Meagher travel diary part 11 – back to Ireland

The Granville Hotel, the building on the Quay, Waterford where Thomas Francis Meagher was born.

After finishing my three week trip to America I’ve spent the last three weeks writing and researching back home in Brisbane. But now, like when I wrote part 1 of this diary I’m back in Brisbane International Airport. I’m heading back to Ireland to spend more time in Thomas Francis Meagher’s (and my own) native Waterford. Meagher was born in the city on August 3, 1823 (not August 23 as writers like Thomas Keneally and the Irish Brigade Antietam battlefield monument incorrectly state) and spent his first 10 years here before being educated at Clongowes Wood in Kildare and Stonyhurst College in Lancashire.

Meagher returned to Ireland in 1843 and took part in O’Connell’s monster meetings in Waterford and Lismore. In 1844 he moved to Dublin to study law but became involved in the Repeal movement. He was a leading Young Irelander in 1846, his “Meagher of the Sword” speech a major trigger of the split with O’Connell. In the revolution year of 1848 Meagher brought an Irish tricolour back from Paris before being arrested at his father’s house in July. He returned later that month in an unsuccessful attempt to raise support for a revolution and was arrested after the failed Ballingarry revolt, although he was not involved in the skirmish. Sentenced to death and then commuted to life transportation to Van Diemen’s Land, Meagher last saw Waterford from the ocean as his transport the Swift sailed by. “Will no one come out to hail me from Dunmore? I pass by and my own people know nothing of it,” he wrote. For the last time, Meagher feasted his eyes on Tramore Bay, the Bunmahon cliffs and the Comeragh mountains behind them. He would never see his native county or land again.

Meagher escaped from Tasmania and lived the rest of his life in the United States, becoming an important figure in the Civil War fighting at Antietam and Fredericksburg. He died in Montana where he was acting governor for two years. Throughout his time in America, he kept his love of Ireland and Waterford. Before he left for Montana, Meagher showed his friends Lyons a photograph he had received of his surviving son, now 11 years old, “looking in almost every lineament a counterpart of his gallant father” as Lyons wrote. Meagher wrote back to his father in Waterford saying Montana would be a splendid enterprise and perhaps they could reunite in France “next summer”. It didn’t happen and Meagher never met his son.

I was last in Waterford in May and wrote a blog post called Thomas Francis Meagher’s Waterford. As well as spending time in the library and walking around the city there is a lot more about Meagher’s Waterford I want to find out.

Topics and questions I want to research are: the Waterford links to Newfoundland, the grandfather and father’s influence, the relationship of the Meagher/Quan house in King St versus the Granville (was it all one connecting building?), where exactly is Cromwell’s Rock which Meagher talks about climbing as a boy (I did not know this name growing up and I cannot find photos of it, though it’s clear photos from it place it near Ferrybank church), any information about his mother Alicia Quan, the influence of his father Thomas Meagher, his aunts the Quan sisters and their school on the Mall, the extraordinary Wyse family and their influence, the Waterford Club, trace the emergence of the Irish flag and the variations around that in early 1848 (both the version before Meagher went to France and the version after), the exact date of his second arrest in Waterford in July (blue plaque says July 12, I think it was a day earlier on July 11) when was his last day in Waterford (Griffith’s Meagher of the Sword says he farewelled his father on July 20, but in the confusing lead up to Ballingarry Meagher came back to Waterford to raise soldiers at least once (possibly twice?). Lastly I want to investigate why did it take so long for a monument to be erected for him in Waterford (I have read accounts of committees raised for the purpose in the 1870s and yet it took until 2004)? Montana by contrast raised a statue for him in Helena in 1905.

I’m also keen to return to the Bishop’s Palace exhibit on Meagher and his family and visit the abandoned Ballycanvan House near Faithlegg where Meagher’s grandfather lived. I will also return to the family plot at nearby Faithlegg cemetery. Though not related to Meagher I want to visit Waterford’s two ancient dolmen graves at Gaulstown and Knockeen. I also have a couple of days planned at the National Library of Ireland in Dublin (though I could have done with a couple of weeks there). A highlight will be meeting a Thomas Francis Meagher scholar, appropriately at the Granville Hotel where Meagher was born. The countdown remains on to publication on August 3, 2023 – the 200th anniversary of his birth.

