On the name Maolsheachlann

After writing more than six hundred posts on this blog, I think it may finally be time to address a topic which I generally avoid, but which people who meet me for the first time often feel irresistibly compelled to discuss. That is, the topic of my name.

Readers outside Ireland might assume that Maolsheachlann is a common Irish name, or at least, not an especially uncommon one. This is not the case. Most Irish people (I would even say, the vast majority of Irish people) have never heard my name before. Some even assume it is a foreign name (and my rather swarthy complexion and-- to an Irish ear-- light accent encourage them in this mistake).

"What's the English for that?", I'm often asked. But there is no English. The name "Malachy" is sometimes used as an equivalent, and I reluctantly tell them this, but that's as far as I'm willing to go. I don't mean to insult anyone, but "Malachy" is the last name I want to accept as my own, in any language. It's always sounded rather comical in my ears, perhaps on account of its closeness to "malarky."

Maolsheachlann is a Gaelic name that means "Servant of St. Seachnaill". St. Seachnaill was also known as St. Secundinus (believe it or not, I only learned that today) and was one of the first bishops of Armagh.

The most illustrious bearers of the name Maolsheachlann were two High Kings of Ireland, one of whom fought alongside Brian Boru at possibly the most famous battle in Irish history, the Battle of Clontarf (the millennium anniversary of which we are due to celebrate next year, though it has gone rather unnoticed amongst a welter of more controversial anniversaries, both recently passed and soon to be upon us).

I daren't give a description of the Battle of Clontarf, in case any modern Irish historians (whose motto tends to be "forget anything you thought you knew") are reading. When I was a schoolchild, we were told it was a battle in which the High King, Brian Boru, drove the Vikings out of Dublin, and was then murdered in his tent while praying, by an opportunistic and resentful Dane.

But since then it's been discovered (supposedly) that there never were any High Kings of Ireland, and that the Battle of Clontarf wasn't between the Irish and the Vikings, after all, but rather between two sides that were a mixture of both elements. And as for Brian Boru being murdered while praying in his tent-- that seems such a picturesque detail that the sourpusses of the academy would surely disqualify it purely on principle. (Even if it's true, they would reckon, it shouldn't be.)

But one historical fact that is undeniable is the existence of Gormflaith, a gorgeous but wicked lady who was married, at different times, to both my namesake and to Brian Boru-- and who then ended up on the Viking side in the battle. Who doesn't love a femme fatale? (She was said to be the most beautiful woman in Ireland.)

King Maolsheachlann seems to have been a canny sort of fellow, since he only really committed his men to the fighting after Brian's forces had already won the day.

But there was another, earlier King Maolsheachlann-- yet another High King (except there were no High Kings) who is best known for having a Viking warlord chucked in a lake (an entertaining account of it is to be found here). There is actually a statue of this Maolsheachlann in County Meath, which can be seen here. I keep meaning to visit it and have my photo taken with it, but I haven't done so yet. It was this Maolsheachlann that Thomas Moore immortalized in his song, "Let Erin Remember the Days of Old", with its lines:

Let Erin remember the days of old
Ere her faithless sons betrayed her
When Malachy wore the collar of gold
Which he won from the proud invader.

Both of these Maolsheachlanns usually have their names spelled "Mael Seachnaill". But it's the same name, like Boadicea/Boudica, or Tamerlaine/Timur.

"How do you pronounce that?" is a common response when people read my name. Well, this is how I pronounce it: Mwale-hock-lynn. I pronounce it that way because I was taught to pronounce it that way. I suspect it might be a mispronunciation, insofar as you can mispronounce your own name.

I had two secondary school teachers from the Gaeltacht (a Gaeltacht is an area in Ireland in which the Irish language is still, sort of, a living language). They both pronounced my name Mwale-SHOCK-lynn rather than Mwale-HOCK-lynn. As they would have a better intuitive understanding of Gaelic pronunciation than my parents, I tend to think they were right.

But I really don't care how anyone pronounces my name. People get a bit skittish about it, and I try to reassure them it doesn't bother me one little bit how they wrap their tongue around it. To be honest, I even enjoy the different ways people say it.

