainous other-half;

Desdemona felt a powerful source that rippled from Amphelice, creating a much new force that reckoned with heightening power. Upon realizing the cause of this new revelation, the Fallen Seraphim had conducted a scheme that had her blood interfering with the ritual, killing the witches in the process. The dose of her own tainted blood sent a ravaged sickness on the newborn as well as forging a bond that'll ensure tormenting the child. This act served to spite Amphelice for her betrayal and to force her to endure the pain she felt during the imprisonment she forced her through.

Amphelice would come to a revelation that her newly born child was inflicted by Desdemona's blood imprinting her of horrific experiences by their bond, which had caused her supposed inherited powers to react in fear, overdosing by the sensations of emotions and pain she absorbed. This was deduced as a sickly curse that'd poison her daughter, when inflicted by sin.

The holy seraphim would search whatever she could find in the Celtic and Christian spells she discovered to cleanse her daughter, to discover that none of them were effective. Amphelice would later come to conclude that Desdemona had used a much greater mystical feat that kept any possible chance of healing to be profitable. Desdemona had occasionally made deals with demons in her escape, so it was a highly possible chance for her to forge said curse through yet another ordeal. She just had yet to know who.

After a year of research, Amphelice would devise a plan to personally teach her daughter her abilities — with her Coven's help — to meddle with her tainted curse. She believed giving her precious daughter hope and positivity, could become a direct force against what her other half had done, repelling her from potential influence. Another reason was her plan to get her child settled; to give her the happiness she could give before her plan came to action. That she would ensure her family's safety from the old enemy she sought answers for.

She waited for months for the two to settle, before she vanished from the realm. Never to be seen again.

[ AMPHELICE'S ORIGINS: COMPLETED.]

Unaware of her curse, Olive was raised in this Christian society and taught the ways of their covenly beliefs. She was taught to channel her abilities through true faith under God, their lord and savior, by the witches there, including her father, in order to gain pure understanding of her angelic inheritance.

She learned to master the power of prayer, healing, commune with the dead, and teleportation. Among her teachings, she learned the most from Circe, the Coven's preacher.

She would dedicate her years educating under the Coven's wing even after her mother's disappearance. She would honor her mother's holy legacy through her sacred gifts. For she would use them in her practice toward the Right Path. Her teachers would give her the love and support needed, despite how frightened they grew.

Except. The curse was getting worse.

Olive would constantly receive hellish nightmares and unpredictable visions that made her grow fragile over the years—these visions would form into her greatest fears of darkness and loneliness, to a point she would sleep with her father every few nights upon her disturbances. The Coven had been alarmed by the growing terror she exhibited and did their best to cleanse the nephilim the best they could.

The Coven would make sure she was stabilized. That included, on her very ninth birthday…

When she lost it.

Olive would experience a terrifying vision, so real in fact, that she lashed in a fit of fear—subconsciously destroying the Coven and all the people in it. This left her as it's only remains of the terror that flashed before her eyes.

Terrified by what she had done, she fled the area, soon devising her plan to leave her hometown, needing to be out of reach from the destruction she caused and to spare the townsfolk from what she could do to them, when thought possible.

This trip would've taken weeks turned to months. Olive would go on restless in her walk. Her few stops to nearby towns would be brief before they turned rare, only twice to once a week would she stop and recollect her physical strength. But even with the little treatment she gave, she was getting worse and she knew it; she wouldn't sleep nor eat much, she would dwell on doubt and depression for the loss of her home and her actions that led to her loss; therefore, completely torturing her body as a mechanism for the negativity she exhibited.

She would be constantly tormented by the visions of a voice in her mind, which were tempting her to sin, that she ignored and listened to no end, nearly driving herself insane by her pain, until eventually discovering her aunt was the cause of every hellish experience she had.

So, Olive would continue fighting her way throughout her journey to Dingle, Ireland, where it would become her sanctuary to forge a new life. She took on her own purpose to harness her inherited abilities and battle her personal demons; an oath to keep all life safe from herself, being her utmost goal.

Just so no one would experience the pain she had.

_____________________________

Nickname(s): Dove. Little Dove. My Grace. The Holy Enchantress. Kin of the Heavens. Beauty. Habibti. Angel. Abomination. God's Gift.

Vigilante Name: PRIESTESS.

Species: Azarathian Nephilim.

Gender: Female.

Age: 14 (In most occurrences).

11 – 13. Teen Titans 03.

14 – 18. DC Animated Universe.

15. Teen Titans: Graphic Novels.

Teen Titans: Raven.

Teen Titans: Beast Boy.

Teen Titans: Robin.

14 – 24. DC Comics.

14. Teen Titans: Rebirth Saga.

14. Super Sons.

17. 80s Teen Titans.

21. Injustice/2.

14. Batman & Superman: Battle of the Super Sons.

Height: 5'1"

Weight: 120 lbs.

Affiliation: Teen Titans (on & off occasions)

Place of Origin: Dingle, Ireland.

Residence: San Francisco. New York. Ireland.

Relatives:

Amphelice Grace (Seraphim mother)

Esmond Grace (Irish human father)

Desdemona (Fallen seraphim aunt)

Chase (cousin)

Gabriel (fallen archangel uncle)

Michael Dimerguos (archangel uncle)

Elaine Belloc (nephilim cousin)

Raphael (archangel uncle)

Azrael (fallen archangel uncle)

Lucifer Morningstar (fallen archangel uncle)

Uriel (archangel uncle)

Ramiel (archangel uncle)

The Presence (grandfather)

Other angels (relatives; aunts, uncles, etc)

Inspiration(s):

Stella (Rainimator): For mystical Physiology.

Michael Dimerguos.

Roxas (Kingdom Hearts series)

The Scarlet Witch: For mystics idea.

Persephone (Greek Goddess): Concept.

Arella Roth (OG TT): For character design.

Also, general Azarathian designs.

Tris (Divergent series)

Physical Appearance:

Honey brown hair.

Chest-length.

In comics, she also had blonde highlights.

Peach skin.

Small freckles on cheeks.

Yellow irises.

Rounded glasses, on occasions.

White t-shirt.

Yellow hoodie.

Dark blue leggings.

White sneakers.

Amber crystal necklace.

Birth Date: May 11th, 2001.

Sign: Taurus.

Element: Earth.

Planet: Venus.

______________________________

Personality Type: ISFP — "The Artist".

Introversion. Sensing. Feeling. Perception.

Olive is most described as naturally virtuous; righteous, honest, courageous, generous and kind. The traits of a true hero. She's always willing to give her all for others, specifically for those of her friends in subtle attempts to help them feel happy, like physical affection. Her appearance and behavior is considered to relate to an angelic aesthetic. However, despite her pretty face, she is a free-spirited teenager who strives to live her life freely as she wishes.

Olive has high temperance, being one to handle inappropriate and disrespectful circumstances with a calm head, despite how dire situations become, showing a more mature attitude for her age. However, she is logically inclined and prefers putting her emotions aside to get things done, as they wouldn't get in the way of her personal work. This tends to make her isolative and rather introverted, which essentially, despite her friendliness, is more an introvert than anything else.

She does have a frequency of making sarcastic remarks about almost everything, mostly directed from her honesty and straightforwardness, which can come across as disrespectful and blunt. This wasn't always the case, though; Olive was more childishly innocent in her younger years, but she was trained to focus morally on her virtues to repent any possibility of sin, which could corrupt her. She was also emotionally fragile, growing through various psychological traumas from after her birth, which caused her to destroy her home. This cost her sense of security and trust in herself with her abilities. She's also grown isolative, believing she wouldn't hurt people again if she went away from the people she did hurt in the past, holding a sense of belief they'd think of her as a danger in their presence. Her isolation allowed her to adapt her travels to various places efficiently without her gifts as she wouldn't rely on anyone else for help, except; making her grow lonely and shy in the process.

_____________________________

As the daughter of the celestial archangel; the Preacher, Olive inherited her mother's powers and had grown to surpass said parent since birth, with only fewer weaknesses to her kind. Due to being the breed of human and an archangelic being, her Grace had been merged with her soul, also known as the source of her nature, which many tried to steal to gain the unimaginable power held with it.

The nature of her grace allows her to perform a variety of mystical feats; namely her inherited white and blood magic, separately for defensive and offensive purposes when initiating combat. She's practiced at many spells, healing, forging portals, empowering the life-forces of others, and purifying various beings. Her blood is a critical source of her humanity, both enchanted and cursed by her heritage as an animated, telekinetic conjunction to control and burn at unholy beings, including solid matter. Notably interesting is, her blood is reactive when she becomes fueled by responding to sin (notably provoked wrath), burning those who touch said fluid in response. Her blood does frail her to illness by sin as an effect of her aunt's curse. Meaning, the more she falls to said sins, the more ill she becomes to the point of corruption.

Olive's also a notable expert at casting mystical prayers to God and his seven archangels to gain whatever she desires: whether that's restoring one's health, enhancing her magical awareness, or even enhancing a degree of luck, it is all responded to her through God himself. Her ability to pray is so powerful, that she was able to subconsciously grant her mother everlasting life with an eternal soul. Her desire at that point was for her mother to "come back" after she left Azarath to stray Trigon away from the realm. This is all accounted for by true faith. Olive must have faith in God and/or herself to tap into her abilities to function efficiently. Her lack of faith can lead her to be ignored/denied by her ancestors and leave her mortal to great disadvantages.

Her holy potential is such that she may one day be a threat to all dimensions, realities, and everything in-between.

Nephilim Physiology.

Angelic Wings (possibly).

Superhuman Condition. Due to her human-angelic heritage, Olive Grace developed a unique essence far beyond human condition. She's capable of withstanding numerous human conditions and damage. She even survived a physical encounter with a group of demons. Although, the radiation of hell-fires did cause some internal pain in the process, causing dizziness as an effect. She could counter those of light and absorb it, strengthening and overruling her of those said photokinetics. She can move and react faster than human perception. Although her momentum is what makes her speed more efficient when on offensive terms, it's still adaptable when tamed with her environment.

Healing Factor. Her nephilim biology allows her to rapidly heal after damage. Certain wounds from demons, archangels can slow this process and take awhile to recover.

Disease Immunity. Olive's body is immune to many human diseases and illnesses, including decay. Her ill-like curse is the only exception, due to its sinful nature that influences her essence as a whole to her existence; hence, making her physically frail and emotionally unstable at times.

🍀 Blessed Blood. Olive's (golden) angelic blood was inherited through her ritualistic birth, by the blood of coven witches. Her blood is uniquely imprinted by the essence of the divine and is sacred; which can be detectable and intoxicating to bloodthirsty creatures like the undead. Any who feed her blood are afflicted with vile burns through their damned bodies as a punishment by said holy beings. She can manipulate her mystical blood however she wishes, bending it in various uses. It's proven powerful enough to heal injuries and poison, purify illness and impurification, fertilize and create, even serve protection from those of an unholy nature. Her angelic blood also adds to her inhuman beauty and causes a gentle golden glow when she's in her best mood.

Blessed Blood Solidification. She can solidify her blood from a form of loose jelly to a metal-like hardness, however she desires. Her blood was used to mimic numerous objects, including shields. Additionally, her blood proved to construct even life, hence her familiar, Jophiel (a dove).

Prehensile Blood. She can make her blood move and use it to hold and manipulate objects like a limb, to move opponents, to burrow into objects or living things to usurp coordination.

Blood Sense. Olive can sense and read the bloodstreams of other beings. Her readings allowed her to detect the presence of alcohol, drugs, or various substances within the bloodstream. This also gave insight to one's bodily sensations, including heartbeat upon accelerated blood flow, allowing her to detect a lie and discover the true feelings behind them, replicating them onto herself.

Blessing Inducement. Olive's blood has mystical properties that can be used for beneficial feats, casting spells to grant fortunes to others, as long as it's in a benevolent nature;

Animancy. Her blood has revolved manipulating the living. For example, it created Jophiel, known as her familiar, giving her life, also forging a strong bond that allows her to command and communicate, typically the bird acting as a messenger and/or her eyes and ears.

Genesis. Her familiar (Jophiel; a dove) was created by her blood.

Fertility. Her blood can fertilize plant life.

Healing. Olive's blood can heal illnesses and injuries, blessing them to their healthier selves.

Deaging. Olive can grant youth for the elderly, but it only lasts temporarily, depending on how much blood is used.

Purification. She can purify others against negative influence, such as sicknesses and wilt.

Sanctification. She can cleanse things with her holy properties; repenting them of sinful or defilement means.

Power–Granting. Her mystical blood can grant her divine strength onto anyone, even substances for scientific or mythical purposes.

Glowing. Her blood (including veins) can glow, generating light, allowing her to see in the dark clearly.

Blood Memory. Upon mixing her blood with another, she can access memories and information stored, even exchange her own.

Blood Bond. Mixing her blood with another allows her to forge bonds, giving them a link to each other.

Experience Sharing. Olive's bonds allow her to share every experience one had, including physical pain of the past and the present.

White Magic. Olive inherited the ability to utilize the purest benevolent magics, typically using it to heal the mind, body and soul. This magic is accordingly focused around helping others, purifying evil spirits, charms, dispel curses, etc. Although, due to her holy nature, this does have its own restrictions, depending on the situation of use. Mostly; this revolves around defense rather than offense.

Indomitable Will. Olive had grown to be quite endurable to pain and sin after years training, including experience.

Heavenly Grace.

Essence Physiology. Olive's Grace is a fundamental force she was made with that communes with her human soul, which is the core of her heavenly powers. She eventually learns that she could control her essence to master her celestial inheritance that's considered beyond that of normal beings, which is why people like Desdemona sought to corrupt her. She has yet to master this, but when she reaches full power; Olive can enter into her purest state of energy even without her physical form intact. She would gain impressive control and mastery over her gifts with vast capacity to expel essence in various ways.

Life–Force Manipulation. Olive can manipulate the life-force of others and her own, allowing her to achieve her full potential of power beyond natural beings. Her Grace is the fundamental source of her powers, even a force that allows life to exist and flourish throughout the universe.

