Tag Archives: kerry

Guest post: ‘Fantastic Beasts and How to Find Them’ has an Irish-American backstory

I’ve published several guest posts on the blog this year, but nothing could make me happier than to welcome my wife, Angie Drobnic Holan, to this space. Angie has her own excellent blog, and she is also quite the Harry Potter fan. MH

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Even most Harry Potter fans may not realize there’s an Irish connection in the new movie, “Fantastic Beasts and How to Find Them.”

The film takes place in New York City in the 1920s. That’s before Harry Potter was born, but his future headmaster Albus Dumbledore was then at the magical school Hogwarts, where he taught a budding zoologist named Newt Scamander. The movie is about Scamander’s search for magical beasts, a search that takes him to the United States.

It turns out there’s a thriving magical community in the States, complete with a U.S. school of magic. That school is called Ilvermorny, and it was founded by an Irish immigrant to America.

Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is mentioned in the film only in passing, but Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling — who wrote the screenplay for “Fantastic Beasts and How to Find Them” — provided a detailed backstory for the school on her website Pottermore. (Read the lengthy story in full on the Pottermore website; registration required.)

The story begins in County Kerry. There, a young witch named Isolt Sayre is born in 1603. (Read the real history of Ireland in this period.) Isolt is part of a magical family, but her parents die, leaving her in the care of an eccentric and malevolent aunt. The aunt, a practitioner of dark magic, hates non-magical human beings and tries to make Isolt hate them as well.

Rowling describes Isolt as growing up “in the valley of Coomloughra,” and notes that her father “was a direct descendant of the famous Irish witch Morrigan, an Animagus [a wizard who can turn into an animal] whose creature form was a crow.” The aunt, Gormlaith Gaunt, takes Isolt to “the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or ‘Hag’s Glen.’”

Coomloughra is a real place, located about 20 miles west of Killarney. The area offers one of Ireland’s best ridge walks, a strenuous 4- to 5-hour hike over several mountain peaks in the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks range.

The Coomloughra Horseshoe Loop Walk in Kerry.

The Coomloughra Horseshoe Loop Walk in Kerry.

To get away from Gormlaith, Isolt runs away, first to England and then to America, disguising herself as a boy and traveling on the Mayflower. Hiding in the forests of North America, Isolt befriends magical creatures and has many adventures. She meets and marries a non-magical man, they start a family and eventually open their own school of magic: Ilvermorny.

But the aunt eventually learns of Isolt’s whereabouts and comes to find her, seeking to punish the niece for both running away and marrying a man who is not a wizard. A great battle ensues, and Isolt’s family eventually wins the day. To train and teach magical children in more peaceable ways, they open the school of Ilvermorny.

Ilvermorny, located in Massachusetts, grows and flourishes, accepting wizards and witches from around North America into one of its four houses: the Horned Serpent, the panther Wampus, the Thunderbird (one is seen in “Fantastic Beasts”) and the magical creature the Pukwudgie.

The story of this Irish-American witch has a lot of classic elements of J.K. Rowling’s wizarding stories. The story encourages open-mindedness, bravery and adventure, and it calls for peace between magic and non-magic people.

While Ilvermorny is mentioned only briefly in “Fantastic Beasts,” Rowling and the filmmakers have promised more movies to continue the story of Newt Scamander. The movie out now shows how Scamander befriends the American witches Tina and Queenie Goldstein, who are both alumnae of Ilvermorny. Perhaps we will learn more about the magical school started by an Irish immigrant in subsequent installments of “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.”

Irish abortion fight takes modern twists

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.
— ‘September 1913‘ by W. B. Yeats

As if last year’s referendum to approve same-sex marriage left any doubt about Ireland’s drift from conservative, religious-based values, a couple of stories this week add more evidence.

Two Irish women live-tweeted their trip to England so that one of them could get an abortion, which is banned in their home country. The Eighth Amendment to Ireland’s Constitution gives equal protection to a woman and a fetus, with a few rare exceptions that allow the procedure.

In a story with the usual whiff of pro-abortion, anti-Catholic glee, The New York Times reported:

Ireland has changed significantly in recent years. It became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote in 2015, and the Roman Catholic Church has lost its once-dominant role, in part because of a series of sexual abuse scandals.

Rose of Tralee statue in Town Park. What if she gets pregnant?

Rose of Tralee statue in Town Park. What if she gets pregnant?

A day after the tweet-by-tweet abortion trip, a contestant in the Rose of Tralee International Festival drew cheers from the audience when she called for repeal of the Eighth Amendment. According to The Irish Times, she said:

“I think we can do better here in Ireland. I think it is time to give women a say on their own reproductive rights. I would love to see a referendum on the eighth coming up soon. That would be my dream.”

The live broadcast of the 57th annual beauty and talent pageant also featured a man dressed as a priest who rushed the stage to protest on behalf of divorced fathers having equal visitation and other parenting rights. The Fathers 4 Justice group is known for high-profile demonstrations.

Two years ago, the Kerry-based festival crowned its first openly gay Rose.

I’m flying to Ireland…join me virtually

I’m finally heading back to Ireland after four…long…years.

I launched this blog on tumblr in July 2012 after returning from my fifth trip to Ireland. As stated then and the blog subtitle, the goal is to “publish research and writing about Irish and Irish-American history and contemporary issues.” Now, 391 posts later, I’m returning to the source of my interest and affection.

