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“Always ask any questions that are to be asked and never answer any. Turn everything you hear to your own advantage. Always carry a repair outfit. Take left turns as much as possible. Never apply your front brake first.
‘If you follow them’, said the Sergeant, ‘you will save your soul and never get a fall on a slippery road.”
― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman
The Scripture Cross at Clonmacnoise Ireland is one of the outstanding Irish High crosses. It was carved and erected by Abbot Colman in honor of King Flann, who died in 914 AD. The Scripture Cross is a prime example of a genre of crosses that depict biblical scenes, the scripture crosses.
This 4-metre-high sandstone cross is one of the most skilfully executed of the surviving high crosses in Ireland, and of particular interest for its surviving inscription, which asks a prayer for Flann Sinna, King of Ireland, and Abbot Colmán who commissioned the cross. Both men were also responsible for the building of the Cathedral here. The cross was carved from Clare sandstone c.900. The surface of the cross is divided into panels, showing scenes including the Crucifixion, the Last Judgement, and Christ in the Tomb. The original was moved into the visitors centre in 1991 to preserve it from the elements; an excellent replica seen here stands at the original site.
Jardin japonais du Parc floral de Haute Bretagne, endroit merveilleux où il fait bon flanner pendant des heures....
De Selby (spelled "de Selby" in The Third Policeman and "De Selby" in The Dalkey Archive) is a fictional character originally created by Flann O'Brien for his novel The Third Policeman in which the nameless narrator intends to use the proceeds of murder and robbery to publish his commentaries on de Selby — a savant who theorizes, among other things, that the earth is actually shaped like a sausage.[1]
O’Brien's text and footnotes mention a number of de Selby's works including Golden Hours, The Country Album, A Memoir of Garcia, Layman’s Atlas and the Codex. The fictional Bassett and Hatchjaw wrote biographies Lux Mundi: A memoir of de Selby and de Selby’s Life and Times both lost. Le Fournier, du Garbandier, Kraus and the Le Clerque are supposed sources of de Selby material, but their works (suiting the fiction) were lost.[2]
As discussed in Irish Philosophy, de Selby’ believed human existence was “a succession of static experiences each infinitely brief” and “a journey is a hallucination” which he demonstrated by travelling from Bath to Folkestone by means of picture postcards of the supposed route, barometric instruments, clocks and a device to regulate gaslight to simulate sunlight at various “times” of day. Another theory of de Selby's was that mirrors held the secret to eternity, claiming a huge array of parallel mirrors allowed him to see his own face as a boy of twelve.
From Wiki.
This sandstone cross is one of the most skillfully executed of the surviving high crosses in Ireland, and of particular interest for its surviving inscription, which asks a prayer for Flann Sinna, King of Ireland, and Abbot Colmán who commissioned the cross. Both men were also responsible for the building of the Cathedral. The cross was carved from Clare sandstone c.900. The surface of the cross is divided into panels, showing scenes including the Crucifixion, the Last Judgment, and Christ in the Tomb. The original has been moved into the Clanmacnoise visitors' centre.
Founded between 545 and 548 by St. Ciaran (one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland), this was once one of Ireland’s most important religious, artistic, and literary centers, a place of pilgrimage, craftsmanship, and culture. Many famous manuscripts were written here. The site includes the ruins of a cathedral, seven churches (10th -13th century), two round towers, three high crosses and the largest collection of Early Christian graveslabs in Western Europe.
Bloomsday (a term Joyce himself did not employ) was invented in 1954, on the 50th anniversary of the events in the novel, when John Ryan (artist, critic, publican and founder of Envoy magazine) and the novelist Flann O'Brien organised what was to be a daylong pilgrimage along the Ulysses route. They were joined by Patrick Kavanagh, Anthony Cronin, Tom Joyce (a dentist who, as Joyce's cousin, represented the family interest) and AJ Leventhal (Registrar of Trinity College). Ryan had engaged two horse drawn cabs, of the old-fashioned kind, which in Ulysses Mr. Bloom and his friends drive to poor Paddy Dignam's funeral. The party were assigned roles from the novel. They planned to travel round the city through the day, visiting in turn the scenes of the novel, ending at night in what had once been the brothel quarter of the city, the area which Joyce had called Nighttown. The pilgrimage was abandoned halfway through, when the weary Lestrygonians succumbed to inebriation and rancour at the Bailey pub in the city centre, which Ryan then owned, and at which, in 1967, he installed the door to No. 7 Eccles Street (Leopold Bloom’s front door), having rescued it from demolition .
