Blarney is by far the most famous of about 30,000 Irish castles - and it owes its fame to the legendary stone, “legendary” being a matter of fact rather than a flattering description. Legends, discussing the origins of the Blarney Stone, range from “a stone used as a pillow by Jacob when he dreamt about the Ladder” to “a ”thank you" gift by a Scottish king to the then current owner of the castle who had allegedly sent his troops to assist the king in a crucial battle" - with all kind of mythology in-between. While <a href="/blog/rhyme-in-its-prime">no mere fact should stand in a way of a great story</a> (and legends ARE great stories, first and foremost), facts do exist, and it might be worth checking them every now and then, just in case. As it happens, mineralogical analysis indicated that the Blarney Stone must have come from just to the south of the castle, while some archive pictures and drawings suggested that the stone had been absent from its current location until, at least, 1888. Considering all that, as well as the inevitable presence of cleaners (touching something previously touched by thousands of other people is not exactly hygienic), and the much more annoying, while objectively much less inevitable, presence of commercial photographers right next to the stone, the stone-kissing adventure might not necessarily be the focal point of just about everybody's visit to Blarney, after all. &nbsp;Visitors to Blarney have quite a menu to choose from. The castle itself, partially rebuild, still looks and feels very medieval, with all its battlements, dungeons and even a Murder Hole - an opening in the floor meant to allow castle defenders to greet unwelcome guests with boiling liquids, arrows, stones (others than the Blarney One!), and similar presents. When more peaceful times came, the hole was covered with a grating - to prevent absent-minded tourists from falling through it, thus justifying its name in a creative new way. Some other names, such as “Earl's Bedroom” or “Young Ladies' Room” are more domestic-sounding but the rooms themselves still look way less cozy than their names imply<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673651128/7kwonders/7_d39336f42d.webp" alt="7.webp" srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673651128/7kwonders/thumbnail_7_d39336f42d.webp 245w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673651128/7kwonders/small_7_d39336f42d.webp 500w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673651128/7kwonders/medium_7_d39336f42d.webp 750w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673651128/7kwonders/large_7_d39336f42d.webp 1000w," sizes="100vw">Irish fascination with names (and Nature!) continues outside as the castle grounds are full with such "charming" names as “Carnivorous Courtyard” and "Poison Garden" (to be fair, the truly cute-sounding “Arboretum” should be mentioned, too). The latter, its grim aura notwithstanding, is an important educational project, as the Garden features a variety of poisonous plants, each of them carefully explained and classified… One might wander around the Blarney grounds for quite a while until stumbling upon their westmost part marked on the map as “Rock Close”, and passing through its invisible borders. Then time stops…On the map, Rock Close does seem to cover a significant part of the premises but it doesn't feel too sizeable - a small park, if not even a big garden. Meandering paths occasionally blocked by logs, humming brooks spanned by toy-like bridges, gnarled trees looking like sentries guarding a troll camp,<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673663405/7kwonders/DSCF_0050_40001ee333.jpg" alt="DSCF0050.JPG" srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673663405/7kwonders/thumbnail_DSCF_0050_40001ee333.jpg 208w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673663405/7kwonders/small_DSCF_0050_40001ee333.jpg 500w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673663405/7kwonders/medium_DSCF_0050_40001ee333.jpg 750w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1673663405/7kwonders/large_DSCF_0050_40001ee333.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">and 14 story-telling stops - the heart and soul of the area turning a garden/park into an Enchanted Forest. &nbsp;The word “enchanted” implies fairy tales full of magical creatures - witches, druids, fairies themselves (or else WHO would tell the tale and grant the listeners' wishes?!) - and so there is Witches' Kitchen and Witches' Stone, Druids' Circle and Druids' Cave, and Fairy Glade to boot. Among other stops one would find the above-mentioned Sentry Post, as well as Waterfall, Sacrificial Altar and Forest Trail... So boosted by delightful sights and sounds, one's imagination runs rampant and turns a castle visit into an almost Disney-like adventure. &nbsp;&nbsp;

