The Iona blogeen started out as a small memory fragment and then I was overwhelmed with all the history I wanted to include. Hence, the "Under Construction" sign. Will I ever got back to it?
As I researched Iona, I later found out that St Columba is the Patron Saint of poets, the reason why all those laminated poems were stapled to the undersides of our bunks at the hostel. Now, how did I miss that crucial bit of information?
The 12 posted poets/poems (there were more) I managed to record with my camera were:
The Bloody Orkneys, Anon (penned by a bored naval officer, Hamish Blair stationed there during the War)
Whitby-sur-Moyola, Seamus Heaney
The Eemis Stane, and The Bonnie Broukit Bairn, Hugh MacDiarmid
Can I fly Too?, Philip Hobsbaum
Evening, H. D.
Intrusion of the Human; An Ordinary Day; and Wild Oats, Norman MacCaig
The Bride, Tom Scott
The Tree, Maureen Sangster
The Voyeur, Tom Leonard
The Moment, Kathleen Raine
There were many more poems...and so little time. I was in hog heaven, at the hostel at the end of the island. Poems, twilight, and the white sand shore.
Outside the front door of the hostel, on the hill was a stone carved with a verse about being still that I forgot to take a photo of. I wish I had it now.
I looked up the poets on the internet and most seem to be either from the West of Scotland (writing in Scots dialects, primarily of the beauty of untrammeled nature), or they lived in the West of Scotland.
I found that many of these early to mid- 20th c. poets were associated with Philip Hobsbaum's literary school, "The Group," including Seamus Heaney. I do remember Seamus mentioning Hobsbaum and "The Group" as being central to his writing style.
And some of the selected poets were friends of Hugh MacDiarmid (Christopher Murray Grieve) or Louis MacNeice. Some are associated with the Universities of Edinburgh or Glasgow.
Anti-Scottish Romanticism seems to be a core element, as is Scottish Modernist/ Nationalism. Of course, Heaney and H.D. aren't Scottish... H.D. and Norman MacCaig write in an imagist free verse style, closest to my own work.
I couldn't find "The Tree", or Maureen Sangster anywhere on the internet. If anyone has information, it's be much appreciated.
My low-light photos of the poems are very poor, I was able to find several poems online. Maybe I will write a blog on them later. Meanwhile, this entry will serve to identify the poems. If anyone else has any info on the poems or other poems hot listed, please drop me a line.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Remembering Jim Duran, (Séamas Ó Direáin)
I first met musicologist and linguist Jim Duran (Séamas Ó Direáin) with harpist Sharon Devlin of the traditional Irish group, Sheila na Gig at the Treasures of Early Irish Art exhibit at the San Francisco De Young Museum in the mid-'70s. We were listening to the group singing Irish tunes my granny knew. I was shocked when he came over afterwards and spoke to my grandmother in Irish and she answered him right back.
My grannie was the only one there who could actually READ the Book of Kells, so we drew quite an audience! Someone came up and asked if she could read it...she snorted, "Of course I can. It's in Latin!" As if everybody could read Latin.
My grannie, Jane Walsh Reilly probably hadn't spoken to anyone in Irish since the 1930s as there were few Irish speakers in San Francisco, but she kept up her Irish studies her entire life. Daily she was nose deep in Dineen's Irish Dictionary looking up words.
My grandfather was instrumental in founding the KRB club in SF: Knights of the Red Branch. Among other things, they organized Irish cultural events, Irish language classes (and ran guns too, but that's another story. The photo of Liam Mellows in our lower field is proof enough of those IRA connections).
Despite holding a PhD. in linguistics from Stanford, Jim Duran was the most pragmatically practical from the Of course you can gung-ho just do it school. He was the one who encouraged me to study Irish Gaelic. He was one of the few people I knew who was fluent in Irish but then, he was fluent in many languages. How many languages does the man speak anyway? Eleven?
At first I thought he was putting me on. But then he slew my ears with polyglot tongues, in languages I didn't even know existed.... Why on earth would he learn Angolan, I thought. But then I remember him telling me he was at the Fort Ord Language Institute and spoke several African languages as well. Angolan. Oh the government... But that was the days of the Black Panther Movement, Stokley Carmichael, Angela Davis, Symbionese Liberation Front, Patty Hearst, etc. Angola was in the headlines a lot.
One of the last times I saw Jim was at LAX. We were heading out to Guatemala and El Salvador. Or was it Cabo? We ran into him at the luggage carousel. Weirdly, my boyfriend John Oliver Simon also knew him—as Jaime! At the same instant we both shouted out to him: Seamus! Jim! Jaime! and did a quadruple take and laughed. So it was a double meeting of the minds.
Jim organized a poetry reading and book party, Falling to Sea Level, (Aldebaran) for us at Angel's Gate Poetry Reading Series in San Pedro. I remember standing by the side of the Pacific Coast Highway with Jim along the cliffs just north of San Pedro Harbor mouthing a few words in Irish, when he began to unfold snippits of his life, it was pretty fantastical. I thought he was jiving me, but I later found out it was all true...
Last I heard he was teaching at the University of Cork. Someone else said, No, he was in Galway. I recently found a paper of his online—in Irish—on dialects of the Aran Islands, so I couldn't make heads or tale out of it—well maybe donkey's tails—in that I could make out a few words here and there, follow the gist, conjugate a preposition or two, but that was about it....
Because of Jim, I redoubled my efforts and I got my grannie to teach me what she could of the old Hibernian Club Gaelic League Irish from her Grammars, but speaking it was another matter.
I want to do a shout out: Hey Jim,wherever you are, I finally learned some Gaelic. I thought it was impossible. I studied Celtic languages at UC Berkekey with Joe Nugent, Breen O Conchubhair, with professors Kathryn Klar and Linguistics Chair, Dr. Gary Holland...Old, Middle and Modern. Irish, some medieval Welsh too.
Despite holding a PhD. in linguistics from Stanford, Jim Duran was the most pragmatically practical from the Of course you can gung-ho just do it school. He was the one who encouraged me to study Irish Gaelic. He was one of the few people I knew who was fluent in Irish but then, he was fluent in many languages. How many languages does the man speak anyway? Eleven?
At first I thought he was putting me on. But then he slew my ears with polyglot tongues, in languages I didn't even know existed.... Why on earth would he learn Angolan, I thought. But then I remember him telling me he was at the Fort Ord Language Institute and spoke several African languages as well. Angolan. Oh the government... But that was the days of the Black Panther Movement, Stokley Carmichael, Angela Davis, Symbionese Liberation Front, Patty Hearst, etc. Angola was in the headlines a lot.
One of the last times I saw Jim was at LAX. We were heading out to Guatemala and El Salvador. Or was it Cabo? We ran into him at the luggage carousel. Weirdly, my boyfriend John Oliver Simon also knew him—as Jaime! At the same instant we both shouted out to him: Seamus! Jim! Jaime! and did a quadruple take and laughed. So it was a double meeting of the minds.
Jim organized a poetry reading and book party, Falling to Sea Level, (Aldebaran) for us at Angel's Gate Poetry Reading Series in San Pedro. I remember standing by the side of the Pacific Coast Highway with Jim along the cliffs just north of San Pedro Harbor mouthing a few words in Irish, when he began to unfold snippits of his life, it was pretty fantastical. I thought he was jiving me, but I later found out it was all true...
Last I heard he was teaching at the University of Cork. Someone else said, No, he was in Galway. I recently found a paper of his online—in Irish—on dialects of the Aran Islands, so I couldn't make heads or tale out of it—well maybe donkey's tails—in that I could make out a few words here and there, follow the gist, conjugate a preposition or two, but that was about it....
Because of Jim, I redoubled my efforts and I got my grannie to teach me what she could of the old Hibernian Club Gaelic League Irish from her Grammars, but speaking it was another matter.
I want to do a shout out: Hey Jim,wherever you are, I finally learned some Gaelic. I thought it was impossible. I studied Celtic languages at UC Berkekey with Joe Nugent, Breen O Conchubhair, with professors Kathryn Klar and Linguistics Chair, Dr. Gary Holland...Old, Middle and Modern. Irish, some medieval Welsh too.
It was impossible, but we translated the Tain Bo Cuailaigne, the Tain Bo Fraoch, and the Mabinogi... But after ten years lying fallow in the back fields of the mind, and with no one to speak it, I now know enough to know that it's truly impossible and that I don't know enough in order to read your papers on Irish linguistics. (chun: in order to)
Last summer, however, I was surprised to find that I could slog my way through a Manx story (only if I read it out loud), I was able to translate place names while in the Hebrides and I'm slowly building my repertoire of Irish and Scots Gaelic music...that's where I came into this crazy circle, wanting to learn Irish and Hebridean mouth music...such a long, long time ago.