The story of Satan

The Great Satan. Pixabay licence.

In an article about the protests in Iran after the death of a 22-year-old woman at the hands of “morality police”, authorities warned a protester they would send her back to the “Great Satan”, the United States. The Great Satan, Shaytân-e Bozorg in Persian, has long been a pejorative Iranian term ever since revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini used it in 1979 to describe imperialist and corrupt America.

The irony is that the idea of a great satan as the ultimate evil genius emerged from Iran. Around 600 BC, Persian teacher Zoroaster reduced the large cast of Gods to just two. Zoroastrianism is the oldest of the revealed world religions, and its ideas have probably had more influence on humankind than any other faith. It noted a cosmic dualism between two gods; the all powerful and good God Ahura Mazda and an evil spirit of violence and death called Angra Mainyu who opposes him. Zoroastrianism invented the concept of an afterlife of hell for those who lived “bad lives”.

The devil did not originate in the Judeo-Christian Old Testament. There is a Satan there, Ha-Satan, Hebrew for “the adversary”. Ha-Satan is not a demon and doesn’t live in Hell, he’s just an angel doing God’s dirty work. In the Book of Job he argues that Job is only pious because he has a good life. God agrees for Ha-Satan to inflict suffering on Job to test his faith. Job continues to believe in God and Ha-Satan loses the argument.

Persian ideas made their way into Judaic texts when Israel was conquered during the reign of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II. After Alexander the Great defeated Persia, Greek ideas also filtered into the Middle East. Among their pantheon of Gods is the black-bearded Hades, dark god of the underworld who wields a two-pronged sword to smite enemies. Many of Hades’ characteristics were passed on to the Devil. Hades lacked fire and that was provided by the city of Jerusalem. In the Gospels, Jesus warns followers to avoid the fate of Gehenna. Gehenna was Jerusalem’s smouldering and stinking rubbish dump, periodically set alight to burn the bodies of executed criminals. The fires lasted for weeks and Gehenna was regarded as a supernatural and hellish place.

By the time of the Christian Gospels of the end of the first century AD, Satan was a powerful symbolic figure in a battle against new Roman conquerors. Persecuted Jews and Christians alike saw Satan as the evil force behind the power of Caesar. In the Book of Revelations, Satan is the Beast with his human number “666”. This number may have been a code which refers to emperor Nero (the sum of the numerical values of the name ‘Nero Caesar’ in Aramaic is 666). True or not, a modern image of Satan as a personification of evil was emerging. In the earliest pictures he has the black skin of Hades, the wings of a fallen angel and the talons of a dragon, the ancient symbol of evil. But Satan was no timeserver. He was busy working with enemies to create mayhem.

When Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the early fourth century, the once persecuted religion began to gain power. Church leaders said those who disagreed with them, such as heretics worshipping other versions of Christianity, were in league with Satan and had to be exterminated. Executions of Christianity’s enemies started around 450AD and continued for a thousand years.

Among the popular pagan religions rooted out was the worship of Pan. As the god of such goodness as music, happiness, and lovemaking, Pan was a serious threat to early Christianity. Christian propaganda demonised him as a goat-headed satyr. Satan inherited Pan’s horns and hairy cloven hooves. St Augustine exploited the sex angle, warning about satanic helpers wreaking havoc with godfearing people. He said male demons called incubi seduced women at night while saintly men were also in danger from succubi who forced them into lewd sex acts.

By the Middle Ages, Satan was a real and powerful force of evil. The Gnostic group known as Cathars took this further, seeing everything materialistic as evil. This was a dangerous notion to a now wealthy Church. Pope Innocent III announced a Crusade against the Cathars in 1209. It lasted 45 years and killed 100,000 people, many of whom believed Satan was even more powerful than the Church said he was.