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An Enchanted Forest

A country that knows how to appreciate good stories, can't possibly fail to produce great word-crafters - and Ireland is the best proof of that. Through the ages, Dublin alone can boast more than 50 writers, some of them - such as James Joyce, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett - are world-renowned. The latter three, along with Seamus Heaney, are also among the winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Not too bad for a half-a-million city - and neither is Irish love affair with words limited to several major literary genres (novels, stories, poems and plays) and <a href="/blog/rhyme-in-its-prime">witty, salty rhymes</a>. It turns out that, at least, some Irish can coin words and use them as duel weapons - as did one Cormac Ladhrach MacCarthy when informed that Queen Elizabeth I showed undue interest in his hereditary castle of Blarney.&nbsp;MacCarthy must have been fond of his castle because he clearly didn't feel like parting with it. That said, he was careful not to insult the Queen's special envoy, the Earl of Leicester, either. So, he talked - and talked some more; and wrote letters “filled with excuses and diversions”. The Earl forwarded the letters to the Queen and asked for instructions. She offered none because, resolute and smart as she was, she couldn't match MacCarthy's eloquence and intricate logic. Extremely frustrated, Elizabeth I gave up on her attempts to take over the castle, not wanting to resort to brute force when confronted with elegance and inventiveness. She vented her frustration by exclaiming: "That's nothing but a load of Blarney - or so the legend goes - and a new English word was brought into the world, inspired by a man who just used a little help from a family friend.To be precise, pagan goddess Cliodhna was not exactly a friend but rather a patroness of Ladhrach's ancestor, Laidir. It was she who advised Laidir to kiss the first stone he would see in the fields, on his way to the court where he was about to defend his case. He did - and his eloquent speech completely carried the day. Subsequently, the stone was transferred to the castle and incorporated into its walls. Initially, kissing the stone must have been but a family tradition but then it spread. A certain Winston Churchill is said to travel to Blarney to test the stone's qualities in 1911 or 1912 - who knows if that trip resulted in his famous “We shall fight on the beaches” speech more than quarter-a-century later…