What does bother me, though-- what bothers me very much-- is the fact that people seem so called upon to comment on it, when they hear it for the first time. And even this doesn't bother me if it's in a private, one-to-one conversation. But when it's in public, I find it excruciatingly embarrassing and tedious.

I'm sick of sitting in training courses, in my job (to give one example), and waiting for the instructor to reach me as she's asking peoples' names. I know that everybody else is waiting for the same thing, and that everybody else is watching for her reaction, and maybe anticipating it with amusement. It drives me batty. I've even thought about approaching the instructor, or speaker, or whoever might find themselves in that situation, before the proceedings begin, and pleading with him or her not to pass comment.

Almost inevitably, people who give training courses, or who find themselves in any "master of ceremonies" role, are the kind of characters who like to think they have "people skills"--- that is, they are amongst the most tactless, unreflective and brash folk you'll ever have the misfortunate to meet. The idea that commenting on my name might not be the most blazingly original thing they could do, or that I might find it tedious after more than thirty years on the planet (and it got old long before that), never seems to occur to them.

Enough of that. (Can you tell this gets to me? Just a little bit?)

All of my family have Irish names, but most of my brothers and sisters have fairly common ones. My sisters, Gráinne and Niamh, have fairly popular names. My older brother, Fergal and Oisín, have names that are slightly more unusual, but still names that most Irish people would recognize. My younger brother's name, Turlough, is relatively rare, but far from unknown.

But my parents really decided to push the boat out with me. (Incidentally, the tradition of unusual Irish names continued with my ten nieces and nephews, none of whom are called Bob or Jane, or even Patrick or Bridget.)

Naturally, I've had a slew of nicknames. Over the years I've been called: Locky, Shocko, Hock, Shockalock, McLoughlin, Madlock, and plenty others that I can't remember. I've also been called Max (by a woman who decided she couldn't  wrap her tongue around my actual name), Wale-ocklin (by my own aunt, who seems to be saying my name as she hears it), and Malcolm (by a UCD academic who mistakenly thinks this is my name and who always greets me by it when she sees me.)

But a few years ago, my friend Beth (an ardent fan of the TV series Firefly, whose main protagonist is called "Mal" Reynolds) started calling me Mal, and this one has really stuck. In fact, outside my family, I'm probably addressed as Mal more often than Maolsheachlann now. I'm fine with this, too. (In fact, I often introduce myself as "Mal", if I'm meeting someone I don't expect to know for long, to avoid all the rigmarole.)

Actually, I've always loved the fact that I've had many different names in my time, and that different people call me different names. It makes me feel like Aragorn (AKA Strider, the Dúnadan, Wingfoot, and Longshanks) from Lord of the Rings, or (even more excitingly) Gandalf (AKA Mithrandir, Stormcrow, Greyhame, and lots of others), from the same book It gives me a sense of being many-sided, and mysterious, and a man for all seasons, all things to all men. (Stop laughing, you there, at the back.)

It seems fairly plausible that one's name affects one's character, and one's view of the world, and perhaps even one's destiny. It's hard to imagine the Third Reich, for instance, under the leadership of Adolf Schicklegruber (which was Hitler's father's name, before he changed it by deed poll.)

In my case, I've always had a strong contrarian streak in me, which was surely only heightened by having such an unusual name. (And which, as you can guess from all the rare Irish names given to their children, is partly derived from my family.) All my life I've been drawn to things-- ideas, causes, works of art, places, people-- that are unpopular, unfashionable, forgotten, despised or overlooked.

 It's easily seen that this is a temperament that very much fits with being a conservative Catholic in twenty-first century Ireland-- though I hope, and I believe, that I hold the opinions and the faith that I do out of conviction, rather than because it accords with my temperament.

I like to think that I mortify my own contrarianism when it is called for-- though I also think that contrarianism can be a good in itself and can be innocently indulged, in certain circumstances. I think contrarians make the world a better place, as long as they know when to draw the line. (I also think this subject deserves an article of its own, which I've been mulling over for a long time now. You have been warned.)

One thing that always bothered me about my name is that I thought it was rather girly. All the world over, across every culture, girls' names tend to contain more syllables than those of boys' (and, incidentally, are more likely to end on a vowel). I've had quite a few letters addressed to "Ms. O'Ceallaigh", which only reinforced this perception.