Last summer, however, I was surprised to find that I could slog my way through a Manx story (only if I read it out loud), I was able to translate place names while in the Hebrides and I'm slowly building my repertoire of Irish and Scots Gaelic music...that's where I came into this crazy circle, wanting to learn Irish and Hebridean mouth music...such a long, long time ago.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Remembering Danny Cassidy
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Daniel Cassidy, author of "How the Irish Invented Slang" Photo: Cassidy Family
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I was saddened to hear that after waging a fierce battle with pancreatic cancer, co-founder of New College Irish Studies, Daniel Cassidy, and author of “How the Irish Invented Slang,” is gone from us.
Brooklyn-born Cassidy was a man of many hats, he was both a tough street-wise dude, and a raging intellectual. He was a professor, a poet, a talented jazz reed musician, singer, composer, newshound, union organizer, merchant marine, scriptwriter, and author.
Daniel Cassidy founded, and co-directed the Irish Studies program at New College of California in 1995. He also was director of the college's Media and Film Studies program, teaching courses in storytelling, the American newspaper and broadcast history. I sat in on a few of his entertaining lectures and events.
Danny (he was always "Danny" to his friends, never Daniel—and he'd correct you too if you lapsed into the formal) developed his screenwriting chops while working for television producer David Susskind, actor Danny Glover, and director, Francis Ford Coppola. Danny's 1996 documentary "Civil Rights and Civil Wrongs" about the atrocities in Northern Ireland, was nominated for an Emmy. His other film, "Uncensored Voices," was broadcast on PBS in Canada Europe, and Japan.
Danny didn't forget his larger Irish-American community either—he was a co-founder of San Francisco's annual Crossroads Irish-American Festival, that showcases Irish and Irish-American playwrights, artists and authors every March.
Danny's controversial book of essays, "How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads" was a surprise sleeper hit that won the 2007 Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award for nonfiction.
“The whole project started with a hunch — hunch, from the Irish word ‘aithint,’ meaning recognition or perception,” said Cassidy in a New York Times interview.
“The whole project started with a hunch — hunch, from the Irish word ‘aithint,’ meaning recognition or perception,” said Cassidy in a New York Times interview.
Danny took some heat for his intuitive poetic, and phonetic approach to the etymological roots of Irish words in English (see links below). And he may have done more harm, than good, but he certainly opened up dialogue.
Some pedagogues groused that Danny was an amateur etymologist, and ever-so-eloquently stated that his linguistic claims were "a big heaping load of hooey"; that maybe the award should have been given for fiction instead. I'm sure that was the response Danny was expecting from that crowd. He was a great one to challenge the halls of academe.
But Danny never got a chance to refute his claims and prove some of his slang hunches, for a year after his book was published, he was dead. But he had a good track record for those 65 years on this earth.
Some pedagogues groused that Danny was an amateur etymologist, and ever-so-eloquently stated that his linguistic claims were "a big heaping load of hooey"; that maybe the award should have been given for fiction instead. I'm sure that was the response Danny was expecting from that crowd. He was a great one to challenge the halls of academe.
But Danny never got a chance to refute his claims and prove some of his slang hunches, for a year after his book was published, he was dead. But he had a good track record for those 65 years on this earth.
Danny didn't speak Irish and didn't know the grammatical rules of Irish, an ancient highly inflected Indo-European language. His family arrived during the Irish Potato Famine, and, like many Irish immigrants, their knowledge of the Irish was lost—save for those ubiquitous slang words, in places like Hell's Kitchen. I can hear Danny saying: Don't call it the famine. There was no famine in Ireland. It was The Great Hunger. An Gorta Mór. There was plenty of food in Ireland.
I rarely saw Danny without his well-thumbed Irish pocket dictionary in hand. (I had a Spanish one just like it—my mother's, when she was honeymooning in Acapulco). He was always hunting down possible slang equivalencies.
When Danny pronounced Irish words in tough Brooklynese, sometimes it was hard to get back to the word in question. But as co-director of Irish Studies at New College, he knew who to ask for help with spelling and pronunciation of Irish.
I admired Danny's evangelical approach to this slang work and I think some of his connections have credence—as my grandmother, a self-taught Irish scholar, was forever translating English words into Irish. Sometimes she was in left field, sometimes she was in the ballpark. Same with Danny's work.
What I didn't know at the time was that Irish, one of the oldest, and therefore, highly inflected, Indo-European languages, shared many word origins with Sanskrit via Proto-Indo-European, for example. The continuum, and all that.
What I didn't know at the time was that Irish, one of the oldest, and therefore, highly inflected, Indo-European languages, shared many word origins with Sanskrit via Proto-Indo-European, for example. The continuum, and all that.
I was also glad Danny finally proved H.L. Mencken wrong that the Irish contributed so little to the English language. American writer and linguist, H.L. Mencken once observed that the Irish contributed few words to American English. "Perhaps speakeasy, shillelah and smithereens exhaust the list." He forgot hoolighan, and lynch.
I wanted to throw back to Mencken a variation of one of his own quotes: There is a solution to every definition—neat, plausible, and wrong.
In an interview, Danny said: "The English language does not often absorb other languages, especially the Celtic languages. Irish has the longest association with English of any language on the planet, yet in England all we've got are a handful of words such as whiskey."
Note the spelling, with an "e" from uisce, or huisce. That's because the Irish monks invented it long before the Scots took up the habit.
When Danny began to point out words "of uncertain origin" is often code for Irish, it struck a chord with me. I knew there were many more Irish words buried within the English language, despite what the Oxford English Dictionary claimed—aside from the usual suspects: smithereens, hoolighan (a surname), and shanty.
I wanted to throw back to Mencken a variation of one of his own quotes: There is a solution to every definition—neat, plausible, and wrong.
In an interview, Danny said: "The English language does not often absorb other languages, especially the Celtic languages. Irish has the longest association with English of any language on the planet, yet in England all we've got are a handful of words such as whiskey."
Note the spelling, with an "e" from uisce, or huisce. That's because the Irish monks invented it long before the Scots took up the habit.
For example, Danny said the word buckaroo came from the Irish bocaí rua, "wild playboys" or "bloody bucks." But bó is cow, buachaill is a cowherder (or cowboy, if you will), and ruadh, is, well, red (or red-haired)—so the meaning is close enough. Even if he came at it all wrong.
When Danny began to point out words "of uncertain origin" is often code for Irish, it struck a chord with me. I knew there were many more Irish words buried within the English language, despite what the Oxford English Dictionary claimed—aside from the usual suspects: smithereens, hoolighan (a surname), and shanty.
There's also shebeen, shebang, shindig, Sheila, slew, slogan, lollapalooza, colleen, clan, keen, kabosh, banshee, brogue, brogan, bar, ben, glamour, gombeen, leprechaun, whiskey, etc., to name a few.
And it is certainly clear to the Irish speaker, both the Oxford English Dictionary (consider the source) and its American cousin, the Webster's, were rabidly anti-Irish biased ca. the inception of the OED in 1857-84, and there was a general ascribing of Gaelic words as Scottish in origin, or "of uncertain origin" rather than giving the Irish their linguistic due (this was post-famine Ireland). Where did the British think Scots Gaelic came from? Donegal Irish in another lexicon.
The gobshytes and amadáns who compiled dictionaries didn't know that slogan, gob, moniker, and Boycott were also Irish words. Danny claimed glom as Irish, as well. To glom onto something, wasn't even in the dictionary. Danny took it on with panache. And then some.
Danny was from the two Irishmen-three opinions school of conversation—unbridled wild horses of thought running rampant through the halls of academe. It was always a joy ride to have a conversation with the man, himself—even if you didn't agree. Especially if you didn't agree. There was always a hug at the end of it all.
Danny tried on several occasions to get me to join his program at New College, but it came down to tuition, I just couldn't afford New College. He kept insisting I could make it so, but I didn't have that much faith in raising the tuition and going to school at the same time.
As it was, in 1999, I was straddling San Francisco State and UC Berkeley campuses at the same time, I was carrying 21 units a semester. And that wasn't even counting the Old Irish class with Dr. Gary Holland I was auditing. That's where I unraveled slogan from Old Irish—sluaghan, an army, multitudes.
Danny Cassidy's tenacity and wit will be missed—and though I never went to New College, it was Danny who initially got me back into school, at San Francisco State, while also attending Celtic Studies classes at UC Berkeley. His passion and enthusiasm kept me in the game when I thought I couldn't hack it during bouts of translating manuscripts from Old Irish. Stay the distance, he said.
But we kept in touch. And at the 2006 Crossroads Irish American Festival, Danny remembered me, and invited me to read with Jack Foley and Chad Sweeney at Bird & Beckett Books. It was a grand night. Ah, but the craic was good.