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The Gift Of Gab

Dublin Free Walking Tour Southside started right in front of the GPO (General Post Office) building that still sports scars caused by bullets that had been shot during the 1916 Easter Uprising. The guide mentioned the fact and…never said another word about any hostilities for the duration of the tour, the rest of it being devoted to Life and Fun. The very first stop clearly indicated what the Irish idea of Life and Fun (renowned in Ireland as “craic”) was.The guide stopped in the middle of O'Connell bridge, next to a plaque (on the picture above). It turned out that the plaque, commemorating a previously unknown war hero, had been installed upon request/suggestion of two brothers from Dublin who allegedly produced a proof of that person participating in the War of Independence. After a while some people began to find the “suspicious circumstances” the text referred to, a bit too suspicious. The hero's name, Pat Noise, struck them as possibly being just that, noise! One of the doubters happened to be an investigative journalist…Long story short, Pat Noise was proven to be an absolute fake. He never existed. The name chosen by the brothers was an alliteration of “Pater Noster”, Latin for “Our Father” - and the man depicted, in fact, was their father! In other words, all the plaque-related hype was nothing more than a practical joke. The whole situation bordered on an outrage: a city-approved fake in the very heart of Dublin. Citizens demanded to end the embarrassment by removing the plaque right away, the City Council convened and decided…to keep the plaque where it was. Explanation? “No mere fact should stand in a way of a good story!” &nbsp;It's good stories that are the heart and soul of Ireland. Some of them are complex and philosophical (like “Ulysses”), others are short and poignant or sympathetic (like “Dubliners”). Some - when it comes to people and events many Irish view as ridiculous - are even shorter, and salty rather than sweet. That's why the man who objectively deserves to be called “The Irish Homer” is known as “<a href="/blog/the-irish-homer">A Prick With A Stick</a>”. Quite often, statues on public display would be rhymed in multiple ways - to cover every aspect of the ridicule. For instance, the following harmless saleswoman<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1672441207/7kwonders/DSCF_9382_3d1c12bd01.jpg" alt="DSCF9382.JPG" srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1672441207/7kwonders/thumbnail_DSCF_9382_3d1c12bd01.jpg 208w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1672441207/7kwonders/small_DSCF_9382_3d1c12bd01.jpg 500w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1672441207/7kwonders/medium_DSCF_9382_3d1c12bd01.jpg 750w,https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1672441207/7kwonders/large_DSCF_9382_3d1c12bd01.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">has to live with such names as “A Dolly With A Trolley”, “A Flirt In A Skirt”, and “A Tart With A Cart”. Not very friendly but not really hostile, either - not if compared with the abuse suffered by the newest addition to Dublin, a substitute of a blown-up statue of Admiral Nelson.<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1672441816/7kwonders/download_5101bfe7ce.jpg" alt="download.jpg" srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/dpwp8vga3/image/upload/v1672441816/7kwonders/thumbnail_download_5101bfe7ce.jpg 121w," sizes="100vw">Officially, the unfortunate object is known as “The Spire” but its unofficial definitions are way less neutral - “A Stiletto In A Ghetto”, “A Stiffey By The Liffey”, and “An Erection At The Intersection”!&nbsp;Practical jokers with sharp tongues, the Irish know how to appreciate a good pun, too. Dublin's most popular entertainment area is called Temple Bar - an obvious oxymoron, isn't it? Not if you know that “Temple” is the family name of the biggest landlord in that area, and “Bar” has nothing to do with an establishment selling drinks but is rather a tribute to a sandbar located nearby for centuries.The variety of Irish stories doesn't end here, and the best is yet to come as the following story left its mark not only on a particular statue or city area but on the English language as a whole. It started with a tax, the window tax imposed by the City on business owners. Most paid but the Bank of Ireland - seemingly the most destitute of all of them - decided it couldn't afford to. So, the bank management ordered all of their windows cemented over - and kept working by candle light. That fiscal summersault became known as a “Daylight Robbery”, and - as a New Year's Eve entertainment - I'll leave it to my readers to parse it in as many ways as they can come up with!&nbsp;