Life–Force Pressure. Olive can self-generate vast amounts of life-force to crush, repel, to destroy objects or entire areas. This has reached enough force to eliminate her entire Coven upon reaction to fear, from a tormenting hallucination created by Desdemona.

Life–Force Absorption. Olive is able to absorb the magical energies through one's blood and essence, fueling it into her own. This does require grave concentration. If she has taken enough energy, she could possibly kill that person in the process. The exception had been Desdemona because of her immortality, hence she can still live even without her blood.

Salvation. Her flamed blood can save the essence and/or souls to redeem them of their sins; freeing them from the consequences and damnation they've served.

Prayer Casting. Her most significant feat is her power of prayer; a sacred holy gift that allows her to invoke divine communion with her heavenly energies (hence, communication) to gain insight, enhancements, mystical strength, and even heal others of illness or disease. Her prayers come in the form of hymns and/or a spontaneous utterance which can be performed alone or (on occasions) with a group. This power is drawn by her thoughts of utter faith. Meaning, while powerful at best, this does require empowerment of said faith in her holy beliefs to perform various miracles, if her prayers were to work.

Holy Voice. She voices her prayers to reach a personal connection with the Heavens.

Empathic Voice.

Divination. She seeks angelic guidance through praying and gains prophetic dreams to aid and warn her. Though, depending on the dream, has delivered occasional night terrors, as she once dreamt of feeling Trigon's presence in his attempt to reach her.

Abjurations. Her prayers cast various enchantments for a greater outcome.

Blessings.

Healing Prayer.

Curing Prayer.

Restoration.

Protection.

Shield Prayer.

Life–Force Augmentation. Olive can augment other life-forces, enhancing one's overall energy.

Divine Protection. She can create shields of divine energy to protect herself and allies alike.

Miracle Performing. Olive's praying ability forms miracle feats that cause events to happen that are beyond human understanding. She could change things in a beneficial way or simply cause wonderful occurrences and phenomena for a positive outcome, like resurrecting and healing a child from a coma. This trait to her praying gift can play various effects; like causing disasters to punish the wicked, healing the sick and dying, resurrecting the dead, turning water into wine, even walking on water.

Luck Bestowal. She can bestow a degree of luck to those around her, enhancing one's capability and direction for a positive outcome.

Desire Manifestation. Her prayers can manifest her desires into reality at will and subconsciously. Whatever she desires will materialize, whether it'd be an object, a location, even a person beyond the dead. Olive managed to resurrect her mother subconsciously through prayer, as her desire was for her to return home.

Reality Alteration. As a result of her praying gifts, Olive can pray whilst altering and warping reality at a whim. Her prayers are so powerful, that she stated she could change life how she believed it, create planets and/or dimensions, even giving life to said worlds.

Lightside View. She can gain insight and influence others to see the good within themselves. This is especially useful when one faces an internal crisis or depression, when few doubt themselves as a whole.

Benevolence Release. Olive's unique presence can release the benevolent and altruistic aspects of others.

Divine Presence.

Pacification. She's able to induce peace onto others, easing one of their negative-influenced tendencies.

Beneficial Force Manipulation. She can manipulate positive energies.

Photokinesis. Olive can generate, shape and manipulate light from her own Grace, bending it under her control. It's channeled as a force projected to her enemies. This kind of power focuses on protection, curative and the creatively preservative aspect of her essence, though it can be used offensively as well. As her light energy is the antithesis of dark energy, it can be used to promote growth, heal/purify targets and/or bring salvation upon the ill-fated.

Inner Light. Olive can harness her light from her Grace, manipulating and utilizing it from within herself; light that lies dormant with her that contains divine properties with a variety of effects that represents her benevolent traits;

Hope.

Love.

Honesty.

Faith.

Humility.

Courage.

Kindness.

Compassion.

Cultivation. She can absorb pure energies to recharge her essence.

Light Solidification. She can solidify her light with her blood to create hardened structures for defense.

Light Blast. Olive can unleash blasts of light from her fingertips. She can influence the size of her blasts, from large beams to thin lasers. She can also make blasts sharp enough to cut through solid matter, even surrounding her in said light to launch numerous projectiles.

Light Orbs. She can create small light orbs that act as a harmless construct for power-outages.

Light Whip. She generates whips of light, to hit enemies.

Force Field. She can manifest a shield to protect herself and her allies.

Portal Creation. Olive uses her personal light to travel through cities, countries, even planets and dimensions, wherever she desires through her blood-created portals. This ability is linked to her most benevolent emotions and thoughts. Hence, the places she teleports hold a kindred connection to her, including; Azarath, Earth; Ireland.

Photokinetic Intangibility. Olive uses her light to pass through matter.

Photokinetic Invisibility. Olive can cloak herself with her sacred light.

Photokinetic Immunity. As with her embodiment to sacred light, direct light attacks pose no harm to her.

Smiting. She can strike destructive, divine blows on living–beings, including the impure. It can even be effective to destroy said individuals with a great amount used.

Telekinesis. Olive was able to perform intense waves of telekinetic force by will. Although this was triggered upon being threatened, which had eventually been trained. Eventually, she was able to send telekinetic shockwaves to knock a gang of burglars unconscious, blasting through building walls and windows.

Limited Chronokinesis. Her telekinetic waves can slow the movement of her targets.

Molecular Combustion. Olive can accelerate molecules of a target, increasing heat and friction that causes said molecules to rip apart and explode in response.

Blessed Energy Manipulation. Olive can call upon her gracious energies to manipulate and shape into pure energy.

Cultivation. She can absorb others' pure energies to empower her Grace.

Virtue Manipulation. Olive can induce the seven holy virtues onto various individuals, namely, "Charity".

Angelic Aura. When performing mystical feats, Olive emits a light yellow aura in effect. Although, when she gets in contact with her holiest state, it changes to a blueish-white.

Light Aura. The ability to surround herself in light.

Corrupted Physiology.

Cursed (Power–Source) Physiology. Since her birth, Olive had been cursed by her aunt to become highly sensitive in response to acting upon sin and becoming a living–host to it; acting as Desdemona's perfect vessel of recreation. To sin, her essence would eventually be corrupted; following up to her powers, distort her physical form to illness and cause her mind to slowly collapse and grow unstable, breaking her humanity and control of herself as an ending point. Luckily, Olive had been trained to depend on her virtues and waver from sin by the enchanted Irish Coven under her mother's conditions, which she continued to live up to in a fight for happiness.

Cursed Blood. Olive's cursed nature comes from acting upon violence and sin, which acts as an offensive nature compared to her blessed counterpart. Her tainted blood becomes alluring to the undead due to its bittersweet taste upon infliction. Her blood does eventually become corruptible to her Grace, that'll eventually lead her to fall from holiness and her humanity, hence why she has to repent sin and use it only if necessary.

Bio Hell–Fire Manipulation. Olive can summon and manipulate the cursed flames of Hell, which gains an amber color to her tainted nature. These flames allow her to cause excruciating pain upon contact, if not even, instant death on occasions. They can attack the bodies and the spiritual essence of individuals, even proven to be highly effective to those with accelerated healing. Raven's Soul-Self, while strong enough to apprehend Olive, was forced to deplete upon taking damage to these flames, taking a longer time to recover in the process.

Soul Mutilation. Her flames can inflict damage to souls.

Summoning. Her flames can summon evil forces from Hell, into the living plane.

Torment Inducement. Her flames can torture her targets.

Heat Generation. Her blood generates a heated temperature when touched.

Incineration. Her blood is able to incinerate solid matter through her touch.

Curse Inducement. Olive's blood can be used for cursed feats, casting spells to grant misfortune to others, as a form of malevolent nature;

Damnation. Olive can put others into a mental, hellish punishment.

Evil Eye. Her amber-orange eyes can inflict pain and negative emotions to anyone she chooses, just by gazing at that said person. This horrific trait does require eye contact.

Transfiguration. She can alter or transform matter, energy and beings into flames or crows.

Hypnosis. The undead become intoxicated by taste or the smell of her blood. This allows Olive to control them at will and command them to do her bidding.

Addictive Effects. Her tainted blood becomes an alluring source to unholy creatures, like the undead. In response, they become intoxicated by it and would betray or kill any for a taste

Blood Marionette. She can manipulate the blood of others, rendering her targets useless, even forcing them to do her bidding.

Taint Generation. She can generate taint and defining matter (flesh, metal, elements, machines, etc) through touch, which can spread rapidly, causing diseases, mutation, even corruption itself.

Possession. However powerful this tainted blood may be, it makes Olive vulnerable to being possessed by demons, including spirits of the dead.

Cursed Energy Manipulation. In this condition, Olive's blessed energy turns corrupted, which she can manipulate however she wishes.

Corruption Inducement. Unlike her purification purpose, Olive could corrupt any being she touches to commit their dormant sinful desires, forming them into reality.

Sin Absorption. In this condition, she becomes empowered by sin.

Meta Fear Inducement. She can induce anyone into a state of horror.

_______________________________

Limitations:

Physical Weaknesses:

Lacks physical strength.

Genetic deficit to human dna.

Gains hand tremors when experiencing extreme anxiety.

Enclosed spaces.

Being alone.

Reacts to unwanted emotion.

Allergic to rodents.

Also has musophobia.

Farsighted.

Olive has Mirror–Touch Synesthesia; a sensory disorder that causes one to mirror all resonated sensations inflicted by anything/anyone she sees. Whatever feeling makes contact with an individual is detected by Olive and she becomes sensitive in response, in reactions to various shocks, tickles, replicating emotions, etc.

Hospital settings = risky.

Makes her lose focus.

Provokes her to lash out in an unexpected, aggressive manner.

Using her magical blood can put her at risk of blood loss.

Olive's constant eradication of one's illness, impurity and pain, causes her to weaken in turn.

She becomes sickly-looking.

Her skin pales.

Grows cold.

May grow frail.

Tired, heavy eyes.

May gain chills & grow ill.

Violent coughs.

Pains.

Fatigue?

May spew out blood.

Bloody nose on occasions.

Dizzy &/ faint upon overdose.

Mental Weaknesses:

Autophobic = Fears loneliness.

Seen as comfortable alone but tends to grow anxious after hours without communication. Hence, she requests sanctuary in a friends' room when tense.

Gives more time for affection.

Usually, it's rare.

Gains hand tremors.

Potential for panic attacks.

Will hide in her room = sanctuary for safety.

"You won't leave (me) right?"

Reading = calm mechanism.

Respect her tranquil space.

Impulsive. Olive has the tendency to act without thought and adapt as she goes on. While it is useful at best, it's another thing if she doesn't take responsibility for the situation; therefore, putting herself at risk of harm, including others without precaution.

Reckless.

Careless.

Tends to be unpredictable.

Friendly for one second.

Bursts into irritation after.

Unwelcoming emotions stress her.

Isolative. She often spends her time away from attention in order to get things done. It makes her comfortable and helps take her mind away from conflict. When confronted for this, she can come across as uncooperative and private when working with others.

Private on occasions.

Better with (occasional) communication.

Stubborn. Once Olive sets her mind to a particular goal, it's not so easy to make her refuse. She was always persistent to keep fighting even after she was increasingly weakened, particularly to protect her loved ones. If one messes with her or the people she's close to, there's no turning back from fighting back. This has put her in numerous occasions of trouble, even risking her life in that same process.

Relentless.

Her honesty can make her a jerk.

Including her bluntness.

Slightly judgemental.

Inconsiderate.

Her generosity can make her sacrifice her own health.

Fears being perceived as a failure.

Tense when at loss of freedom.

Additional Weaknesses:

Powers may require prayers from the seven archangels or entities she's bonded with. Brayleigh & Shamira included.

Ignored/denied = she becomes powerless.

Increasingly weakened from demonic energy.

Powerful presence = weaker she grows.

Pentagrams may trap her.

Archangel weapons can kill her.

If her grace is drained, she is rendered mortal = powerless.

Lack of faith weakens this.

Can be corruptible too.

Darkness-based abilities can repel her primordial light magic.

When she alters other's luck, her own becomes negatively altered.

Saves other's health = risking her health.

Precognition requires touch.

__________________________________

Friends: Raven. Beast Boy. Nightwing. Starfire. Blue Beetle. Wonder Girl. Superboy.

Complicated: Kid Flash (Wallace West). Terra. Preacher (Brayleigh). Desdemona.

Love Interest: Robin (Damian Wayne).

Enemies: Trigon. League of Assassins. Hive Mind. Brother Blood.

_______________________________

By Ceris_the_Divine.

[cromwellrex2]

The End of the Rump: ‘What shall we do with this bauble? Here, take it away.’

The Spontaneous Military Coup

Cromwell dissolving the Rump Parliament. Source: Alamy Stock Photos

THE COMMONWEALTH forces soon reduced the remaining resistance in Scotland. In short order, George Monck defeated the scattered remnants of Royalist, Engager and Covenanter opposition to the effective imposition of an English settlement in Scotland. That settlement was the same one as introduced to England: religious toleration for all but Roman Catholics and Episcopalians. Although the Church of Scotland loathed an arrangement that allowed Independents free worship, they had no choice. The taking of Stirling, Perth and Dundee (the latter with much slaughter, including of non-combatants) by the New Model Army throughout the late summer of 1651 followed by the news of Worcester, ended the last resistance of the Scottish government. With its final defeat, the Solemn League and Covenant also disappeared as a viable religious or political prospectus. During 1652, the Rump Parliament in England prepared legislation that effectively unified Scotland and England into a new Commonwealth. In March 1653, the Scottish General Assembly was suppressed: there was now only one, republican, government for both countries.

Similarly in Ireland, Sir Henry Ireton and later Edmund Ludlow, slowly took the remaining Confederate fortresses one by one, and by spring 1653, the organised Irish rebellion was finally over. Ireton himself did not see the final victory as he died of the plague during his ill-advised siege of Limerick. The settlement was harsh. All who had supported the rebellion, which included a substantial proportion of the Old English, had their lands confiscated and handed over to loyalists or Protestant settlers. Ireland became, in effect, a province of the Commonwealth: Charles Stuart’s three Kingdoms were no more.