But I got over this when my wife told me she thinks Maolsheachlann is a manly name, and that her female friends think the same. I'm going with them.

Rare as the name Maolsheachlann is, it is not without at least one distinguished bearer. There is a Maolsheachlann Ó Caollaí who is an outspoken and eloquent figure in the Irish language movement. He still writes the odd letter to The Irish Times, though I get the impression he was more active in the seventies and eighties. He was sufficiently well-known in the eighties to have fun poked at his name in Dublin Opinion, a revival of a famous Irish satirical magazine. I read the article in question only a few months ago.

In fact, this whole blog post was prompted by something the said Mr. Ó Caollaí wrote, that I happened to come across today, in the online archives of The Irish Times. Like me, he seems to be a man of many and strongly-held views. I'd like to meet him and shake his hand-- possibly while having our photo taken, in front of the statue of Mael Sechnaill that I mentioned earlier.

When I was on Facebook, I looked for my own name and saw that there was another Facebook user who shared it. I sent him a friend request, feeling that this was enough of an "in", but he never replied. So much for solidarity.

But who knows? Maybe Maolsheachlann Ó Caollaí, or another Maolsheachlann, will come across this article and get in touch. It's lonely being a Maolsheachlann sometimes. Here's hoping.

A Christmas Bauble

Gaze into the flickering flame

Of a homely hearth

Gaze through the world-creating frame

Of any window on the Earth.

Gaze in a grey or a hazel eye;

Gaze all night at the spangled sky;

But gaze at last, for a greater joy,

In the glow of a Christmas bauble.

This is the very mirror of mirth;

A light to proclaim

A winter's tale of a Virgin Birth

Making the world a fantastic game.

God is the giddiest thought of all,

Says the tinsel hanging on the wall

And the twinkling of that happy ball

The glow of a Christmas bauble.

The season that bears the Holy Name

Is sending forth

The tidings we were born to proclaim;

The infinite worth

Of the soul of man, of all God-made things,

And all that the Carol-singer sings

But the happiest hymn to the King of Kings

Is the glow of a Christmas bauble.

Why Do Ghouls Like Demons?

Because demons are a ghoul's best friend, of course.

It's time for another triple bill of my Hundred Nightmares!

Nightmare 42: The Best Years of Your Life

Nicola never would have imagined she’d wear any kind of uniform voluntarily. But this weekend she was going to a school nostalgia disco.

“You’re too young to get nostalgic”, her mother had said, when she told her. “You’re not even thirty. When you’re my age, you can start getting nostalgic.”

“It’s just something people do, Ma”, said Nicola, trying not to look irritated. “It’s just like a fancy dress party.”

“Dressing up like a schoolgirl sounds kind of creepy to me”, her mother said.

“It’s not like that”, said Nicola. “It’s only guys my age there. Not…dirty old men.”

“Well, it could be worse, I suppose”, said her mother. “God knows, it’s best to be out of the world than out of the fashion. I’ll get Jenny’s uniform for you.”

“Thanks”, said Nicola, a little shame-facedly. Neither of them had mentioned the reason that Nicola needed her sister’s uniform: she had been five stone heavier in her school days. The svelte, eye-catching woman of twenty-five had been a dumpy figure at fifteen.

As her mother fetched the uniform, Nicola drank the last of her tea and looked around the pokey kitchen. She felt more at home here than she felt in the apartment. Even the holy pictures comforted her. She looked into the eyes of the Jesus in the Sacred Heart picture over the cooker, and smiled.

* * * 

 

“David, cider. Fiona, white wine and soda. Gemma, orange juice. Got it.”

“And peanuts, my love, peanuts”, shouted Fiona, drunkenly.

“I’m used to getting peanuts”, said Nicola, but nobody heard her attempt at wit over Boy George’s singing.

She moved towards the bar, threading through the press of bodies. She had been a little apprehensive, but it was turning out to be a wonderful night. Everybody was in good form, she’d met a couple of familiar faces (if not exactly friends) from St. Kieran’s, and—best of all-- she looked fantastic. Everybody said so, and so did the mirror.

