WeddingPiper.co.nz I was really quite surprised to find this domain available so i grabbed it and have started to create my piping journey. Its happeing as I recently sold my bagpipes and am using a very old borrowed set for now. Starting to add music files , its fabulous , watch this space, more soon
Celtic
Warrior Wedding Rings: The History of the Ardagh Chalice
Looking for Irish
Celtic jewellery, need a wedding ring that has been inspired by great ancestors.
The Celtic Warrior
wedding ring range – inspired by the Chalice design of over 1200 years ago.
Maybe your other half might fancy
himself as a warrior, which will make for an easy selection.
The name of Ardagh is inextricably linked to the
Ardagh Chalice. Ireland’s foremost treasure is currently housed in the National
Museum of Ireland and is considered the `Jewel in the Crown’ of all exhibits
there. The beautifully proportioned Ardagh Chalice is the finest example of
eighth century metalwork ever to have come to light. Standing six inches high
it is made of silver, bronze and gold; the design and decoration indicating
technical proficiency of the highest order. According to the book Treasures of
Early Irish Art (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: 1977):
The
Chalice is made of silver and decorated with 354 pieces of gold, brass, lead
pewter, copper, gilt bronze and enamel beading.”A
wide range of materials have been used to create a work of perfection. The
silver bowl, provided with handles for lifting, is linked by a gilded collar to
a conical silver foot. The techniques employed are engraving, casting,
filigree, cloisonné and enamelling. Below the horizontal band of gold filigree
on the bowl the names of the Apostles in shining metal standout in sea of
stippling.”
It was discovered in September 1868 by two men
digging potatoes in a ring fort at Reerasta, Ardagh. They were Jimmy Quin and
Paddy Flanagan. It is unclear why they were digging potatoes in a fort,
although it is possible that they believed that the potatoes grown here would
be safe from the blight that had afflicted the potato crop during the Great
Famine. The Sisters of Mercy owned the land and Mrs. Quin rented about 15 – 20
acres from the nuns. Jimmy was her son and Mr Flanagan was a workman employed
at the time by the Quin family. It has been suggested that it was he who
actually found the chalice but that Quin took all the glory. He felt aggrieved
by the situation and felt obliged to leave the employment of the Quin’s. On his
death he was buried in the Paupers’ graveyard in Newcastlewest.
The other man, Quin, later emigrated to Australia
where he died. Mrs Quin sold the items to the Bishop of Limerick, Dr. Butler,
at the time for £50.00. Dr. Butler in turn sold the chalice to the Royal Irish
Academy for £500. The Ardagh chalice now resides at the National Museum. The
chalice itself was one of a number of objects found at the time, now all
collectively known as the `Ardagh hoard`
According to tradition, mass used to be said in the
Rath where the discovery was made, in the penal times. The chalice may have
been used on these occasions to distribute communion to the multitude that
assembled there. Perhaps when the alarm was raised to signify the approach of
soldiers, and in the hurry of the moment, the chalice was hidden to prevent it
from falling into the wrong hands. This would be supported by the condition in
which the items were found, with neither case nor covering to protect them,
suggesting that they were buried in a hurry.
Not breaking with these ancient skills and traditions we have designed the
Celtic Warrior Collection. Still using silver and gold fused together to create
a collection that recreates the past but reflects the contemporary future. The
pieces in the Celtic Warrior Collection reflect the four seasons, the movement
of the Sun and the affect the Pagan snake god “Crom” had on Christianity in
Ireland. It is amazing how a small piece of jewellery can tell such a big
story.
Experience the Celtic Warrior
Collection and wear not only a piece of beauty but step back in time and
feel and enjoy the history, culture, heritage and honour.
Yes its been a while since my last post but still here and about and very Celtic. So watch this space , some stuff to get outa my head soon.
Bob the piper
Ps we have made another website and are now in the process of launching
http://www.weddingpiper.co.nz/
When I was back hame in Scotland this year I caught up with a lot if family this time and it’s been a real journey for me now searching out my own genealogy. In fact it’s seriously `jumped` in to my space so much I have to limit the amount of time I can spend. Yes sigh a business needs much time too.
But it was evident that the rise in interest of `getting your DNA tested is quite alarming and at the same time quite fascinating, I did not seem to find the spare 200 pounds it currently costs to have my own checked, but hey it’s the latest piece of technology to offer a sure way of tracing your ancestry back to the age before written documentation like parish records began.
Like me I would have said `I come from Inverness ` but wow now with what I know on Irish connections in my Maternal family and all sorts of blips through the family tree it would indeed be most interesting to see which markers I fall into. So really if I say I am Scottish I think I am, but only in the modern sense of the word. Truth is told I am an immigrant here in New Zealand but also an immigrant to Scotland, or Alba or Caledonia or whatever name it was called back then. So it’s nothing simple this DNA test, but each of us inherits Million letters of code from our parents, and these genes are read by scientists as a very long string of letters and sequences. Cool eh.