Over the next two weeks I’ll be in Dublin, Belfast and Kerry. I’ll be reconnecting with family relations and sitting down with new people that I’ve met through the blog. I’ll be doing ongoing research about the Land War murder of John Foran, checking out a few 1916 centennial exhibits, and exploring other attractions. I’ve mapped out a really cool scenic drive.

Most of my posts will be images, with more detailed reporting and stories to follow later when I get home. Please join me virtually. Meanwhile, enjoy this drone-captured video of my grandfather’s hometown of Ballybunion, County Kerry. I’ll be happily on the ground here very soon.

On the First Day of June

On the first day of June, 2012, my wife and I attended the Listowel Writers’ Week, which this year opens on the same date. We attended a reading by poet Paul Durcan at the Listowel Arms Hotel, the lovely River Feale shimmered outside the ballroom window, just beyond where the poet sat at a small platform.

A highlight of the performance was his reading of “On the First Day of June.”

I was walking behind Junior Daly’s coffin
Up a narrow winding terraced street
In Cork city in the rain on the first day of June …

… Outside in the streets and the meadows
In Cork and Kerry
On the first day of June on the island of Ireland
Through the black rain the sun shown.

Four years later, it remains one of my favorite moments in Ireland.

Dubs beat The Kingdom in All-Ireland

Hate to say it, but Dublin beat defending champions Kerry in the All-Ireland Finals on Sunday. The match played through torrential rain at Croke Park, home of the Gaelic Athletic Association.

“The win was sweet because it was the first time Dublin have beaten Kerry in three successive championship encounters (after 2011 and ‘13) and two successive final contests,” The Irish Times reported. “In the end the disappointment was far more profound for Kerry, who never performed – as acknowledged by manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice.”

The All-Ireland championship dates to 1887. Kerry has won 37 times, the most any county.

Strange stories from the (animal) Kingdom of Kerry

I’m always partial to stories from Kerry, my ancestral homeland. Lately, there’s been a run of unusual stories about animals.

  • Giant seagulls have reportedly attacked and killed mature mountain ewes in south and west Kerry; and a swimmer was bitten near the beach at Fenit, “part of a pattern of unusual behavior by gulls.”
  • Animal rights activists are raising concerns about the welfare of the wild male mountain goat selected to reign over the annual Puck Fair at Killorglin.
  • Gardaí in north Kerry say 20 cattle, mostly cows and their calves, died after ingesting lead from batteries thrown into a field near Tarbert.
  • Two new species of amphipods, small shrimp-like creatures, have been discovered in deep waters off the southwest coast of Ireland.

Catholic parish records now available online

Catholic parish records held by the National Library of Ireland are finally available online. The Irish Times said:

These parish register records are considered the single most important source of information on Irish family history prior to the 1901 census. Dating from the 1740s to the 1880s, they cover 1,086 parishes throughout the island of Ireland, and consist primarily of baptismal and marriage records.

Here’s more background on the project from NLI. Or, start searching.

In a helpful blog post, Kay Caball at My Kerry Ancestors warns that because the records are not indexed researchers should have some idea of the parish, date and even month they are looking for. “You can’t just pop someone’s name in and hope that all will be revealed.”

catholic-parish-registers

Wonders and threats in Ireland’s natural environment

A few environmental stories:

  • Irish marine scientists have discovered a new cold water coral habitat nearly 200 miles off the Co. Kerry coastline. Story in The Irish Times.
  • The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, were visible in Co. Donegal and parts of Northern Ireland due to a huge solar storm, the Belfast Telegraph reports.
  • Meanwhile, the Times also covered a recent “climate justice” conference, where scientists complained the government isn’t doing enough to address greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists say 2014 was the warmest in Ireland since 1880 (start of the Land War period) and average temperatures had increased by 0.5 degrees since 1981. At current rates, temperatures in Ireland are expected to rise by between one degree and 1.5 degrees over the next 30 years.

Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency offers this scorecard of key environmental indicators, including ratings for climate change, water, air, land and nature.

Ireland approves same sex marriage in historic vote

Irish voters have enshrined same-sex marriage rights in the Republic’s constitution, becoming the world’s first nation to give such approval through popular referendum.

With all 43 constituencies counted, the “Yes” vote was just over 62 percent, compared to just shy of 38 percent “No.” Some Dublin constituencies approved the measure by more than 70 percent. Roscommon-South Leitrim was the only constituency to vote against. (My ancestral homeland of Kerry North-West Limerick voted “Yes” by 55.4 percent to 44.5 percent.)

Nationwide turnout was 60.5 percent.

A simpler St. Patrick’s Day wish, 1953

I want to get away from all the noise and nonsense that’s come to surround St. Patrick’s Day, the once reverent, if myth-filled, holy day turned raucous global celebration.

So here’s a reminder of a simpler St. Patrick’s Day, a 1953 letter from a sister in Kerry, Ireland to her brother in Pittsburgh, USA. It’s from a collection of letters I inherited from my aunt a few years ago. A few other letters from the 1950s also included sprigs of shamrock from the north Kerry countryside.

 

Keep in mind that 1953 was seven years before the election of John F. Kennedy as president (a decade before his return to Ireland and assassination later the same year), and nine years before Chicago began to dye its river green. While the first St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin dates to 1931, it was nothing like today’s massive multi-day festivals.