Well. I finished reading This Happened In My Presence this morning, and was getting myself set for my next Daily Devotional Reading book, which I thought was going to be Peat and Peat Cutting by Ian Rotherham...when it occurred to me that I've been on a kind of Connectivity Streak for awhile now. See, after I finished A History of Philosophy, I read Henry Thomas Buckle's 3 volume History of Civilization in England, and when I finished that I continued on in precisely the same vein with the 3 volumes of the Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works of Henry Thomas Buckle. And then I kept it historical (and triune) by going to Fernand Braudel's three volume Civilization and Capitalism, 16th - 18th Century...and liked FB so much that I stuck with him, history, and 3 by reading the three volumes of his The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. In the course of reading that I happened upon the story of the Moriscos, which is what sent me over to This Happened In My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611, edited by Patrick J. O'Banion. So doing an abrupt hard turn into Peat just felt a little bit off. So I thought a few thoughts, and I poked about on my bookshelves for a bit, and I found this lovely little item:
The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates by Des Ekin is (1) history and (2) a story which has to do with the Moors (the stealers, with reference to the title). My son...who, with his then girlfriend / now wife visited Baltimore, Ireland, with me a few years ago...recently gave me this book, and I've been meaning to get around to it ever since. And get this...not only would it be a continuation of my History streak...not only would it hook up with the Morisco thing...but it would also involve a lot of Irish stuff, and thus would be a perfect lead in to Peat and Peat Cutting! (Of course, chances are that this connection will end there, as I don't have any further peat or Irish readings in mind, but still, I like the shape of this. So that's that.)
Problem: this book is 491 pages long...and about 420 of those are text pages, so it would take a big push to knock it out by DDRD 1000, which is (once again) my silly goal. With a mere 11 reading days left to me, that would be a pretty challenging 38 pages per day. I wasn't sure that that was do-able. But the pages were not dense...there were no footnotes or endnotes...and it looked kind of like a novel. So I thought that I would take a little nip at it and see where it took me. I decided that if I could read to page 50 (which was only 40 reading pages) without stress, then I would go for it. And?
Well, I'm now looking at 370 / 11 = 34 pages per day. And it was quite a good read, so I'm actually looking forward to it both in the challenge sense and in the good story sense.
One of the things that made it a fun story to read was that there were references to several places in Baltimore where I had stood as I wandered around the docks with son and wife2B. The castle...in which we saw two different concerts (we were there for the annual Baltimore Fiddle Fair)...was also a part of the story. And then came this Sign From Above:
I mean...it was only a few days ago (July 12, 2020, to be exact) that I was writing about the Feast Day of St. John (aka The Baptist) in my notes on reading This Happened In My Presence. A cool little coincidence, I thought.
So I'm on the path.
Since I started the reading today, July 17th is both Day Twelve of This Happened In My Presence and Day One of The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates...but DDRD 989 for both.
And a-waaaay we go!
Day Two (DDRD 990): July 18, 2020
Reading this book has sent me back to look at the pictures of my trip to Baltimore. Here are a few:
So there's my quick tour of Baltimore and Sherkin Island. I have wanted to go back ever since we left, and I often have little fantasies of going to live on Sherkin Island. If I were young...or even just younger (even fifteen years would do!)...and without children, I would have found a way to go. In my favorite fantasy, I enroll in the Visual Arts program that is held on the island.
This is why we need reincarnation to be true.
Meanwhile, back at the book....
Knocked out 40 pages (to page 90) with no problem at all. This is a very readable book. A lot of the stuff in these pages was not related to Baltimore, as it focused on the Moslem side of things, but that was still interesting. Also, there was a reference on page 70 to a Don Juan del Aguila sailing into Cork and dispatching a division of his men to take Baltimore Castle. Is this the same Don John I read about in The Mediterranean? Our survey says...Alas not...though they were contemporaries (both born in 1545), so let's call it a near miss.
Also, I found out there there actually are endnotes to this book...of a sort. They're referred to as Source Notes, and they're not numbered...just lists of things which go with each chapter. So I'm catching up on those.
But all in all...another pleasant day of reading about Ireland, for sure. And I'm actually a little bit ahead of my schedule.