With the fighting over, the Council of State, the Rump and the Army needed to decide what form of constitutional settlement now should be introduced following the final crushing of Royalism. The existing Commonwealth had been a pragmatic response to the monarch’s execution, continued warfare and the questionable legitimacy of the Rump Parliament, but now there could be no deferral of the debate as to what type of government should replace the Stuart monarchy. When the conflict began, the majority of Parliamentarians had no intention of replacing the king with some form of republicanism. Even Cromwell was a late convert to the cause, initially taking the view that a reformed monarchy could be preserved, perhaps under Henry Duke of Gloucester, Charles I’s youngest son, but as with so many of his Parliamentarian colleagues, the second civil war turned Cromwell to the view that monarchy itself was the problem, not simply the individual who wore the crown.

The starting point however was the Rump Parliament itself. Compromised though it was by Pride’s Purge it was nonetheless the linear descendant of what was still, technically, the Parliament of 1640. In early 1652, the Rump voted for its own dissolution from November 1654 and then set about attempting to deal with the backlog of legislation shelved for the duration of the civil wars. This included legal reform, debt relief, the establishment of a new national church to replace Episcopacy and the sequestration and sale of Royalist property. In addition, the Rump was tasked with producing propsals for the post war system of government - major questions such as parliamentary terms, the extent of the franchise, whether or not there should be a second chamber now the Lords was abolished, and should there be an equivalent senior governor of the nation to replace the office of King. These tasks were gargantuan, but the Rump’s efforts to address them seriously were half-hearted at best. Rather than deal with issues of reform and principle, the MPs of the Rump preferred to delve into matters of citizens’ personal behaviour, such as adultery and blasphemy, and obsess about the appropriateness of traditional Christian feast days and their possible pagan origins. It was in the early 1650s that the Commonwealth’s dour reputation as the Puritan regime that took down Maypoles, closed theatres and banned Christmas, took hold.

In the meantime, the Army was becoming impatient. Despite the Commonwealth having embarked on a needless naval war with Dutch Republic, the Army was idle, outside residual fighting in Ireland and northern Scotland, and remained radical in its political thinking. In August 1652, it issued a petition to the Rump that called for the dissolution of Parliament, early elections, the abolition of tithes, the settlement of military pay arrears, and the establishment of a National Treasury accountable to the new Commonwealth government. The difficulty for the Rump, and to some extent, Cromwell, was that the Army no longer spoke with one voice. Only Cromwell remained of the former Grandees and the coming men were John Lambert and Thomas Harrison, the victors of the third civil war. Whereas Lambert espoused a constitutional egalitarian republicanism, familiar from the Putney Debates, Harrison was a Fifth Monarchist and as such wished to see the Parliamentary system abolished altogether and replaced by a small conclave of the godly who would ready the former Kingdoms for the Second Coming, due, in the view of the Fifth Monarchists, at any time. What united the factions however, was their contempt for the Rump Parliament.

The Rump’s policy of sequestering Royalist lands to pay for the Dutch war, particularly irritated the New Model Army’s officer class, who had made frequent promises during the wars to Royalist hold outs that their continued ownership of their lands would be guaranteed, in return for a surrender. This apparent reneging on that promise offended military honour. This added to a general sense of self-serving indolence and drift associated with the Rump and led to a gathering of officers in London who requested Cromwell that he support the petition and forcibly dissolve the Rump. Cromwell was open to such an entreaty. He could see little benefit in maintaining the Rump Parliament any longer, and was tempted by the thought of assuming an overall role as ��Protector”, either as the constitutional head of a republic or to usher in in a constitutional monarchy under Henry of Gloucester. However, what happened next did not have the appearance of a premeditated move against Parliament.

Matters reached a head in spring 1653. On 19th April, Cromwell, Harrison and Lambert met with sympathetic MPs and insisted the Rump needed to develop an immediate succession plan under which it should should dissolve itself rapidly, set a date for elections and hand over power to a transitional committee of forty godly men. To his alarm, Cromwell later heard Parliament was indeed debating succession, but not the plan put to MPs by the officers. The Rump’s apparent intention was to continue in place indefinitely. Cromwell and Harrison immediately attended the House of Commons and took their seats. After listening to the debate, Cromwell eventually rose and made a furious speech condemning the continuance of the Rump with words that have since become famous: ‘it is not fit that you should sit here any longer. You have sat here too long for any good you have been doing lately… how can you be a Parliament for God’s People? Depart I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.’ With that Harrison brought in thirty or so musketeers who, amongst much protest, cleared the chamber. The mace, the symbol of the Speaker’s authority, was removed from the Commons, contemptuously dismissed as a “bauble”. Cromwell and the Army had dissolved the Rump by force.

Essentially the Long Parliament had been terminated by a military coup. Although the forced dissolution gave every appearance of being a spontaneous act, Cromwell moved swiftly to consolidate his position by informing the Council of State it had no further business to undertake as the legislature had been removed. A bloodless revolution had occurred that had removed the final element of the pre-war monarchical settlement - King, Lords and Commons - with no opposition or complaint from the country at large. The Rump, ineffectual and unpopular, passed from British history with barely a whimper.

Oliver Cromwell, once an obscure country MP and, in the early days of the civil wars, a cavalry colonel among many, was now master of all he surveyed: victorious general, regicide, breaker of Scottish Presbyterianism and the Irish Rebellion, and now a morally upright revolutionary too. The political future of the former three Kingdoms was now, effectively, in the hands of one man.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 5.24

919 – The nobles of Franconia and Saxony elect Henry the Fowler at the Imperial Diet in Fritzlar as king of the East Frankish Kingdom. 1218 – The Fifth Crusade leaves Acre for Egypt. 1276 – Magnus Ladulås is crowned King of Sweden in Uppsala Cathedral. 1487 – The ten-year-old Lambert Simnel is crowned in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland, with the name of Edward VI in a bid to threaten King Henry VII's reign. 1567 – Erik XIV of Sweden and his guards murder five incarcerated Swedish nobles. 1595 – Nomenclator of Leiden University Library appears, the first printed catalog of an institutional library. 1607 – Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in North America, is founded. 1621 – The Protestant Union is formally dissolved. 1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan. 1667 – The French Royal Army crosses the border into the Spanish Netherlands, starting the War of Devolution opposing France to the Spanish Empire and the Triple Alliance. 1683 – The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world's first university museum. 1689 – The English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration protecting dissenting Protestants but excluding Roman Catholics. 1738 – John Wesley is converted, essentially launching the Methodist movement; the day is celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day and a church service is generally held on the preceding Sunday. 1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the United Irishmen against British rule begins. 1813 – South American independence leader Simón Bolívar enters Mérida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and is proclaimed El Libertador ("The Liberator"). 1822 – Battle of Pichincha: Antonio José de Sucre secures the independence of the Presidency of Quito. 1832 – The First Kingdom of Greece is declared in the London Conference. 1844 – Samuel Morse sends the message "What hath God wrought" (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from a committee room in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland, to inaugurate a commercial telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington D.C. 1856 – John Brown and his men kill five slavery supporters at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas. 1861 – American Civil War: Union troops occupy Alexandria, Virginia. 1873 – Patrick Francis Healy becomes the first black president of a predominantly white university in the United States. 1883 – The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction. 1900 – Second Boer War: The United Kingdom annexes the Orange Free State. 1915 – World War I: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary, joining the conflict on the side of the Allies. 1930 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight). 1935 – The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the Cincinnati Reds beating the Philadelphia Phillies 2–1 at Crosley Field. 1940 – Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight. 1940 – Acting on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, NKVD agent Iosif Grigulevich orchestrates an unsuccessful assassination attempt on exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Coyoacán, Mexico. 1941 – World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Battleship Bismarck sinks then-pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen. 1944 – Börse Berlin building burns down after being hit in an air raid during World War II. 1948 – Arab–Israeli War: Egypt captures the Israeli kibbutz of Yad Mordechai, but the five-day effort gives Israeli forces time to prepare enough to stop the Egyptian advance a week later. 1956 – The first Eurovision Song Contest is held in Lugano, Switzerland. 1958 – United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service. 1960 – Following the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, the largest ever recorded earthquake, Cordón Caulle begins to erupt. 1961 – American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus. 1962 – Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule. 1967 – Egypt imposes a blockade and siege of the Red Sea coast of Israel. 1967 – Belle de Jour, directed by Luis Buñuel, is released. 1976 – The Judgment of Paris takes place in France, launching California as a worldwide force in the production of quality wine. 1981 – Ecuadorian president Jaime Roldós Aguilera, his wife, and his presidential committee die in an aircraft accident while travelling from Quito to Zapotillo minutes after the president gave a famous speech regarding the 24 de mayo anniversary of the Battle of Pichincha. 1982 – Liberation of Khorramshahr: Iranians recapture of the port city of Khorramshahr from the Iraqis during the Iran–Iraq War. 1988 – Section 28 of the United Kingdom's Local Government Act 1988, a controversial amendment stating that a local authority cannot intentionally promote homosexuality, is enacted. 1991 – Israel conducts Operation Solomon, evacuating Ethiopian Jews to Israel. 1992 – The last Thai dictator, General Suchinda Kraprayoon, resigns following pro-democracy protests. 1992 – The ethnic cleansing in Kozarac, Bosnia and Herzegovina begins when Serbian militia and police forces enter the town. 1993 – Eritrea gains its independence from Ethiopia. 1993 – Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo and five other people are assassinated in a shootout at Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla Guadalajara International Airport in Mexico. 1994 – Four men are convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in New York in 1993; each one is sentenced to 240 years in prison. 1995 – While attempting to return to Leeds Bradford Airport in the United Kingdom, Knight Air Flight 816 crashes in Harewood, North Yorkshire, killing all 12 people on board. 1999 – The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo. 2000 – Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation. 2002 – Russia and the United States sign the Moscow Treaty. 2014 – A 6.4 magnitude earthquake occurs in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey, injuring 324 people. 2014 – At least three people are killed in a shooting at Brussels' Jewish Museum of Belgium. 2019 – Twenty-two students die in a fire in Surat (India). 2019 – Under pressure over her handling of Brexit, British Prime Minister Theresa May announces her resignation as Leader of the Conservative Party, effective as of June 7. 2022 – A mass shooting occurs at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, United States, resulting in the deaths of 21 people, including 19 children.

[dan6085]

Religious wars have been fought throughout history, often resulting in significant loss of life and destruction. Here are 20 of the most notable religious wars in history:

1. The Crusades (1096-1270): A series of wars fought between Christians and Muslims over control of the Holy Land.

2. The Thirty Years War (1618-1648): A conflict between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire that resulted in the deaths of millions of people.

3. The French Wars of Religion (1562-1598): A series of conflicts between Catholics and Huguenots (French Protestants) that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

4. The Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834): A campaign by the Catholic Church to root out heresy in Spain that resulted in the deaths of thousands of people.

5. The English Civil War (1642-1651): A conflict between Royalists and Parliamentarians in England that was fueled by religious differences.

6. The Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229): A campaign by the Catholic Church to eliminate the Cathar heresy in France that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

7. The Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639-1651): A series of conflicts between Protestants and Catholics in Scotland, England, and Ireland.

8. The Ottoman-Habsburg Wars (1526-1791): A series of wars fought between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Empire (which was predominantly Catholic) over control of Eastern Europe.

9. The Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864): A civil war in China that was driven by religious and social tensions.

10. The Peasants' War (1524-1525): A series of uprisings by German peasants who were inspired by the teachings of Martin Luther.

11. The War of the Two Peters (1356-1369): A conflict between the Catholic kingdoms of Aragon and Castile over control of the Kingdom of Valencia.

12. The Irish Confederate Wars (1641-1653): A series of conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland that were part of the English Civil War.

13. The Schmalkaldic War (1546-1547): A conflict between the Holy Roman Empire (which was predominantly Catholic) and the Schmalkaldic League (which was predominantly Protestant).

14. The Dungan Revolt (1862-1877): A Muslim rebellion against the Qing dynasty in China.

15. The Balkan Wars (1912-1913): A series of conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and several Balkan states (which were predominantly Orthodox Christian).

16. The War of the Vendée (1793-1796): A rebellion by Catholic peasants in western France against the French Revolution.

17. The Moro Rebellion (1899-1913): A conflict between the United States and Muslim rebels in the Philippines.

18. The Great Northern War (1700-1721): A conflict between Sweden and several European powers (including Russia, which was predominantly Orthodox Christian).

19. The Wars of Kappel (1529-1531): A series of conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in Switzerland.

20. The Indian Rebellion of 1857: A rebellion against British rule in India that was fueled by religious and social tensions.

[aion-rsa]

The True Story Behind James Cameron’s Titanic

https://ift.tt/3shvKln

James Cameron’s 1997 blockbusting tearjerker, Titanic, puts an epic love story in the middle of the greatest maritime disaster in the history of the North Atlantic. On April 15, 1912, midway through its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg. Because of a severe shortage of lifeboats, 1,517 people died. In the weeks which followed, the luxury liner was said to have been billed as “unsinkable,” but that claim had never been made until after the nautical disaster.

This and other myths have lived on, thanks particularly to Cameron’s romantic (and often fanciful) movie. And yet, not all truths have been lost at sea.

Jack and Rose

Jack Dawson, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and Rose DeWitt Bukater, played by Kate Winslet as a young woman and Gloria Stuart when elderly, are a myth. They are fictional characters. Jack wasn’t slipped $20 for rescuing Rose, and never taught her how to spit off the side of a ship like a man. But there was a member of the Titanic crew named Joseph Dawson. Born in Dublin, Joseph Dawson worked as a coal trimmer, evening out piles of coal which were shoveled into the ship’s furnaces.

Rose DeWitt-Bukater is the first film character portrayed by two actors who were both nominated for an Academy Award. Winslet was nominated as Best Actress, and Stuart was nominated as Best Supporting Actress. Rose is modeled on Beatrice Wood, who did not travel on the Titanic. Born in San Francisco to wealthy parents, her coming out party was cancelled the same year the Titanic sank.

