Máirtín sent me some updates to our conversation today, after reading the blog. This is the kind of conversation and cultural exchange that I think the Fulbright program is all about. These are Máirtín’s words:
Order here: Bungalow Bliss. Mairtin downloaded this image from Flicker.
Diane Hamilton (Guggenheim) was the wealthy American that brought Liam Clancy to America, who later appeared on a 20 minute slot on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1961. They achieved fame as ‘The Clancy Brother’s & Tommy Makem’.
It wasn’t just womens’ names, the tradition was that the first child would be called after the mother’s people, giving us names like Bradley, Harrison, Stewart, Rawson, Carroll, and so on and so forth as first names.
This tradition comes from the Ulster Presbyterians, or now Ulster Scots, from the North. There is an Ulster Scots Heritage Park between Strabane and Omagh in Co. Tyrone. In an intersting link to the Blue Ridge Mountains many of the Ulster Scots had the first name ‘William’ after William of Orange, William the Third of Great Britain, victor of the Balltle of the Boyne. So many of them lived in the mountains this is believed to be the origin of the term ‘Hill Billies’.
This is the Book, believed to have brought more shame to Ireland than @Ulysses’.
Bungalow is a Hindi word. In my opinion is that the Irish bungalow is a vernacular version of the traditional cottage. When John Ford made ‘The Quiet Man’ in the west in 1951 he was looking for a perfect Traditional thatched cottage to act as John Wayne’s character’s house ‘White O’Morn’. They found one near Maam Cross. When they were finished, they paid the owner a wedge of money, who used it to build a new house, and demolished the original. What is left has been pilfered by souvenir hunters.
Mairtin sent this image of Dan O Herlihy. IMBD says “Dan O‘Herlihy, Actor: RoboCop. Irish-born Dan O‘Herlihy decided not to follow in his father’s footsteps, forsaking the life of an architect in favour of the acting.”
I also meant to say that another famous (kind of) architect who became an actor was Dan O Herlihy, from Wexford, who qualified as an architect from UCD and went to Hollywood to become an actor. His most famous role is probably ‘The Old Man’ the head of the evil OCP Coproration in ‘RoboCop’ (1987). I hope you’ve seen it, if not I can lend it to you; a biting satire of Reagan era economics.
He is the father of Lorcan O Herlihy, a well known Los Angeles based architect.
The Director of ‘What Richard Did’ is Lenny Abrahamson, who also directed ‘Adam & Paul’ and ‘Garage’. Very good, but not ‘Feel Good’. Don’t watch on a Sunday night when you have the fears……
Ireland by Chance 