#jory.postbox

[werewolfetone]

i am so glad i'm not the only one who utilizes '&c' in my day-to-day 2024 life

What they don't tell u about being a history student is that all of the speech patterns from the primary sources will rub off on u 😔

#glad to see I'm not the only one too. &c enjoyers rise up #jory.postbox

[borisyvain]

Hey a fellow writer of stories set in the late 18th/early19th century british isles with supernatural elements!🤝 Your WIPS sound so cool. From the character building question list, 1, 14, 17, and 50 for any character(s) you want from Red and Riotous Light?

Answering for various different characters!

1 - What's the lie your character says most often?

Lazarus lies to everyone constantly every day about his family background. He assumes that if he admits that his father is a baronet and he's just larping as a publican who can sympathise with the working class he'll not only become unpopular but also put a target on his back, and he's not necessarily wrong, but he certainly takes it a bit far + also exacerbates any danger coming clean might put him in by lying to everyone for so long about it

14 - How do they put out a candle?

Answering this for several people because it's character relevant for them: Charles instinctively reaches for a candle snuff every time he needs to put out a candle because he lives in such privilege that one is nearly always in reach and sometimes burns himself rlly badly slapping the flame by accident + both Eliza and her neighbour Conley MacDermot put out candles by pinching them and this is seen as somewhat coarse by several characters who, admittedly, already look down on them for being rural & Irish + Whittaker also does this due to her disdain for every emotion including pain + Rearden just blows them out because he's never seen the point in such an object as a candle snuff when he has breath

17 - What do they notice first in the mirror versus what most people first notice looking at them?

For O'Donnell -- the first thing HE notices in a mirror is how handsome he is because he's (not unreasonably) very vain. The first thing most people notice about him, however, is his incredibly casual posture in all situations and his tendency to look at the ground or anywhere else other than people's eyes #autism

50 - What belief / moral / personality trait do they stand by that you (mun) personally don’t agree with?

Ooh okay. obviously there's, like, the various colonialist/racist/sectarian/homophobic/etc beliefs that some of the characters hold that I don't agree with but for something more specific and less obvious I'm going to go with the fact that many of the characters are Jacobites and I just...

Ask game

#c: lazarus mcclure #c: eoin o'donnell #c: eliza durham #etc etc #ask game #wip: rrl #jory.postbox

[werewolfetone]

hello! i found your blog through the star trek meme post, do u have any recommendations for beginners that would like to actually know what’s going on?

Let me first apologise for taking so long to answer this ask which was sent in uh. february. anyway #1 you should familiarise yourself with northern irish history (thomas hennessy's a history of northern ireland and atq stewart's the narrow ground are good but neither covers the troubles in their entirety; for that the most accessible and comprehensive option imo is peter taylor's trilogy about the subject, which can also mostly be found in documentary form on youtube. say nothing by patrick radden keefe is also very accessible, especially, imo, if you happen to be american) and #2 you should actually listen to northern irish people (online, irl, in the various books & articles which have been published about it, etc) about their politics rather than either assuming you automatically know best or listening to what someone who has 0 experience with the situation thinks. and #3 get your news about northern ireland from somewhere other than tumblr. I really don't care how you do this just pleaseeee the next time someone posts the star trek meme go and actually research whatever it is they've posted it in reaction to because some of the things it's posted for... well they simply don't merit that sort of reaction

#follow my mutuals also. who said that #anon #irish history #northern ireland #jory.postbox

[werewolfetone]

whats the belfast society?

Ok so to understand the Belfast Society one first needs to understand a few things about eighteenth century Irish Presbyterianism: one, that it was very very very very centred around the idea that Christ is the only one with any right to legislate on religion, i.e. that the Bible is not only the only guideline for Christianity, but that if you deviate from the letter of the Bible at all you are Doing It Wrong. This led to a tradition of free thought within the church but also, to paraphrase historian Ian McBride, left the official Synod wide open to harassment from various groups on the grounds that the Synod was misinterpreting scripture in some way and therefore perverting true Christianity. Two, as contradictory as it may seem, the Synod also only tolerated dissent and "heresy" from both ministers and the laity up to a point; they were not above going scorched earth on someone for disagreeing with them too much. Three, like many other major Christian sects at the time, they regarded the belief that Jesus and God are not the same being who form 2 parts of 1 trinity but totally separate, which is common among Unitarians and Arians, as heresy. This will become important in a moment.

The immediate story of the Belfast society starts with an English Presbyterian minister who became the minister of the Wood Street congregation in Dublin in 1702 by the name of Thomas Emlyn. People liked Emlyn, but it didn't take his parishioners long to notice that he never talked about the aforementioned trinity doctrine, which was really odd, and made them suspicious, because Unitarianism was in the air and a number of major religious authorities were screaming + crying + throwing up about it. So one of his parishioners asked him outright: did he believe in the idea of the trinity? And Emlyn said no.

