> On Jul 21, 10:56 pm, "Tom" comcast.net> wrote:
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>> "Searles O'Dubhain" wrote in message

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>>news:psidnYgfNcZK7xnVnZ2dnUVZ_umdnZ2d@comcast.com...

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>>> In Ireland, the Filidh and Brehons were a part of the Druid class that
>>> survived in Gaelic society as organized groups until the English conquests
>>> of the 17th century CE. After that their traditions surviuved along family
>>> lines for years.

>

>>> Wikipedia is not the best of sources on this information but it is
>>> convenient:

>

>> Indeed.  It's not surprising how often people will opt for convenience over
>> accuracy in sources of information about things in which they want to
>> believe most strongly.

>
> Yes, Searles, Ireland suffered a mighty blow to its spirituality in
> the seventeenth century, commencing with the Flight of the Earls,
> O'Neill and O'Donnell. But Filidh such as my ancestor "An Sugan
> Mongaire" (The Sweet Pedlar) Andrias MacCraith of Thomond, lived on.
> William Makepiece Thackeray on his tour of Ireland just before the
> Famine in 1840 writes of Midsummer Day festivals still being held here
> out in the countryside. Alas, all that was gone with the Famine, the
> penultimate blow to Druidic Ireland: A Filidh, starving to death of
> the hunger, wrote this immortal last lines, "The Spire of Maynooth is
> the dagger through Ireland's heart".  Maynooth, of course, in County
> Kildare, is the University and Headquarters of the Catholic Church in
> Ireland - which received massive grants from the same British
> Government that presided over that Great Famine ! The ancient spirit
> of the country was wiped out, and a couple of million who made it to
> America in the "coffin ships" across the Atlantic served to bolster up
> the Catholic Church in the USA !
>
> Our own Clan, the Clanna Bui of the MacCraith survived because they
> had never had anything to do with the Catholic Church throughout
> history - except to rob Bishops etc as they crossed their territories
> of the Decies in Waterford where they were feared.
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> The Clanna Bui also served as Officers in the British Army, so the
> Army would not move against us ! That they did right up to the Dublin
> 1916 Rising, in the aftermath of which they joined and even led,
> thanks to their Army training, whole battalions of rebels in the Irish
> War of Independence.
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> The Army  and the Police turned a blind eye to the Clan who famously
> had the Walshes (from Wales), the Powers (old Normans)  and the Kellys
> ( the Wild Irish) behind them in what was in effect a massive Irish
> Army out in the wilderness and the mountain fastnesses of the
> Comeraghs stretching right across into the Knockmealdowns, all sworn
> not to interfere with the Civil Administration.
>
> In fact the Government came to depend on the Clanna Bui as
> businessmen, traders and providers, we were the greatest wheeler
> dealers of all time in Ireland, and that's the bare bones of how we
> survived all across the centuries, independent of the Church, in fact
> actively opposed to and robbing it - after all we were only getting
> our own back !
>
> Not too spiritual, Searles, but it had to be done. Old Myler McGrath
> had sweetened Elizabeth the Great well for us in her  Royal bed ! And
> she is still called "The Virgin Queen" in history - we in Ireland know
> better !!!
>
> Thus the Drui and Fili of the Clanna Bui survived all down the
> centuries into our time.- Hide quoted text -
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> - Show quoted text -