Beatrice joined the French National Repertory Theatre under the stage name Mademoiselle Patricia, playing more than 60 roles before she was noticed by artist Marcel Duchamp. She was well known by artists during the Dada period, and lived long enough to be invited by James Cameron to the opening of Titanic.

Captain Edward John Smith

Before skippering the Titanic, Capt. Edward John Smith (Bernard Hill) spent 40 years at sea without major incidents. Smith had been working on boats since he was a teenager. He earned a master’s certificate, which is required to serve as captain, in 1875. He became a junior officer with the White Star Line in 1880. He commanded his first ship in 1887. Like many veteran captains, he occasionally ran ships aground, and was captain of the Olympic when it collided with the British cruiser Hawke off the Isle of Wight in 1911, a year before he helmed the Titanic.

The Titanic received iceberg warnings several days into its maiden voyage. Smith adjusted the course but reportedly did not decrease speed. He was away from the bridge when the ship struck an iceberg. The first damage report, from Fourth Officer Joseph G. Boxhall (Simon Crane), found no damage. But a closer inspection from the Titanic’s designer Thomas Andrews (Victor Garber), found five of the ship’s 16 watertight compartments were flooded. The Titanic could have stayed afloat with up to four flooded compartments. At about midnight, Andrews reported the ship would founder within 60 to 90 minutes. Smith gave orders to uncover the lifeboats and alert the passengers at 12:05 a.m.

Because of some of the reported incidents, some historians wonder whether Smith was in a state of shock at the news. Crewmen didn’t lower the lifeboats until 12:45 a.m., and only because Second Officer Charles Lightoller (Jonny Phillips) reminded the captain to give the order.

Smith’s final moments are unknown. Early newspaper reports alleged he shot himself with a pistol. Several witnesses claimed to have seen him swim to a nearby lifeboat with an infant in his arms before swimming back to the Titanic. Some witnesses said he was swept off deck by a wave, others believed he made it to an overturned lifeboat. Smith’s body was never found.

Joseph Bruce Ismay

J. Bruce Ismay (Jonathan Hyde) was born Dec. 12, 1862, near Liverpool, England. His father was the founder of the White Star Line. Educated at Harrow and tutored in France, he travelled the world before becoming the New York company agent for White Star Line. He became head of Ismay, Imrie & Company after his father’s death in 1899, oversaw its acquisition by J.P. Morgan’s International Mercantile Marine Company in 1902, and was named president of IMM in 1904.

In 1907, Ismay met with Lord Pirrie of the Belfast shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff to discuss building a fast luxury liner with huge steerage capacity which would rival the Cunard Line’s RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauretania. Three ships were built, the RMS Olympic, RMS Britannic, and the pride of the fleet, the RMS Titanic. The ship was built by British White Star Lines at a cost of $10 million. It weighed 46,000 tons and was 882.5 feet long.

History puts culpability for the Titanic disaster on Ismay. He reportedly demanded the captain increase speed in spite of the iceberg warnings, but during the U.S. Senate’s Inquiry into the disaster, he testified the ship was never going at full speed and didn’t even have all of the boilers on. Ismay was the company officer who gave the order to cut the number of lifeboats onboard from 48 to the Board of Trade standard minimum of 16, plus 4 collapsible Engelhardt boats. But Ismay also helped crewmen get the lifeboats ready and convinced passengers to board the lifeboats before danger was visibly apparent. Ismay boarded Engelhardt C, the last lifeboat launched, only 20 minutes before the Titanic crashed beneath the waves.

While Ismay was attacked in the press and branded a coward for escaping while so many working-class women and children died, testimony from surviving officers exonerated his actions as in the best interest of the passengers. Ismay retired from IMM and the White Star Line in 1913.

Chief Engineer Officer Joseph Bell

Joseph Bell (Terry Forrestal) was from Farlam, Cumbria, and a family who had been farmers for generations.  Born in March 1861, Joseph began his seafaring career as an apprentice engine fitter at Robert Stephensons and Co. in Newcastle. Bell joined the White Star line in 1885, serving on vessels working the waters of New Zealand and New York.

Joseph, was promoted to Chief Engineer on the Coptic in 1891 and married Maud Bates in 1893. By 1911, he was the Chief Engineer on White Star Line’s Olympic before being transferred to the Titanic. His staff consisted of 24 engineers, six electrical engineers, two boilermakers, a plumber, and a clerk. None survived the sinking.

The Unsinkable Molly Brown

Legend has it, Margaret Tobin Brown (Kathy Bates) was called “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” because she helped evacuate the ship, took up one of the oars in the lifeboat, and threatened to throw Quartermaster Robert Hichens (Paul Brightwell) overboard if he didn’t go back to the boat to save more people. The myth says the nickname was plucked from the first words she said upon landing safely in New York: “Typical Brown luck. I’m unsinkable!” But Brown actually got the tag as an insult from Denver gossip columnist Polly Pry as revenge for the story of a local hero being printed in another magazine first.

Molly Tobin was born in Hannibal, Missouri in 1867. Her Irish family was part of a wave of immigrants who came to America after the country’s industrialization. Margaret went to school until age 13 when she began working in a factory. She left in search of better work conditions. She met J.J. Brown, a mining engineer, and they were married on Sept. 1, 1886. While most of their neighbors in the Leadville, Missouri community lived in devastating poverty because of the 1893 Silver Crash, J.J. discovered gold in Ibex Mining’s Little Johnny Mine, where he was made a primary shareholder. The couple became nearly instantaneous millionaires.

Moving to Denver where the Silver Crash also took a heavy economic toll, Margaret became part of the Progressive movement, fighting for public baths, public parks, and other city improvements. The Browns separated in 1909 but never divorced. Margaret and her daughter Helen were on an extended vacation with Col. John Jacob “Jack” Astor IV and Madeleine Astor in 1912 when they heard news about a family member’s health issue at home and booked passage on the first available ship, the Titanic.

After the crash, Margaret was lowered in lifeboat number six, which was equipped to hold 65 passengers, but set off with 21 women, two men, and a twelve-year-old boy onboard. Margaret manned an oar. Her knowledge of foreign languages helped her bring passengers aboard the Carpathia, the first ship to answer the distress call. Margaret distributed blankets and supplies, and got the first-class passengers to donate money to help less fortunate passengers.

Brown continued her Progressive program, helping miners striking against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. Twenty people were killed when a battle broke out between the miners and private guards hired by the company in one of the most violent labor conflicts in American history. Once the aftermath and PR battles died down, Margaret moved into her summer home in Newport, Rhode Island where she became involved with Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, the President of the National Women’s Suffrage Association.

The two women spearheaded the National Women’s Trade Union League, which advocated for a minimum wage, an eight-hour workday, and did not distinguish between women of the upper classes and working women.

Margaret wrote newspaper articles, gave public speeches, and was drawn to the radical side of the party, which pushed for a national suffrage amendment. In July 1914, Brown and Belmont organized the Conference of Great Women, which led to Margaret’s bid for a U.S. Senator seat representing Colorado. She shifted her focus when World War I broke out, traveling to France to work for the American Committee for Devastated France.

After WWI, Molly indulged her lifelong passion for the stage, performing in plays in Paris and New York. The 1960 Broadway musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown was based on her life, Debbie Reynolds played her in the 1964 film adaptation.  Brown died in her sleep on Oct. 26, 1932, at the Barbizon Hotel in New York City.

Madeleine Astor and Jacob Astor IV

Madeleine Astor (Charlotte Chatton) was five months pregnant when she boarded the Titanic in Cherbourg, France with her husband Col. John Jacob “Jack” Astor IV (Eric Braeden); her husband’s valet, and her maid and nurse. Madeleine was the daughter of William Hurlbut Force, a shipping magnate, and her family was part of Brooklyn high society. The Astors were ending their extended honeymoon which began with a trip from New York on Titanic‘s sister ship, the Olympic.

When the Titanic was sinking, Astor’s husband helped her and her maid into lifeboat four but was denied entry himself by Second Officer Lightoller, who said the boats were for women and children only. Col. Astor perished with the ship. Madeleine Astor gave birth on Aug. 14, 1912. Her late husband’s will was conditional, and when Madeleine married her childhood friend, the banker William Karl Dick, four years after the Titanic tragedy, she lost her stipend from his trust fund.

Isidor and Ida Straus

Here’s a real heartbreaker greater than even Kate and Leo. Remember the image of a couple holding each other and crying as water seeps into their cabin? They were based on the tragically real figures of Isidor and Ida Straus, two of the wealthiest people on the Titanic.

Born into a Jewish family in Otterberg in 1845, back when that village was part of the Kingdom of Bavaria and Germany did not yet exist, Isidor immigrated as a child with his family to the United States. Growing up in Georgia when the Civil War broke out, he even considered joining the Confederacy before instead becoming a blockade runner for the South (think Rhett Butler). After the war, he moved to New York City where he met Ida, a fellow immigrant from the Germanic states.

In New York, Isidor worked at L. Straus and Sons, which quickly became the glass and china department at Macy’s. Yes, that Macy’s. The original one. By 1888, Isidor and his brother became partners in the first major American department store. By 1896 they owned it. Around this time, Isidor even served a single term as a Congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives.

When the Titanic hit an iceberg in 1912, Isidor and Ida were returning home after a holiday in France. As a first class passenger woman from one of the finest cabins on the ship, Ida was almost immediately offered space on a lifeboat. Isidor escorted her to it, but when it came time to get on, she refused. She wouldn’t leave her husband. Isidor was then also offered a spot on the lifeboat beside her, but he also refused, saying he would “not go before other men.”

So both of them declined the lifeboat space and instead gave it to Ida’s maid. One witness said she heard Ida say, “We have been living together for many years. Where you go, I go.” They walked off back toward the neck, never to be seen again.

And the Band Played On

The crew of the RMS Titanic took the adage “women and children first” very seriously. The Titanic‘s eight-member band, led by violinist Wallace Hartley (Jonathan Evans-Jones), never even jockeyed for position. When the band heard the ship was going down, they set up in the first-class lounge and played to keep passengers calm. As the water rose, the band moved to the forward half of the boat deck. Hartley worked for the Cunard ship line before taking the gig on the Titanic. The other band members were violinists George Alexandre Krins and John Law Hume, violist and bassist John Frederick Preston Clarke, cellists John Wesley Woodward, and Roger Marie Bricoux, and pianists Percy Cornelius Taylor and Theodore Ronald Brailey.

According to some passengers, the final song played was “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” a hymn written in 1861 by the Rev. John Dykes. Versions of this song play in the films Titanic (1953), A Night to Remember (1958) and Cameron’s Titanic. This was discounted by Colonel Archibald Gracie, an amateur historian who survived the disaster.

Read more

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“I assuredly should have noticed it and regarded it as a tactless warning of immediate death to us all, and one likely to create panic,” he is quoted as saying in Steven Turner’s book, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the Eight Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic. He recalled that the band played cheerful songs to keep spirits up. Other survivors also reported hearing songs like “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and “In the Shadows.”

“Nearer, My God, to Thee” was sung by passengers who survived the 1906 wreck of the SS Valencia and had been played during the impending doom on the decks of the Titanic, but those passengers who heard the song had disembarked earlier than the crew.  Wireless operator Harold Bride told The New York Times he heard the song “Autumn” before the ship sank.

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The post The True Story Behind James Cameron’s Titanic appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3asID5P

[interpretingtexas]

Martín and Patricia de León

Martín de León, c. 1920. [source]

Martín and Patricia Martín de León was born to a  wealthy family in what is now Tamaulipas  in 1765. Though his family  usually educated their children in Europe, Martín decided not to go.  Instead, he became a merchant and then joined the army. Because he was  born in New Spain, he couldn't rise above the rank of Captain. In 1795,  he married Patricia de la Garza, the daughter of the Commandant of the  Eastern Internal Provinces, a woman 10 years his junior. The couple  settled in Tamaulipas and began ranching.

Ranching and Resistance In  1805, Martín took a trip north to several cities in Tejas and decided  to move the family ranch up to the area north of present day Corpus  Christi on the Aransas River. The cattle were branded with the de León  brand, EJ for Espirtu de Jesus. The brand was registered in 1807, the  first cattle brand in Texas. Martín quickly became interested in  creating a colony in the area, but his repeated requests were denied by  the Spanish government, which questioned his loyalty, with good reason,  as it turned out. The De León family sided with the Republicans during  the Mexican War for Independence. The family spent most of the war in  San Antonio, but returned to their ranch in 1816, as hostilities on the  frontier died down. In 1823, Martín purchased cattle in New Orleans and  drove then to Texas, adding them to the 5,000 head of cattle the family  already owned.

Empresario Martín had  not given up on his idea of establishing a colony in Texas. In 1824, he  petitioned the provincial government for permission to settle 41  families on and found a town on the Guadalupe River. His contract was  approved, and since he was a Mexican citizen, he had almost no  restrictions and several benefits, including exempting his colonists  from taxes and duties for seven years. Patricia contributed $9,800, as  well as cows, mules and horses that she had inherited from her father.  The De León family arrived at the town site late in 1824 along with a  few other families, and the rest joined them the following spring. The  town was called Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Jesús Victoria and the colony was named Guadalupe Victoria, after the first president of  Mexico. Each family received a plot in town, a league - 4,228 acres- of  grazing land and a labor - 177 acres - of arable land. While Martín set  up the land, Patricia focused on the culture. She founded a school and a  church, donating funds as well as furniture and other items. Though  their house was rough, with dirt floors, Patricia brought beautiful  furnishings from Mexico. The De León colony was the only predominantly  Mexican colony in Texas, though it also included American and Irish  families. Because the borders of the De León colony were undefined, they  came into frequent conflict with surrounding colonies, especially the  DeWitt colony. In 1829, Martín got permission to bring 150 more families  and expand the colony, which brought more conflict with the DeWitt colony. However, in 1831, DeWitt's grant expired and the De León colony  was able to expand into the vacant land. By 1833, when Martín died in a  Cholera epidemic, the colony had given out more than 100 titles, making  the De León family the only empresarios in Texas other than Stephen F.  Austin to fulfill their grant.