Our fathers pass on the Y chromosome DNA to their sons while mum passes on Mitochondrial DNA to sons and daughters. So that’s why guys have 2 markers ad girls only one. This by the way makes the male test dearer.
It’s all fascinating stuff, remember we start off your own genealogy for you on our tours. Fancy being hooked, I tell you it’s very infectious.
Come with us and explore your own `family world`
http://www.celticconnexionstours.com/
Thankfully I have managed to make it to 3 very important places now to me now, Iona Tintagel, just last year, for that one, and the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne.
After the coffin of St Cuthbert was buried in a grave on Lindisfarne in the year of 687 It became apparent to the monks of the time that they had buried a saint, and then the subsequent elevation of Cuthbert’s body 11 years later enabled pilgrims to be as close to the skeleton relics as was possible then. In amongst all this Eadfrith the scribe was very busy using the hides of more than 130 calves who had donated there skins for all the parchments necessary to make a book, called the Lindisfarne gospels. It must have been difficult to write on such a material, as there was a hair side and a flesh side of course and although both surfaces took paint or ink equally well it seems it was easier to write on the flesh side. Apparently the parchments for this famous book were so well prepared it was difficult to see what side was which. At a time when quite a number of young people, and me, prefer to use spellchecker once we typed out fast our thoughts Eadfrith and his colleagues had no such means so he painstakingly wrote between drawn pricked lines with a pen made either from think reed or from a quill feather.
Of course the pens, whichever type had to be cut at the end and it is amazing how he managed to keep the same thickness as you cannot see on the writings any variation in width and evenness. For ink he used a mixture of soot , glue and water which produced a rich deep brown ink which does not easily fade, thank goodness. But then well the writing was in Latin, not the easiest of languages to write in. Forty-five different colours are used some quite delicate and the raw materials he sued were animal, vegetable and mineral, amazing stuff, worth a separate story.
The Monks fled the island in 875 AD following a series of attacks by Viking raiders but thankfully took the Gospels with them and went to Chester-le-street where the book was finished. Today you can see but not touch the Book and it is the British Library in London.
And so we have some pieces mainly jewellery designed with the Lindisfarne Gospels in mind and they are on our website.
http://www.celticconnexions.co/catalogsearch/result/?q=lindisfarne
And what better way of course is to take you there as well, we plan to do Iona and Tintagel and Lindisfarne as a package. Wow
Since I heard about this gathering I have made it my intention to go, without or with some fellow travel companions, as I have a bit of interest here, not with family connections but just through a truly great friend of mine who passed away some time ago now, who wore the MacLean of Duart tartan with some pride as that was his mother’s tartan. So this trip is for Donald, but that’s another story.
Back to the Gathering.
Well it seems in 1912 the then Chief of Clan MacLean, Sir Fitzroy MacLean, invited the clan to join him at Duart to celebrate with him the return of the castle to MacLean ownership. So a story with a happy ending because the castle was saved from ruin just 2 years before and repaired. Invitations went out to MacLean’s, both on Mull and around the world. Nearly 700 clan’s people accepted his call and came to Duart. It was the first great clan gathering of any clan in modern times. Sir Fitzroy greeted his clan with the ancient Highland welcome, ‘Ceud mile failte’ – a hundred thousand welcomes and in June 2012 the clan will be welcomed with the same sentiment and happiness.
So 100 years of history and another possibly 500 years of turmoil and strife for MacLean forebears is certainly a cause for some celebration.
I read that the MacLean’s held lands not just on Mull but on Islay, Jura, Tiree and Coll, also in Knapdale and Morven as well. Of course on Iona we have MacLean’s cross, a fine 15th century carved stone cross, and it has occurred to me I need to put all this history together and come up with a mini gathering.
But for all this ceilidh of people in 2012 the event will centre round the castle of Duart, a truly magnificent and daunting stronghold which sits upon a rock like an eagle guarding the Sound of Mull now as it has done for centuries.
Come with us to attend this gathering, details now online but being added to as we get more information.
Bob
http://www.celticconnexionstours.com/clan-maclean-centenary-gathering-2012.php
An awesome time at our burns supper in the `Riv`bar and restaurant in Clyde Street was had by all.96 souls braved the haggis, most of them.
more here
http://www.RabbieBurns.Co
Hamilton Burns Supper on PhotoPeach
Gretna Green-Runaway Marriage centre on PhotoPeach
http://photopeach.com/public/swf/story.swf
Where possible I try to `land `in Scotland so that I avoid further travel and of course not many airlines have that option unless you drop down in Europe first. But when you make the journey by car and hit the border well, that feeling is just magic.