Acrylic on paper.
What is the essence of dreaming? I entertain myself with this question sometimes, though hardly with any ambition to find a logical or philosophically satisfactory answer. I rather imagine an experiential approach to what dreaming is about, like reflecting on the degrees of dream intensity and particularly effective symbol constellations. Dreaming about dreams is in some ways an impossible orientation, it is like trying to catch sight of one´s own consciousness: to the extent that effort is successful, it delivers a self-fogetfulness that destroys the focused item. Some myths that recognize this cognitive paradox refers to the danger of trying to violate the frontier of self-knowledge. One of these could be Ovid's myth of Actaeon the hunter, who, having seen the forest goddess Diana at her residence in a cave, was punished for this transgression by being turned into a deer. The consequence of his transformation was that Actaeon was torn to pieces by his own hunting dogs, since they no longer recognized him.
Tight spots that compel metamorphoses are known from nightmares. When "the dogs are about to rip one to pieces" either of two ways seem to stand at one´s disposal: capitulate in the certainty that what happens does not happen in real life or waking with a start. A common advice for dealing with threats in nightmares tend to be to learn to understand that they are only aspects of one's own psyche. Perhaps this aspect shift is not equally as "true" as it is effective? But the "dreaming about dreams" need not, of course, be characterized by the dramatic shocks of recognition and the different types of awakenings that these may cause. It has often struck me that self-referential dreams announce themselves by some sort of short circuit on the external front, as when coming out of a narrow passage or experiencing a rapidly changing scene. Such dreams appear to be so comprehensive syntheses that they boggle the mind. Sometimes such dreams have been called Titanic, after the mythological figures within the Greek cultural sphere that appeared prior to the actual gods. The name suggests that these dreams express abstract forces of nature rather than the cultural ideas and interpersonal relationships that the pantheon and heroes have traditionally been considered to represent. And beneath or mixed with the Titanic elements was the divine primordial chaotic condition, from which all has appeared. In the 8th-6th century BC arche (or archai) designates the source, origin or root of things that pre-Socratic philosophers speculated about.
Every time I dream of archeology, I feel somewhat like approaching "the cave of the goddess of the forest ", or to exploit the ambiguity of the word; get a glimpse of the arche, the last things and their essence. To dream myself down in history creates a transparency that results in inflation in the momentary perception of reality. Merely visiting excavation areas or the detection of anachronistic signs has the same effect. It creates an inner silence and emptiness as if to make way for a knowledge that passes understanding. Dreams are particularly clear on that the boundary between subject and object is just a strange illusion. And taking out one´s own destruction in advance to make space for knowledge could mean the culmination of empathy, active imagination and insight. I never tire of encountering poetic or amusing example of this. From the novel The third policeman by Flann O'Brien, I remember the case of the "exchange of atoms" between the buttocks of the cycling police and his bicycle saddle, which in time made the policeman bike-like and the bike human.
A similar exchange takes place here. An archaeologist is being transformed to a newly discovered work of art made by Stone Age hunters / fishermen in northern Europe. As "Actaeon´s dogs ", or the threatening chaos principle, one sees a surrounding school of sharks´ fins. I'm not sure if the metamorphosis saves the archaeologist from the sharks or if they complete the transformation. Nothing is for real, but being is for a while intensified by wonder and terror.
“Until lions have their historians, tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter” goes an African proverb. This is also true of mythology based on fact; the story is told from the view of the teller who can besmirch and put down their subject at will.
Our extensive researches over a number of years have led us to radically reinterpret the ancient Irish myth of Mad Sweeney (Buile Shuibhne) – if you don’t know the story an online word search will throw it up. Possibly the best known modern rendering of the tale is by Seamus Heaney, “Sweeney Astray”, in English. However it is also well known through Flann O’Brien incorporating some of the story into his comic epic “At Swim-Two-Birds”.
We have established that there was without doubt a real person of this name, Suibhne, and it is now clearly understood that he was not mad at all but rather a precursor of a green and peaceful political activist. Our research is fully reported in Miotas, The Irish Journal of Mythology and Pre-History, Vol. 17 (2015 – it is an annual). It is based on extensive document searches and comparison, detailed linguistic and etymological analysis, and sheer detective work.
The ‘madness’ which was depicted was through a mixture of inability by contemporaries to understand what he was really about – difficult in the context of the times – as well as a wilful desire to depict him in the worst possible light. Thus Sweeney has come down to us as mad, tormented and strange.