St. Mary's Church in Victoria. Built on the De León homestead, donated by Patricia de León. [source] 

Revolution and Heartache Even  without their patriarch, the De León family were ardent supporters of the Texas Revolution. Two son-in-laws served in the Texas army and much  of the rest of the family contributed horses, mules, and supplies.   Because of their support, the family was targeted by General Urrea when he occupied the area and two of Patricia's sons, Fernando and Silvestre,  were arrested. Despite their support, the time after the Texas  Revolution was not an easy one for Tejanos. The youngest De León son was  murdered by cattle rustlers and the family was forced to flee to Louisiana. They later moved to Tamaulipas, Patricia's childhood home and  Patricia sold some of the family's land to help make ends meet. In 1844, Patricia returned to Victoria, only to find her fine furnishings spread among the newcomers. Despite the lack of welcome, Patricia spent  the rest of her life in Victoria devoted to the community, particularly  the church. When she died, Patricia donated her homestead to the  Catholic Church. Today, St. Mary's Church stands on the site.  

[danekarimi-blog]

A designer to do when their clothes are worn

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[pjstafford]

The American Character of Truly Like Lightning by David Duchovny

Spoilers for Entire Book

I am in deep contemplation of the deeply meditative fourth novel by David Duchovny.

This is a timely book which manages to define and explore the conflict of the American Character during a time where the dualism of the character is set, again, to tear the country apart. This blog attempts to place the themes of the novel within the framework of the American character.

On one hand, the American character was formed in our pioneering days by the concept of American exceptionalism, the belief that we should build the city on the Hill and that the expansion West was our manifest destiny. Deeply ingrained within our country’s populace is that belief in individualism, that sense of adventure, that ability to do and to conquer, to create cities and communities out of wilderness. Those traits are often noble. Yet they assume that the destiny of the people who were already on the land was ours to control. They assumed unlimited land resources and that the land itself was made to conquer; a dynamic which sets us up for the climate crisis of today. The Hollywood portrayal of our Western expansion showed the cowboy and outlaw as the heroes and fueled the myths that individuals settled the West by doing what it took as opposed to pioneering communities struggling together for survival. There is so much good and bad in this period of our history and the common traits developed as part of how we think about what it means to be an American. We sometimes choose the mythology over the history. In Truly Like Lightning Bronson Powers represents the bold, strong adventuring American spirit, moving away from the city to live life on his terms. He has his faith, a hard land to live off of, his large family. He doesn’t pay taxes or raise his children by regulations or government rules. His family survives or dies by their own set of rules and with little outside human interaction. He is as strong mythological character seen from afar as Paul Bunyan. Of course, up close, as we see him clearer. We see some aspects of him and life we might not like. Because he is a human and not a myth.

On the other hand, the Founding Fathers of the United States represented the thirteen colonies who were breaking away from the English tyranny. They were not the pioneers of the Western expansion. There was a deeply intellectual component among these men who founded the great American experiment in Democracy. As imperfect as these mostly slave owning men were, they wrote documents that united all of us as one. It is We the People not We the individuals. They set up a system of governing documents that said all men (albeit all white men) were equal. This intellectual bias towards community and union was reinforce in our American culture by the Immigration of the 19th and early 20th century. We are the great diverse culture, melting pot or distinctive stew of choice. There are the Native Americans and the descendants of slaves who are part of We the People today, but, also the descendants of those who fled famine and persecutions and wanted a better life. The West was “conquered” as much by those immigrants as the descendants of the first puritans or pilgrims. The Spanish were already in the West. Asian and Irish Americans largely built the railroads. We are all here to share in some way the American Dream; even those victimized by it. We are the United and not individual states of America. In Truly Like Lightning we see how messy this interaction of people and cultures can become. We see bureaucracy at its worse. We see people disenfranchised. Yet we see Deuce Powers fighting for the common good. Duchovny doesn’t make this element of our character seem as glamorous, does he? Its a hard life to live in Rancho Cucamonga but individual talents shine through. Pearl has the ‘It”. Deuce can achieve the American dream of an Ivy League education. Yet the unity of We the People has given way to the sixties anthem of Power to the People which rings hollow, I guess, in 21st America but at least the struggles seem real. Most of us can relate.

It is the warring conflict in the American character which makes the population specifically vulnerable to the unique American invention, the conman. Be it Joseph Smith or P.T.Barnum or Malouf or Trump. The American con artist will go for the Big Lie every time. He will play on your emotions about American exceptionalism and what you deserve to become rich and fat off of you. There is nothing the con will stop at because there is never enough to satisfy. This works best when we are lost in the parts of the American identity where the conflicts lie.

Maya is the embodiment of the U.S right now. She is the white girl who is a little ethnic. She wants to protect the environment after she gets what’s hers out of it. She is trying to make it in a difficult world and so it’s ok to play by the rules of the game, even if you disagree with the game, because as a single sort of ethnic female she is the underdog. She is drawn to Malouf, the con, but is equally drawn to that other myth of a man, Bronson. She doesn’t want to be one of the nameless people who are part of the middle class. She wants the big win. It’s the American way, but...part of it doesn’t feel right. She will write a check to Janet in atonement. She is playing with children’s actual lives for a buck. Yet we like her, in a way, don’t we?

In the end, after nine men are dead and she is fired, she heads into the fire. She will fight for what’s right. She will give of herself to the greater “good.” Isn’t that too the American way? Isn’t fighting for the nobler cause part of our heritage as well. Where are our gentler angels today?

The novel of meditation leaves you thinking. The author couldn’t have known about the January 6th insurrection, but I can see that as a “fire” in the desert. I feel like the two sides of the American character are looking at one another. I don’t think our conflict is over. This novel doesn’t give you answers. No more than Bronson standing in the desert looking at the sky gets an answer from his God. The novel does ask the right questions framed in a compelling tale.

*Pamela Stafford has a Master’s degree in American Studies.

[atlasgaveup]

Don't you know communism has killed millions?!"

DEATHS CAUSED BY CAPITALISM:

Native American Genocide, 1500s-1900s (direct killings and death from plagues; North, Central, and South Americas combined): 100 MILLION [x]

Atlantic Slave Trade, 1500s-1900s (princessbuggie helped with this one): 4 MILLION [x]

September Massacres, France, 1792: 1,200 [x]

Famines in British India, 1837-1900: at least 165 MILLION [x]

Potato Famine/Great Irish Famine, 1845-1852 (an anon helped with this one): 1 MILLION [x]

Cholera Outbreak, Industrial London, 1849: 15,000 [x]

United States Civil War, 1861-1865: at least 600,000 [x]

Building First Transcontinental Railroad, United States, 1863-1869 (princessbuggie helped with this one): at least 1,200 [x]

Belgian Occupation of the Congo, 1886-1908: 10 MILLION [x]

Spanish-American War, 1898: 17,135 [x]

United States 20th Century Coal Mining Industry: 100,000 [x]

Courriéres Mine Disaster, France, 1906: 1,549 [x]

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, 1911 (vivianvivisection helped with this one): 146 [x]

World War I, 1914-1918: 16 MILLION [x]

Building the Hoover Damn, United States, 1922-1936: 112 [x]

Shanghai Massacre of 1927: at least 5,000 presumed dead [x]

United States Intervention in Latin America, 1929-1987 (progressivefem helped with this one): 6 MILLION [x]

The White Terror, Spain, 1936-1975: at least 100,000 [x]

World War II, 1939-1945: at least 60 MILLION [x]

Benxihu Colliery Explosion, China, 1942: 1,549 [x]

Burma Railway, Thailand-Burma, 1943-1947: 106,000 [x]

Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 1945: at least 245,000 [x]

Bodo League Massacre, Korea, 1950: at least 100,000 [x]

Vietnam War, 1955-1975: 2.3 MILLION [x] [x]

Guatemalan Civil War, 1960-1996 (an anon helped with this one): 200,000 [x]

US Intervention in the Congo, 1964: 1,000 [x]

Indonesian Anti-Communist Purge, 1965-1966: at least 500,000 [x]

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1965-2013: 21,500 [x], 1,000 more Palestinians have been killed in 2014.

Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988: at least 315,000 [x]

Bhopal Disaster, Madhya Pradesh, 1984: 16,000+ [x]

United States Railroad Workers Killed on the Job, 1993-2002 (princessbuggie helped with this one): 1,221 [x]

Rwandan Genocide, 1994: 1 MILLION [x]

United States Deaths Attributed to Cigarette Smoking, 2000-2004: ~1.7 MILLION [x]

War in Afghanistan, 2001-present: 57,457 [x]

Darfur Genocide, 2003-present: 10,000 [x]

Iraq War, 2003-2011: 55,034 [x]

Mexican Drug War, 2006-present: at least 100,000 [x]

United States Workers Killed on the Job in 2012, as reported by OSHA: 4,628 [x]

Hunger (un-feuilly-de-papier helped with this one): 21,000 per day [x], 16,000 of them children [x], 3,000 of them children specifically in India [x].

Worldwide Occupational Deaths: 6,000 per day [x]

Poor shelter, polluted water, inadequate sanitation, often from homelessness (sideeffectsincludenausea helped with this one): 50,000 per day [x]

Occupational Asbestos Exposure: 107,000 per year [x]

International Sex Trafficking: 30,000 per year [x]

“Communist Death Toll,” according to The Black Book of Communism: 94 million

Capitalism Death Toll: 369 million (369,790,731), according only to the statistics I could get sources for. This number doesn’t even scratch the surface.

But, guess what? Tomorrow, we know for sure that capitalism will kill at least 77,000 more people.

You know what? No. Fuck this. I’m sick of clueless young Westeners undermining the deaths under communism to further their argument. My parents lived trough this shit. My grandparents lost half their families during Mao’s reign, were sent to labour camps and beaten and worked half to death and I’m sick people like you ignoring their lives in favour of some cheap argument to prop up communism.

You can argue against capitalism and I won’t say a word against it - but if your argument is based on the idea that communism is somehow the “lesser evil”, thereby completely disregarding the government-sanctioned genocide, famine, violence and oppression that actual people suffered, then you can take several fucking seats - especially if you’ve never experienced that violence, never lost family members to that violence and never seen first-hand what it drives people to.

Because you’re using statistics from over 500 years and across the globe (60 countries going by your stats) to compare to the death toll of what occurred over 50 years and in 11 countries.

95 million is an extremely all-inclusive number and it’s been debated about the historical accuracies and how broadly covers. Even so, a majority of that number is spread out to a few countries in under fifty years.

Now obviously, more than eleven countries have been communist states - but going by the ‘95 million’ statistic, most of the these numbers are split between China under Mao, USSR under Stalin and Cambodia under Khmer Rouge. The rest are rough estimates from about 262 000 to 1.1 million which were under North Korea, East Germany, Romania, Hungary, North Vietnam, Ethiopia.

Communism may have killed less, but the death toll is far more saturated. To break this down a bit. Coming second to none is China:

an estimate of 42 million died in China during the three-year famine of 1958-1961. Historians dispute over the actual number; 15 million is official government numbers but unofficial estimates vary between 23 mil. (Peng) to 46 mil. (Chen), but the closest and most recent estimate is about 45 million by Dikötter, who included deaths from suicide, militia executions and violence.

sidenote: according Yang Jisheng, who estimated 30 million dead from famine, another estimated 40 million ‘failed to be born’, making about 70 million in population loss.

This happened during 3 years. in one country.

and oh yeah, there was also another 92,000 Tibetans killed under Communist Government from Mao to current and another estimated 1.2 million died during the Cultural Revolution from labour camps, prisons, murders and executions (‘61-‘69).

Now, lets look at Russia, coming second place.

not including war casualty, 20-30 million died under Stalin from 1924-1953. Again, numbers vary - some estimates go as high 60 million.

Of those, 1.2 million were from the Great Purge of ‘36-39 (including invasion of Mongolia and purge of XinJiang because guess what, communism doesn’t magically erase a white dude’s sense of imperialism).

Then there were from gulags, deportation and ethnic cleansing (of Jews, Slavs, Romani, Poles, among others).

The rest were deaths from from famine from ‘26-‘38. If we add deaths that occurred during deportations, POW died under care, and death in other Soviet countries during Stalin’s rule, then the average number gets closer to 30 mil.

Not to forget:

2.2 million were killed in Cambodia during Khmer Rouge’s rule, 1975-1979. Half were from famine/disease, half were executions.

Red Terror in Ethiopia: 30,000-500,000 (‘77-‘78)

Collectivisation in Romania: 60,000 to 190,000 (‘47-‘64)

North Vietnam land reform: ca 172,000 (some estimates btw 200,000 to 500,000) (‘53-‘56)

North Korea has no an ‘official’ number, but calculated deaths from 1948-87 were about 1 million. 240,000 to 420,000 people died as a result of the 1990s famine.

The death toll during Mao’s Famine during the Great Leap Forward would be an estimated 52,000 per day, going by 40 million death-toll estimates - and that from one country alone.

During Stalin’s Great Purge, executions were calculated to be 1000 per day.

And you want to compare this to a world-wide conglomerate?

And before you put words in my mouth, I’m not saying a damn thing in defense of capitalism.

You can denounce capitalism all you want, but you need take several steps back and reconsider if you’re going to do so on the backs of people who actually suffered through an oppressive, abusive, totalitarian regime by devaluing their suffering and using it as an example of how communism is the “"lesser evil”“ - especially if you have never lived through it, lost family members or felt the fear of such a regime.

Don’t attribute the death toll to Stalinism or Maoism or say it was ‘wrong form’ of communism. You do not get to cherry pick your flavour of totalitarianism so that it suits your social stance. You do not get to undermine, appropriate and white-wash the human atrocities and genocides committed in the name of communism so that you can cover up the ugly underbelly of how these regimes will work, has worked and is currently working.

These are not statistics for you to brush under the mat so that communism can seem ‘less evil’. People who deported, sent to labour camps, starved to death, sold out by the colleagues, murdered by their students are not collateral fucking damage for make-believe, Westernised idealistic communism.