She was waiting by the bar, trying to catch the Chinese barman’s attention, when a voice to her left said: “Nicola Walsh?”

She turned. It took her a moment to recognise the man who stood before her, his grey shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and his jersey tied around his waist.

“Liam?”, she asked. “Is it Liam?”

He smiled. It was a beautiful smile. She had spent three years daydreaming about that smile, back in St. Kieran’s.

“That’s me”, he said. “You left in third year, didn’t you?”.

“That’s right”, she said, a thrill passing through her that he remembered. He was even more gorgeous than he had been back then. Brashness had been replaced by quiet confidence. She could see it in the way he smiled, the way he stood. “My family moved to Cork.”

“But you’re back now”, said Kieran, and he moved closer. He had never been cruel to her, like so many of the others in St. Kieran’s. But he had never looked at her the way he was looking at her now, either.

Boy George finished on a high note. Bon Jovi kicked in. The night was looking more promising than ever.

* * * *

 

“Hey…hey, is this Linda Fleming?”

There was a silence at the other end of the line, and then a hesitant: “Yeah, who is this?”

“It’s Nicola Dunne. We…we went to school together.”

“I don’t remember”, said the voice at the other end, almost brusquely now.

“I left in third year”, said Nicola. “We…we sat beside each other once, in art.”

A longer pause, and then a tone of mild embarrassment crept into the voice on the phone. “Oh…oh, yeah. How are you?”

“I’m fine”, said Nicola. “I got your number from your cousin….you know, Penny. I used to work with her. Hey, do you remember Liam Thompson?”

“God, yeah”, said Linda, with surprising fervour.

“Do you know his number?”, asked Nicola. “I thought I had it, but I must have taken it down wrong”

The pause that followed this was the longest yet. “Liam is dead”, said Linda, her voice almost toneless. “He died of meningitis in fith year, just before Christmas. Didn’t you know that?”

Nicola didn’t answer. She didn’t even answer when Linda asked “Hello? You there?” She killed the call, and laid her mobile phone beside her on the duvet. Then she rubbed her hand lightly over her stomach, frantically wondering what could be growing inside her.

Nightmare 43: The Mission

“The meeting with the union leaders is dragging on longer than scheduled”, said Melissa Dale, rolling her eyes. “Why am I not surprised?”

“They should know by now”, said Bruce, shrugging. “Any meeting with Rhonda is over in the first five minutes. The rest is just verbiage.”

“A Prime Minister shouldn’t be so patient”, said Melissa, glancing towards the closed door of the conference room. “Or so polite.”

“She said to me a few days ago”, said Bruce, “I had no idea that there was so much boredom to the job.” He grinned knowingly.

“I’m still having trouble believing it”, said Melissa, lowering her voice, looking around the legendary house with obvious awe. “I always thought I believed she’d make it, but I never really did.”

It was a month into Rhonda Shipperly’s tenure as Prime Minister. Melissa Dale had been working as her press secretary for five years. Bruce had been Cabinet Secretary for six months, seeing out the dying days of the last administration. His name was only beginning to make it into the newspapers, yet another shadowy Svengali for the press to caricature.

They had no idea.

“Why don’t you wait in your office?”, asked Melissa. I’ll send Rhonda in to you when she finally gets out.”

“Okey-doke”, said Bruce, nodding and turning briskly on his heel.

His heart was hammering against his chest and hands were damp. How had Melissa not noticed it? And she didn’t, he told himself. If you’re going to start getting panicky, at least keep faith in your instincts.

Today was the day decreed. Today was his day of great service.

As he walked towards his office, he barely returned the nods of the colleagues who passed him. He was no longer in Downing Street. He was in a small room in a hotel in Aberdeen. He was naked, and surrounded by a ring of equally naked figures. He was eighteen years old.

Do you swear eternal allegiance to the Bondsmen of Baal?

Yes.

Do you defy the authority of the Great Tyrant?

Forever.

Do you pledge yourself to the liberation of humanity and the elimination of the Tyrant’s servants?

Freely.

Inside his office, he went straight to the television and switched it on. Television calmed his nerves. All it took was one look at the news to see who was winning.

