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The "Cyclops" episode takes place in the pub of Barney Kiernan, and this PC sets its tone. Such PCs proliferated in the 1910s, both in Ireland and in the USA. Predominantly colored in green, often embossed and gilded, adorned with harps, shamrocks and crowns, they expressed the unabashed patriotism of both Irish and Irish Americans. |
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"I was just passing the time of day with old Troy of the D.M.P. at the corner of Arbour hill there and be damned but a bloody sweep came along and he near drove his gear into my eye." (U12.1) |
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"- Devil a much, says I. There is a bloody big foxy thief beyond by the garrison church at the corner of Chicken Lane - old Troy was just giving me a wrinkle about him - lifted any God's quantity of tea and sugar to pay three bob a week said he had a farm in the county Down off a hop of my thumb by the name of Moses Herzog over there near Heytesbury street." (U12.13) |
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"- Circumcised? says Joe.
- Ay, says I. A bit off the top. An old plumber named Geraghty. I'm hanging on to his taw now for the past fortnight and I can't get a penny out of him. - That the lay you're on now? says Joe. - Ay, says I . How are the mighty fallen! Collector of bad and doubtful debts." (U12.19) |
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"- Are you a strict t.t.? says Joe.
- Not taking anything between drinks, says I." (U12.52) |
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"- What about paying our respects to our friend? says Joe.
- Who? says I. Sure, he's out in John of God's off his head, poor man. - Drinking his own stuff? says Joe. - Ay, says I. Whisky and water on the brain." (U12.54) |
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"- Come around to Barney Kiernan's, says Joe. I want to see the citizen." (U12.58)
(Image courtesy of the ZJJF) |
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"- Barney mavourneen's be it, says I. Anything strange or wonderful, Joe?" (U12.59)
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"In Inisfail the fair there lies a land, the land of holy Michan. There rises a watchtower beheld of men afar." (U12.68)
St Michan's church was built in 1686 on the site of an 11c. Hiberno-Viking chapel. It is the oldest church north of the Liffey, and possibly the only one surviving from a Viking foundation. |
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"There sleep the mighty dead as in life they slept," (U12.69)
In the vaults of St Michan's church lie a number of bodies mummified by the dry sterile atmosphere created by the church's limestone walls. Some of the wooden caskets have cracked open, revealing the dead, as in life they slept, complete with skin and strands of hair. |
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"warriors and princes of high renown." (U12.70)
Among the preserved remains are a 400-year-old nun, a six-and-a-half foot alleged crusader, Henry and John Sheares (leaders of the 1798 rebellion), and a mysterious body with hands and feet severed. The various Earls of Kenmare are also interred here, as well as the family of Bram Stoker. One of the crypts contains the death mask of the United Irish leader Wolfe Tone. The churchyard is said to contain the unmarked grave of United Irishman Robert Emmet, leader of the 1803 rising. |
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"In the mild breezes of the west and of the east the lofty trees wave in different directions their first class foliage, the wafty sycamore, the Lebanonian cedar, the exalted planetree, the eugenic eucalyptus and other ornaments of the arboreal world with which that region is thoroughly well supplied." (U12.74) |
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"Lovely maidens sit in close proximity to the roots of the lovely trees singing the most lovely songs while they play with all kinds of lovely objects" (U12.78) |
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"as for example golden ingots, silvery fishes, crans of herrings, drafts of eels, codlings, creels of fingerlings, purple seagems and playful insects. And heroes voyage from afar to woo them, from Elbana to Slievemargy," (U12.80) |
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"And by that way wend the herds innumerable of bellwethers and flushed ewes and shearling rams and lambs and stubble geese and medium steers and roaring mares and polled calves and longwools and storesheep and Cuffe's prime springers and culls" (U12.102) |