Immediately, Emlyn was called before the Dublin Presbytery. They exiled him, he (outraged because only Jesus was supposed to be able to legislate like that in the church) compared them to the Pope, they threatened to come after him if he ever took up preaching again. A pamphlet war ensued. Eventually, Emlyn was thrown in prison. He stayed there for 2+ years until one of his friends intervened and liberated him.

Cut to Ulster. It was now 1705 and the Ulster Synod was also nervous about heresy. So worried, in fact, that they decided to institute something called the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is essentially a (really, really long) list of basic Christian beliefs a prospective minister would need to agree to in front of the Synod before he could be ordained, even if a congregation had already asked him to become their minister. Predictably for a group of people whose whole thing was no earthly authority on religion but Thee Bible, many Presbyterian ministers in Ulster immediately took exception to this. One of them was a man called Rev. John Abernathy, of the First Presbyterian Church in Belfast, and he was so upset that he founded a group for like-minded ministers and laypeople who liked philosophy and hated the Westminster Confession called the Belfast Society.

To quote historian ATQ Stewart, "The Society devoted itself to consideration of the scriptural terms of the unity of the Christian Church the nature and mischief of Schism, the rights of conscience and private judgement, the sole dominion of Christ in His Kingdom, and other subjects of that kind." They studied and debated on the Bible, talked about what they were reading outside of meetings, and generally generated a lot of talk and ideas that certain orthodox Presbyterian writers would malign for centuries afterwards. Like an extremely Presbyterian debate club, really. Additionally, a lot of big names in the New Light controversy of the 1720s (which is a related but different story), including Samuel Haliday, Samuel Dunlop, Abernathy himself, etc, were members of the Belfast Society first. Thomas Drennan, father of William Drennan, was friends with nearly everyone involved. Through Drennan and through the way they influenced the outcome of the New Light controversy, one might say that they actually influenced modern Belfast a fairly significant amount!

Sources beneath the cut

McBride, Ian. Scripture politics : Ulster Presbyterians and Irish radicalism in the late eighteenth century. Clarendon Press, 1998.

Stewart, Anthony Terence Quincey. A deeper silence : the hidden roots of the United Irish movement. Faber & Faber, 1993.

Whelan, Fergus. Dissent Into Treason: Unitarians, King-killers and the Society of United Irishmen. Brandon, 2010.

Whelan, Fergus. May Tyrants Tremble: The Life of William Drennan, 1754-1820. Irish Academic Press, 2020.

#asks #irish history #18th century #jory.postbox

[werewolfetone]

2nd try—

did the british have a big role regarding tensions between the catholics and protestants in Ireland (as in making them) as opposed to taking advantage/exacerbating them? the speech im reading uses Ireland as a similar situation to caste in india (hence the ‘ireland jumpscare’ lmao) . a common argument used to dismiss/ignore the latter is that it is an imperialist import (so we don’t really do anything bad, we don’t really have any privilege/advantage cause of it, etc etc)

does the same hold true for ireland? said speech (annihilation of caste, dr ambedkar) was written in 1930s iirc, so maybe late 19th cen-20th cen? (i am very ill versed in irish history, school had one page for the whole uk)

Ok so short answer, the way I look at it is that while we do have a responsibility to try and lessen protestant/catholic tensions and break down barriers for the benefit of everyone &c &c today, yes, Britain did play a role in creating protestant/catholic tensions in Ireland. Longer answer:

It's important to remember in discussions of Britain + Ireland + sectarianism, that, to quote the book Scripture Politics by Ian McBride, "there was nothing peculiarly Irish about the eighteenth century obsession with popery." Nor was there with the seventeenth century, or the sixteenth century, or the any century since the Reformation -- since the categories of protestant and catholic have existed, with the possible exception of the 21st century,* Britain and British people have been fighting for one and against the other, often as violently if not more violently than Irish people have. The reasons for this were complex -- questions of freedom, religious doctrine, and national identity too complicated for this post and which I need to do more reading on before I can speak at length about. What matters is that any actions involving Britain and sectarianism must be put into the context of Britain being a very sectarian state itself for as long as that was possible, rather than a state which just exacerbated sectarianism elsewhere. Admittedly most of what I know about caste in India comes from my Indian friends irl talking about it, so this comparison is almost certainly not perfect, but imo it's a little less like the British exacerbating caste in India and a little more like if the British had been butchering one another over caste independently and then come over to India, realised that the same caste system existed there, and immediately decided to bring the conflict over with them. Essentially it can't really be said to have been something Britain just "exacerbated" because, well, Britain was playing an active role in it.