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Rhyme In Its Prime

Around 1440 Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. In the next 582 years or so, Gutenberg's invention helped to produce more than 156 million books. Most of them went unnoticed, many drew some interest, and still quite a few books became popular. Precious few of those managed to squeeze into the coveted “extremely popular” category. A book can be considered extremely popular if thousands around the world choose to spend a night in front of bookstores where that book is about to become available, starting from next morning - just to be among its very first owners. Upon purchasing and reading the book, its devotees join fan clubs, create websites focusing on that book and/or its author, engage in cosplays, and write fanfics including even Encyclopedias. For instance, an Encyclopedia of Tolkien is a “comprehensive illustrated guide to the history, lands and inhabitants of Middle-Earth”. Similarly, “The Encyclopedia of Potterworld” is an “authoritative directory of all the creatures, characters, places and other elements that comprise the Harry Potter universe”. In other words, these guides provide information about the world of the book thus helping its readers to better familiarize themselves with that world and adding to their enjoyment of exploring it. However, almost no guide aims at helping anybody to actually read a book. I say “almost” because there is one book, James Joyce's “Ulysses”, that does require such a guide.It is beyond belief that a literate person with no reading comprehension problems might struggle to read a book of fiction (specialized scientific books or arcane religious texts is an altogether different matter). Yet, one of the most repetitive sentences in the guide in question is “…here you will be tempted to give up. Don't!” It might sound less surprising if we recall that “Ulysses” is the ultimate example of “stream of consciousness” - a literary style that quite simply has no analogues. Even so, one has to actually try to read from the book, word by word and sentence by sentence, to fully understand the meaning of: “a character's thoughts and feelings are depicted in a continuous flow uninterrupted by objective description or conventional dialogue”. As the author of the guide put it, "reading “Ulysses” is not something you would do on a Saturday morning, with a cup of coffee in your hand". It's hard work, not a pastime; academic studies rather than fun and enjoyment. Unsurprisingly, these studies are undertaken in groups (in person or online), and they are supported by ten or so reference books the guide in question is a streamlined version of. What is not only surprising but outright bewildering is why many people decide to undertake those studies.“Many” might, in fact, be misleading as “multitudes” seems to be a better word. <a href="https://www.ulyssesguide.com/">UlyssesGuide.com</a> is visited by hundreds of thousands a month, and they come from all over the world. Even more stunning, thousands actually come every year from all over the world - to a particular place (Dublin) on a particular day (June 16) - to celebrate “Ulysses” and participate in readings and other activities related to the novel. That tradition alone turns “why” into an even more pressing question- why a novel featuring no knights in shining armor and no damsels in distress; no precocious wizards and no indomitable warriors inspiring their comrades with their own version of the Gettysburg Address? The last thing that can be found in “Ulysses” is “there will be a day…but it's not this day!” - because “Ulysses” as such is all about “this day” - June 16, 1904. &nbsp;On the surface, the whole book is about ordinary people running ordinary errands, while engaged in idle conversations or petty squabbles - hardly a recipe for a bestseller. Deeper down, “Ulysses” - though deliberately limited to a particular time and place - reveals itself as timeless and omnipresent, as it's intrinsically connected to the world at large. Its very title (and the titles of all its chapters) and structure echo antiquity and its greatest poet, Homer; its characters coming from <a href="/blog/gods-work">“Dubliners”</a> and <a href="/blog/james-of-all-genres">“A Portrait…”</a> are a tribute to Balzac and the whole French school of social realism; its two protagonists, granting access to their unfiltered thoughts, could serve as a perfect case study for Freud and his school of thought… Equally important, the way the story is told blurs the distinction between past and present, myth and reality, because quite often it's impossible to determine if the narrated events actually happen(ed) - and if so, when. &nbsp;The ultimate secret of “Ulysses”' appeal to so many people might be its multifaceted nature resulting in a chameleon ability to offer everyone exactly what that particular person seeks. That ability came at a cost as Joyce had to combine his extensive knowledge and unbridled imagination with ultimate ruthlessness allowing him to depict his characters (essentially all of them had prototypes) exactly as they were. That's why the man on the picture who fully deserved to be referred to as “the Irish Homer” is rather known among his fellow countrymen as “A Prick with a Stick”! &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

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The Irish Homer

Reinventing a city by populating it with an array of larger-than-life - yet utterly realistic - characters is a remarkable literary feat but not a unique one. Nor was Joyce the first to accomplish that feat as Honore de Balzac's “The Human Comedy” had beaten the “Dubliners” by a little bit more than half-a-century. The French writer produced a massive bulk of 91 works, many of them novels - as opposed to Joyce's 15 stories (to be fair to Joyce, it took him three years to complete those stories, while Balzac spent 19 years to create his most important legacy).“The Human Comedy” is a collection of interconnected novels featuring mostly the same set of characters, each character epitomizing hir social segment and/or psychological type. The events described in the novels are happening in the same city (Paris) and within roughly the same period of time, and the narrator/author shifts the focus from one character (or even a whole family) to another, depending on the title of a given novel. This almost cinematic technique results in a character, briefly introduced or even casually mentioned in one novel, becoming the main protagonist of another. Taken together, those characters provide for a comprehensive picture of the French society in the first quarter of the 19th century. In terms of painting the big picture of his contemporary Irish society. Joyce's approach to “Dubliners” was quite similar, but his characters wouldn't migrate between the stories. “Dubliners” were about to set the stage for bigger literary forms, and an autobiographical novel “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” marked the next breakthrough in Joyce's literary exploration.&nbsp;While “Dubliners” is a wide panorama focusing on the society, the “Portrait…” is…well, just that - a portrait, and its focus is almost solely on the individual whose inner life by far dominates everything that is going on around him. &nbsp;The rest of the characters looks almost like “the king's retinue” in comparison - yet, those characters both contribute to the above-mentioned social panorama and represent the two most important issues Joyce's alter-ego Stephen Dedalus (and Ireland as a whole) is struggling with - God and Parnell. In other words, Catholic Church and Irish nationalism. As the title of Joyce's novel indicates, Dedalus, torn between the two, chooses neither - and so did his creator. It was the third path, that of an Artist, that ultimately led Joyce towards one of the most inexplicable literary pinnacles of all time. &nbsp; &nbsp;