This blogeen is in honor to the man himself, not the (de)merits of his book. Material for another bloggybit. The world is a better place for having Danny riding crazily at the helm, for a while. I'll stop my blatherin' now.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Garbo's denizens
The Russian River was an interesting place to be in the late 1970s and 1980s. I met so many people in those days, (daze). So many roads intersected and overlapped that after a while it all became a blur.
I met all manner of folks famous and formerly famous...including the lead singer from It's a Beautiful Day, a gorgeous blond guy with the voice of an angel who was reduced to pumping gas into my VW bug at the Guerneville Flying A station...fallen from grace.
As a Russian River Writers' Guild poetry coordinator of Garbo's Bar along with Marianne Ware, Lee Perron, Donna Champion and Jim Montrose, we met parades of writers and musicians. Among the notable:
Madame Blavatsky's sister...so very occult and Russian and old with her dyed coiffed hair, heavy mascara and shawls!
John Prine's brother sitting at the bar with Sam the Bartender. I learned John's songs from him...The Jungles of East Saint Paul.
Utah Phillips came through once a year or so, often with Rosalee Sorrells or Bobbie Louise Hawkins in tow. He and Ed Balchowski, a Spanish Civil War survivor, would dust of the war songs.
May Sarton's sister came to the series for a while...I could go on....
Living in the moment, we never thought it would end, then AIDS struck the gay community and it foundered.
Peter Pender, chess champ, Leonard Matlovitch who made the cover of Times: Military comes out of the closet...that's how I found out Hoover was gay. Something Thorman???...the guy who founded Gold's Gym, a real pendejo...
Bill, the first Marlborough Man lived in the cabin across from me....whod'a thunk that handsome cowboy hunk on horseback we saw on all the billboards and back of magazine covers, was gay. The KS ravaged his face...
I met all manner of folks famous and formerly famous...including the lead singer from It's a Beautiful Day, a gorgeous blond guy with the voice of an angel who was reduced to pumping gas into my VW bug at the Guerneville Flying A station...fallen from grace.
As a Russian River Writers' Guild poetry coordinator of Garbo's Bar along with Marianne Ware, Lee Perron, Donna Champion and Jim Montrose, we met parades of writers and musicians. Among the notable:
Madame Blavatsky's sister...so very occult and Russian and old with her dyed coiffed hair, heavy mascara and shawls!
John Prine's brother sitting at the bar with Sam the Bartender. I learned John's songs from him...The Jungles of East Saint Paul.
Utah Phillips came through once a year or so, often with Rosalee Sorrells or Bobbie Louise Hawkins in tow. He and Ed Balchowski, a Spanish Civil War survivor, would dust of the war songs.
May Sarton's sister came to the series for a while...I could go on....
Living in the moment, we never thought it would end, then AIDS struck the gay community and it foundered.
Peter Pender, chess champ, Leonard Matlovitch who made the cover of Times: Military comes out of the closet...that's how I found out Hoover was gay. Something Thorman???...the guy who founded Gold's Gym, a real pendejo...
Bill, the first Marlborough Man lived in the cabin across from me....whod'a thunk that handsome cowboy hunk on horseback we saw on all the billboards and back of magazine covers, was gay. The KS ravaged his face...
Sunday, September 21, 2008
FIRST DAY OF FALL EQUINOX (take 2)
FIRST DAY OF FALL EQUINOX (take 2)
A cow lows for her calf
or companionship
in the lost folds of tawny hills.
In the tawny coastal hills
a cow calls for an errant calf
or companionship in the lost folds.
A fox coughs, deer hesitate, flick an ear,
dry grass rattles the throat of the wind
a tinder song of the Fall Equinox
a lone crow patrols the deep sky.
EQUINOX, WALKER CREEK RANCH (take 3)
In the tawny coastal hills
a cow bawls for her errant calf
or for or companionship in the lost folds.
A fox coughs, deer hesitate, test the air.
Dry grass rattles the wind's throat,
a tinder song of the Fall Equinox.
A lone crow patrols and scolds the deep sky.
A poem escapes the bowl of the valley
takes flight and nestles in the crevices of the mind.
Invitation to a fleeting poem within the mind
pulls me between worlds, both corporeal and transparent.
I learn anew, vulnerability is our only real strength.
How, then, to make peace with this valley
where I was nearly killed a decade ago?
Susan tells me it's OK to not be ready
to return to that place of resurrection.
In dreams we are reminded of who we are
and we remain standing in the grace
of what we may become.
What god would have us be so?
What am I now?
Walker Creek, CA
INDIGESTION
is to feed you something we may not agree with.
Someone said but don't do anything
to jeopardize your mental health and well being.
Still, we contend with the unspeakable art of war
I am left with the image of the pure wrath of a shamal—
a sandstorm hummocking over the barracks
beneath the angry red eye of the desert sun
as if the fist of God descended from a clear sky.
A blond Iraqi wind howls in babble-tongues.
A soldier laments: you can't shoot yourself in the head twice
as the air charged with the neon flames of St Elmo's Fire,
fluoresced from his gun like a halo.
What's the difference between a poet and a prophet?
What makes us different than a bird or the clay red dirt?
We confront, we inspire writing used as a weapon.
I ate something that didn't agree with the talk of old age
but words are rebirthed in the midwifery of the mind.
In dreams we are reminded of who we are
and who remains standing in their sleep.
We are sleepwalking towards the precipice.
In grace we become sand angels.
is this what God would have us be
in this godforsaken desert?
We are not seeking the voice of God
within the sandstorm of madness.
Hacking apart a nation is brutal work.
The damned in the White House is illegally blind
to suffering and the writing on the wall.
We should all be lobbing a maelstrom of shoes
at that old warmonger.
On the eve of the Primaries, I realized
I have been depressed for seven years.
We no longer celebrate time by the New Year
but by elegies to Septembers and elevenses.
But there is hope coming in November.
The name of hope is Barak not barrack,
not this Shock and Awe war for oil
and the wind's name is Obama,
a bit of every bloodstream,
he is everyman's hope.
Walker Creek, CA
OLD TATANKA
Boots cough, scuff the floor
poets rising from the couch
with false starts, we seek balance
We grunt, the couch gives
shoves us back onto our feet
old age, less forgiving
My back reminds me
we were all young together
pinched nerves, burning fire
A young redwood grove
planted too far from the creek
not enough thirsty tinder
for a fire's first meal
Birch log bench rocks me
dry grasses scribble the wind
to welcome the Fall
poets rising from the couch
with false starts, we seek balance
We grunt, the couch gives
shoves us back onto our feet
old age, less forgiving
My back reminds me
we were all young together
pinched nerves, burning fire
A young redwood grove
planted too far from the creek
not enough thirsty tinder
for a fire's first meal
Birch log bench rocks me
dry grasses scribble the wind
to welcome the Fall
TRANSEXUAL SANDMAKERS (Parrotfish)
a poem written in two voices
If you dive down deep under the sea
you'll hear our hunger as our beaks scrape
and grate like shovels against concrete.
Like a shovel against concrete
I excavate the reef and the coral
becomes both meal and sand.
At daybreak we glide in gangs
you can follow our plumed trail
excrement of coral and dust cloud.
Our feeding transforms the reef
into fine tropical sands so coveted by tourists.
At night we undergo our solitary existence,
secreting rooms of private refuge.
We sleep in inked cocoons of mucous dreams
protected from nocturnal danger of the hunter.
The stars shelter us, the sun guides us.
And if we live long enough
we may change from female to male
and back again—to keep the balance.
To mate we become male, we become aggressive
Our colors brighten like a macaw's.
We undergo a colorshift from placid green
to electric magenta and neon blue.
And when our passion is spent
we fade to turquoise and mauve.
I am both male, and female again.
The tide pulls my cloud of young eggs to the open sea.
My young fry ride on the tide's back to the far reef.
If we should meet again, my young and me,
they will find their mother has become their father.
Iolande and Maureen
Walker Creek, CA
ALLIGATOR SNAPPING TURTLE
I spend most days underwater, swimming blind,
my carapace furred with a thick coat of algae.
I covet the murkiness of shallows and lazy rivers.
Once I was used by Man to find their drowned
the river's dead, hidden in the depths and reedy shoals.
Once they tied me to ropes, let me swim free,
until the river gave up her cargo, then they pulled me back
from my just desserts of pale flesh the color of the moon.
Every animal—living or dead—is my prey.
Sometimes I lay wait in a pond or on land,
Sometimes I lay in wait for a morsel:
a frog, a fish, a hand.
My neck is longer than the length of a man's arm,
my curved tooth or beak, strong enough
to snap off the hand that holds the rope.
My status is such that on a golf course in Cape Cod
golfers abandon their balls to me at the 18th hole.
They wake me from my slumber,
My neck is longer than the length of a man's arm,
my curved tooth or beak, strong enough
to snap off the hand that holds the rope.
My status is such that on a golf course in Cape Cod
golfers abandon their balls to me at the 18th hole.