When you hit the border by a route you have not been on for a long while even better
And so it was with `Gretna green in October 2011. You have to meander a little to get into the heart of the village and then every sign leads you to the new centre and of course the infamous Blacksmiths. But there is a huge story, well isn`t there always as to how this all came about.
The Scottish border country is steeped in history, when not so long ago an Act of parliament forbidding irregular marriage unions in England drove ardent young men ,some romantic old ones, bigamists and all manner of folk who needed for one reason or another to get married , to the Scottish border. There they came across Gretna, going strong as a clandestine marriage centre where any young couple might be instantly united by the local fisherman, joiner or more famous, the blacksmith. However as these marriages were a simple affirmation on scots soil, witnessed by anyone that could write, it is probable that they were held in any beer-house in Gretna Green. In 1791 a band of weavers settled in the District and established a village at Springfield, near Gretna and right on the main road so this new place began to steal away all the weddings. It seems the trade was so well organised that the Carlisle hotels had an `understanding` with the priests and where to send the couples.
A great change came over the `marriage market` after the opening of the `English road in 1830, as now the crossing was at the boundary at Sark bar and nearer Gretna again. The whole business collapsed in 1856 when Scottish law demanded that a residential qualification necessary for marriage.
What tales there must be of the various rivalries between the various rogues and vagabonds who slept and frequented the Scottish border with one ear listening for the sound of a galloping horse team and the possibility of few coins to be made one way or the other?
We think we must investigate more.
The Caledonian Canal.We will pass by.
There was never a huge amount of boat traffic through the canal when I was young. You could wait for hours to see the locks being opened and usually it was a number of small boats what went through at once, but it was fun to watch. The huge gates were opened by a series of levers in some locks all by hand until diesel generators made the change to a more mechanical operation. Lock-keepers were employed there to do this job and there seemed to be quite few then. In the heyday of sea travel it seemed the canal was much favoured as a safer travel than around Cape Wrath, so aptly named, and the Pentland Firth.
The first survey for the canal was carried out in 1773 by James Watt and impelled by the strategic needs of the war against Napoleon when French privateers haunted our coastal waters. But work on the canal was delayed a start until 1803 and commenced under the direction of Thomas Telford, a man we heard much of at school. But the victory of the battle of Trafalgar lessened the urgency for the project and the building proceed slowly until opening in October 1822. Was it slow, is 19 years a long time to build such a fantastic engineering project for its time. I think not. At the inaugural ceremony about 70 gentlemen, we can assume noted dignitaries traversed the canal from `sea to sea` in a steam barge. In 1847 the canal was much improved and gave greater access for larger vessels. Before the advent of course of that steam sailing ships took over 2 days to traverse the length of the canal, some 60 miles. The ultimate cost of the canal, as completed in 1849 was 1.3 million pounds, seems a pretty colossal sum for these times and at the maximum effort some 300 men were engaged in the building, mostly Highlanders. One of the real highlights is the collections of locks along the length and the best group is at Neptune’s staircase, between Banavie and Corpach, some 3 miles above Fort William. The total length of the canal is some 60 miles.
Worth a visit, absolutely, a pleasant change from castles and haunted places and just a huge marvel at the building of it all. It’s as sacred to me as our River, the Ness.
Talking of Fort William and before I get into more interesting stuff I mention Rannoch Moor, not too far away from there, but into central Perth-shire and surely of all the Bens and glens, the corries and screes we will encounter, something must also be made of the vast moorlands, and this is one. Rannoch is by far the largest area of moorland, a peaty desolation, rises to over 1000 feet, and will jog some into having a place in literature for the part it plays in RL Stevenson’s book, the classic `Kidnapped. Because all in all as we tour we will pass along the road from Tyndrum to Glencoe, majestic scenery if ever there was. We pass newish Ski areas and the ample viewing of mountains. But we should not think of Rannoch as a black desolation of sour peat, treacherous bog, and heather, intersected by ditches of stagnant water and marshy pools. This area was not always a treeless waste as in every ditch you will find the roots of trees long gone, preserved in time and blackened like ebony by the peat.
And in amongst it all lies the Kingshouse hotel sticking out like a beacon and calling you in for a rest stop. Such history and all will be revealed on the next part at the new Visitor Centre at Glencoe.
Well it’s nearly Christmas again !
Where do they all go these years. Anyway we are on and up and have just got our hands on all these wonderful Anne stokes goodies
have a look please
 | steve anderson on Thistle Ghillie Brogues-Made i… |
 | denise kennedy on Thomas Grotrian RIP |
 | small cars on Anne Stokes and Dragons at Cel… |
 | Cecilia Mooney on The Massacre of Glencoe |
 | custom writing on Thomas Grotrian RIP |
Celtic Jewellery and Gifts New Zealand 