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James Of All Genres

<a href="/blog/a-fallen-king">Parnell's demise</a> sent shockwaves around Ireland. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Irish people felt hurt and betrayed. Irish patriots clashed - mostly verbally but sometimes quite literally, too - with patriots of the Catholic Church, both sides hurling bitter accusations at each other, neither side willing to give the opponents' arguments even the least consideration. Not only communities but also circles of friends, and even households became deeply divided, the gulf between the two camps widening by a minute. Nothing short of a miracle could bridge that gulf, and in real life - unlike in fairy tales - miracles are extremely few and very far between. Wonders aren't a commonplace either but, at least, they do happen every now and then. One such wonder did happen to the end-of-the-19th-century Ireland, and that wonder had a first name and a family name. It was called James Joyce. When Parnell died, the wonder was 9-years-old.Even as a child, Joyce must have been just as affected by the national tragedy as most of his compatriots. Quite likely, he would have his own strong opinions - and feel intolerant of the opposite ones. However, Joyce was also an artist (as writers are, in a way, Artists of the Word) - and, as such, he would identify with each and every character he created, and willy-nilly represent and reconcile their opinions (however clashing they might be) in his works. It so happened that all Joyce had been writing about was his native country and its people, notwithstanding the fact that he lived abroad since the age of 22. &nbsp;His first significant published work was a collection of 15 short stories titled “Dubliners”.&nbsp;On the surface, “Dubliners” might look like a “naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century”. A more thoughtful analysis would present a much more nuanced picture: larger-than-life - yet very faithfully depicted - characters involved in a whole network of complex relationships. Combined with meticulous precision of physical locations, and considering that almost all “Dubliners”' characters were transitioned into Joyce's later works, one has to conclude that, taken together, the stories essentially reinvent Dublin (by then a 1100-or so-years-old city). In other words, already with “Dubliners, Joyce began what can be literally called ”God's Work" by creating…well, not exactly the Heavens and the Earth as a whole but still a part of the Earth with a variety of life on it. Unsurprisingly, some other artists working in different arts and genres eventually tried to follow suit. One of them “translated” Joyce's book into “paintish”, his efforts resulting in 15 illustrations, one per “Dubliners”' story…&nbsp;