Day Three (DDRD 991): July 19, 2020
Woke from troubled dreams (of an intense argument with my first ex-wife) at around 3 am. Got myself back to sleep by listening to a bit of Kindred (by Octavia E. Butler) on audiobook. (I rarely stay awake for more than a few minutes if I turn on an audiobook. Even if it's something--as in this case--that I am anxious to listen to.) And then...woke from troubled dreams about the pandemic. (I was in a movie theater with my mother, who died over a decade ago, and there was no social distancing nor mask wearing.) At which point it seemed useless and perhaps even deleterious to attempt to return to sleep, so at the semi-ungodly hour of 4:30 am I got up, fixed a half pot of coffee, and settled in to read about Baltimore.
I also timed myself, since it's sometimes hard to have a sense of the passing time when you're reading a good book, and was a little surprised that it took me 55 minutes to read 40 pages (stopped on page 140; oh, yeah, last night I popped in to finish up those aforementioned "Source Notes," and while I was there I flipped back to the body of the book and read to page 100) plus the notes appertaining to those pages. I did stop a few times to check on things--pronunciation of words--but I doubt that that took more than a few minutes. So my DDR time is about double here. Of course, I've now gotten so far ahead of my schedule that I could cut down to 30 pages a day and still finish on Day 1,000, which would take me closer to my normal-ish 20 to 30 minutes of reading per day, but I don't think I feel like slowing down on this. Actually, I might well read some more on this later today.
Some of the interesting bits in this morning's reading:
- there are references to the pirates praying before they go in for their attack, and also shouting the name of Allah as they burn the villagers out of their houses and slaughter those who resist them. I immediately thought of one of my least favorite Roy Harper songs, "The Black Cloud of Islam." I love Roy dearly...in fact, my first trip to Ireland (specifically Clonakilty) was for the express purpose of seeing him perform...in a local bar...but a song which reduces a religion to the worship of death and terror just doesn't fit in with my view of the world. Of course, when you read something like this--prayers before rapine--it's hard not to bend in the direction of that wind.
- Ekin also made some interesting references to a modern Marine manual on how to survive a terrorist attack. Let's just say that not much has changed in the past 400 years with respect to human behavior.
- slightly less troubling and almost (but no ha ha) funny is this reference to fines for deflowering maidens:
- Ekin quoted from a poem entitled "The Sack of Baltimore" by Thomas Davis (1844). The excerpt wasn't all that impressive poetically, but I will have a look for it just because. And also because it makes reference to Sherkin Island, which still looms in my mind as the most perfect place which exists on this bitch of an Earth.
Oh, what am I thinking? It's the 21st century, ennit? Courtesy of Project Bartleby (and thoroughly Public Domain), here's
The Sack of Baltimore
Thomas Davis (1814–1845)
Baltimore is a small seaport in the barony of Carbery, in Smith Munster. It grew up round a castle of O’Driscoll’s, and was, after his ruin, colonized by the English. On the 20th of June, 1631, the crew of two Algerine galleys landed in the dead of the night, sacked the town, and bore off into slavery all who were not too old or too young or too fierce for their purpose.
THE SUMMER sun is falling soft on Carbery’s hundred isles,
The summer’s sun is gleaming still through Gabriel’s rough defiles,—
Old Inisherkin’s crumbled fane looks like a moulting bird,
And in a calm and sleepy swell the ocean tide is heard:
The hookers lie upon the beach; the children cease their play;
The gossips leave the little inn; the households kneel to pray,—
And full of love and peace and rest, its daily labor o’er,
Upon that cosey creek there lay the town of Baltimore. 8
A deeper rest, a starry trance, has come with midnight there;
No sound, except that throbbing wave, in earth or sea or air.
The massive capes and ruined towers seem conscious of the calm;
The fibrous sod and stunted trees are breathing heavy balm.
So still the night, these two long barques round Dunashad that glide
Must trust their oars—methinks not few—against the ebbing tide—
O, some sweet mission of true love must urge them to the shore,—
They bring some lover to his bride, who sighs in Baltimore! 16
All, all asleep within each roof along that rocky street,
And these must be the lover’s friends, with gently gliding feet—
A stifled gasp! a dreamy noise! “the roof is in a flame!”