They wake me from my slumber,
then pay homage to my age
but they skirt my scuted keels and beak most carefully
for the golf balls remind me of my clutch of eggs
so secretly buried in the sand to winter over.
The sex of my young is determined by temperature.
But the temperature is rising
but they skirt my scuted keels and beak most carefully
for the golf balls remind me of my clutch of eggs
so secretly buried in the sand to winter over.
The sex of my young is determined by temperature.
But the temperature is rising
and snapper soup is still on the menu.
Mine is a solitary existence:
Mine is a solitary existence:
a half century in this muddy cove
and not another of my kind have I seen.
My jaw is agape, I yawn, I taste the afternoon air,
waiting for the prey to come to me. I hiss.
I wriggle my vermiform, like a red worm at the ready.
It works like a charm on the smaller creatures
but the golfers just won't bite, they call me a dinosaur.
Perhaps if I open my mouth wider,
and not another of my kind have I seen.
My jaw is agape, I yawn, I taste the afternoon air,
waiting for the prey to come to me. I hiss.
I wriggle my vermiform, like a red worm at the ready.
It works like a charm on the smaller creatures
but the golfers just won't bite, they call me a dinosaur.
Perhaps if I open my mouth wider,
they will come closer.
Soon, the worms will dine on them
for my age is recorded in centuries.
My kill, another's kill, or the long dead,
it makes no difference to me,
Soon, the worms will dine on them
for my age is recorded in centuries.
My kill, another's kill, or the long dead,
it makes no difference to me,
for, in the end, I must eat.
My armor is too tight, I overrun my boundaries,
Soon, I will be 400 pounds of carapace and shell,
my head and limbs exposed to the elements on the 19th hole.
Soon, the night will come and I will hunt again.
My armor is too tight, I overrun my boundaries,
Soon, I will be 400 pounds of carapace and shell,
my head and limbs exposed to the elements on the 19th hole.
Soon, the night will come and I will hunt again.
Walker Creek, CA
AUTUMN EQUINOX
AUTUMN EQUINOX
for Maureen Reilly, my mother, AKA Kellé Green
September 21, 1932 — October 23, 1994
Come home to die, she did, like a stray cat.
We didn't listen, we didn't believe
for she'd cried "wolf" so many times.
We never knew what was real.
Nor did she, as she howled in concrete canyons
traversing the City like a gypsy in her ragged clothes,
pawn silver and turquoise half-hidden by a wild red mane.
She knew Market Street doorways,
she who could walk the Tenderloin unafraid,
she was a white angel among the downtrodden,
the homeless and the indigent. She brought them
clean needles and clothes. Fresh cardboard.
And if they needed warm food she pawned her jewelry.
Come Welfare Monday, her hands were again heavy with silver.
She, who had so many homes: transient
hotel rooms, holding tanks, state mental wards,
at one time or another, every place was home.
But she came home, at last, she came home to us
to the gentle folds of the western hills, to where the heart is.
This woman who we called Mother,
she came home to die and even then we didn't believe
her heart was too big for this world. We didn't believe her.
We never said goodbye and then it was too late.
The floor leapt up to cradle her silent heart.
Mama come back, it's your birthday
I'll hide the needles, the pills, the pills,
pretend I didn't see the blackened half-spoon.
Come back, be my Mommy, just for a day.
It's your birthday, the Autumn equinox.
As they traipse along the pavements gray
the fallen leaves are whispering your name.
Come dance. Come and dance with the wind.
Come home to die, she did, like a stray cat.
We didn't listen, we didn't believe
for she'd cried "wolf" so many times.
We never knew what was real.
Nor did she, as she howled in concrete canyons
traversing the City like a gypsy in her ragged clothes,
pawn silver and turquoise half-hidden by a wild red mane.
She knew Market Street doorways,
she who could walk the Tenderloin unafraid,
she was a white angel among the downtrodden,
the homeless and the indigent. She brought them
clean needles and clothes. Fresh cardboard.
And if they needed warm food she pawned her jewelry.
Come Welfare Monday, her hands were again heavy with silver.
She, who had so many homes: transient
hotel rooms, holding tanks, state mental wards,
at one time or another, every place was home.
But she came home, at last, she came home to us
to the gentle folds of the western hills, to where the heart is.
This woman who we called Mother,
she came home to die and even then we didn't believe
her heart was too big for this world. We didn't believe her.
We never said goodbye and then it was too late.
The floor leapt up to cradle her silent heart.
Mama come back, it's your birthday
I'll hide the needles, the pills, the pills,
pretend I didn't see the blackened half-spoon.
Come back, be my Mommy, just for a day.
It's your birthday, the Autumn equinox.
As they traipse along the pavements gray
the fallen leaves are whispering your name.
Come dance. Come and dance with the wind.
Walker Creek, CA
Saturday, September 20, 2008
SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY
Spirit majesty,
the idea, equal and entitled
shines through the letters
as the impact of segregation
to make the intellect adjust
will impact the country's honor.
the idea, equal and entitled
shines through the letters
as the impact of segregation
to make the intellect adjust
will impact the country's honor.
Walker Creek, CA
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Sunday, August 31, 2008
I grew up on the other side of Mt. Barnabe...
I grew up on the other side of Mt. Barnabe, on the southern slope, in full sunlight. Barnabe's mule bones have long since slipped back into the earth. We used to loiter by the pools of Lagunitas Creek, Carson Creek, Devil’s Gulch, and Arroyo Creek when the salmon were running, we waited for that flash, coinage of silver, vermilion and green heralded the fall.
Though the Devil's Gulch route was the most direct route over the mountain, and was one of my grandfather's favorite hikes, it was such a long, hot and desolate ride over the summit of Mt. Barnabe to Camp Taylor, we kids avoided it.
Following the flat railroad bed from Lagunitas, or the creekbed to Tocaloma was the easiest route.
There was also a more northerly route over Mt. Barnabe that avoided the summit. It took us along the hogback ridges through abandoned apple and bitter pear orchards down to the deserted settlement of Devil's Gulch. I felt so far from home, thankful for the warm reassurance of my horse under me.
It was in Devil's Gulch where my mother, as a child, stumbled into a wasp's nest and was nearly stung to death. My grandmother cooled the poor child off in the creek and covered her stings with fine clay mud to draw out the poison. My grandmother said it was always a longer walk home. But when something went wrong, the road home doubled in distance.
Sometimes I made a circle up over Mt. Barnabe and down its steep slopes to Camp Taylor and then returned home up the railroad bed to Lagunitas and Arroyo Road. At one point or another, I've ridden most of what's left of the railroad beds from Woodacre to Tocaloma.
Early mornings, we'd race our horses along the flat stretches of railroad bed to the park gate. I always pulled out ahead at the quarter mile, but a two-mile course fatigued my quarter horse, and the nags would always pull ahead. Even Brenda Bullock's Icelandic pony, Helgar, or little Susie Mattsson's plug could beat my mare on the two-mile run.
Soon after that, my mare pulled up lame, but I was 15, and addicted to racing, I avoided the warning signals. Riding her bareback at breakneck speed was an unmatched thrill. She was pure verve and muscle, it was like riding a barrel down Class Two rapids.
One time when Becky Dart ran away with me at Kent Lake, I sawed on the bit until flecks of blood and foam decorated us, her tongue nearly cut in two by the metal snaffle bit. But still she ran, a Three Bars mare at heart. I just had to let her run it out.
It was spring, my sorrel mare was out to grass, but foxtails carpeted her wound. Every day I had to tweezer the stickers and oats out of the raw flesh, which I cauterized with silver nitrate. Daily I was reminded of what I'd done to this animal by racing her, firing her up like that. I was reminded that she came from a long line of champion race horses, it was in her blood to run.
Granddaugher of the fabled Three Bars, my mare had the thoroughbred lineage of kings in her blood. She was one degree removed from The Preakness, the Kentucky Derby, Sarasota Springs. When my aunt's friend Chuck traced her pedigree, at first, he thought it was forged, but he said, If this proves to be true, you've got quite a valuable mare there, she could beget champions even if her knees were bad.
It was like finding a secret treasure in the woods, or a Vermeer hidden under an artless painting. There wasn't another horse in the valley who could match her at the quarter mile, and no one would race me unless it was a long track.
It was precisely on those kinds of afternoons when you knew spring had arrived. We'd ride and ride for miles on the open road. Time took us on a curious echoing quality. I can still recall the poignancy of late afternoon rides and the dappled roads under tall trees. Bleeding hearts, checker lilies and false Solomon's seal nodding their heads. Trilliums spreading their tripartite wings.
Riding horseback was as natural as walking or breathing. My best friend Stephanie Stone and I rode everywhere. We grew up and lost touch. I hadn't heard from her in years. Her brother Eric said she had a horse in Arizona to ride and that helped to keep her sane through a loveless marriage. But that's when the drinking began. She kept it to herself. Held it in until the cancer ate her marrow.