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God's Work

Centrally located, O'Connell street is the heart of the city of Dublin. Like any healthy heart, the street is vibrant, intense and…quite small (literally speaking, of course, as metaphorical hearts come in all sizes): its length is mere 500 meters. The O'Connell monument marks the southern entrance to the street, while its northern end is dominated by a monument devoted to Charles Stewart Parnell - yet another prominent politician who picked up the baton from O'Connell. The transition might have been purely symbolic as Parnell was 11 months old at the time of O'Connell's death, but Parnell's actual contribution to the cause of Irish liberation from British rule was equally groundbreaking.Known as “The Liberator”, O'Connell didn't actually succeed to set Ireland free. One might argue that his biggest practical achievement was the <a href="blog/the-irish-gandhi/">Catholic Emancipation</a> that positively affected a vast majority of Irish population by improving Catholics' daily lives and giving many of them a new sense of purpose. However, the Emancipation didn't prevent either the “Famine That Never Was”, or more bloodshed caused by a major uprising and the actual War for Independence almost a century later. So, all considering, O'Connell's most important breakthrough might have been his realization that, when it comes to political/social issues, a straight line is not always the shortest way towards one's objective - sometimes, contrary to conventional wisdom, a chasm can (and should!) get crossed in two, or even more small jumps! That was how he had brought about the Emancipation - and Parnell used a similar strategy 60 or so years later when zoning in on the next crucial objective, the Home Rule. He clearly understood that even though England would always feel obliged to oppose Ireland's full independence - and crush any armed resistance to the best of its ability - it might feel much less belligerent if more peaceful methods were employed, and somewhat less radical goal were pursued &nbsp;Like earlier O'Connell, Parnell was elected to the Parliament. While in London for Parliamentary sessions, he would concentrate his efforts on making friends and forging alliances. One of his allies happened to be none other than William Gladstone, the leader of the Liberal Party and a future Prime Minister of England. Gladstone, among several other important politicians, was sympathetic towards Parnell's attempts to introduce Home Rule for Ireland. &nbsp;As for those who opposed the idea, Parnell resorted to his gift of gab to perfect a most annoying but completely legitimate Parliamentary strategy of filibustering. Upon having listened to his deliberations concerning, for instance, London sewers for 6-7 hours at a time, even his most inveterate opponents gradually began to feel that maybe, just maybe, some concession to Ireland wouldn't be the worst possible outcome, after all! &nbsp; &nbsp;Parnell came close, really close. There was every indication that the Ireland Home Rule bill would be voted for within several months. Had it happened, and many a life - including those of non-combatants - would've been spared within the next decades but… A man-made disaster struck: there appeared rumours that Parnell had an affair with a divorced - not even married! - woman. When those rumours were confirmed, Irish society at large started to turn against the man who had for years been Ireland's biggest hope. He was being vilified and, eventually, ostracized. Tragically and ironically, at the same time, that witch hunt was instigated and led by the Catholic Church - the very people Parnell had been trying to help, did their utmost to bring him down. &nbsp;As a result, he lost his seat in the Parliament and his leadership in the Home Rule party. His dream shattered and his heart broken, Parnell died in two years. Ireland never received the Home Rule, and its path to Independence led to a bloody uprising and an even bloodier war… &nbsp;

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A Fallen King

The most obvious and straightforward way to liberate one's country is to defeat the occupiers militarily and throw them out - and that's exactly what Irish people had been trying to do for many centuries. However, it is easier said than done - and that's exactly why it took them all those centuries to finally succeed. In the meantime, they kept suffering one blow after another, both figuratively and quite literally - and some blows were much heavier than others. The worst ones arguably came in the 17th century when passionate but relatively poorly trained and equipped freedom-fighters had to oppose a fully professional army that had never lost a battle. Motivated by greed for land, and led by Oliver Cromwell - a talented military commander but also a ruthless religious extremist, widely abhorred for his utter disregard for human life - the English razed city after city to the ground while painting them red in the defenders' blood… To oppose someone like Cromwell, the Irish Resistance seemed to need a leader whose military prowess would match Cromwell's own, and whose personal charisma multiplied by his patriotism would inspire many thousands to rise and fight. However, when such a leader finally materialized, he turned out to fit less than 50% of that description!As a very young man, Daniel O'Connell went to France to continue his schooling in a Jesuit college. As fate would have it, it happened in the beginning of 1790s when a bloodbath, otherwise known as the French Revolution, was underway - and the shock was enough for the young Irish to develop a lifelong aversion not only to mob rule but to any violence. Besides, he fled home via England, and - wild as this guess is -that might be the reason he never really perceived England as a hostile country. For example, many years later, he - already a prominent political figure - greeted George IV of England to Dublin. Even more telling, born Donall O'Connaill, he anglicized his name. He also chose English rather than his native Gaelic when addressing crowds of his followers (to make sure that everybody would understand him, O'Connell sent interpreters to the midst of those listening crowds - to translate his words).The exact opposite of “fighter”, and rather friendly towards the occupying nation, it's hard not to wonder how could such a man possibly move his country any closer towards regaining its freedom? The answer seems to be very complex and quite simple, at the same time. A charismatic patriot (he undoubtedly answered that part of the above description), O'Connell relied on his imagination and turned it into an efficient weapon. He must have imagined endless thousands of people coming together to express an opinion and ask for a change - very politely and not at all threateningly (as a lawyer, he also made sure that none of his gatherings would ever break any current laws). Then he acted upon that vision - first, by founding a Catholic League and encouraging people to join it; then he invited all those people to come to places sacred to every Irish - such as <a href="/blog/resisting-the-wind-of-change">Tara</a> and <a href="/blog/children-of-the-north-wind">Clontarf</a> - to talk and listen, to exchange opinions, and simply to be together with like-minded people. When in 1828 O'Connell couldn't take his seat in the English Parliament after being elected there (the so-called Penal Laws explicitly banned Catholics from any political offices), about 100,000 people gathered to ask the authorities to reconsider. In less than a year Irish Catholics were emancipated, and O'Connell did become a Parliament Member after a successful re-election. Such was his fame and significance that George IV lamented in a private letter: “While O'Connell is undoubtedly the King of Ireland, and Wellington is the King of England, I can't see myself as anything more than the Duke of Windsor!”O'Connell's ways and ideas were so counterintuitive that they must have been perceived not just as a wonder but rather as an outright miracle. When a famous American abolitionist Frederick Douglass heard about that miracle, he couldn't help coming to Ireland to meet its maker - and the echo of that meeting reverberated for more than a century, and over several continents. Douglass had a significant impact on Abraham Lincoln, and from there the path led to India where Mahatma Gandhi led famous non-violent marches (such as the Salt March in 1930), and back to the US where Martin Luther King's dream earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964…&nbsp;