From out their beds and to their doors rush maid and sire and dame,
And meet upon the threshold stone the gleaming sabres’ fall,
And o’er each black and bearded face the white or crimson shawl,—
The yell of “Allah” breaks above the prayer and shriek and roar—
O blessed God! the Algerine is lord of Baltimore! 24
Then flung the youth his naked hand against the shearing sword;
Then sprung the mother on the brand with which her son was gored;
Then sunk the grandsire on the floor, his grand-babes clutching wild;
Then fled the maiden, moaning faint, and nestled with the child;
But see yon pirate strangled lies, and crushed with splashing heel,
While o’er him in an Irish hand there sweeps his Syrian steel,—
Though virtue sink, and courage fail, and misers yield their store,
There’s one heart well avenged in the sack of Baltimore!
Midsummer morn, in woodland nigh, the birds begin to sing,—
They see not now the milking-maids, deserted is the spring!
Midsummer day, this gallant rides from distant Bandon’s town,
These hookers crossed from stormy Skull, that skiff from Affadown;
They only found the smoking walls, with neighbors’ blood besprent,
And on the strewed and trampled beach awhile they wildly went,
Then dashed to sea, and passed Cape Cleir, and saw five leagues before
The pirate galleys vanishing that ravaged Baltimore. 32
O, some must tug the galley’s oar, and some must tend the steed, —
This boy will bear a Scheik’s chibouk, and that a Bey’s jerreed.
O, some are for the arsenals, by beauteous Dardanelles;
And some are in the caravan to Mecca’s sandy dells.
The maid that Bandon gallant sought is chosen for the Dey,—
She ’s safe,—she ’s dead, she stabbed him in the midst of his Serai;
And, when to die a death of fire, that noble maid they bore,
She only smiled, O’Driscoll’s child,—she thought of Baltimore. 40
’T is two long years since sunk the town beneath that bloody band,
And all around its trampled hearths a larger concourse stand,
Where high upon a gallows-tree a yelling wretch is seen,—
’T is Hackett of Dungarvan, he who steered the Algerine!
He fell amid a sullen shout, with scarce a passing prayer,
For he had slain the kith and kin of many a hundred there,—
Some muttered of MacMorrogh, who had brought the Norman o’er,
Some cursed him with Iscariot, that day in Baltimore. 48
🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀
BTW...Inisherkin (line 2) is Sherkin Island...and the crumbling fane (church) would probably be The Abbey, wouldn't it? So far as I know, there was no other church on Sherkin Island.
Dunashad (line 13) is the previously mentioned Dún na Séad castle. Which, by the way, was sacked in 1537 by the merchants of Waterford City, who had a long-running feud with the O'Driscoll clan.
Algerine (line 24) is someone from Algeria.
A chibouk (line 34) is a very long-stemmed Turkish tobacco pipe, and a jerreed (also line 34) is "a blunt wooden javelin used in games played on horseback in certain Muslim countries in the Middle East" according to dictionary.com. Interesting detail: dictionary.com also says that this word's usage was "First recorded in 1655–65, jereed is from the Arabic word jarīd." Since the raid on Baltimore occurred on the 20th of June, 1631, this is actually an anachronism.
So that was a nice little canter, wasn't it?
Last but not least, whilst poking about for information on My Beloved Sherkin Island, I happened upon a webpage for the Sherkin Island Marine Station (https://www.sherkinmarine.ie/index.htm) which I, of course, found fascinating in and of itself, but Special Bonus Prize! This lovely institution produces a magazine, Sherkin Comment, and you can download some issues for free (pdf format) at
https://www.sherkinmarine.ie/sherkincomment.htm . And the cover of the latest issue is by none other than Robbie Murphy, who puts some amazingly lovely pictures of this area up on Facebook pretty much every day. And though I have only given this issue a cursory glance, I see that the Director of the Sherkin Island Marine Station is one Matt Murphy, so I'm betting that (1) he is Robbie's brother and (2) that there are more Robbie Murphy photographs to be found in Sherkin Comment. More news on that as it happens.
P.S. I ended up going back for some more...read to page 175. S0 245 to go now. Down to a little over 27 pages per day to finish at Day 1,000, which is (1) pretty darned reasonable, probably right about at my past daily regular rate and (2) probably way under what I'm going to be reading per day.
BTW, I've been thinking about this for at least a day or two. This Baltimore Raid has been referred to (in this book...at least twice) as "the greatest Islamic invasion of the British – Irish Isles"...and yet it was turned away by two men: one with a rifle and the other with a drum. If that doesn't say something about the power of the individual then I don't know what does.