Most of the time, that was. As soon as he switched the TV on—it was set to a news channel--- the face of Harriet Chambers, the Minister of Health, filled the screen.

A voiceover said “Right-to-die and pro-choice campaigners have criticised the appointment of Harriet Chambers, a confessed member of the Catholic lay organisation Opus Dei, to the post of Minster for Health. Of course, Rhonda Shipperly has been open about her own religious convictions. A lifelong Quaker, she’s been called the most outspokenly Christian Prime Minister since Gladstone.”

Bruce scowled and changed the channel. He was sweating profusely now. It was almost time.

Now the screen showed a grinning JFK waving to the crowds in his final moments of life. Normally, this footage cheered Bruce up—if only the Bondsmen had been responsible!—but today, the parallel was too close to be comfortable.

Then there was a knock on the door.

He switched off the televison, swallowed hard, reached his hand into his trouser pocket, and called “Come in”.

The door opened. The short, svelte figure of the Prime Minister stepped into the room. She looked fatigued after her extended meeting, and she gave Bruce a rather impatient look as she closed the door behind her.

“Yes, Bruce, what is it?”, she asked, in her imperious tones.

Bruce drew the hand from his pocket. The Prime Minister’s expression froze.

“I just got the text”, he said, holding up his mobile phone. “Harriet Chambers will be found dead by her cleaner two hours from now. A heart attack. It’s very clean. Very convincing.”

A radiant smile crossed the Prime Minister’s face. She took a step closer.

"Well done, Bruce" she said, her voice lower now. "And don't look so goddamned worried, OK? Don't you ever listen to the proverbs of the pious? The Devil takes care of his own." And she laughed.
 

Nightmare 44:  The Shortest Day

“I’ll never forgive myself”, said Eva. She was trying not to cry, but the tears came anyway.

“Hey, look”, said Rachel, winding her arm around her niece’s shoulders. “It’s not such a big deal.”

“It’s a huge deal”, sobbed Eva. “How can you say it’s not a big deal? You’ll never get another chance.”

There were standing on a steep hill in the grey light of dawn. Hundreds of others were scattered on the slope. Some of them held microphones and TV cameras. Now and then somebody shot the sobbing girl a curious stare.

A short walk up the hill, the ancient mound of Newgrange stood out against the sky’s pale dawn. From this distance, it looked like a squat hill with a stone wall circled around its base. The passage tomb had been built five millennia ago—older than the pyramids, everybody said—and every winter solstice, for a few minutes, the chamber filled with the glow of the rising sun, streaming in through a perfectly-placed aperture in its roof.

It was a much coveted sight. Entry to the chamber was by lottery. Tens of thousands entered every year. Fifty were selected.

Rachel, on a long-planned trip to Ireland, had visited the site, filling out an entry form for the lottery in the nearby visitor’s centre. Then she had forgotten all about it, until an email months later told her that she had been selected, and could bring a guest.

Eva had been the first person she’d asked. The girl was a history fanatic, spending as much time in museums as most teenagers spent in malls and music stores. She’d even paid for the trip. Eva had been so excited she had barely slept in the past two days.

As it turned out, she’d been too worked up. Minutes before the famed beam of light was due to flood the chamber—and this year, unlike most years, the sky was clear enough of clouds to guarantee a show—she’d had a panic attack, shouting that she had to get out, knocking over a hand-held television camera and pushing through the tight crowd, back out through the tunnel and into the weak light of dawn.

Rachel had followed her out, of course. Truth be told, she was a hundred times less eager to see the event than Eva.

“Look, we’ll still get to go in”, she said now, squeezing the girl’s shoulder. “I mean, you get to see the sun every day, don’t you?”

Eva sniffed loudly, and tried to smile. “I don’t know what happened to me”, she said. “I just got so scared. I don’t know how.”

“Is this the young lady who left the chamber?”.

Eva and Rachel looked around. A tall man in a bulky red jacket and jeans was smiling at them. He might have been in his early forties, and he wore a gentle smile. He spoke in a European accent.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, young lady”, said the man. “You were overwhelmed by the presence of the sacred, that’s all. It shows you have been hypnotised by all the consumerism and careerism of our age.”