At seventeen, after my mare tragically died of colic, from eating too much new spring grass in the Bianchi's pasture, I worked for the Lehman's training stable. I showed their horses at gymkhanas, I collected armloads of blue and red ribbons, but I didn't want to own another horse, losing her was devastating. She was big and beautiful, there was so more of her to love.
At nineteen, my other interests, my art—demanded that I move into the larger area of the world. I was at odds. Two worlds colliding. I had a chance to travel, a work-study job in Switzerland. I was sorry to leave, I almost didn't go to Europe, but Edie said, Don't be silly! It's a chance of a lifetime. Go! Have fun!
There were plenty of other girls, like Donna Lopez—who once unscrupulously kicked my horse right when I was in front of the judge, costing me the blue ribbon—girls like her were only too happy to step into my coveted job. And so she did.
I felt a crippling loss, separated from the horses like that. There was nothing much left of my childhood landscape. And so I sometimes dream of horses, and wake up with an inconsolable sense of longing. Everyone else moved into bucolic Marin. They came from LA, and from back east, they bought up the valley, they quickclaimed it and put up plywood palaces, they put up electric fences, they dammed the creeks and gated the roads.
They brought their urban nightmares with them. Runaway horses on the precipice.
When the invaders came, we lost more than our right of way. We lost our way.
The wild creature within me has slowly become urbanized with time. But I still dream of following the horses on endless fire roads running along the horizon.
Twenty years later, laid up with a bad knee, I am remembering it all as if it were yesterday. No point, no point of view. Merely Bob Hass's rivers running uphill against memory and time.
SF Caledonian Club Highland Games: silk painting
My silk painting booth in the barn opposite the Living History section at the 2008 Caledonian Club Highland Games in Pleasanton, CA. Games visitor Scott Peden from the Irish in California group, is the one with the beard...Scott swears he's smiling under all that foliage but it was at least 100° on Saturday.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Walsh Home Ranch early photos 1920
My grandmother's first home in America was her uncle Patrick Walsh's Home Ranch in Austin, NV. She arrived from Ireland by boat to New York, took the train to Battle Mountain and was met by a horse & buggy for the long ride back to the ranch. Her brother Joe Walsh didn't have the train fare ($5.00) so he traveled south to Galveston by boat and eventually joined her in Nevada.
Walsh Ranch
My grandmother on a horse.
Haying
John & Patsy Walsh (Patrick Jr.)
Shoshone hired hand
My grandmother's Uncle Pat; his sons, John & Patsy Walsh
Coyotes & pumas
These coyote skins became fur coats for my grandmother and her aunt May but back in San Francisco, the dogs followed them growling so they had to abandon their new fur coats they'd made.
Map: courtesy of Bea Walsh Bible
Click on it to enlarge. Those are Bea's notes to a nephew.
From 1911 Reese River Reveille. Where it says Granma Walsh's, that's Bea's mom, not her grandmother... Walshes, Bowlers, Martin ranches, all related; Bowler was her grandmother's son-in-law, Martin was her brother-in-law (and also a Patrick!).
© 2009 Maureen Hurley & Jane Walsh Reilly
Note Bene: Joe Walsh has created a Nevada Walsh Website
After a long absence, Cape Cod journal
After a long absence, my greatest fear is that I will have nothing to say, that the roots of writing will have fled to that secret place were poems go like a lone heron stalking the marsh in the fog, mute, testament to the ghostly light.
My greatest fear is that I will find words, both ordinary, and plain, with no soul. It’s not the words themselves that I fear, because the words themselves are not empty, but the mind, devoid of thought, appears in the void, and fills it with randomness. My greatest fear is that the suburban odor of words, strung together, like endless days without meaning is a one-way Alzheimer’s journey into the mundane.
Mornings I awaken in a strange place, and face the confines of the marsh, and I understood for the first time why the writers and poets saw responded so emphatically to the majesty of the west. I felt corralled and hemmed in by the myopic shelter of shore and low lying scrub, what passes for trees on the Cape.
I yearned for the vast distances of the west where we measure time differently and take for granted the hills, or that glimpse into the distance of the bay beyond in the fog coming in. We take for granted the artist perception of distance, how it stimulates the psyche.
And suddenly there are words everywhere—in the distance, and on the horizon of thought.
The mind laced with ill-equipped equipage, yet the carriage hearse rolls on, the horses are nervous. I heard it as rifts and departures, and I thought of how hasty a departure might be punctuated with a rifle in hand like Annie Oakley.
I thought of lovers’ quarrels and quick exits compressed like cartoon characters clamoring off the celluloid page, with Woody Woodpecker, exiting stage left, faster than a speeding bullet. He took off on the margins of the celluloid, hidden until the next week’s installment.
I always did mishear things. It keeps me occupied. Never a dull moment. I live a compartmentalize life, with suitcase at the ready. Once I dreamed that I forgot I was leaving for Russia for a long stay, and I forgot to pack. In those scant hours before departure, I was madly packing a portmanteau of words in tránsito. I was stuck in purgatory, baggage baggage baggage everywhere.
Home Ranch, Reese River Valley
Breaking News: Joe Walsh has created a Nevada Walsh website.
These are working notes for a blog to be on the Walsh Home Ranch, in the Reese River Valley below Austin, Nevada. See family tree at Geni.com. When I get it completed, I will upload it to Ancestor.com
In a nutshell. My grandmother's uncles Patrick Henry, David J Walsh and a half-brother, William Walsh came to Austin, Nevada in the late 1860s and founded Home Ranch. My grandmother's father Michael Walsh stayed in Bantry
Michael and William's father Joseph had a wife who died in childbirth. His father remarried to Ellen Cremeen on Feb. 25 1837 at St.Finnbar's Church in Bantry Bay and they had Patrick, David, Michael, (James? and two sisters Mary & Julia?)? Somehow having a family of only four boys would've stuck out as an anomaly where the norm was eight plus children in a family.
The Nevada Walshes raised grain: wheat and oats and they sold it to the (mostly Irish) miners in Austin, NV. Paddy said grain was more valuable than gold. And he was right. It was their grubstake.
When she was a young woman, my grandmother, Jennie Walsh Reilly, used to spend summers at Home Ranch with her aunt May Sullivan; her brothers Bill and Joe worked at the ranch as well. (Possibly another brother as well) Jennie's sisters Kitty and Peig also lived at Home Ranch. There were many other folks and not-so-distant relations from Bantry living at the ranch—many Bantry women married into the Walsh clan.
Home Ranch was the stopping off place, the safe place to land for many of those post Famine Irish who emigrated from Bantry Bay. Siblings sent passage for siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, and friends of the family. All were welcome at Home Ranch. There was plenty of land and plenty of work too.
Home Ranch was her first home when my grandmother came to America. She talked a lot about her uncle Bill, Paddy and his son Wild Bill, her cousin. (Wild Bill, is my correspondent Joe' Walsh's grandfather—if I have it right.) Wild Bill & Jennie were cousins. Wild Bill's son Frank was her first cousin once removed and my mother's 2nd cousin.
Young Joe (tho he be my age) is my mother's second cousin. This is where my brain melts. What is my grannie's 2nd cousin to me? Either 2nd cousins twice removed, or third cousins, whichever comes first. Bases are loaded. Top of the ninth. I'll let Ancestry. com and Geni.com figure it out. His kids would be my third cousins if I have it right. It's a generational thing.
Wild Bill stories abounded in my family. I will post some at one point. A few stories made their way into some poems I wrote during the early 1980s. Suffice to say Wild Bill was a gambler and a rogue—he once sold his truck in Ione for a barrel of whiskey and a good hand of cards...it was a long walk back home...I'm sure a late night hoor was involved as well...
The family lost the ranch when it fell into decline in the late 1920s. Some blamed the foreman who was sent to San Francisco to buy a prize bull for breeding, but he pocketed the money instead and bought an inferior (sterile?) bull and the herds failed....that was the beginning of the end. Did an empire fall for lack of a bull's sperm? Or so the story goes.
After the ranch was sold, my family settled in San Francisco-Bay Area, and some drifted south to LA. We lost touch with the ones who stayed.
What survived were the stories of some of the Nevada Walshes in Colorado, New Mexico—the Manhattan Project. What stuck in my mind were the tragic stories. I remember fragments—how one Walsh fell down drunk in the snow and died. One leaned over his horse to open a gate, and his shotgun blew his head off. Another was killed by a horse in front of his wife...
Then we lost touch with the Nevada Walshes—those who stayed. But my grannie would repeat the stories. They were fragments in my head that I could never sort out. The complex relationships. Cousins marrying cousins, etc....
My great-grandparents Michael Walsh and his wife, Jane Rose Sullivan Walsh of Bantry, Co. Cork, Ireland. Michael's older brother, Patrick Henry founded Home Ranch with his brothers, William and David.
