Strongbow's Return

Ireland, as expected, has voted yes to the Lisbon Treaty. I am pleased for the Irish people, pleased that they at least had a chance to vote, ‘wrong’ the first time and ‘right’ the second, at least from the perspective of the Eurocrats. I can’t deny-no reasonable person could-that the Irish had good reason to change their collective mind in so decisive a manner. After all, Ireland is a small country perched on the edge of the Continent; a small country, moreover, uncertain of its future: for the day of the Celtic ‘tiger economy’ is over. The country is more dependant than ever on largesse from Brussels. I would not go so far as to say that the Irish were frightened, almost blackmailed into saying yes, but it comes close, oh so close.

Still, there were other issues at stake here, issues beyond ‘the economy, stupid’, not least the issue of national self-respect and independence. The Irish know what it’s like to struggle for freedom; perhaps no nation in Europe, aside from Poland, knows better. Ireland had a longer experience than most of belonging to a wider union, one it finally freed itself from after a lengthy and bitter struggle. But small, free and independent nations no longer count for much in this world of big alliances and big government, of Oceania, of Eurasia and of Eastasia. So Ireland gave away a portion of freedom to the high table of Europe. I wonder what Wolfe Tone, Charles Stewart Parnell and Michael Collins would have made of this? I wonder what the Irish will make of President Tony Blair? Who would ever have thought that Strongbow was set to return in such a despicable shape. History really does have a wickedly ironic sense of humour. :-))

Sodomy, the Bishop and the Ghost

You’ve heard, I expect, of the mother-in-law from hell? Now you are about to encounter one for real!

My story, a true one, takes us back to seventeenth century Ireland and England. In December of 1640 John Atherton, Bishop of Lismore, was convicted and sentenced to death for, to use the legal commentary of the day, “the crime not to be named.” Well, I shall name it: Bishop Atherton was a bugger, and I mean that in the literal sense of the term!

Atherton was English and a Protestant. He had come to Ireland because the official Church of Ireland, also Protestant, had plenty of opportunities for advancement in a country where the Reformation had the most superficial roots, and had been appointed to the bishopric in 1636. Now at the peak of his career Atherton’s ascent was about to be followed by an equally rapid descent.

In his hometown of Minehead in Somerset something odd was happening. People were saying that Atherton’s mother-in-law, Susan Leakey, was spreading stories about the new Bishop of Lismore. The only problem was she had been dead for well over a year...

Reports of her revelations reached William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who appointed three magistrates to investigate in February 1637. All of the witnesses interviewed said that they had indeed seen the ghost of Susan Leakey, including Elizabeth Leakey, her daughter-in-law, wife of Alexander, her son. Elizabeth reported that while Susan was on her deathbed in November 1634 she threatened to return into the world of the living. “What, will you be a devil?” she asked. “No, but I will come in the devil’s likeness.”

Return she did, accompanied by all sorts of weird happenings. The Leakey’s nephew, a teenage boy, died, saying that he was being strangled by his grandmother. An apparition was seen, making its way towards Elizabeth’s house, finally appearing in her bedroom. There she told her daughter-in-law to go to Ireland with a message for Joan Atherton, the wife of the bishop. The magistrates asked what the message was but Elizabeth refused to answer, saying she would tell only the King himself and even then only if he commanded.

The magistrates refused to accept these stories, believing the whole thing to be fraudulent. Laud himself concluded that it was probably based on some attempt to extort money from Atherton. But matters were about to get ever more serious.

In Ireland Atherton was making enemies. In the summer of 1640, under circumstances that are not entirely clear, his steward submitted a petition to the parliament in Dublin, accusing Atherton of sodomy, a capital crime. This seemed to tie in with the appearance of the apparition in England, the tale that Elizabeth would only repeat if commanded to do so by the king in person.

Other stories about the bishop started to come out; that he was a rapist, a fornicator and an adulterer. He was also accused of incest, sleeping with his wife’s sister, which turned out to be true. Report of this made its way to the Long Parliament in England, where Thomas Wentworth, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, the man who had appointed Atherton, was himself under attack. In the summer of 1641 a pamphlet was published, detailing Atherton’s sexual excesses. The author, rejecting the scepticism of the investigation of 1637, said that Mother Leakey had commanded Elizabeth to tell Atherton to repent or be hanged.

Mother Leakey was set to become one of the ghostly legends of Somerset. Atherton was hanged, either the victim of a political frame-up or supernatural malice. You decide!