Rachel and Eva stood there, staring at him.

“I’m Jan Geerts”, he said, extending his hand. “I’m a minister in the Protestant Church of the Netherlands. I come here every year.”

“Isn’t this all a bit pagan for you?”, asked Rachel, grinning.

He gave a hearty, pleased laugh. “Pagan, Christian, Buddhist, what does it matter? All men—and women, of course—have felt the same awe for God, through all the millennia of mankind. Can’t you feel the divine energy, standing here?”

“I just feel cold”, said Rachel.

“Look”, said Eva, pointing towards the huge, carved stone above the mouth of the mound. “Look, it’s glowing!”

She was right. It was faint at first, but it grew brighter by the second. The crowd on the hill drew closer, slowly, murmuring.

Then they heard a muffled screaming, coming from inside the tomb itself. It could barely be heard, but faint as it was, the despair that filled it was horribly clear.

Then they saw it. At first, it seemed to be nothing more than a white gleam in the dark mouth of the tomb, but then it resolved into a line of shimmering figures, wrapped in phantasmal white hooded cloaks, marching forward in slow and stately procession.

Those who had assembled to witness the winter solstice at Newgrange turned, many of them falling over themselves in their eagerness to escape. They rushed down the hill to cars and buses, to the visitor centre, away from the hazy form that filled them with dread.

Back in the car, hurtling through the country roads, Eva and Rachel heard the news on the radio. In dolmens and cromlechs and passage tombs all over Ireland and Britain, the same phantasmal figures were flooding out in a seemingly never-ending stream. They were moving towards the towns and cities. The Old Gods were back.

Prayer Request

I would appreciate any prayers right now, as I am suddenly faced with an anxious situation. I can't go into more detail, but please pray that my worries today turn out to be unjustified. Sorry for the vagueness. Thank you.

Update, Tuesday: Praise God, my biggest fear did indeed turn out to be unwarranted, though the situation remains difficult. I sincerely appreciate all the prayers.

This is Reassuring

I was sitting beside an emergency exit on a plane yesterday and I was terrified I was going to experience a suicidal rush of blood to the head and pull it open. (Of course, I wasn't really going to. But how could I be sure I wasn't going to? Haven't you read Poe's Imp of the Perverse? )

Luckily, it seems that even the most Herculean strength would be incapable of opening an emergency exit when the plane is in flight. And this week I discovered I can barely manage twenty push-ups, so I'm safe.

Yes, these are the things I worry about. (I also worry I'm going to go loco and grab at priceless works of art in galleries. But surely they're not the real works of art, anyway? How would they be exposed to so much danger? And how come I'm the only person with this conspiracy theory, even if I don't really believe it myself.)

God Asks Everything Of Us, Yet At the Same Time He Offers Everything to Us

That's from the Pope's new enyclical, Evangelli Gaudium. Couldn't even get a few pages into it before I wanted to blog on it. That's a pretty good sign, I think.

It Is Right to Give Thanks and Praise

My blog statistics tell me that most of my readers are in America. So I wish a happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers, and indeed, to all my other readers.

Today I am lapping up my first ever American Thanksgiving, in Richmond, Virginia-- complete with watching Macy's parade and a national dog show on TV (I think that latter is the most brilliant and unexpected tradition imaginable), and a turkey, cranberry sauce and other delicious seasonal things sending out enticing aromas from the cooker.

Later we are going to watch The Way, Way Back and I'll see if Michelle loves it as much as I did. (We already watched You've Got Mail, which I utterly adored, and Kate and Leopold and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which I also liked, though not quite as much.)

I've been to America a few times now and the more I see of it, the deeper I fall in love it. Admittedly I've only seen a small corner of it.

(Incidentally, my ridiculously protracted flight here passed over Greenland-- the pilot alerted us to look out the window and see the snowy, mountainous terrain beneath. He also told us he had switched to a route that pilots used to fly from Europe to America during World War Two.)

Christians hope to spend all eternity saying "Thank you" to God. And the moments when we are most happy are the ones when we are most thankful. This is a good festival, in a great country. Happy Thanksgiving!