Most of Michael's children emigrated to Home Ranch from Ireland including my grandmother. That is how I came to be born in America, versus Ireland. Michael stayed home to run the family farm, Coomb an-nÓr in Bantry.
Michael's half-brother William was the impetus to go out west and strike it rich. Or to become cowboys. Or ranchers. And so they did.
Coomb an-nÓr in Bantry was eventually lost to lawyers when during an inheritance struggle, two brothers fought over possessions—a farm was lost to the lawyers' fees while two brothers fought over a plough... which two brothers, I know not. But because of it, the family was divided between two countries, two continents. And the connections scattered over the vast distance of America.
1. Young Mary Walsh—Not Patrick's first wife, Mary Mahoney of Bantry. A daughter?
2. Patrick Heny Walsh. Judging by the posture, I think that is Paddy.
3. Paulina Gloor m. to Patrick Heny Walsh (2) seated on wagon with arms folded. But she's got her arms threaded through # 6's arms—William Walsh.
4. Young Joseph F Walsh—a very popular man. Some great photos of him riding into Austin like a movie star. Only, he was the real thing.
5. Young William Reynolds Walsh. Wild Bill, himself, the rogue.
6. Brother of Patrick. William Walsh. Did he ever marry, have children? I think he was the unmarried brother. Or is this another woman, William's wife?
7. Katherine Walsh? Joseph's wife?
Yep. Home Ranch. Yep. Wild Bill was her relation. I'd been teaching her daughter and never knew we were related...but she and I had bonded as she was really talented (genius runs in the family along with everything else from alcoholism to depression).
Now it's your turn to fill in some blanks as we really have lost the information on Pat's families. I remember my grannie telling me about him and the two marriages. You've got hundreds of 2nd & 3rd cousins in LA and the greater Bay Area, Santa Cruz, San Jose, Carmel, Graeagle & the Sierra foothills; Bantry, Tralee; Manchester, Cardiff.
We just had two funerals. Ed Walsh (Joe's son) lived in Hawaii. If you ever go to the Big Island, Toad Hall (the victorian on the bluff by Napoopoo, overlooking Capt. Cook Bay was built by Big Ed or "Ranger" Walsh. We had a brilliant wake at St Ignatius. It was Big Ed's death that prompted me to get some family history down and send that fragment to the Walsh Family tree web page. Any your side was one of the holes...
All those Walshes in the graveyard below Austin are ours. Have you been there? The ranch was founded by several brothers including Pat. It was a joint venture. I don't know if he was the first to arrive. The date we have is 1867 for the founding of the ranch.
There is an oral history project through the University of Nevada of the people who owned it after it was sold...they got all the credit, and many of the facts were wrong.
Was Pat the one who was a half brother to the rest of them? Seems his father had two families, the first wife died, and there was a boy, it could've been Pat but he was raised as a full brother wit David and Michael.
Wild Bill was a blacksmith and made all the wrought iron fittings and barn latches that are still use use today.
Maureen
My grandmother's brother Joe Walsh who also worked at Home Ranch. She came from Ireland with Joe. He became a police captain in San Francisco. His son, Ed Walsh (Ranger) used to spend summers at Home Ranch as well.
My correspondent Joe Walsh (whose father Francis/Frank) said these are his father Frank's sisters, (his aunts) Mary and Florence Walsh—I don't recognize that name. I think we conflated Florence with her mother, Bantry-born Julia Mahoney (I had O'Leary—but I think that's wrong), Wild Bill's wife and a first cousin. That was a huge scandal.
My correspondent, Joe's grandfather was Wild Bill. (Son of Patrick Henry Walsh. David J Walsh was Patrick's brother).
The repetition of family names within the Walsh clan is absolutely maddening from a genealogical point of view. Walshes repeatedly named their children after themselves, their parents, their siblings, often reversing the order of names: there was John Joseph, Joseph John—sometimes with only a middle name or a nickname distinguishing cousins from each other—John Martin, Joseph Francis... Paddy (The Boss), Patsy, Pat, all variants of Patrick Henrys (there were several of them). I've no idea how they kept track of all the Williams—one moniker survives: Wild Bill.
And all the Mary Walshes! May, Mame, Mamie, Marie... Margaret, Maggie, Peg... Eleanor, Nellie, Nell, Lena... Sometimes there were spelling variations Kathleen, Kate, Cathleen, Catherine, Catharine etc....we're not sure if they were different people or merely the accidental byproduct of creative turn-of-the-century spelling.
Tillie Paulson Walsh McNett (she remarried Gail McNett (her son's father-in-law!) in her 60s, long after John Martin Walsh died. He was the one killed by a horse right in front of her).
(c 1981 Maureen Hurley Photo)
Some pix of Home Ranch, Reese River Valley, near Austin, NV, from Joe Walsh, a long-lost relative. We found each other on the internet.
Some pix of Home Ranch, Reese River Valley, near Austin, NV, from Joe Walsh, a long-lost relative. We found each other on the internet.
Joe says Tillie Paulson married John Martin Walsh who was the son of Patrick Henry Walsh and Paulina (Gloor) Walsh. Paulina was his great-grandfather's second wife with whom they had two sons (John Martin and Patrick Henry, Jr.).
Joe's side of the family comes from the Patrick Henry and Mary (Mahoney) Walsh. Mary died in 1883 and Patrick remarried in 1888 to Paulina, a Swiss widow from New York. She had three children from her first marriage to a cigar maker. The girls came out west, the son did not...or so we think(there are quite a few unidentified young men in the big family photo). One was Clara and the other?
I know I'm related to Tilly's family through Patrick Walsh...so we've finally found the common ancestors. Joe and I, after two years of corresponding!
John Martin Walsh died about April 7th, 1928 at the age of 38 while driving cattle back from Stillwater where the Walsh kept cattle in the winter. He was chasing a bull on horse when they all got tangled up and the horse fell on him.
I know I'm related to Tilly's family through Patrick Walsh...so we've finally found the common ancestors. Joe and I, after two years of corresponding!
John Martin Walsh died about April 7th, 1928 at the age of 38 while driving cattle back from Stillwater where the Walsh kept cattle in the winter. He was chasing a bull on horse when they all got tangled up and the horse fell on him.
My grand-uncle William from Bantry, Ireland. The guy on the right is a descendent of my long-lost Nevada relations, Bill (Butch) Walsh of Concord. He looks just like his great-great uncle Bill. I remember hearing that I had relatives in Concord so this story jives.
We always referred to Tillie's family as the Nevada Walshes. But there were more.
Walsh Family crest card sent to my grandmother from her mother Jane Rose (Sullivan-Walsh) and her son, Mikie in Bantry, she was pleading my grandmother to please write sometime.
Ed, Laura Prichett, Richard L. Knight and Jeff Lee.
"Words Meet Deeds on the Land" by Paul F. Starrs.
The book had some silly twaddle about Home Ranch being merely a generic term. It later came to mean just that. But let me paint a broader canvas. Patrick and his two brothers settled in the Reese River Valley in the late 1860s, and called the first Walsh Ranch, Home Ranch. That was its name. Their home.
And we have it used as a proper noun as well from the oral tradition in 1912. My grandmother always referred to Home Ranch as a proper noun. Capital letters and all. The Walsh brothers then bought out the neighboring Hess Ranch, and other ranches including Blackbird. Paddy "The Boss" bought up every canyon ranch he could find, and even homesteaded a few.
At one point, Paddy Walsh was the largest single land owner in Nevada. And the idea of designating Home Ranch—as grand central station—became critical, if only to keep track of everything. But I digress.
Hello,
I came across your posting on "Walsh Ancestor Registry" dated Sep 18, 2007 and was curious about the individual you mention who came to Nevada in the 1860's and founded a ranch in /near Austin, Nevada.
I had a great grandfather " Pat Walsh " who migrated to Nevada from Bantry Bay via New York - San Francisco - Eureka, Nevada in the late 1860's and set up a ranch somewhat later in Reese River. He married twice (Mahoney & Gloor) and had children via both marriages.
Long shot, but I was wondering if this individual would be related to you somehow.
Thanks for your time.
Hi Joe
Then there are the Malloys who are Walshes as well...I've met them. John Malloy was last living in Elko. He and his former wife Loretta ran the Wild Pony Canyon motel in Austin, we stayed there in 1985s, then they split up and we all lost track. His (grand?) mother Nellie Malloy was a Walsh—Paddy's daughter.
Jim Champie owns Home Ranch now. He knows many branches of our family as we—unbeknownst (and lost) to each other— keep making pilgrimages to Home Ranch over the years. Jim's related to the Marin—San Geronimo Valley Champies, MacBrides, and Bundchus—I went to school with all of them —at Lagunitas School and Sir Francis Drake High School in San Anselmo. Small world.