Secondly, & perhaps more crucially, it's important when it comes to Irish history that "protestant" and "catholic" don't just mean what church one attends. In a similar way to how the Israeli occupation of Palestine is not "Jews VS Muslims" but a case of settler colonialism, "catholic" in the context of Irish history usually means one considers oneself Irish, while "protestant" usually indicates a connection to Britishness. There are many exceptions, of course! There are lots of protestant republicans and catholic loyalists, especially historically, but if, like, someone from Derry were talking about "prods" in the modern day they would almost certainly be referring to ethnoreligious conflict between people who are considered Irish and people who are considered British, rather than genuine disapproval over doctrinal disputes (there are exceptions to this, too, though. some of the stuff my mother says...). Both of these labels also often denote a whole other set of cultural behaviours apart from religion (pronunciation of certain letters, what school one attends, so on and so forth). Mentioning this mostly just because I think it's interesting, but wrt this issue I often think about how when modern sectarian violence in the north of Ireland really emerged in 1780s Co. Armagh, rather than "catholic" "anglican" and "presbyterian," those involved would distinguish the three groups by referring to them as "Irish," "English," and "Scotch**," respectively, indicating that the understanding that sectarian violence has been just as much about questions of identity and nationalism as religion for a really, really long time.

So. Do I think that, had British colonisation not happened, Ireland would never have gotten involved in any religious conflict? No. Getting into religious wars was really just what European powers did for a very long time, so a hypothetical free Kingdom of Ireland or whatever in an alternate 17th century probably would have been just as eager to butcher the protestant dogs as other catholic countries like France or Spain were. However, as real history stands, the fact that Britain's crusade against Irish catholics in the real life 17th century was part of Britain's own protestant/catholic religious war, and the fact that 'protestant/catholic conflict' in Irish history is nearly always just settler-colonial violence (perpetrated by Britain) with fancy dressing, mean that yes, I would say that Britain must take at least some responsibility for the existence of protestant/catholic tensions in modern day Ireland.

*personally I wouldn't include the 20th century in this due to the continuation of sectarian tensions in scotland

**historical term for "scottish" I am using as I am quoting historical documents where it was used. if u start discourse over the use of this word on this post I will block u

Sources under the cut

Farrell, Sean. Rituals and Riots: Sectarian Violence and Political Culture in Ulster, 1784-1886. University Press of Kentucky, 2000.

McBride, Ian. Scripture politics : Ulster Presbyterians and Irish radicalism in the late eighteenth century. Clarendon Press, 1998.

Cone, Carl. The English Jacobins: Reformers in Late 18th Century England. Taylor & Francis Group, 1968.

Coward, Barry. Oliver Cromwell. Longman, 2000.

Rees, John. The Leveller Revolution: Radical Political Organisation in England, 1640-1650. Verso Books, 2017.

#+ also don't feel bad for not knowing things!!! personally at the moment I know shamefully little abt indian history and I definitely don't #know everything abt irish history. everyone is learning forever etc #irish history #jory.postbox

[werewolfetone]

Who would you say is the Worst historian of Irish history?

Hmmm ok so content wise it's a tie between my eternal enemy t*m p*t coogan due to his bias and the fact that he's straight up lies about some things, and the woman whose name escapes me who wrote a book in the 90s which purports that william pitt the younger actually engineered robert emmet's rising for... something, purely because it's a theory based on 1) an extremely shoddy claim made by 1 guy in the victorian era; & 2) a total lack of understanding of the 18th century, and because it drives me, personally, insane. In terms of people whose information is not incorrect, but whose personalities I think are rancid, it's also a tie between sir richard musgrave and robert mackie sibbett. both Orange historians, both been dead for a long time, both people who make me feel like I suddenly understand why the defenders did all of that

#jory.postbox

[werewolfetone]

You may already have talked about this somewhere before, but if someone wanted to start reading up on the IRA, do you have recommendations? Many of the books I've found seem to have mixed or overly biased discussions on the history and its members

Ok so I don't feel qualified to advise you on books about the IRA's very early history, so you'll have to ask someone else about that, but imo the book One Man's Terrorist by Daniel Finn is a pretty good overview of most of the IRA's history + Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe is a good entry-level book about the IRA during the Troubles. Also about the Troubles is Peter Taylor's Provos, and, regrettably, I have to admit that A Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney is comprehensive when it comes to the IRA during the Troubles + just before, HOWEVER it's also more a biography of Gerry Adams than anything else and I personally found Moloney's writing style insufferable. Do with that information what you will. Lastly, Ten Men Dead by David Beresford is an authoritative book on Bobby Sands and the 1981 hunger strike, and for good reason, it's very well-written + informative.

