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Ooooo, would that I had €800 to €1,200. That is the base price for the head of Saint Vitalis of Assisi, the patron saint of genital and bladder disorders, which is to go on sale from a family’s private collection in County Meath, Ireland. The head, encased in glass and metal that appears to have been made just for it, is not evidence of the incorruptible nature of saints, as it’s mainly a skull adorned with a wreath. What’s more, it doesn’t even positively belong to the Italian-born saint, who died in 1370.
A pair of studies recently featured in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) journals are, I think, a bit creepy. First up is a study the findings of which are so intuitive I find it a tad nerve-wracking that the researchers managed to get the funding to conduct it, let alone get it published. [...]
A Brief, Violent and Painful Look at Kneecapping
by Josh Clark | August 31, 2010
A group of four kids coming home from the bars near my neighborhood last weekend were held up by some other kids, one of whom had a gun. While three (including two girls) were pistol whipped, one was shot in the knee or kneecapped in other parlance. I was running a search for news of the shooting, which soon turned into an investigation of the custom and effects of kneecapping.
It’s strung like a smile, maybe. But oh it’s not kidding.
Meet the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge in Northern Ireland, the famed swaying pathway that connects a cragged cliff on the mainland with a cragged cliff on the Carrick-a-Rede Island. Some form of this rope bridge has been around for more than 350 years — swinging in the wind above the 98-feet-deep (30-meter) chasm below.
What’s the most beautiful book in the world? Why, the Book of Kells, of course. The illuminated manuscript is Ireland’s national treasure, and for good reason. Besides its beauty and the skill and craftsmanship involved in its manufacture, it also survived through the centuries come hell or high water — or Vikings, at least.
Nellie Bly, Girl Reporter, didn’t want to write about fashion and flower shows. Our spirited heroine was more interested in Things That Mattered. She began her writing career by responding to a newspaper column that urged women to stay in the kitchen. Her letter was so inspired that she was hired at the Pittsburgh Dispatch.
Sarah and I started off “Who stole the Amber Room?” with a discussion of American Girl dolls, mainly because we talk about them much more often than you’d think two 20somethings would, but also because pioneer Kirsten had a lovely, much-coveted amber necklace. Now imagine an entire room paneled with the fossilized resin and backed in gold leaf, decorated with mosaics in semiprecious stones. When Hitler took a shine to the treasure, it disappeared.
Our next topic was Irish hero Brian Boru, a guerrilla warrior who drove the marauding Vikings out of Ireland and became high king before dying bloodily by Viking hands. But history is never as simple as that.
If you ask fairy tales, a kiss can solve all kinds of problems: You kiss a frog, he turns into a prince. You kiss a sleeping beauty, she wakes up. You kiss a mermaid, she sings. The legend of Ireland’s Blarney Stone runs along those same lines: You kiss this rock, you gab.
Yeah, I know … but how many chances do we get to talk about Irish car production? Or for that matter, how many opportunities do I get to mention the short-lived, stainless steel-bodied, gull-wing door-equipped DeLorean? So anyway, here’s a bit of Irish automotive history for you today.
The DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) was founded by former General Motors executive, John DeLorean, in Detroit, Mich., in 1975. After a long search for a suitable place to build his dream car, DeLorean settled on Northern Ireland. By 1978, construction had started on the assembly plant in Dunmurry, Ireland, a suburb of Belfast.
Now, here’s something that I found surprising, especially given the number of DeLoreans that I’ve seen on the road over the years: Production of the Irish-built DeLorean DMC-12, the only model built by DMC, lasted for a very brief amount of time.
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