When we visited Home Ranch in 1985, Jim would say, "Oh some Walshes came to visit"—he didn't know who they were, and we certainly couldn't even keep track of each other. Our family was scattered like blow-wife seedlings on the four directions of the wind. So how could he, a stranger. But he knew the names of our horses.
Poet Celia Woloch and I stopped by in 1991 and again, Jim said some Walshes stopped by... Who were all these phantom Walshes, anyway? He said they were different than the last lot. I counted up to three separate groups making pilgrimages—besides my own family, that is. So the pilgrimage continues to this day. And the ranches are lost sometime in the 1930s or 40s? The ties of the Irish to the land is strong.
The Walshes came to America because, under English law, all siblings had to inherit the farm—which led to the division of land until it was no longer a sustainable agricultural unit. Coomb an-nÓr in Bantry was once a large, prosperous farm. But it was being whittled down over the generations and that only served to heighten the need for land.
And so the Walsh brothers came out west like the three muskateers for adventure and to find their fortune and managed to get a parcel of desert scrub land—which was to grow into a vast cattle baron empire.
Patrick also owned ranchland in California. Susanville, and Alturas County. Joe sent me many documents which I've read but I'm still piecing together the relations story. The land stories will come later. Bea Walsh Bible and a nephew Pat Walsh have both contacted me.
Meanwhile, below are some correspondence notes between myself and Joe Walsh, from 2007:
Hello,
I came across your posting on "Walsh Ancestor Registry" dated Sep 18, 2007 and was curious about the individual you mention who came to Nevada in the 1860's and founded a ranch in /near Austin, Nevada.
I had a great grandfather " Pat Walsh " who migrated to Nevada from Bantry Bay via New York - San Francisco - Eureka, Nevada in the late 1860's and set up a ranch somewhat later in Reese River. He married twice (Mahoney & Gloor) and had children via both marriages.
Long shot, but I was wondering if this individual would be related to you somehow.
Thanks for your time.
Joe Walsh
Hello Maureen,
It is such a pleasure when you stumble across a relative while surfing the internet. I am not sure how much genealogy I would try to do without the net.
Hello Maureen,
It is such a pleasure when you stumble across a relative while surfing the internet. I am not sure how much genealogy I would try to do without the net.
Where to you start when you try to explain who you are and how you came to be? Since the Irish are at their best when telling a story, I will just jump in with events that took place in the past year or so. This story will tie in with 2 pictures that I have attached that I hope you enjoy.
Late last year I decided to get a mini–family reunion together of relatives in the Bay Area that I have had contact with many times thru the years, yet seem to see less as we get older.
By the way your asked how old I am. Just turned 53 this last October. Have 3 sisters (couple are a few years older and one is a couple years younger).
So, in October of 2006, we all met (about 60 or so ) in Pacifica, California (Walshes, Browns, Gonzales, etc etc etc ) to swap stories & memories. Many pictures where taken, enjoyed and then put away.
Jump to early this year when I made one of my 3 or 4 yearly visits to Reno, Nevada (I seem to always be drawn to Nevada - usually sorry to return to the bay area) to do some snooping around at the Nevada Geneology Center on Virginia just down from UNLV.
I never get my hopes up high and if I come across a picture or article, that normally suffices until the next time I stumble upon something. So there I am going thru large stacks of articles / photos which held little interest to me when I overheard the staff behind me using words such as, "Reese River", "old ranch house", & "Walsh". I waited a minute or so and then went over to inquire as to their conversation.
It turns out that they were just going thru a re-catalog process of much of the material on site and just happened to be going thru a binder labeled "Walsh" while I was there. I waited for them to finish on this material & they were then kind enough to bring it over so that I may review the contents.
Among the many items of interest (letters, documents, photo ) was a photo of a Walsh gathering that I date from around 1895 – 1905 based on some of the people who were labled on the reverse and dates of births and deaths that I have.
That photo includes (I believe) an individual that I think is one of the brothers of my great-grandfather. I have census records that indicate that a David .J. Walsh lived with for some time Patrick Walsh out at Reese River (was listed as his brother) and was killed in a mining accident.
I did not know when I first looked at the photo who this person was since he was not one of those identified on the back of the photo but I remembered seeing a photo from my own family reunion last year in which my cousin from Concord, William (butch) Walsh seemed to have more than a passing resemblance to this individual.
I still cannot be sure for certain - but based on his position in the picture of being right next to Paulina (Gloor) Walsh – he must be someone close to Patrick Walsh.
It is funny how even in family pictures, a sort of hierarchy exist. My grandfather was way down sitting below not in a position of authority which goes with how the Walsh ranch legacy played out.
It is this kind of research that has me looking for more. Current items I am looking for include a story from a second cousin in Santa Cruz that my dad’s middle name of "Cornelius" came from one of Patrick Walsh’s half brothers. His name is said to have been Cornelius W. Crowley (a person of that name lived in Reese River at the same time) but I have yet to find any more info on this story.
(NB half brother would be David and my great-grandfather Michael Walsh of Bantry. MH)
I always try to find at least 3 different ways to verify information or family stories before I put it in my family tree. I am in the process of putting all my info up on FLICKR (photos & documents) and will drop you an email when I am finished.
You mentioned in your email of meeting William (wild bill) Walsh. Perhaps you met my Uncle Joe Walsh (real name was William Joseph Walsh) since my Grandfather, William Reynolds (Wild Bill) Walsh died in 1946 and you mentioned that you were born in 1952.
Hope you enjoy the photos and look forward to speaking again and perhaps meeting in the future.
Second Cousin Joe – many times removed
Hi Joe
RE Patrick Walsh out at Reese River (was listed as his brother) and was killed in a mining accident.
I do remember hearing this story...from my grandmother and yes, I think the brother part is right... I'm gonna have to find that chart I did with my grandmother in the late 1960 as I don't remember all the details. The gravestones in Austin will help untangle some of the dates.
My 2nd cousin, Michael Collins' second wife, Laura, also did a later family chart in the 1970s as she was completely at sea trying to figure us all out.
What I'm trying to figure out is how/why your branch drifted away from ours...we're a huge, but fairly tight family... you might have to send me your family tree too so I can figure it out...as the other Walshes in Santa Cruz don't ring a bell. Are you closely related to "Woolly" Bill Walsh, then?
I don't recognize the names, Gonzalez & Brown.... I know many of my 2nd cousins, some more than others. But there are also quite a few I don't know... If we're close to the same age, you'd think we should know each other.... Did you ever come to any family functions? Name some of your first cousins...see if that rings a bell.
It seems everyone moved to the Bay Area after the ranch was lost, and most of the Walshes had already moved to SF anyway. The ranch was not the only US landing point for the Walshes. From what I can remember, only 3 Walshes stayed in Bantry, the rest came here, and all were my grandmother's siblings, with the exception of her Aunt May and possibly that half brother or half uncle we're all so confused about. Patrick, himself.
My 2nd cousin, Michael Collins' second wife, Laura, also did a later family chart in the 1970s as she was completely at sea trying to figure us all out.
What I'm trying to figure out is how/why your branch drifted away from ours...we're a huge, but fairly tight family... you might have to send me your family tree too so I can figure it out...as the other Walshes in Santa Cruz don't ring a bell. Are you closely related to "Woolly" Bill Walsh, then?
I don't recognize the names, Gonzalez & Brown.... I know many of my 2nd cousins, some more than others. But there are also quite a few I don't know... If we're close to the same age, you'd think we should know each other.... Did you ever come to any family functions? Name some of your first cousins...see if that rings a bell.
It seems everyone moved to the Bay Area after the ranch was lost, and most of the Walshes had already moved to SF anyway. The ranch was not the only US landing point for the Walshes. From what I can remember, only 3 Walshes stayed in Bantry, the rest came here, and all were my grandmother's siblings, with the exception of her Aunt May and possibly that half brother or half uncle we're all so confused about. Patrick, himself.
Maureen
My direct line to Pat Walsh of Austin, Nev is:
My father was: Francis Cornelius Walsh ( married to Stella Gonzales )
My grandfather was: William R. (wild bill) Walsh (married to Julia O'Leary )
My great-grandfather was: Patrick Walsh (married to 1st wife Julia (NB MARY) Mahoney)
I have first cousins in Concord California. We are trying to plan a visit back to Austin in the Spring of 2008 for their mom (Gertie Walsh ).
I also have a second cousin in Santa Cruz who I conversed with a few years back via email a couple of times and was nice enough to supply some wonderful information.
When I started to do my genealogy research sometime back, I realized that I would have to focus on just the immediate family since like good Irish Catholics, the list of connections just kept growing.
A quick note regarding Mary Walsh who worked on the Manhattan Project: She was my dad's sister, and when she passed, was layed to rest in the Bay Area (we had a traditional Irish wake in Concord, Ca an was enjoyed by all) I have attached for your pleasure a picture of my Aunt Mary & Aunt Florence when they were children. Hope your able to open the picture and view it.