#anon #books #iraposting #jory.postbox #<- new ask tag

[werewolfetone]

film just came out on Netflix called "The Land of Saints and Sinners", which is a western set in Donegal in the 70s. Not sure if it'd be something you're interested in, but I'm sending this ask anyway just in case :]

Genuinely thank u for sending me this ask because I had heard about it and was looking for it the other day to watch but I couldn't find it :( temporarily forgor netflix existed so thank u for telling me

#films #anon #jory.postbox

[werewolfetone]

Which period of Irish history would you most want a movie to be made about? For me it'd be the early modern period/Tudor reconquest/plantations-era. There are too many movies about like 1916 or the war of independence compared to earlier periods tbh.

Ooh okay so first off I too would kill for a film abt the planatations etc. secondly I have 3 additional irish history films I really really wish existed:

Black '47-esque film but it's about the famine of 1741. opening shot of the shannon almost totally frozen over... scenes of the starving peasants building an obelisk for the vanity of some uncaring local lord... perhaps something similar to how all quiet on the western front 2022 has the plot split between ppl trying to negotiate for peace + the ppl in the trenches with some scenes focusing on the primate boulter frantically trying everything he can think of for relief VS the actual lives of the peasants he's still so removed from... oh I can see it in my head it would be so good and also extremely cathartic for me specifically

Something about the period right before/right after the revolution of 1782! I think u could make a rlly rlly interesting + cinematically beautiful film about dublin society in the 1770s and 1780s, whether you focused on the politics or no. personally of course I would be partial to, like, some sort of 4 hour grattanite patriot party film which is incomprehensible if you don't already know what's going on, but as I said I would even take something along the lines of "dangerous liasons but it's set in dublin" if that was being offered

Film about late 17th century to early 18th century belfast presbyterian infighting. that's it that's the idea. samuel haliday cinematic universe WHEN

#irish history #anon #jory.postbox

[werewolfetone]

jory short king confirmed ⁉️⁉️

I'm 158 cm but consistently appear taller as I have to wear shoes all the time due to chronic foot problems and I exclusively wear shoes with enough rubber on the bottom that it adds 4 cm or so onto my height. fuck with me

#personalposting #jory.postbox

[werewolfetone]

What initially sparked your interest in Irish history?

How have those historical interests influenced your interests in contemporary media like video games, movies, and books?

Hard to say and also what I can say is largely concerned with facts about my background which I will not reveal but suffice to say it's largely wrapped up in family and school stuff. many such cases etc

I've always liked historical fiction but I will say that, owing to the comparative lack of historical fiction set in prefamine ireland, I have read and watched some rlly rlly random pieces of fiction in the interests of seeing blorbo from my rising in media. this is both a blessing as it has led me to discover some of my favourite books etc (go read red sky in morning by paul lynch + castle rackrent by maria edgeworth rn I am no longer asking) and also a curse as I have been exposed to esoteric historical inaccuracies and political opinions which were previously not known to man (on some level I am always thinking about the horrible novel about the belfast united irishmen I read but will not name where joseph cuthbert or someone threatened a character with a head job for being a tout... why are we fucking stakeknife all of the sudden bestie)

#jory.postbox

[werewolfetone]

are you the jory from the three weed smoking girlfriends post?

No I am not 😔

#anon #jory.postbox

[werewolfetone]

Did you ever watch Derry Girls? What did you think of it, if so?

I have watched it! certain bits of the show's politics were not my favourite but overall I really really enjoyed it :)

#laughing at derry girls but shaking my head the entire time to show i disagree with the cl*ntons #derry girls #anon #jory.postbox

[werewolfetone]

omg ireland jumpscare

"The reply that the ulstermen gave"

#thank u beloved mutual @alternativeulster for making this image btw #anyway. ireland jumpscare 💥💥💥💪💪💪💥💪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪 #jory.postbox

[werewolfetone]

For the blog vibe ask:

When I open up your blog it’s like walking into that one really weird though very well educated uncle’s house to visit and you have literally NO idea what he’s talking about ever and you think “Does he actually know I’m here or…?” And his side tangents have side tangents but you always leave with some second hand books he’s been storing since the 80s, fully annotated, and as you’re leaving it’s a bit overwhelming and you need a nap and can’t wait to go back and visit next week

DELIGHTED to hear this actually as my grandfather is exactly like this description and I’m so glad that I have apparently recreated the vibe of his house with my Posting

#ask game #jory.postbox

[werewolfetone]

old Irish newspaper from the 1700s, somehow preserved in plastic wrap and left in the mud on the side of the road. it is a very good issue

Ideal blog aesthetic ngl

#ask game #jory.postbox