(and another side-note: the Anti-communism cleansing in Indonesia had fuck-all to do with capitalism and everything to do with anti-Chinese sentiments. These were all tied in with the historical socio-politics at the time, such as the foreign policy of CCCP, the relationship and influence of the Chinese government under Zhou Enlai , and the state of Indonesia’s militarisation under Sukarno that was helped by China. To use their complicated and brutal political and social history that literally nothing to do with Western capitalism and everything to do with East Asian international relations to back your argument is really fucking imperialist.)

I would’ve got an aneurysm trying to elaborate on everything wrong with OP’s post and how it’s stuffed with smug Western imperialism and US-centrism. (So now, all the deaths in Europe and Asia in WW2 were just about ‘capitalism’? Not, I dunno, some ideas of German and Japanese ethnic and racial superiority? Unless you want to tell me racial and ethnic tensions that long-predated capitalism somehow were caused by capitalism? Fuck that bullshit.)

And slavery as a system has been present in human societies long before capitalism was even a twinkle in anyone’s eye. It can exist in a non-capitalist society. And let’s just say there were plenty of forced labour camps and gulags in Communist regimes. I mean, if I recall correctly, didn’t the ostensibly “”Capitalist”” World War 2 in Europe begin when Nazi Germany AND the Soviet Union invaded Poland? Maybe because imperialism isn’t tied strictly to a capitalist society though the two can reinforce each other. Or no empires would have existed before the modern era.

TBH I’ve no more patience for people who love glossing over the complexities of the violence suffered by our families just to fit their agenda, especially when these people are trying to appear Oh So Progressive but it’s just Western imperialism on steroids.

My reply to anyone that wants to argue the point that communism is better, is to tell them to pack their bags, denounce their citizenship from the country they despise and ask for asylum in the country of their choice that is currently under communist control. North Korea would be happy to show the wealth of their people. Venezuela would be happy to keep you safe from crime and show the wealth of their people. Name your destination, as long as it’s the communist dictatorship you want. I’ll buy the one way ticket.

there are only two groups of people who desire Communism:

1. Those who never lived under it, and

2. Those who lived under it and had power over others.

That should tell you something, but you’re a fucking idiot.

[matthew-trs]

History of Lazberia, Part 1: Founding of Nations

As part of my efforts to grasp the whole backstory of Berwick Saga (so as to give it the highest-quality translation I can), I’ve been reading through Syozo Kaga’s blog all week, and I figured it’s about time I share the knowledge with the world. This will be a multiple-part series of posts (at least five), since there’s so much to cover.

The Age of the Old Empire

The Empire of Lazberia (ラズベリア帝国)--hereafter called the Old Empire (旧帝国) to disambiguate it from the name of the continent--came about in the 13th century before the founding of the Raze Empire.  It was founded by conquerors from another continent who came and subjugated the indigenous peoples.

These conquerors, the Old Empire’s forebears, were a group of Zoans who fled from their homeland of Lieberia after the rise of Carluon. They were supporters of the old Zoa Empire and feared retaliation for their beliefs, and they departed for the unknown seas. [Kaga notes that despite having supported the Zoa Empire, these pilgrims weren’t necessarily bad people.]

They happened to land in the southern end of Lazberia, and tt was said that they constructed their first colony in the Morra Region (モーラ地方), the ancient forests southeast of the Sea of Berre (ベール海), roughly modern Garna.

Before this time, the land was still a wild frontier, and the people squabbled amongst themselves in small tribes. So when an advanced civilization with technology and magic appeared, there was no one who could hope to challenge them.  Although there were hundreds of distinct ethnic groups in earlier times, in barely a century all the tribes of Morra had been assimilated into the Empire’s slave caste.

The Empire prospered for centuries, but all that was quickly shattered after a devastating earthquake in the third century before the founding of Raze. The earth beneath the coastal Imperial Capital of Heliki gave way, and the entire city sank into the depths of the Sea of Berre, dragging its inhabitants down with it. In fact, this disaster was so massive, it rent the southern half of Lazberia in two, splitting what are now Bornia and Garna from each other and opening up the Sea of Berre to the ocean by creating the Morra Strait.

Due to this disaster, the Zoan people on Lazberia were nearly entirely wiped out, as they had localized themselves in Heliki away from the common peasantry, and law had forbade mixed-race marriages.  As such, only a few scattered individuals (mostly slave-owners and exiles) living outside the capital survived.

After the fall of the Old Empire’s leadership, the land fell into disarray.  In the next two centuries, what was left of the once-great Empire was consumed in civil war. Society was in disarray, and civilization had fallen... until finally, mighty barbarians from the east came, the former slaves revolted from their masters, and what remained of the Imperial system was swept away completely.

Rise of the New Empire

Two hundred years after the great earthquake, one chief among the eastern barbarians slowly began to pick up the fallen leaves of the Old Empire, slowly uniting the east under his banner.  With the assistance of a survivor of the Old Empire’s priestly order--who preserved their near-lost knowledge of technology and magic--he led a brave army to reclaim the majority of the Old Empire’s territory.

And in doing so, as successor to the Old Empire, he founded a new autocratic regime following one god, the Sky Father Raze (天空神、ラーズ), who had been the supreme god of the Old Empire’s pantheon. The Raze Empire (ラーズ帝国), as it was called, has continued to flourish for six centuries, the day of its founding being the start of the Raze Calendar (RAC).

Aside from this, among the formerly enslaved farmers living in the northeast of the Old Empire, there were those who worshipped the Earth Mother Veria (大地母神、ヴェリア).  In the original polytheistic religion of the Old Empire, she was the counterpart to the Sky Father--his sister and wife, as well as the goddess of the harvest, protection, affection, and childbirth, whose cult was widespread and great. However, these people of the northeast were particularly strong followers of Veria.

After the catastrophe, they founded an autonomous state based on the teachings of Veria. Priests who had been banished from the capital for opposing the institution of the slave caste were the central presence there. This state, the Free Commonwealth of Veria (自由ヴェリア共和国), took in freedmen and fugitive slaves from across the surrounding area, growing to a massive size of over a million citizens.

However, it was not to be a peaceful time for them. During the era of Raze’s initial expansion, the fight to remain independent led to more and more hatred and bloodshed, and each day looked bleaker than the last. Before the power and numbers of the Razites, the Commonwealth slowly was forced to cede their borders, and a terrible religious crackdown was feared to be inevitable.

The Exodus of Aramgraz

But then, in those dire times, one priest was to become legendary.  He was Aramgraz (アラムグルズ), a pure-blooded Zoan of the old religion who had devoted more than thirty years to liberating and providing relief to slaves.  He entreated the people of the Commonwealth to try for peaceful coexistence with the Razites, but his opinion was a minority against his vehement monotheist contemporaries.

However, his heart aching at the slaughter of his citizens, he then called for a different solution: a great migration westward, far away from the Empire.  In 22 RAC, Aramgraz led over a hundred thousand migrants on a journey to the west.  They migrated across the burning Sakiria Desert, defending themselves from the hostile mountain-tribes of Pesil along the way, until they finally reached the great Sevall River (セヴァール河) in the following year.

This land west of the river was unknown to all, but its remoteness proved a great defense against the Empire.  They came to a great conifer-dotted grassland overlooking two large lakes and small rivers in between.  It was here that Aramgraz would found a new city-state, the Republic of Eltana (エルタナ共和国, so named after a mythical land of wheat, milk, and honey).

Aramgraz, who oversaw the construction of the new city, passed away, leaving behind a granddaughter and many famous books.  His passing was dearly mourned, and he was immortalized as the father of the new republic.  The Verian Calendar (VAC) is counted from the day Aramgraz breathed his last; 1 Eanair, 1 VAC corresponds to 14 Novembris, 27 RAC. [See chart below for which months are which. I picked Irish and Latin as the bases. Sue me.]

Aramgraz’s disciples went on to found the Church of Veria based on his teachings and writings, swearing to pass on his wisdom to all future generations. His granddaughter, Valentia (ヴァレンティア), become the Church’s first Apostle (巫女), whose bloodline continues even into these modern times with Apostle Sanacia (サナーキア).

Founding of the Kingdom of Veria

After Aramgraz’s death, a crisis soon came to the Eltana Republic. The region they settled in was sparsely populated, but not empty. They began to make contact with the surrounding tribes; many of them were kindred spirits, providing much-needed trade partners and coexisting peacefully, but others began to raid and wear down the new republic.  The more Eltana grew, the greater the threat became, and after VAC 50, it was a crisis of life and death.

Surrounding tribes had begun to feel threatened by Eltana’s rapid growth, and they formed a confederation, besieging the capital in a fierce battle that lasted three years.  As an infant republic, Eltana was unable to respond efficiently to this emergency.  Even when the city walls were on the verge of collapse, the senators were still trudging through bureaucratic debates.

The Apostle Valentia was greatly troubled at this situation, and at the behest of an emergency civil society that had formed, the dissolved the Senate, placing all authority in the hands of a trustworthy leader, General Arless (アーレス将軍).  He was a prestigious and intelligent nobleman whose family had served as Aramgraz’s right arm from the earliest days of the republic and migration, and he had overwhelming support among the citizens.

Under Arless’s leadership, the people of Eltana were able to unite against their besiegers, and in less than a year, all the barbarians were subjugated; the crisis that threatened the Eltana Republic was averted. Due to Arless’s overwhelming success, the civil society resolved that the republic should transition to a monarchy. Their three conditions were:

that Arless be named the first king,

that future kings would be approved and crowned by the Apostle, and

that the country be renamed to the Kingdom of Veria.

There were a handful of bureaucratic twists and turns after this, but in 62 VAC, the Kingdom of Veria was born, with Arless I as its first absolute monarch.  The city of Eltana became the new royal capital, Valemtine (バレムタイン). However, the kingdom would still have much growing to do, as it was still a small state with less than 20% of its modern territory.

Formation of the Berwick League

Half a century after Veria’s founding, a conflict arose with the expanding Raze Empire over the jurisdiction of the Leia region, and for the past 500 years, this conflict has dotted the pages of Raze’s and Veria’s history. In order to better combat the threat the Raze Empire posed, an alliance of eleven different kingdoms was forged—the Berwick League (ベルウィック同盟).

The pact between the allied kingdoms was made at the temple on Berwick Isle, a small island in the Sea of Berre. The founding members of the League were the Kingdom of Veria, the Eastern Three (北東三)--the kingdoms of Leia (レイア), Ishs (イシス), and Pesil (ペシル)--, and the seven Northern Lands (北部) [only one of which, Riana (リアナ), has ever been named]. In modern times, it has expanded to include thirteen more members, all suzerain states to Veria: the seven duchies (大公国), the five marches (小公国), and the Autonomous See of Danae (ダナエ辺境領, administrated by the Church of Veria).

The League was originally meant to be an equal alliance among the eleven founders, but since Veria also was the seat of the Church, it naturally became the leader. If any of the dukes or margraves ever disobeyed this unspoken agreement, they would be executed as rebels; kingdoms like Leia and Riana are not held to such strict requirements, but obedience is still expected.

[Note that the Kingdom of Lideon is conspicuously absent from the League. This isn’t actually that relevant, since Lideon barely shows up in the story anyway. It’s probably safe to assume Lideon likes to keep to itself.]

[Supplementary Information]

The power to use magic is unique to those of ancestral Zoan blood. The stronger the bloodline, the more powerful of magic can be used. At the time of Eltana’s founding, there were hundreds of pure-blooded Zoans around, Aramgraz included, but these days there are only a handful left.

The Apostle is a member of one such surviving bloodline. However, men born into the family of the Apostle are unable to inherit the gift of magic. This is the result of a curse Aramgraz placed on his own line to separate religious and temporal power, lest there arise a mage-king like in the Empire of old. As such, most men born into the Apostle’s family become simple priests or holy knights.

The first Apostle was Valentia, who served until she was 70 years old. The second was her granddaughter Celentia (セレンティア), and the current Apostle Sanacia is the 27th. Each Apostle chooses whom from among her kinswomen will inherit her position when she dies.

Translation note: The Old Empire’s capital, which I called “Heliki,” had no name in the original. I merely assigned it one in case I ever needed to use it, since typing out “the Old Empire’s capital” gets old really quickly. As such, the name has no Japanese equivalent, although the Japanese transliteration of the sunken city I referenced is ヘリケ. I figured “Atlantis” would be too heavy-handed.

