The “just asking questions” article is a particular poisonous subgenre of op-ed writing. The pieces invariably take the form of “X is mad! Why on earth do people take such views!?” and utterly refuse to acknowledge that explanations - good or bad - are readily and regularly available. 2/2

That contemporary actions may be inspired by activity abroad, or by the bothersome family’s own confessional brethren and history, or even by the oft-secular history of - say - Irish republicanism are things to which he doesn’t even devote a sentence. It’s embarrassing, really. 2/2

She’s getting closer on my ‘to read’ list. I’ve recently finished this brilliant book. One main takeaway: fascism doesn’t get past the starting blocks unless more respectable and established sorts say “well, they’re not perfect, but they’re doing some things we like, so we can work with them”.

Top tip if you go again! We got a Campania card last year: it cost €25 and got us in to Pompeii, Herculaneum, Paestum, Caserta Palace, and the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. It’d have worked for other places too, but the week was full enough.

I’m still learning here, tbh. I suspect at times that I’m just trying to crowbar an imaginary Twitter into this. But then, there are plenty who try to crowbar an imaginary Blogosphere into Substack. I guess we’re all just trying to improvise…

(I’m should admit I’m not super familiar with Bede, I should admit. I’ve read a translation of the Ecclesiastical History, and various quotes here and there, but I’ve not yet got round to reading around him for context etc. Though one or two books are in the post ;) )

It’s striking that the sources don’t add “and as some of the Irish still do!” It’s bizarre too to assume that an unattested Irish pagan custom survived in Ireland, whereas supposed pagan English customs, that are at least attested to fairly early, didn’t survive in England. 6/6

Now, there are I think one or two other early references to November having been in a time when the pagan English went in for animal sacrifices, but they’re in the context of “this is the kind of savage stuff our forebears used to do”. /5

I say “almost” because writing in the eighth century about England Bede in his ‘De temporum ratione’ says of this time of year that “Blot-monath is month of immolations, for it was in this month that the cattle which were to be slaughtered were dedicated to the gods.” /4

The assumption is that this is a pagan tradition, but that’s effectively saying “this must be a legacy from a thousand years earlier, a time from when we have no records, and unattested in the meantime”. Impossible, no, but let’s admit this is *almost* pure speculation. /3

The earliest known reference to this is in a manuscript in the Bodleian known as Rawlinson B. 512, including a piece titled ‘Senchus muici fheile Martain indso siss’ and dating to around 1500, probably about nine hundred to a thousand years after Ireland had become Christian. /2

But reusable?

Billy Connolly had a line about his father being younger than Reagan, and them not trusting him with the controls to the telly.