The real Suibhne/Sweeney was actually anything but mad. The story of him fleeing from the battlefield to go up a tree is true however. The madness was in people trying to kill each other on the battlefield and he saw that clearly during the heat of battle. You can imagine him having this revelation as he was trying to kill and avoid being killed – this is a crazy way to behave. The madness was not his at all, the madness was in the circumstances he found himself in, and in those who believed in violence. The only rational thing to do was to flee, so he fled and climbed a tree.
This was where he had a second revelation and developed an affinity for trees and nature. The first revelation awoke thought processes in him which led directly to this second one; nature and the beauty of nature was the antidote to violence and evil, to brutal behaviour and subjugation. This is why he took to living up trees. So far from being a symptom of madness it was actually a symbol of his humanity and sanity. His rejection of violence also meant a rejection of his authority and regal status. But his enemies, and indeed some of his friends and family, could not understand his change of heart and so the myth developed – or was purposefully developed - which has come down to us today of ‘mad’ Sweeney.
We are also convinced there is more than a grain of truth in the telling about his death in that he may really have died in the company of St Moling, although we believe he died of old age and not violently as portrayed in the myth. St Moling was probably one of the very few people to fully understand what Sweeney was about and to appreciate him for it. This is why it looks like Sweeney came to spend his last days with him, and we believe he was at peace with the world, and with himself, when he died.
So Suibhne or Sweeney is really a potent symbol for our times, of rejection of violence and an understanding of the beauty and importance of nature. He also persisted in his beliefs to the end, at considerable cost to himself.
- The piece of bog pine here is an anthropomorphic* depiction of the tree that Sweeney lived in with Sweeney and St Moling depicted as part of the tree. *giving human characteristics to an animal or thing. Given that Flann O’Brien (mentioned earlier for his use of the Mad Sweeney story, but in this case in “The Third Policeman”) details cyclist and bicycle molecules swapping, and the cyclist becoming half bicycle, and vice versa, this perhaps has an obtuse appropriateness.
- Bog pine (the end of a root, 3,500 years old or more) from Co Mayo on a modern oak base. 45 cm tall. Oiled (except for the two faces to make them stand out more) and finished with acrylic varnish.
Someone asked me what my work setup looks like, so here it is. Two screens, Emacs and Firefox on the left, Eclipse and lesser browsers on the right. (Since everything in Eclipse and that other browser was company confidential, all I'm showing here is the background wallpaper, which was created by Janet Bike Girl.)
(Compare and contrast the left screen with this one.)
Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds: "Trellis practised another curious habit in relation to his reading. All colours except green he regarded as symbols of evil and he confined his reading to books attired in green covers. " #TP223
A literal depiction of characters escaping the confines of their own creation! I sourced a well-thumbed 2nd-hand copy of the book to create the paper people in the hope of imbuing the scene with a sense of the previous owner’s experience of the work, while also creating something new that reflects the timeless surrealism and humour. The writers desk represents the starting point, both for O’Brien and his characters, while the paper creatures escape and grow into their own stories.
Shot on Reala 100.
Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill (died 2 September 1022), sometimes called Máel Sechnaill Mór or Máel Sechnaill II, was king of Mide and High King of Ireland. He was a contemporary of Brian Boru, who deposed him as High King in 1002.
Máel Sechnaill belonged to the Clann Cholmáin sept of the Uí Néill. He was the grandson of Donnchad Donn, great-grandson of Flann Sinna and great-great-grandson of the first Máel Sechnaill, Máel Sechnaill mac Máele Ruanaid. The Kings of Tara or High Kings of Ireland had for centuries alternated between septs of the Uí Néill. By Máel Sechnaill's time this alternating succession passed between Clann Cholmáin in the south and the Cenél nEógain in the north, so that he succeeded Domnall ua Néill in 980. This system, which had survived previous challenges by outsiders including the kings of Ulster, Munster and Leinster, and the Viking invasions, was ended by Brian Boru's overthrow of Máel Sechnaill.
By the intervention of his warriors at the end of the battle of Clontarf on Good Friday, 1014, Máel Sechnaill sealed the fate of the Vikings as a political force in Ireland. Because of the death of Brian Boru, his son, and many other clan leaders, on the battlefield, he succeeded in regaining the titular High Kingship, with the aid of his northern kinsman Flaithbertach Ua Néill, but effective High Kingship, albeit with opposition, did not reappear until Brian's grandson Toirdelbach Ua Briain rose to power in the 1050s. Clann Cholmáin provided no further High Kings, but the northern Uí Néill of the Cenél nEógain provided two: Domnall Ua Lochlainn and Muirchertach MacLochlainn.