Next Time—Eight Years of Blood: The Berwick Civil War, Part 1

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 5.24

919 – The nobles of Franconia and Saxony elect Henry the Fowler at the Imperial Diet in Fritzlar as king of the East Frankish Kingdom. 1218 – The Fifth Crusade leaves Acre for Egypt. 1276 – Magnus Ladulås is crowned King of Sweden in Uppsala Cathedral. 1487 – The ten-year-old Lambert Simnel is crowned in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland, with the name of Edward VI in a bid to threaten King Henry VII's reign. 1567 – Erik XIV of Sweden and his guards murder five incarcerated Swedish nobles. 1595 – Nomenclator of Leiden University Library appears, the first printed catalog of an institutional library. 1607 – One hundred-five English settlers under the leadership of Captain Christopher Newport established the colony called Jamestown at the mouth of the James River on the Virginia coast, the first permanent English colony in America. 1621 – The Protestant Union is formally dissolved. 1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan. 1667 – The French Royal Army crosses the border into the Spanish Netherlands, starting the War of Devolution opposing France to the Spanish Empire and the Triple Alliance. 1683 – The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world's first university museum. 1689 – The English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration protecting dissenting Protestants but excluding Roman Catholics. 1738 – John Wesley is converted, essentially launching the Methodist movement; the day is celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day and a church service is generally held on the preceding Sunday. 1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the United Irishmen against British rule begins. 1813 – South American independence leader Simón Bolívar enters Mérida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and is proclaimed El Libertador ("The Liberator"). 1822 – Battle of Pichincha: Antonio José de Sucre secures the independence of the Presidency of Quito. 1832 – The First Kingdom of Greece is declared in the London Conference. 1844 – Samuel Morse sends the message "What hath God wrought" (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from a committee room in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland, to inaugurate a commercial telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington D.C. 1856 – John Brown and his men kill five slavery supporters at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas. 1861 – American Civil War: Union troops occupy Alexandria, Virginia. 1873 – Patrick Francis Healy becomes the first black president of a predominantly white university in the United States. 1883 – The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction. 1900 – Second Boer War: The United Kingdom annexes the Orange Free State. 1915 – World War I: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary, joining the conflict on the side of the Allies. 1930 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight). 1935 – The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the Cincinnati Reds beating the Philadelphia Phillies 2–1 at Crosley Field. 1940 – Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight. 1940 – Acting on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, NKVD agent Iosif Grigulevich orchestrates an unsuccessful assassination attempt on exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Coyoacán, Mexico. 1941 – World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Battleship Bismarck sinks then-pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen. 1944 – Börse Berlin building burns down after being hit in an air raid during World War II. 1948 – Arab–Israeli War: Egypt captures the Israeli kibbutz of Yad Mordechai, but the five-day effort gives Israeli forces time to prepare enough to stop the Egyptian advance a week later. 1956 – The first Eurovision Song Contest is held in Lugano, Switzerland. 1958 – United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service. 1960 – Following the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, the largest ever recorded earthquake, Cordón Caulle begins to erupt. 1961 – American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus. 1962 – Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule. 1967 – Egypt imposes a blockade and siege of the Red Sea coast of Israel. 1967 – Belle de Jour, directed by Luis Buñuel, is released. 1976 – The Judgment of Paris takes place in France, launching California as a worldwide force in the production of quality wine. 1981 – Ecuadorian president Jaime Roldós Aguilera, his wife, and his presidential committee die in an aircraft accident while travelling from Quito to Zapotillo minutes after the president gave a famous speech regarding the 24 de mayo anniversary of the Battle of Pichincha. 1982 – Liberation of Khorramshahr: Iranians recapture of the port city of Khorramshahr from the Iraqis during the Iran–Iraq War. 1988 – Section 28 of the United Kingdom's Local Government Act 1988, a controversial amendment stating that a local authority cannot intentionally promote homosexuality, is enacted. 1991 – Israel conducts Operation Solomon, evacuating Ethiopian Jews to Israel. 1992 – The last Thai dictator, General Suchinda Kraprayoon, resigns following pro-democracy protests. 1992 – The ethnic cleansing in Kozarac, Bosnia and Herzegovina begins when Serbian militia and police forces enter the town. 1993 – Eritrea gains its independence from Ethiopia. 1993 – Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo and five other people are assassinated in a shootout at Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla Guadalajara International Airport in Mexico. 1994 – Four men are convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in New York in 1993; each one is sentenced to 240 years in prison. 1995 – While attempting to return to Leeds Bradford Airport in the United Kingdom, Knight Air Flight 816 crashes in Harewood, North Yorkshire, killing all 12 people on board. 1999 – The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo. 2000 – Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation. 2002 – Russia and the United States sign the Moscow Treaty. 2014 – A 6.4 magnitude earthquake occurs in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey, injuring 324 people. 2014 – At least three people are killed in a shooting at Brussels' Jewish Museum of Belgium. 2019 – Twenty-two students die in a fire in Surat (India). 2019 – Under pressure over her handling of Brexit, British Prime Minister Theresa May announces her resignation as Leader of the Conservative Party, effective as of June 7.

[pawprintsandthumbnails-blog]

Worth The Whistle

When making ovational pronouncements about their homeland, the Irish are rhapsodic leagues ahead of most nationalist spokesmen. Irish parlance feeds upon the fanciful, and when summarizing their realm of origin, many of Ireland’s offspring--writers in particular--are quick to describe a place that might have been both freshly created and steeped in mythologies long past. The reverence for his country described by novelist and broadcaster Frank Delaney ably captures the painterly affection shared by his tribesmen: “When the sun lights a particular hill in the distance...and it is green and silken to my eye, and the clouds have begun their slow, fat rolling journey across the sky, no land in the world can inspire such love in a common man.” [1] In visions of this sort, the extraordinary and the everyday cultivate each other, and even God’s rudest labours can be a source of inspiration. Consider James Joyce, reveling in backhanded salute to the rougher primordial influences upon his stamping grounds: “Isn’t the sea...a great sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea.” [2]

Included on the long literary list of Ireland’s tribute-paying sons and daughters is David A. Wilson, author, editor, and expert explorer of Irish history. Among his books are Paine and Cobbett: The Transatlantic Connection (1988), United Irishmen, United States: Immigration Radicals in the Early Republic (1998), The History of the Future (2001), and the ambitious biographical doublet, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, Volume 1 (2008) and Volume 2 (2011). A tireless academic, he is also a professor in the University of Toronto’s Department of History and Celtic Studies Program. (Before I continue, the obligatory disclosure is due: though I’ve never met Wilson, there is a familial connection. Also found on his scroll of vocational titles is general editor of The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, a publication whose supervisory editor is my sister, the relentlessly revising Willadean Leo. Though she has throughout her career worked with a wide selection of impressive colleagues, she has also had a number of professional associates whose exploits I wouldn’t bother to acclaim. Wilson, it happily turns out, is not among the latter.)

Wilson allows himself liberal opportunities to praise his native soil and much that it supports in Ireland, a Bicycle, and a Tin Flute (1995), a diverse and diverting account of a solo cycling trip he undertook along the Emerald Island’s summoning coast. He begins his travels and the book that depicts them in Whitehead, a northern seashore town and the setting of his birth. From there he goes on to an engaging assortment of communities, including Islandmagee, a peninsula he cites as “perfect cycling country” thanks to a lack of traffic and a modest steepness to its hills; Corrymeela, an interdenominational locality dedicated to promoting understanding between religious groups; the town of Clifden, known and enjoyed for its annual arts festival, which he finds “crackling with energy”; Dublin, “a cyclist’s nightmare,” where both the streets and pubs are teeming; and Belfast, with its long, inescapable history of political conflict. The book is episodic, anecdotal, and zealously scrutinizing, weaving together impressions of towns and territories, with historical background, political commentary, and mythological colour contributing to the bounty of Wilson’s account. But the journey’s primary pursuit is of music, specifically Ireland’s traditional songs and the many performers who interpret them. His sole companion throughout is a tin whistle, a type of fipple flute, also called a penny whistle. It proves to be excellent rambling company for Wilson, who regards it as the ideal travel instrument (as it’s so easily transported by bicycle) and prizes it for its “brevity and simplicity...a narrow range of notes and a wide range of feeling.”

The book proceeds with an airy bustle as Wilson pedals down rugged roads and up challenging slopes, through blistering rain and lush rural landscapes. Despite the journey’s demands, he’s well-suited to the role of musical detective, maintaining throughout an unflagging spirit of investigation as well as the sputum to gatecrash forbidden territory. In one such circumstance he’s forced to shinny through a high, narrow pub window and drop into the arms of a group of helpful carousers, all for the pleasure of joining a music session after the grumpy proprietor has locked the front door. And, luckily, he has the wiliness needed to dodge potential social jousts as well as outright threats to life and limb--as in an episode in which a group of violent ruffians demand to know if he’s Protestant or Catholic. Wilson casually disentangles himself by replying, “I’m from Canada--we don’t have Protestants or Catholics.” Between social junctures, welcoming or otherwise, his tour yields up a loamy mix of songs, which includes time-honoured Irish, American pop,  and the hybrids resulting from the two. (The cowboy standard The Streets of Laredo is derived, it turns out, from a popular ditty about Irish patriot Robert Emmet.) Wilson also delves into the melodious contributions made by Turlough Carolan, a legendary harpist of the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries, blinded before the age of twenty; Michael Coleman, an influential fiddle player who became a successful recording artist in the United States; and Francis O’Neill, a flutist who emigrated to America, became a superintendent for the Chicago police force, and published a seminal book that endowed posterity with over a thousand folk songs from Ireland.   

But it’s in the recountings of the many shows and sessions attended by Wilson that the book is especially shapely and evocative. It’s more than apparent how compelled he is by the mutable nature of music, its fluidity and seductiveness, and the uniting claim it makes upon a crowd, guiding and defining both the musicians creating it and the audience consuming it. The performance of a young accordion player and her band is one of many captivating experiences Wilson reports upon: “She sat on a chair in the middle of the stage, moving from lighthearted waltzes to high-speed reels, deep inside her own world, thoroughly immersed in the music, swaying and smiling with the currents that flow beneath it all. Accordion, fiddle, guitar, and bass were rushing and running together, thundering into a breakneck finish with ‘The Foxhunter’s Reel,’ leaving us shouting and stamping for more.” Despite the exuberant public nature of the many entertainments that he takes in, Wilson is never far from the creative intimacy of such occasions, as well as the recognition that musicianship is its own private caravan, and that music, no matter how penetrable it may be, remains a rich and limitless enigma, something that can never be completely perceived, captured, or explored. It’s during these passages as well as his descriptions of the landscape (also bewitching, overwhelming, and mysterious) that his writing is at its most beckoning, revealing its own quality of music.

Though there’s a current of wonderstruck devotion running from chapter to chapter, Ireland, a Bicycle, and a Tin Flute is overall relaxed and larkish, demonstrating a strong appreciation for mischief and revelry (alcohol is chronically within reach, no matter which town Wilson is visiting), as well as a fondness for the odd, the wayward, and the fantastic. His visit to Whitehead prompts childhood memories of the area’s chilly seafront cliffs and caves and the tale of an outcast madman who took refuge among them and consequently shivered himself to death. And, like a page out of Sheridan Le Fanu, there’s mention made of a true horror story from 1888 in which a northern lake filled up dangerously high during a storm, enough so for its surging waters to gulp down an impatient military man and his driver, coach, and horses after the order was given to “drive on to hell.”

The cumulative effect of this book is of a picaresque adventure following its own abounding soundtrack, with both the journey and its chronicle, to borrow an old phrase, worth the whistle. (A small dissenting note, however: featured on many pages are a series of illustrations by Justin Palmer, and while the sketches have their own energetic virtues, they can’t be called a necessary inclusion. Wilson’s writing is satisfyingly visual as it is, and Palmer’s imagery hasn’t the polish and openness of the narrative it accompanies. That said, the drawings are certainly likable enough and do the book no harm.) 

Edna O’Brien, a mercurial talent and an enticing literary companion, has stated that the gift of language has been her bread and wine. The same, I think, should be said of Wilson, who enjoys putting a certain tang in the tale. But music too must be included and highlighted on his aesthetic bill of fare. He knows its pleasures and contradictions too fondly and too well to be a mere sampler at the gathering.

Notes

[1] Ireland, Frank Delaney, Harper Collins, 2005, p518

[2] Ulysses, James Joyce, Oxford University Press, 2011, p5

(Posted: 29/3/18)

[hallsp]

Myths

Nations are forged in the fires of history but they remain molten, recast with each generation in the imperfect furnace of memory and imagination.

The controversial French philologist Ernest Renan was right when he once remarked that: “In order for a nation to exist, it had to remember certain things, and also forget certain things.”

The remembering of history often involves simplification, whereas I’d rather reflect its true complexity, with the result that the “agreed-upon facts,” to borrow a phrase from Gore Vidal, regularly need re-examination.

The most critical event in Irish history, without doubt, was the Norman conquest of Ireland in 1169. This was the beginning of English rule in Ireland, which would continue, in one form or another, down to the present day.

The 12th century “Anglo-Norman” conquest of Ireland was, in point of fact, largely Franco-Hibernian in nature. It consisted in an alliance of the Angevin King Henry II (Court Manteau) and the exiled King of Leinster, Dermot MacMurrough.

Henry II was born in France, spoke Norman French, married Eleanor of Acquitane, and spent fully two-thirds of his reign on the continent. The French Normans, in the person of William the Conquerer, had invaded Britain just a century earlier, defeating Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

Dermot MacMurrough allied himself with Henry II because he wanted to regain the Kingdom of Leinster, which had been taken from him by Rory O’Connor, the last High King of Ireland.

Jonathan Swift jokingly said that Henry had arrived in Ireland “half by force, half by consent.” The Irish History Reader, published by the Christian Brothers in 1905, puts it succinctly: “Ireland was once an independent nation. She lost her independence not so much through the power of her enemies, as by the folly of her sons.”

Interestingly, one of the first references to Ireland in the historical record, courtesy of Tacitus, the Roman historian, mentions a very similar scenario, in which an unnamed Irish chief, possibly Túathal Techtmar, exiled in the first century, sought refuge with General Agricola, who also thought of invading the Land of Winter.

The Normans were not the only invading power in the British Isles. Scots (Scoti in Latin) was the term used by Roman Britons in referring to the marauding Irish Gaels. In the 6th century, Dál Riata, a Gaelic kingdom in Northern Ireland and Scotland, became so powerful that Gaelic became the language of Northern Britain, hence the provenance of Scottish Gaelic and the etymology of Scotland itself. So, the Normans might have brought English (which is half Norman French anyway) to Ireland, but the Irish brought Gaelic to Scotland. And while we may not speak much Gaelic anymore, at least it’s survived. The Scots (in Scotland) can’t say the same about poor old Pictish. One other example: in 1111, Domnall Ua Briain, the great-grandson of Brian Boru, famous High King of Ireland, became King of the Isles (Hebrides, isles of the Firth of Clyde, and the Isle of Man) by sheer force of arms.

Indeed, the Normans weren’t the only ones boldly interfering in the affairs of a neighbouring kingdom. In 1051, prior to the Norman conquest of England itself, Harold Godwinson sought refuge in Ireland, with Diarmait mac Maíl-na-mBó in Leinster. Harold’s sons, Godwine and Edmund, fled here in 1066, and attempted to retake Britain from their base in Ireland, with fleets supplied by Diarmait, in 1068 and 1069. The colonial history of these islands might have been reversed in the event of their success.

The Vikings were not the only raiders and plunderers on the island of Ireland. According to the Annals, for example, Clonmacnoise was much more often attacked by the native Irish than by the Vikings. Indeed, even the monasteries themselves went to war with one another. Clonmacnoise went to war with Birr in 760, and with Durrow in 764. In 817, during a battle between the monasteries of Taghmon and Ferns, four hundred were slain.