Also...do words ever stalk you?
Because clearly this word is after me. And I don't like it.
Day Four (DDRD 992): July 20, 2020
Early start...not as early as yesterday, but still, early enough...so that by my second cup of coffee (8:00-ish) I had read to page 208, a respectable 23 pages. And I'll read a little more at least. Some interesting stuff, but there are three things that bother me a little about this book.
1. Ekin regularly makes reference to modern stuff that he sees as parallel to the events recorded here--the previously mentioned Marine manual on how to survive a terrorist attack, and in today's reading a page and a half or so about the Stockholm Syndrome and how it came to be. It's very intrusive for me...something that I would have preferred happen--if it had to happen--outside the boundaries of the text itself. Maybe in an appendix. As it is, I feel like I'm watching a movie and getting into it when some loudmouth hits the stop button and starts talking about something he read in the news today. Oh, boy.
2. So much of this is written in the speculative conditional that it just wears me out. It's like reading a "biography" of Shakespeare: "surely he must have..."; "certainly he..."; "we can suppose that...." Either you know or you don't know. And if you don't know...well, maybe you should get on to the next bit that you do know something about. Sigh.
3. Those aforementioned notes? They are absolute shit. They aren't linked to specific pages, and they're written in this very truncated style, which means that they are pretty much useless. I don't understand why Ekin even put them in there.
That said...I'm still enjoying this book. I just wish it were a better book, you know?
Anyway.
Here's some stuff that caught my eye today:
There's an estimate that in the 1630s the total number of slaves in Algiers was 25,000 plus an extra 8,000 "Christians who had changed their religion." (193) I am not quite sure what to make of that last bit. Were they slaves, too? But the point is...there were one hell of a lot of slaves in Algiers. And that's just one city, right?
There are several references to one James Frizzell, British consul to Algiers, which seem to indicate that he was a good guy who was trying to make things better for people with virtually no support from his home government. I would really like to read a biography of this fellow, but I haven't been able to turn up anything yet.
I did find Six Years Residence in Algiers by Elizabeth Broughton (1839) on Google Books ...which would probably be horrifying and interesting.
Anyway...read to page 225...which means I now have a mere 195 pages to go. That makes my new per diem a modest 24 pages. I definitely have this whupped.
Day Five (DDRD 993): July 21, 2020
Read to page 260. Not a whole hell of a lot about Baltimore in this morning's 35 pages, I'm sorry to say. Lots of details about the hell that was life as a prisoner in Algiers, which is something that I think I have now had my fill of. For one thing, Ekin's nonchalance about suffering and cruelty is becoming quite apparent. On page 247, for instance, he actually says
I mean, seriously...that is some Absolute Zero Cold Shit. Ekin also describes several of the tortures that people were put to...and let's just say that if I could un-read them, I certainly would, so I'm not about to put down the details here.
And as long as I'm complaining, I'll also add two more things. First, there are bits here that are completely useless, a waste of my eyeball movements, like this:
I mean...really? I know it's only three lines, but why? And when I stopped to notice that bit of uselessness, it occurred to me that this would be a good page to show just how much of that speculative conditional shit was floating around in these waters. Check this out:
And on the one hand, if you're writing a history, of course you can assert as truth that which is merely probably, much less that which is only possible...but maybe that's just indicative of the fact that this story would have been much better served by splitting it into three sections: (1) just the facts, ma'am; (2) the available documentary evidence; and (3) a novel based upon all of the above. That would have taken a lot of the irritants out of this book for me. And I'd really like to have had a glimpse of the documentary evidence to which Ekin alludes.
Which is not to say that I've lost my joie de lire vis-à-vis The Stolen Village...just that the faults (as I perceive them to be) of Ekin's writing are distracting me from the story. It's like watching a great movie in a theater with someone sitting next to you who is constantly belching and farting.
Meanwhile, back in Baltimore...I've found a few things which interested me greatly. That picture up there ⇡ under the Day Two banner with the caption "A few years ago...when I was fatter, hairier, and still a smoker."? Well, I just found out (courtesy of Wikipedia) that that building was once Baltimore's Railway Station.
Quoth the Wikipedia:
"The station was opened for passenger traffic on 2 May 1893. It consisted of a brick built station building with slate tiled roof and fully surfaced platforms. It was located at the southern terminus of the branch line from Skibbereen and was the most southerly railway station in Ireland.
