Disqus - Latest Comments for donnachadelong

Re: Stabbing Westward, 3TEETH, Ex-Fear Factory, Etc. Members To Guest On New PIG Album “Red Room”

Donnacha DeLong — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 21:30:21 -0000

Lead Into Gold is Paul Barker, not Chris.

Re: Laibach – Love Is Still Alive

Donnacha DeLong — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 18:07:45 -0000

Finally got my copy on pink vinyl today. This isn't the first time they've done something like this, back in 88, they did 8 different versions of Sympathy for the Devil across multiple singles and compiled into an album.

Re: Kathleen Boland — Stories from 1916

Donnacha DeLong — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 12:36:44 -0000

Can someone please amend the caption on the pic of Harry and the Shouldices? The "unknown friend" is Ned Boland, Harry's brother.

Re: Ancient bones reveal Irish are not Celts after all

Donnacha DeLong — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 17:30:52 -0000

The whole theory of the Celts migrating west from Germany was never based on any science, it was an attempt to find the "Lost tribes of Israel" that caught on. I find the whole idea that defining the origin of a community by the largest settlements to be bizarre, it would be like a future archaeologist deciding New York was the origin of Anglo culture because it's so big.

Re: Eight sacred Celtic holidays of the year including St. Brigid’s Day

Donnacha DeLong — Sat, 01 Feb 2020 20:48:22 -0000

It's International Workers' Day - commemorating the Chicago Martyrs. Nothing at all to do with religion.

Re: The BBC debated antisemitism, but who got ‘muddled’, Melanie Phillips or Robert Cohen?

Donnacha DeLong — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 17:03:57 -0000

Indigenous means the people who lived in a territory before history. The Middle East has had writing longer than most other places in the world, so history goes back a long time.

For many people, the "history" contained in the holy book - the Pentateuch - is the history they believe is true. If that is the case, then how could the Jews be the indigenous people when they captured the territory from the Canaanites? The battle of Jericho and all that?

Let's put aside the fact that most historians who aren't blinded by their religion cast huge doubt on the historicity of the book, there are records in Egyptian and Canaanite writings of people living in Israel/Palestine all the way back to the stone age, long before the first Hebrews arrived from Mesopotamia.

Oh, and the descendants of the Canaanites became the Phoenicians and the the Lebanese. They're the true indigenous people, their capital city beside the ruins one of the oldest if not the oldest towns in the world - Byblos.

Re: ‘Leprechaun’ is not a native Irish word, scholars reveal

Donnacha DeLong — Sun, 06 Oct 2019 08:43:27 -0000

The name has long been associated with the God Lugh. This is another example of dictionary linguists looking for roots of words clearly linked to Ireland abroad. Why does a Roman group/festival make more sense than a Celtic God with a known Indo- European origin?

Re: A guide to the historical figures and moments of the 1916 Easter Rising

Donnacha DeLong — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 17:53:31 -0000

Collins (who was a minor player in 1916) and not Harry Boland? And it's a stretch to call Collins the father of the modern Irish state. He and Arthur Griffith allowed themselves to be bullied by Britain into signing the Treaty (they were supposed to bring it back to the Dáil) and then using British weapons against anti-Treaty forces, starting the Civil War in earnest.

Re: Kathleen Boland — Stories from 1916

Donnacha DeLong — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 18:17:39 -0000

My mam just pointed out that the "unknown friend" in the picture with the Shouldices is actually Ned, the youngest Boland.

Re: Why Irish women should follow St. Brigid, not just St. Patrick

Donnacha DeLong — Fri, 01 Feb 2019 19:54:23 -0000

Brigid is a legendary figure, like many of the Irish "saints" (of whom the Vatican have no record), she shares a lot of commonalities with a Pagan myth. The goddess Brigid (also Brigit - possibly connected to the continental goddess Brigantia) was an Irish myth that may have been Christianised much as the Pagan feast Imbolc became her feast day.

There is historical evidence for Patricius (through many of the stories about him have been heavily mythologised).

That said, we learned a lot about Saint Brigid (Naomh Bríd) when I was in school in Dublin in the 1980s.

Re: “Paddy Wagon” like “Harp” or “Mick” is no longer insulting term for Irish in America

Donnacha DeLong — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 10:52:42 -0000

Mick is most likely related to Michael Barrett, the last man to be publicly hanged in Britain. He was a Fenian activist who was convicted of involvement in the Clerkenwell explosion in 1867. The term "Mick" for Irish people emerged around the same time and was the first time Irish people were equated with "terrorism". It's nowhere near as neutral as you think.

Re: “Paddy Wagon” like “Harp” or “Mick” is no longer insulting term for Irish in America

Donnacha DeLong — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 10:41:36 -0000

Indigenous means a people native to a particular place from prehistory (which varies depending on how far back history goes). Ethnicity brings together the various parts that make up "a people". I never brought political viewpoints into it, that would be ridiculous, but a large proportion of the Anglo-Irish were colonists from England and Scotland, who spoke English and, after Henry VIII had a different religion (around which they defined their difference from the Gaelic natives). Thus, pretty much every ethnic marker was different.

If you want to talk politics, Republicanism as an idea was brought to Ireland by Cromwell - the Gaelic Irish leaders were, at that stage, supporting the monarchy. It spread amongst the Anglo-Irish who remained and grew as part of the growth of radical ideas in Europe. Ultimately, it exploded in the 1798 Rebellion - Catholics were only became part of the largely Non-Conformist Republican movement in 1791 when they joined the United Irishmen.

So, the fact that many of the leaders of Republican movement were Anglo-Irish is therefore not a surprise, the Catholic Gaels were the latecomers to the movement.

