h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was in Cork over the weekend, but didn't get a chance to see Boole's house. Last time I was there, it was falling down, with no roof or windows, and a tree growing inside it. Nobody had the money to buy it up and restore it.

Trouble is, Boole wasn't Irish. We only have a Wellington monument because it is too big to blow up.

and Wellington was Irish depite his protestations.

I once wrote an entry about that: A23852144

Dublin's Wellington Monument is the tallest obelisk in Europe and 2nd tallest in the world.

Was Wellington Irish? As Daniel O'Connell said, "He was born in Ireland; but being born in a stable does not make a man a horse." (Generally misattributed as having been spoken by Wellington himself.)

In the eighteenth century people began claiming nationality by birth, notably George Berkeley A3472986 who called himself Irish. Up to then the norm was to claim the nationality of your mother tongue.

Assuming that Wellington disowned Irishness, as O'Connell supposed, I made up this rhyme on the occasion of Daniel Day Lewis's first Oscar:

How Irish is Day Lewis? Nothing could be clearer:
More than Wellington, less than Bloom, same as de Valera.

The references are: Wellington disclaimed Irishness, Bloom (hero of Joyce's Ulysses) claimed it when anti-semites questioned his nationality, de Valera had, like Day Lewis, one Irish parent.

The question of de Valera's other parent is the subject of books and studies. Some say his mother left Ireland pregnant and that Vivion de Valero or de Valera married her in that state. In that case his genetic father is by some assumed to have been the owner of the house in which the mother had been a servant, which might or might not add to his Irishness.

"Just because you left the stable doesn't mean you are not a horse."

Doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?

The proof of Wellington's Irishness might be that no-one has yet called for the renaming of Wellington Road.

I guess he was as Irish as this guy, for whom the Mornington peerage was created:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garret_Wesley,_1st_Earl_of_Mornington

First professor of music at Trinity College, but he's still a bit ambiguous, I reckon.

Speaking of Irishness and music, there was a trio of operas that became known as the "Irish Ring Cycle" in the late 19th Century:

http://www.jerrynolanwriter.com/ringfineda.pdf

"Lily of Killarney" was at least set in Ireland. Not many other operas have been set in Ireland, so you don't have a lot of choice. Just ask the characters in Joyce's "The Dubliners."

They were basically called the "Irish Ring" because they were the only three operas to ever come out of Ireland. That's like saying "Three people in Ireland each wrote a book, so we'll call them "The Irish Lord of the Rings Trilogy".

Aha, if 'Lily of Killarney' has a character in it named Myles na gCopaleen, then its libretto was by Boucicault.

From what I can find of it on Youtube, it sounds like bad Gilbert & Sullivan. Well, not bad, really, just pedestrian.

But there's a Laurel and Hardy version of 'The Bohemian Girl', which does not bode well...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gOU47smd5I

(With Romanian subtitles. Not Bohemian, but close.)

Well....

I'm glad I had something to add to the discussion, anyway.

Indeed, Icy, you have identified Wellington's father, the Earl of Mornington. Just as Irish.

And Gnomon, names of roads don't count. How about Mountjoy Square, named after the Elizabethan Lord Deputy (and Jacobean Lord Lieutenant) of Ireland who inaugurated inhuman treatment of those he colonised? Or any other streets and squares named after Lords Lieutenant?

The street I live on is called Marlborough Road. I know the descendants of Patrick Cranny who built it in the nineteenth century (the family sold me the house) and they insist that he, one of the first Catholic builders, named all his streets after disgraced British politicians.

I met the Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire a year or two ago. There's a minor aristocrat in each county who represents the monarch at various small functions - in this case she was presenting a volunteer award to a local conservation group. They're not important enough in their own right to merit being named after roads.

Don't all roads lead to Rome anyway?

Not in Ireland they don't. The Romans never got here. In Ireland, all roads lead to Dublin.

But where do they go once they reach Dublin?

That gives me an idea for an Entry:

The Centre of the World

Various places over the centuries were considered the "Centre of the World", particularly in the days before people knew the world was round.

The Omphalos (a stone) in Delphi, Greece.
Rome, to where all roads led.
The Milion, an ornamental arch in the middle of Constantinople, from where all distances in the Roman Empire were measured after 330AD.
The mark in the ground in front of the statue of Charles I ? in Trafalgar Square, site of the former Charing Cross, which was the measuring point for Great Britain.
The 0 degree line in Paris (see Umberto Eco or Dan Brown)
The 0 degree line in Greenwich, London.

There must be more.

U.S. Rte 1, which runs [or ran] from Northern Maine down to Florida,

As for cities, there must have been at least one in North or South America that people converged on, particularly for ceremonial occasions.

Mecca is the traditional destination for Muslims on one of their hajjs.

For the French, Paris is the center of pretty much everything.

I remember a "Peanuts" comic strip which had the expression "Sydney or the Bush," meaning that in that part of Australia you can't find anything worth seeing without going to Sydney.