That's a great post Walter...when you think about it (or is it tink about it), the fact that Irish Gaelic survives at all is a minor miracle.
Thanks, Mr. Hinteler, this was an excellent and comprehensive explanation.
We now know that the Irish in America exceeds the Irish in Ireland. How many Irish Americans understand Gaelic or even speak it? c.i.
My wife is Canadian, of West Indian heritage, and she speaks Irish Gaelic....never know where it will pop up!
I'm third generation Irish American, and unfortunately, I don't know a word of Gaelic. I asked my father about it once. He said his grandfather & grandmother from Ireland had intentionally NOT taught it to their children because of the persecution against the Irish in the States. Same reason they dropped the "Mac" from the family name.
Steissd
Your amazement at the Irish is most refreshing. If you stick your head out of your window and listen in a WNW direction you should be able to hear the Irish!
Since not all are skilled in such a good way in nautic terms as you islanders, here is an explanation (WNW is inbetween 'W' and 'NW' - isn't very excact, btw):
:wink:
Come to a new heading, Number One, nor'bye'nor'west . . .
Well I could have said compass bearing 300 degrees, but I didn't want to show off.
Right hand down a bit Number one....steady....steady....I said right hand down......
Never mind Number One much less damage than last time.
You said "two points starboard, capt'n, didn't you ..... iceberg aheeeead!"
That's far too much ice in my gin Number One.... whatever were you thinking of?
The ability to find one's position to the North or the South of the equator has been possible to a fine degree of precision for millenia . . . but finding a position East or West of a point proved a good deal trickier . . . accurate clocks are needed . . . the ability to find such a position was made the object of a prize offered in England for generations, and finally won, by the expedient of reaching a certain point in the West Indies, with a ship board clock within a certain range of error for both the correct shipboard time and the correct time at the observatory at Greenwich. If you keep an accurate clock on board keeping time by the observatory, and you are able to reset your shipboard clock for local time with "shootings of the sun" each at sunrise, noon and sunset AND you have an accurate Almanac to tell you the exact time when those events should take place on a give date at at give lattitude (remember, finding how far North or South of the equator you are is very simple). By comparing calculated local time to Greenwich time, one will know how far East or West of Greenwich one is in degrees, minutes and seconds.
The great clippership Flying Cloud set a record for the passage from New York to San Francisco, by a sailing vessel, which stood from 1851 to 1989. No mean feat; the woman who navigated Flying Cloud on that voyage would go out at the specified times of day with her sexton, to "shoot" the sun, and record the data of the angle of elevation of the sighting tube at noon, as well as the exact ship-board clock reading for local time, and then spend literally hours a day, sometimes as many as four or five, to do the trig needed to establish the exact time of sunrise, noon and sunset (the math was needed because the Almanac only provides those times for generalized positions, to the degree--navigators need the exact time of sunrise on a given date to the minute and second, which is an ironic reference to both time and space). Flying Cloud rounded Cape Horn, far to the South of the treacherous Straits of Magellan, with it's thousand isles, interspersed in channels almost bottomless in depth and sudden outcroppings of rocks just beneath the surface, and it's severe Westerlies throughout much of the year (Lt. William Bligh, in Bounty hoped to make a circumnavigation, and battled those winds for weeks in the attempt to pass the Straits, but finally gave up and wore away for Cape Town). Cape Horn was named for a Dutch captain, Horne, who first described the blocky, rock-bound island. There are very deep waters there, near the "bottom" of the world, but there are dangerous shoals as well. Flying Cloud "stood off and on" for days waiting for just the right wind, so that, based on the navigator's calculations of drift from published tables of currents, and of as exact a position as she could assure, Flying Cloud finally "took the bit in her teeth" and ran down to the Cape, on the navigator's assurance to the Captain, her husband, that her position was correct, and they could "round the Horn" long before the current pushed them into dangerous waters, based on her math, if he was certain he could make fourteen knots or better. She did (the ship), and she was proven right (the navigator)--88 days and some hours, New York to San Francisco, in a world with no telephone, no telegraph, and a world still light by fire. Oh to have been on that deck . . .
Which way does the compass point on the NOrth Pole? c.i.
Probably south, in that the magnetic pole is not coaxial with the geographic pole . . .
When I went around Cape Horn last November, I met a retired German boat captain and his wife. I asked why he would be on this cruise, and he answered that during his life as a captain of a ship, he traveled all around the globe, but never went around Cape Horn. He wanted to accomplish this one thing during his life. c.i.
How are Irish folk different from other countries? Are there numbers for it?
Some
interesting statistics are here, but if you find others, please let me know...
Ah, them Irish folk, they're always a hangin' sayin' "Begora!" an' have more babies . . .
Begorra! Pick dat toiny ting up dere woman dat jest fell outta ya and mop the floor! When yer done, would ya moind handlin' me lucky charm?
Setanta I really enjoyed your post on the search and reward for the determination of longitude. The prize was 20,000 pounds a princely sum. There's a wonderful little book "Longitude" by Dava Sobel that details that search.