As for people like the Guinness family, it was possible for native Irish to become part of the Ascendancy by converting to the Church of Ireland and eschewing their language and culture. Many did so. Thus, while they may be genetically linked to the native population, in terms of ethnicity, they adopted the culture of the Anglo-Irish.

And there is no evidence of a band of "Gaels" who colonised Ireland. Gael means thief and refers to the ancient practice of raiding the coast of Britain. The language and culture of the Gaels before the Cabrio-Norman invasion was rooted in the Celtic branch of Indo-European language and culture. The myth of the Iron Age Celtic invasion has been quite thoroughly debunked by archaeologists who now point to evidence of Celtic emerging from proto-Greek and developing along the European coast west of Greece all the way up to Ireland and Britain in the Bronze Age, spread by the trade in Copper from Cork and Tin from Cornwall.

Re: UK politicians can’t continue to scold the Irish for their own Brexit mistake

Donnacha DeLong — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 09:20:12 -0000

No need to be as ignorant as she is. Her family is from Gujarat, not Mumbai, which is in Maharashtra, and they moved to Uganda before moving to the UK.

Re: “Paddy Wagon” like “Harp” or “Mick” is no longer insulting term for Irish in America

Donnacha DeLong — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 03:19:38 -0000

You're a bit of an idiot, aren't you. Ethnicity is a mix of language, genetic heritage, religion and other cultural factors. The Protestant Anglo-Irish self-defined as different and were so recognised in law under the Penal Laws. There is nothing sectarian about defining the indigenous people of Irish by their linguistic and cultural heritage.

Re: “Paddy Wagon” like “Harp” or “Mick” is no longer insulting term for Irish in America

Donnacha DeLong — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 03:14:27 -0000

I'm Irish, born and dragged up in Dublin. And "White" wasn't a meaningful thing in the British domination of Ireland. It wasn't until a generation after the Famine that Irish people were considered white in the US.

Re: What Irish phrases you need to learn before you visit Ireland

Donnacha DeLong — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 18:51:55 -0000

I've been out of Dublin for a while (16 years in London), but ossified was in use back then. It means totally bollixed. Dunno about the culchie words for bits of fields, though.

Re: What Irish phrases you need to learn before you visit Ireland

Donnacha DeLong — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 18:49:34 -0000

The correct answer is to answer both questions "I'm off home on Friday, sure I've been here two weeks already, I've got work to get back to."

Re: Truth about the Black Irish and the Spanish Armada | IrishCentral.com

Donnacha DeLong — Sun, 29 Jul 2018 04:46:00 -0000

There's an amazing graphical version of The Book of Conquests by Jim Fitzpatrick. On the Milesians, that's probably a reference to the Phoenicians (Canannitea). Originally from the eastern Mediterranean (what's now Lebanon, Israel and Palestine), they became the greatest seatraders of the Bronze Age and did establish bases along the southern European and North African coasts. They almost definitely came to Ireland for copper (and Cornway for tin). It's also very likely that they helped spread Indo-European culture to the west, leading to the emergence of Celtic on the Atlantic Coast.

Re: Truth about the Black Irish and the Spanish Armada | IrishCentral.com

Donnacha DeLong — Sat, 28 Jul 2018 17:53:26 -0000

The Celtic culture is memetic, not genetic. And it's rooted in Indo- European culture, which came from Eastern Europe (Armenia according to a recent study).

Re: Truth about the Black Irish and the Spanish Armada | IrishCentral.com

Donnacha DeLong — Sat, 28 Jul 2018 17:49:17 -0000

So the Vikings, the Cambrio- Normans, the Cromwell-era Jews, the Huguenots and others who've settled in Ireland over the centuries aren't Irish then? Not the Walshs, the Fitzgeralds, the Deburcas, Le Fanus, the Briscos, the Levins, etc, etc.

Re: Truth about the Black Irish and the Spanish Armada | IrishCentral.com

Donnacha DeLong — Sat, 28 Jul 2018 17:42:03 -0000

Its. If you're going to be a bigot "standing up for culture", get it right.

Re: Truth about the Black Irish and the Spanish Armada | IrishCentral.com

Donnacha DeLong — Sat, 28 Jul 2018 17:40:53 -0000

Celtic is cultural-linguistic, not genetic. There is no genetic link between the Keltoi and the Irish. The commonality is linguistic.

Re: Bishop says Ireland's Catholics who voted Yes in referendum sinned and should confess

Donnacha DeLong — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 09:21:13 -0000

I'm not planning to be an idiot trying to interfere in a court case. I actually understand the law, unlike that moron Yaxley-Lennon.

Re: Truth about the Black Irish and the Spanish Armada | IrishCentral.com

Donnacha DeLong — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 09:17:26 -0000

Dubh and Donn (as in my first name).

Re: Truth about the Black Irish and the Spanish Armada | IrishCentral.com

Donnacha DeLong — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 05:12:38 -0000

Reasonable article, but the appearance of the continental Celtic tribes has no bearing on the issue at all. Celtic is a socio-linguistic culture with no genetic relationship between the Gaelic Irish and the Gauls. Not that it matters, because genetic studies have shown the "Celtic invasion" is a myth. While a variation of the Celtic language was introduced to Ireland, with an Indo-European-based religion and other elements, there is no genetic evidence for a large influx of a new population in the Bronze Age or early Iron Age.

We don't know exactly where the Black Irish look comes from, but genetics show that it's ancient, more likely to be Neolithic (based on genetic commonalities between bog-preserved Neolithic remains and modern Irish - who have been extensively tested).