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The Irish Gandhi

Human history is, in a way, a history of wars with flowery names - be it quite literally (The War of the Roses in England) or metaphorically. For instance, a clash between football fans that quickly degenerated into a full-fledged war between El Salvador and Honduras - the Football War. It is also known as The Hundred Hours' War, and this type of description is even more popular because of its alleged precision. After all, the Six Days' War between Israel and several Arab countries did last exactly six days - and the famous Hundred Years' War between England and France did go on for a 100 years…and then it continued for 16 more years! Strictly speaking, it's not the longest ever armed conflict as, say, the Spanish Reconquista stretched over no less than 781 years. However, if we consider a type of warfare involving regular armies that engage each other in pitched battles - as opposed to historical processes - “116 years” does begin to sound like a benchmark. In particular, against Irish struggle for independence. &nbsp;I use the word “struggle” because the formally defined War of Independence didn't begin until 1919, and already in 1922 Ireland became a republic. Yet the actual war - the nation's collective effort to throw off the English yoke and become free - had started as soon as <a href="/blog/an-ill-fated-wedding">Henry II</a> set foot on Irish soil uninvited in 1172, and it never ceased until the goal was achieved. It doesn't mean incessant hostilities for 750 years in a row - no country or even empire in the world would possibly be able to sustain that without seeing its economy and social life fall completely apart - but rather that many generations of Irish people had to incorporate a possibility of rising up against the occupying forces at any moment, with their daily lives. Such a balancing act would inevitably shape the national psyche, thus producing a unique combination of features once defined by Ancient Romans as the ability to “build houses as if they were going to live forever - and to feast as if they were about to die tomorrow”.Dublin City Free Tours are so structured as if they were purposefully created to reflect and represent that Irish skill of reconciling the incompatible. Formally, there are two independent tours aptly dubbed “The Southern Tour” and “The Northern Tour” - because each of them is restricted to the respective side of the river Liffey. More important, each of them is strictly devoted to its respective topic - it's all about “Life” in the south, and all about “War” in the north. Never mind that both sides are divided/connected by a rather short bridge crossed by thousands every day, and none of those thousands would ever perceive crossing the bridge as "going to the other side". Just like other thousands in other times would cross the invisible bridge between living and striving today, and possibly dying in a fight tomorrow - and never think about it either? Or had thinking and prioritizing become an inseparable part of the switch? If that were the case, and if we were to gain an insight into their actual priorities, it might be provided by that very bridge - as both it and the street it leads to on the northern side, are named after the same person widely known to the nation as the “Liberator”.

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