The Battle of Clontarf, in 1014, is often imagined as the last stand of the Gaelic High King of Ireland, Brian Boru, against the marauding foreigner, the Norse King of Dublin, Sigtrygg Silkbeard. In actual fact, Sigtrygg was born in Ireland; he was also married to Brian Boru’s daughter. Brian himself was supported by Vikings from Limerick; and Sigtrygg was supported by Máel Mórda, King of Leinster, and Sigtrygg’s uncle!

The island of Ireland was not politically united until after the arrival of the Anglo-Normans, notwithstanding the exceptional High Kingships of Brian Boru and Rory O’Connor. There never existed a unified political entity called Ireland until about the 16th century, with the Tudor Conquest, the establishment of the Kingdom of Ireland, and the legal process of Surrender and Regrant; even then it took centuries of consolidation. Clearly there was a common heritage amongst the inhabitants of our little island prior to this, in terms of language and customs, but the country was made up of rival kingdoms, each vying for power and glory, just like everywhere else on God’s green Earth.

The omnipresent Catholic Church actually gave its imprematur to the Norman invasion of Ireland, as Henry II was granted the Lordship of Ireland by Pope Adrian IV, the first (and last) English Bishop of Rome. Laudabiliter, the papal bull granting this privilege, is extremely controversial, with many claiming it as a forgery. It matters not. The “Donation of Adrian” was subsequently recognised in many official writings. For example, in 1318, Domhnall O’Neill, along with other Irish kings, appealed to Pope John XXII in an attempt to overthrow Laudabiliter, a copy of which they enclosed. The Pope simply wrote to King Edward II of England urging him to redress some of the grievances of the Irish.

The Irish Rebellion of 1641, a result of anger at plantation and subjugation, gave rise to the Irish Catholic Confederation, which pledged its allegiance to the Royalists in the English Civil War. This is what brought Cromwell to Ireland, and though he was brutal (vicious, really) in his campaign, he was not the first military leader to massacre innocents, and exacerbate famine in Ireland. Robert the Bruce, and his brother Edward, who was proclaimed High King of Ireland in 1315, invaded the North and engaged in total war with the Anglo-Irish, slaughtering all of the inhabitants of Dundalk, for example.

Maurice Fitzgerald, who led one of the Cambro-Norman families which accompanied Strongbow in his invasion of Ireland, founded a famous dynasty in Kildare. The Fitzgeralds, like many of the Old English, eventually became “more Irish than the Irish themselves,” Hiberniores Hibernis ipsis. In fact, two descendants, separated by more than two-hundred years, would lead the Irish in rebellion against the crown: “Silken” Thomas Fitzgerald, in 1534, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, in 1798. Such are the vagaries of history.

I like to remind Nationalists and Unionists alike that, during the 1680s, Pope Alexander VIII supported William of Orange, the Protestant usurper, in his battle for the English Crown, against the legitimate (though Catholic) King James II. The Orange Order, which refuses Catholic members, should make an honourary exception for the Pope. The Catholic Church, not for the first time in history, placed its own interests to the fore, as a member of the Grand Alliance, the League of Augsburg. The Battle of the Boyne in 1690 more or less decided the outcome of this conflict in favour of William.

This “Glorious Revolution,” so-called, is often celebrated as a victory for the liberal co-regency of William and Mary, over the authoritarian regime of James II. Edmund Burke thought of it as a final settlement and as freedom in full fruition. James was indeed an advocate for absolutist monarchy and a believer in the Divine Right of Kings.

However, it was James who made the declaration of indulgence, otherwise known as liberty of conscience, in 1687, a first step towards the freedom of religion. Indeed, the Patriot Parliament, which met in Dublin for the first and only time in 1689, granted full freedom of worship and civic and political equality for Roman Catholics and Dissenters. And yet, the indulgence also reaffirmed the king as absolute, so these pronouncements depended on the will of the monarch. (They were also made with a view to reinforcing support for his reign amongst Catholics and Dissenters.)

The founding members of the United Irishmen, the fons et origo of Irish republicanism, were all Protestant. This was an astonishing development. In the wake of the American and French revolutions, the Protestant planters, who had been brought to Ireland to pacify the country and bring it under English control, were now making common cause with the Gaelic and Old English Catholics to throw off the yoke of external domination. Wolfe Tone would state his aims boldly:

To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England, the never failing source of all our political evils, and to assert the independence of my country – these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissentions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman, in the place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic, and Dissenter – these were my means.

In the aftermath of the 1798 rebellion, Catholics supported the Act of Union, because they believed that Catholic emancipation would be more easily achieved through Westminster than through College Green.

Daniel O’Connell, a native speaker of Irish, was utilitarian enough to “witness without a sigh the gradual disuse” of the language. Rather surprisingly, it was not the Duke of Wellington who said that being born in a stable — Ireland — does not make one a horse, it was the Liberator, speaking about the Duke, at trial in 1843.

O’Connell desired Catholic emancipation, of course, and the re-establishment of the Irish Parliament, but he wasn’t a separatist. In fact, he actually coined, or at the very least popularised, the term “West Brit,” then understood in a wholly positive sense. Here he is speaking in the House of Commons in 1832:

The people of Ireland are ready to become a portion of the Empire, provided they be made so in reality and not in name alone; they are ready to become a kind of West Britons if made so in benefits and in justice; but if not, we are Irishmen again.

O’Connell, who witnessed the beginning of la terreur in France, believed in peaceful agitation for change, “moral force” nationalism, and wholeheartedly rejected violence. “Let our agitation be peaceful,” he said, “legal, and constitutional.”

The principle of my political life…is that all ameliorations and improvements in political institutions can be obtained by persevering in a perfectly peaceable and legal course, and cannot be obtained by forcible means, or if they could be got by forcible means, such means create more evils than they cure, and leave the country worse than they found it.

In his non-violence he would be an example to Gandhi and to Martin Luther King, but not to the rebels of 1916. Strangely, though, you can find Robert Emmet’s blunderbuss in O’Connell’s home in Derrynane.

Two UK prime ministers were born and raised on the island of Ireland, part of the Protestant ascendancy: William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelbourne (1782-1783) and Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1828-1830). These men also share the distinction of being the only two prime ministers who were also army generals. Wellington is not well-remembered in Ireland, because he was a staunch unionist and opposed to parliamentary reform (the reason Lord Byron called him Villainton), but he was Prime Minister during the passage of the 1829 Catholic Relief Act, and it would not have passed without his forthright support. The Wellington Testimonial in the Phoenix Park celebrates, somewhat amusingly, his encouragement of religious and civil liberty.

Irish soldiers fought with the British Army in almost every battle in the Empire’s history, including a large contingent in the Napoleonic wars alongside Wellington and, of course, in the Great War. At least 200,000 Irish soldiers fought in the First World War, all of them volunteers. Conscription for Ireland was eventually passed in 1918, but never enforced. The history of the British Empire is also our history, whether we like it or not. In fact, many of the troops who battled with the rebels in 1916 were fellow Irishmen, particularly from the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

Ireland being an integral part of the Empire meant, for example, that the bugle used to sound the Charge of the Light Brigade at the famous Battle of Balaclava in 1854 was made in Dublin, at McNeill’s on Capel Street, and sounded by a Dubliner, Billy Brittain. It meant too that Winston Churchill’s “first coherent memory” is of cavalry on parade in the Phoenix Park in Dublin, when his grandfather, the Duke of Marlborough, was Viceroy. (Speaking of historical myths: it’s actually Lord Kitchener, as Secretary of War, and not Churchill, who bears most responsibility for the disaster which was the campaign in Gallipoli. He was the chief advocate for a naval attack in the first place and for a subsequent landing of ground troops.)

The Ulster unionists, latter-day proponents of democracy, law, and order, would do well to remember that it was their forebears who first introduced the gun into Irish politics in the 20th century, with the Larne gun-running in 1914. These were German guns for the Ulster Volunteer Force, who were determined to oppose Home Rule, the democratic will of the majority, by any means necessary.

The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), the majority nationalist party at Westminster, was opposed to partition, but acquiesced in the creation of Northern Ireland as a stop-gap in securing Home Rule for Ireland, which was delayed until after the First World War. John Morley, previously Chief Secretary for Ireland, wrote to Asquith in 1914 very wisely telling him that his special plan for Ulster “would not work,” because “there is a strong Catholic minority, and the effect would be to reproduce in Ulster, with a reversal of the political conditions, the very antagonisms that you now hope to relieve.” The creation of “a Protestant Government for a Protestant people” in Northern Ireland would lead directly to the so-called Troubles, in which Catholics were thwarted in their pursuit of basic civil rights.

The 1916 Rising was organised while Home Rule was on the statute books. The best defense of this action was probably given by Roger Casement, the campaigning British consul who had exposed the human rights abuses in the Congo and Peru, at his trial in 1916 before he was hanged for treason:

If small nationalities were to be the pawns in this game of embattled giants [the Great War], I saw no reason why Ireland should shed her blood in any cause but her own, and if that be treason beyond the seas I am not ashamed to avow it or to answer for it here with my life.

Tom Clarke, the mastermind of the Rising, had been arrested in London in 1883, found in possession of large quantities of nitroglycerin, intent on bombing London Bridge, the busiest part of the city.

Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Féin, had suggested the formation of a dual monarchy, in emulation of Hungary’s settlement with Austria, essentially a return to the constitution of 1782, prior to the union of the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and he had opposed all physical force nationalism in favour of passive resistance and abstentionism.

Patrick Pearse talked in the language of race theory, and welcomed the spilling of blood in the world war: “the old heart of the earth needed to be warmed with the red wine of the battlefields.” One might dismiss this as representative of the militarism of the age, but there were many who completely disagreed. James Connolly condemned this sentiment as belonging to that of a “blithering idiot.” Indeed, Pearse was “half-cracked,” according to Yeats, and a man “made dangerous by the Vertigo of Self Sacrifice.”

It must also be remembered, though, that John Redmond also called for a blood sacrifice, in encouraging the Irish Volunteers to join the war effort on the continent: “No people can be said to have rightly proved their nationhood and their power to maintain it until they have demonstrated their military prowess.”

Independence finally came in 1922, with the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the formation of the Free State. The Dáil ratified the Treaty, and the 1922 general election was a de facto referendum resulting in a clear majority in favour of the Treaty. The anti-Treaty republicans rejected this result, and brought the country to civil war. This anti-democratic element of republicanism is discussed not nearly enough.

Was the Treaty a worthy intermediate, a legitimate stepping stone to full independence? or was it a simple betrayal of the Republic? If you believe it was for the Irish people to decide, the Treaty was their choice. If, however, you believe that the Republic itself takes precedence over the voice of the people, then the fight would go on. Margaret Pearse rubbished the Treaty because she was haunted by the “ghosts of her sons.” In the end, the Republic was declared in 1949, not through force of arms, but through legislation.

In retrospect, the old unionist concern that Home Rule meant Rome Rule wasn’t entirely unfounded. Our constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann, which was written in 1937, defined the state as explicitly secular, and, remarkably, provided recognition to the “Jewish congregations,” then under increasing attack in Europe. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church had inordinate influence on social policy. This would drive a wedge into the midst of the nation, to paraphrase W. B. Yeats. A 1925 prohibition on divorce prompted Yeats, then a senator in Seanad Éireann, to give an impressive speech.

I think it is tragic that within three years of this country gaining its independence we should be discussing a measure which a minority of this nation considers to be grossly oppressive.

Ironically, in the office of the ultra-Catholic Patrick Pearse at St. Enda’s in Rathfarnham sits a bust of the poet John Milton. It was Milton who had written so powerfully in favour of divorce in the 17th century, and Yeats invokes his name in support of the rights of the Protestant people.

The prohibition went ahead anyway, having a predictable effect on progressive society: in 1951, for example, the state rejected the donation of a painting from Louis le Brocquy, Ireland’s foremost artist. A Family was a pessimistic depiction which he painted while going through a public divorce in the UK.

Yeats predicted that the ban would eventually be removed. “There is no use quarreling with icebergs in warm water,” he said. “I have no doubt whatever that, when the iceberg melts [Ireland] will become an exceedingly tolerant country.” The iceberg finally melted in 1995, when divorce was legalised, by the smallest of margins, through popular referendum.

In the 1950s, in the wake of the failure of the “controversial” Mother and Child Scheme, which witnessed overt interference from the Catholic Church in the affairs of a supposedly secular state, and following the resignation of the courageous Dr. Noel Browne, then Minister of Health, Taoiseach John A. Costello was bold enough to state:

I am an Irishman second, I am Catholic first, and I accept without qualification in all respects the teaching of the hierarchy and the church to which I belong.

Is it really any wonder that Catholics were viewed with suspicion by protestants in the UK and elsewhere? Indeed, Martin Luther King Sr., a Baptist pastor and the father of the great civil rights leader, could not bring himself to support John F. Kennedy in the presidential race of 1960 solely because he was a Catholic. Kennedy eventually settled this matter once and for all in a brilliant speech to an antagonistic audience, all members of the Protestant Greater Houston Ministerial Association. He said, in essence, the complete opposite to John A. Costello.

In the 1960s, the provisional IRA gained a foothold providing protection to the Catholic community in the North who were agitating for basic civil rights. They abandoned their moral high-ground, though, by exploding bombs and killing civilians. In 1885, the Fenians had simultaneously bombed the Tower of London and the House of Commons; in 1974, the provisional IRA did the exact same thing. Again echoing history, their goal of a united republic was never achieved. The old IRA had fought for a Republic but settled for a Free State, the provisional IRA fought for a Republic but settled for a Power Sharing Executive.

The Irish History Reader, reflecting on the divisions of the past, encourages its students to “avoid dissension, and shun all that might tend to create disunion.” I would suggest the opposite, we are a diverse nation of contradictions. There’s room for all points of view. We should give oxygen to all traces of disagreement, welcome any tentative hints of polarisation. After all, friction creates heat and heat produces light.