The Bowling Green. Strabane.
The Bowling Green was once an open space, but is now reseved for car parking. The celebrated author and columnist Brian O Nolan, also known as Flann O Brien was born here. The 19th Century parish church of Camus Juxta Mourne dominates the square
The Cooper collection © PRONI.
What a laugh. My first thought, when I saw the headline, was one of disbelief: they've never film that book! But when I read more, if this book really is relevant to the plot of Lost, as is the suggestion, then the only connection I can think of -- apart from the obvious one of everyone on the island falling in love with bicycles -- is the ending the book shares with the ending of that Bruce Willis film...
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Surreal bicycle book rides to fame on back of cult TV show
Owen Bowcott
Friday February 24, 2006
Once rejected for publication as too "fantastic", a surreal Irish novel featuring the interchanging of atoms between a man and his beloved bicycle has been racing off the shelves of American bookshops.
Flann O'Brien's dark comedy The Third Policeman was not published until after his death, but its appearance in the cult television series Lost has turned it into a top seller. The TV show chronicles the lives of a cast of photogenic survivors marooned after their aircraft crashes on a remote Pacific island. It involves a sprawling plot that delves into their former lives through flashbacks.
The book's cover was on screen for only a flash, but the exposure sent thousands of fans into bookshops eager to discover clues about the TV mystery. Their curiosity was heightened by an interview with the programme's scriptwriter, Craig Wright, who explained the book had been chosen "very specifically for a reason".
Un lieu incontournable a Lyon pour tous ceux qui aiment la gastronomie. Parfois les prix sont élevés, dûs à la qualité et la réputation des maisons, mais certains produits sont également tout a fait abordables. Flanner dans les allées est un plaisir et que dire de cette ambiance quand il y a du monde.
Célèbre marché avec fromages, charcuterie, desserts gastronomiques et autres spécialités culinaires.
A wildly comic send-up of Irish literature and culture, a true masterpiece.
Our colleague Betty has been out and about with some of the books she's borrowed from the library. Can you tell where she's been reading Laura Lippmann's 'Dream Girl'?
If you would like to take some of our books around Dublin visit www.dublincitylibraries.ie and reserve today! #TBR
St. Ciarán is the patron saint of small animals, cattle, and against famine.
St. Flann is the patron saint of redheads and the arts.
The historic ruins of Monasterboice (Irish: Mainistir Bhuithe) are of an early Christian settlement in County Louth in Ireland, north of Drogheda. It was founded in the late 5th century by Saint Buithe who died around 521, and was an important centre of religion and learning until the founding of nearby Mellifont Abbey in 1142.
The site houses two churches built in the 14th century or later and an earlier round tower, but it is most famous for its 10th century high crosses.
The round tower is about 35-metres tall, and is in very good condition, although it is not possible to go inside. The passage of time has laid down layers of earth so now the doorway is almost at ground level. The monastery was burned in 1097.
The 5.5-metre Muiredach's High Cross is regarded as the finest high cross in the whole of Ireland. It is named after an abbot, Muiredach mac Domhnaill, who died in 923 and features biblical carvings of both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. The North and West crosses are also fine examples of this kind of structure, but these have suffered much more from the effects of the weather. A copy of the main cross is held in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Poet and historian Flann Mainistrech, Flann of Monasterboice, was lector here.
The name Monasterboice is a part-anglicization of the Irish name Mainistir Bhuithe meaning "monastery of Buithe". It was formerly anglicized as Monasterboye and Monasterboyse. Boice is the English version of the Latin name Boecius, which was adopted as the equivalent of the Irish Buithe.
A one-time LAFFAN residence, until Cromwell 'transported' the family to Connaught during his reign of terror in Ireland. . . . . Remember his edict - 'To Hell or to Connaught'!
See Laffansbridge Station two images back.
The remains of a manor-house can be seen to the left of the building.
There is quite a number of antiquities nearby e.g. 'The Hill of Bones' - 'Páirc na gCnámh' - remains of a Bronze Age burial mound; Rathmoley bi-vallate ringfort - where Viking Silver was found in the past; Perrys' Well - a unique holy well from the past, which has a 'Pieta' nearby, also an ancient carving depicting three 'dancing people'; Derrynaflan - 'Doire na bhFlann' - 'the Oaktree or Oakwood of the Flanns' - where the priceless Derrynaflan Hoard was found; Ruined Graystown Church - from a parish which no longer exists; also Churchill with it's remains of another early Christian church.