It Looks Like Someone's Taken A Bum Steer There.

https://news.sky.com/story/two-people-killed-after-helicopter-crashes-into-building-in-ireland-13187595

In more ways than one.

https://twitterwithbraincells.blogspot.com/2024/07/i-assume-desire-to-punish-those.html

https://twitterwithbraincells.blogspot.com/2024/07/at-very-least-you-wouldve-expected-them.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1jGCWYm0ng&pp (Man From Mullingar, The Wolfe Tones, Rebels, Official Audio).

Normally such things don't move me to feelings of charity.

However I am feeling ridiculously pleased with myself. Possibly having spent too long in the Sun.

But yeah. It was a for us too, in the autumn of 2023.

Discovering it wasn't true. The story we'd all always been told as to why we became refugees from Ireland. According to UNRWA.

Although the gist of the story is true, as far as I know.

My maternal great-grandfather was a Doctor. A practice which included working as a police surgeon for Robert Peel's Royal Irish Constabulary, before and during the Irish War Of Independence.

However he wasn't assassinated until the Irish Civil War. Although the Civil War was really just a continuation of the War of Independence. Only with the blue of Fine Gael acting as Britain's mercenaries.

It was actually my great-uncle who, aged about 14, opened the front door for the bullets to go flying past him, into his father. My grandfather was only about 3 months old at the time. So didn't know much about it himself.

As to the why, your guess is as good as mine.

Although I suspect it had something to do with the sort of score-settling which seems to be the hallmark of every civil war.

Apparently they fled from Cork to Kerry thinking their shame would not be known there.

It certainly became known there.

So they returned from Kerry to Cork. Before seeking refuge on the mainland.

Honestly.

I think I'm just going to go back to telling people my family's from Ballykissangel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne%27s_Rocket_to_the_Moon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh54fFxqWRA&pp (Whiskey In The Jar, Dublin City Ramblers, 50, Audio, Topic).