Regular passenger services were withdrawn on 1 April 1961."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_railway_station
So...missed it by that much. The Wikipedia entry also includes a nice, differently angled picture of the place--
By RuthAS - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33316311
which I found particularly interesting because I had completely forgotten what the rest of that building looked like. Assuming that it looked like this picture when I was there...which is probably a safe assumption. Anyway...finding out that this was once a railway station made me think about how lovely it would be to fly into Cork, dash over to the train station, and than ride into Baltimore aboard the local express. Going by bus was pretty convenient, for sure, but just not in the same league as a train trip across the southern bits of Ireland.
Okay. 160 pages to go. And I have a new plan. I'm going to finish this book up and squeeze Peat and Peat Cutting in before Day 1,000. It has also occurred to me that when I commence upon my second Daily Devotional Reading Millennium, I should probably get around to reading that multi-volume set of Churchill's The Second World War. It's not Ireland...but it's not THAT far off, right? (Our survey says...12 miles. Hell, I could walk that in a day or two.)
Later...well...I read another 40 pages, to page 300. Wasn't really trying to, just kind of happened. I was very interested in the story of Ibrahim and The Golden Cage, which was mentioned on page 266, but thus far have been unable to uncover any details that Ekin didn't reveal. In brief: Ibrahim's crazy brother, Murad IV (1623–40), imprisoned Ibrahim for "most of his early life" (25-ish years so far as I can discern)--hence The Golden Cage. I would really like to read the details of this ordeal.
Meanwhile, Ekin continued to lose my respect as he made this desultory reference to the kidnapped women of Baltimore: "It's probable that many of the Baltimore women and girls made good marriages with local men and (dare I say it) lived happily ever after." Wow. There's nothing like being kidnapped, terrorized and raped to spice up your life, I guess.There was also an earlier reference (I didn't have the strength to go back and find it) to life in the Harem never being boring. Ekin is a fuckhead. I'm going to finish this book, but I now actively dislike him and will certainly never read another word that he has written.
Day Six (DDRD 994): July 22, 2020
Look what I picked up (via no contact curbside delivery service) from the library yesterday:
It's currently in quarantine on my back porch, but I'll be hitting this hard in a few days. I don't think it warrants inclusion as a Daily Devotional Reading, though, 'cause that's for SERIOUS stuff.
Read to page 350. Might read a little bit more and then finish it off tomorrow. (Which would leave PLENTY of time for Peat and Peat Cutting!)
P.S. Ended up doing another little read...to page 382 (end of the chapter). So unless something very odd happens, tomorrow should be it for this book. It has been an interesting read, but the faults of Des Ekin's writing have become overwhelming, and I actually won't be sad to see it in my rearview mirror.
Day Seven (DDRD 995): July 23, 2020
Finished. Can't say that I'm sorry to leave this book behind. Baltimore is one of my favorite places on Earth, and I was intensely interested in the subject matter, but Des Ekin is a shit writer. I highly recommend that you pass on this book...and I fully intend to avoid reading another book by him. His reliance on supposition, his regular bringing in modern day information to pad out his material, his delight in describing cruelty, his constant misogyny, and his ventures into florid prose all made this read far less enjoyable than I ever dreamed it would be.
That said, just a few more details I'd like to remember.
Won page 387, there's this: Waterford merchants attacked Baltimore in 1537 with an artillery barrage and then "they dismantled the castle of Dún na Long stone by stone and, finally, they burned and destroyed Baltimore." So that's how that part of the story ended.
There's also reference to a chapter in a book entitled Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs & European Renegadoes by Peter Lamborn Wilson which has a chapter on the raid on Baltimore, and I would like to have a look at that, as I'm sure that it couldn't be worse than Des Ekin's work, and it might take the bad taste of this book out of my mouth. Besides, this Peter Lamborn Wilson looks like he might be an interesting fellow. Check out these other book titles: oh. Wait a minute. I went to have a look for his bibliography so that I could get the titles down properly, ended up on Wikipedia (of course), and as I looked down the article for the list of books, I stopped at this sub-heading: Pedophilia advocacy. So that's all I need to know about Mr. Wilson.
Sheesh. I have never been more anxious to read about peat and peat cutting.
☮️📤
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