I will send you a more detailed accounting of my current family and what I know of the Walsh's via the Pat Walsh connection It is not much but I treasure all that I have collected.
Your Second Cousin,
Joe Walsh
Hi Joe,
Believe it or not, you are my 2nd cousin once or twice removed. Pat would've been my great-granduncle. We've mostly lost track of the Nevada Walshes. No one was very good at keeping in touch.
My great uncle Joe came to Austin with my grannie, Jennie Walsh (Reilly) in 1912. They didn't have enough money for the train fare (it cost $5) from NY to Battle Mountain so Jennie took the train and Joe worked his way to Nevada by way of Galveston.
Someone from Home Ranch came to get her in a buggy—probably Pat or his son, Wild Bill who once sold a truck in Ione for a barrel of whiskey and a good hand of cards,
Most of the family moved to San Francisco when the ranch was lost. Someone went to San Francisco to buy a bull and decided to pocket the money and returned with an inferior bull...so the herd failed.
Before that, they made a lot of money selling grain—mostly oats—to the comstock miners in Austin as grain was more valuable than gold.
We still make pilgrimages to Home Ranch. My uncle John took the visiting Bantry cousins, Noel and his two sons, to Home Ranch last September. Jim Champie owns the ranch. Ironically Jim is related to people I grew up with and went to school with in West Marin—The San Geronimo Valley—Forest Knolls. The McBrides and the Bundchus (as in the wine, Gundlach Bundshu). Jim has some photos of our family—even knows the names of
the horses!
The last time we were in Austin with my grannie, in 1985 (I went back again in the 1990s), we stayed with the Malloys, who are cousins of yours. John Malloy's wife, Loretta was the one who stayed in touch until they got divorced. I heard he was in Elko selling real estate. We used to stay in touch with Tillie Walsh but lost touch when she moved to Reno. I heard she died years ago. I remember her when I was a child at weddings. I remember Wild Bill too. (This is wrong—I'm referring to my grand-uncle Bill.)
Do you know the story about my first cousin once removed, Marie/Mary Walsh who worked on the Manhattan Project? We got postcards from her from Los Alamos. I went there in the 1990s. They still talk about the ghost of her sister Julia (or Mother? Or Florence also went by Julia???) at the International Hotel in Austin....seems she's brewing coffee at odd hours.
There are other bootleg stories about my grandmother and her Aunt May, who would've been Pat's sister? When the coppers came, she took the bathtub gin they'd bottled and put it between herself and the baby, on the bed... She also smuggled guns out of the SF jail where my grandfather was under sherriff in her skirts. They smuggled guns to NY in suitcases, then onto Liverpool to Ireland for the revolution. My grandfather knew de Valera, and we've a photo of Liam Mellows, who was later executed, in our lower field.
One of my favorite stories was when May and Jennie had fur coats made from Home Ranch coyote skins (there's a photo of the skins on the barn wall). and when they wore them in San Francisco all the dogs followed them growling. They had to get rid of the coats fast.
Some of the Nevada Walshes moved to San Leandro and we had a reunion the 1970s but then lost touch again. My aunt Jane Reilly was going to school with Linda Ryan who knew some Walshes and sure enough, we were related.
One time I was teaching poetry up in the Alexander Valley, near Healdsburg. CA, and it was St Patrick;s Day. The mothers brought in food and we were all joking how everybody was Irish and started swapping names. I said, "I'm a Walsh." One mother said, So am I." I said my family came from Cork." She answered, "Mine too." Then it got fast and furious. Bantry Bay. The hairs stood up on my arms. Austin.
Believe it or not, you are my 2nd cousin once or twice removed. Pat would've been my great-granduncle. We've mostly lost track of the Nevada Walshes. No one was very good at keeping in touch.
My great uncle Joe came to Austin with my grannie, Jennie Walsh (Reilly) in 1912. They didn't have enough money for the train fare (it cost $5) from NY to Battle Mountain so Jennie took the train and Joe worked his way to Nevada by way of Galveston.
Someone from Home Ranch came to get her in a buggy—probably Pat or his son, Wild Bill who once sold a truck in Ione for a barrel of whiskey and a good hand of cards,
Most of the family moved to San Francisco when the ranch was lost. Someone went to San Francisco to buy a bull and decided to pocket the money and returned with an inferior bull...so the herd failed.
Before that, they made a lot of money selling grain—mostly oats—to the comstock miners in Austin as grain was more valuable than gold.
We still make pilgrimages to Home Ranch. My uncle John took the visiting Bantry cousins, Noel and his two sons, to Home Ranch last September. Jim Champie owns the ranch. Ironically Jim is related to people I grew up with and went to school with in West Marin—The San Geronimo Valley—Forest Knolls. The McBrides and the Bundchus (as in the wine, Gundlach Bundshu). Jim has some photos of our family—even knows the names of
the horses!
The last time we were in Austin with my grannie, in 1985 (I went back again in the 1990s), we stayed with the Malloys, who are cousins of yours. John Malloy's wife, Loretta was the one who stayed in touch until they got divorced. I heard he was in Elko selling real estate. We used to stay in touch with Tillie Walsh but lost touch when she moved to Reno. I heard she died years ago. I remember her when I was a child at weddings. I remember Wild Bill too. (This is wrong—I'm referring to my grand-uncle Bill.)
Do you know the story about my first cousin once removed, Marie/Mary Walsh who worked on the Manhattan Project? We got postcards from her from Los Alamos. I went there in the 1990s. They still talk about the ghost of her sister Julia (or Mother? Or Florence also went by Julia???) at the International Hotel in Austin....seems she's brewing coffee at odd hours.
There are other bootleg stories about my grandmother and her Aunt May, who would've been Pat's sister? When the coppers came, she took the bathtub gin they'd bottled and put it between herself and the baby, on the bed... She also smuggled guns out of the SF jail where my grandfather was under sherriff in her skirts. They smuggled guns to NY in suitcases, then onto Liverpool to Ireland for the revolution. My grandfather knew de Valera, and we've a photo of Liam Mellows, who was later executed, in our lower field.
One of my favorite stories was when May and Jennie had fur coats made from Home Ranch coyote skins (there's a photo of the skins on the barn wall). and when they wore them in San Francisco all the dogs followed them growling. They had to get rid of the coats fast.
Some of the Nevada Walshes moved to San Leandro and we had a reunion the 1970s but then lost touch again. My aunt Jane Reilly was going to school with Linda Ryan who knew some Walshes and sure enough, we were related.
One time I was teaching poetry up in the Alexander Valley, near Healdsburg. CA, and it was St Patrick;s Day. The mothers brought in food and we were all joking how everybody was Irish and started swapping names. I said, "I'm a Walsh." One mother said, So am I." I said my family came from Cork." She answered, "Mine too." Then it got fast and furious. Bantry Bay. The hairs stood up on my arms. Austin.
Yep. Home Ranch. Yep. Wild Bill was her relation. I'd been teaching her daughter and never knew we were related...but she and I had bonded as she was really talented (genius runs in the family along with everything else from alcoholism to depression).
Now it's your turn to fill in some blanks as we really have lost the information on Pat's families. I remember my grannie telling me about him and the two marriages. You've got hundreds of 2nd & 3rd cousins in LA and the greater Bay Area, Santa Cruz, San Jose, Carmel, Graeagle & the Sierra foothills; Bantry, Tralee; Manchester, Cardiff.
We just had two funerals. Ed Walsh (Joe's son) lived in Hawaii. If you ever go to the Big Island, Toad Hall (the victorian on the bluff by Napoopoo, overlooking Capt. Cook Bay was built by Big Ed or "Ranger" Walsh. We had a brilliant wake at St Ignatius. It was Big Ed's death that prompted me to get some family history down and send that fragment to the Walsh Family tree web page. Any your side was one of the holes...
All those Walshes in the graveyard below Austin are ours. Have you been there? The ranch was founded by several brothers including Pat. It was a joint venture. I don't know if he was the first to arrive. The date we have is 1867 for the founding of the ranch.
There is an oral history project through the University of Nevada of the people who owned it after it was sold...they got all the credit, and many of the facts were wrong.
Was Pat the one who was a half brother to the rest of them? Seems his father had two families, the first wife died, and there was a boy, it could've been Pat but he was raised as a full brother wit David and Michael.
Wild Bill was a blacksmith and made all the wrought iron fittings and barn latches that are still use use today.
Maureen
PS I think we're actually 2nd cousins (once or twice removed?) as Patrick was my great grand-uncle...we've probably met over the years at weddings and funerals. I distinctly remember looking up to my granduncle Bill, and he seemed taller than the sky, it was after a funeral, maybe at Star of the Sea... he was one of my favorite grand uncles, kind (& shy).
(NB I think I've conflated two generations of Bills...which I've fixed...)
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