Christians and the Muslims both inherited beliefs from the Persians and both believed Satan was fighting for their enemies. One of the Crusades’ many terrible legacies was the Inquisition, whose sole rationale was to root out heretics. The Inquisition was a hell on earth where accused were guilty until proven innocent. Anyone who questioned its work was immediately suspected of being in league with the Devil. In 1307 King Philip IV (Le Bel) of France used new powers against witchcraft to accuse the wealthy Knights Templars of worshipping pagan idol Baphomet. It was an excuse to destroy the Templars and gain access to their vast financial resources. In 1307 on Friday, October 13 (the reason the day traditionally carries bad luck) Philip had all French Templars arrested on spurious charges and accusations.

Templars weren’t the only ones in danger. Fears of necromancers and witches swept across Europe. In 1324 in Kilkenny, Ireland, Dame Alice Kyteler was accused of witchcraft, heresy and having a demon mother. Kyteler was a rich widow and a landowner who outlasted several husbands. The Church wanted her wealth, so the Inquisition accused her of poisoning her husbands and having nocturnal meetings with the Devil. She fled to England, one of the lucky ones to escape.

Women were seen as vessels of the devil and susceptible to temptation. In 1486, two German Dominican monks, Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, published Malleus Maleficarum, (Latin for ‘the hammer of witches’) an Inquisitor dummy’s guide on how to identify witches and what they did. Witches had the mark of Satan on their bodies, the monks wrote. They could fly and they worshipped Satan at covens. Thanks to the Gutenberg Press, Malleus Maleficarum quickly became a best seller.

Thirty years later, Martin Luther emerged from Wittenberg to begin the Protestant Reformation. Luther believed Satan was preventing him from doing God’s work which he identified with the wrongs of the papacy. Catholic opponents accused Luther of being inspired by Satan and using Malleus to identify its enemies. Satanic hysteria swept the continent.

When the Puritans went to North America on the Mayflower they brought ideas about Satan with them. In 1688 Irish servant girl Mary Glover was hanged as a witch. Three years later, the testimony of three young girls believed to be under the spell of witchcraft led to a mass execution. In the Salem witch trials, 150 people were arrested, 19 were hanged or crushed to death and 17 others died in prison. The 18th century enlightenment uprooted superstitions and ideas about witchcraft. But a new devil arrived to take the place of the old. He was a lonely heroic figure, a rebel challenging God’s imperious power and battling the cruelties of fate. The Devil began to be admired in folk tales. Thanks to the humbling influence of these tales, the Devil was no longer feared or hated. The devil became a figure of fun neither better nor worse than the people he dealt with.

Things changed again with the counter-culture of the 1960s. San Francisco occult showman Anton Levay founded the Church of Satan in 1968. Part religion, part money-making venture, it attracted media hype, mostly created by the publicity-conscious Levay. Despite his charlatanism, he attracted a cross section of society attracted to the idea of Satan the rebel. Middle America was outraged. At the height of the Levay controversy in 1967, film director Roman Polanski released Rosemary’s Baby based on Ira Levin’s book about devil worshippers in Manhattan. The heroine’s innocuous neighbours turn out to be a coven of witches who steal her baby while her husband strikes a Faustian pact with the Devil. The film was an unexpected hit. Five years later, The Exorcist brought similar ideas of good versus evil onto the screen and into popular culture. Hollywood’s discovery that it could make a lot of money with stories of devil worship began a 1980s paranoia and moral panic about Satanism that swept America.

Modern Satanists say that the Devil is not evil but stands for a spirit of change. They say Satan represents opposition and balance. It means becoming the Devil’s Advocate and looking at different ways of doing things. Yet opinion surveys show that over half of the US’s population believe the Devil is a dangerous presence. After 9/11 the Bush administration saw it in stark terms of a battle between good and evil. Bush’s 2002 State of the Union speech said “evil is with us and must be opposed”. It is a dualism that stretches back to Zoroaster. Angra Mainyu is still very much alive.