My explanation is that logic is a mathematical function. All I am doing is using logic to connect the little nuggets of information (historic and otherwise).
I am not overly interested in ‘big history’ – the history of dates, kings and wars that I remember from the days of the Inter Cert. It is the small, often local, pieces that excite. There is such a buzz in spotting something for the first time and being able to start a chain of connections with other nuggets.
Many thanks to Cónal Creedon’s essay yesterday on matters relating to Frank O’Connor. This helped extend my web of connections so much and has tempted me to try to put that matrix together in word form.
Those steps are now closed to the public – the wear and erosion on the limestone meaning that the step rises are not of constant height and so a victim of health & safety regulations. It is decades since I last used the steps but I still recall the rhythm of descending.
In a Japanese Knotweed manner, the memory of First Confession and the connection with Frank O’Connor and those steps remained dormant for years while I dealt with the pressures of life and participate in the Jackson Browne defined struggle for ‘the legal tender’.
Those plaques disturbed the ground and caused that invasive weed that is my mind to ponder Frank O’Connor –in reading, plays and the search for plaques. All very much enjoyed. Knoweed can have roots 6m deep – my connections on Frank O’Connor appear to be spreading even deeper following Cónal’s piece.
A while back I met Noel one morning. Over coffee, I expressed disappointment on his native Blarney Street not recognising the first home of Frank O’Connor. I had walked up one side and down the other in search of 251 Blarney Street and any plaque. I spotted neither. Noel diplomatically returned me to my box.
There is no 251 any longer. The demolition of old houses and construction of new larger houses resulted in a few house numbers not being required and so where 251 was is now where 248 is – as a numbers head, this made much sense.
This prompted a eureka-moment over the dregs of the coffee and said that I knew of only one other pavement-embedded plaque – that to James Joyce’s grandfather at Rocksavage on the corner of Anglesea Street and Hibernian Road. Noel added a few strands to my web in that both plaques may be in the wrong place.
251 not being 248 was one explanation. Over 20 years ago, speaking with Ms. Cuthbert of the famous shop on Anglesea St., Noel was told that the Joyce plaque was not where James Augustine Joyce resided.
Connections with two writers in two disputed locations is bad enough but Frank O’Connor extends that to three locations with his residence on Douglas Street being disputed by The Gables and The Munster Literature Society – on opposite sides of the same street.
I have been on a Seamus Murphy trail of late, photographing his work in different places. Both Seamus Murphy and Frank O’Connor are recorded in the St. Patrick’s plaques. Seamus Murphy’s busts of Frank O’Connor are in the City Library and RTE Cork. His death mask is in the City Museum, Fitzgerald’s Park.
A few months ago, SD arrived into work to me with his granduncle’s War of Independence medal and the nugget that he had discovered that there was a prison on the family lands which was used as an alternative to Sing Sing, temporary homes for Guests of The Nation.
My travels in search of Civil War/War of Independence memorials have brought me to Clonmult and also to Ballynamona, Mourneabbey where I met MrC who educated me as to the ambush there.
The satisfaction of making little connections with dots of information is great. My search on many different topics will continue. Having watched film of Frank O’Connor reading his own work, I want to stand on that Road to Ummera and read – go on and make that connection yourself.