Author: David Radka
Wednesday, 12 June 2002 - 11:06 pm |        |
| opening |
Author: Arfa Kidney
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 07:03 am | |
Hello David,
Straight to the point this one.
Why wont you give us the name of the suspect your theory is based on?
Regards,
Mick |
Author: Alegria [Moderator]
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 07:40 am | |
David,
Threads are for topics that can actually be discussed. You cannot start a thread and post simply "replacement" without putting anything else in it. If you want a BS thread, it needs to go in Pub Talk. |
Author: Arfa Kidney
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 08:29 am | |
Damn!
I make a point of never going in pubs.
Horrible smokey places full of people drinking alcohol...not for me.
Afternoon Ally
Mickey Wickey |
Author: David Radka
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 12:20 pm | |
copyright David M. Radka, 2002
I set up this thread to invite discussion on what may prove a very touchy subject--cannibalism among the Irish. The Lusk letter states that the murderer fried and ate half of Catherine Eddowes' left kidney, and it was written in what has been termed a stage Irish accent. The combination obviously invites the question.
Therefore, does anybody here know of a history of cannibalism in Ireland? Let me put it in the bluntest of terms: Do the Irish eat human flesh? Could a traditionalist Irishman have decided to commit these murders in order to acquire tasty bits for an Irish stew?
Serious replies only, please.
David |
Author: Christopher T George
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 12:20 pm | |
Hi, Ally and David:
I was going to say that presumably David is about to make a full and complete disclosure about his theory and suspect. However, our posts crossed, David. I will leave to others to address your query.
All the best
Chris |
Author: Alegria [Moderator]
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 12:57 pm | |
Alright then David,
I'm sure you won't mind me changing the title to The Irish and Cannibalism then as that is your stated topic of discussion? While threads do meander off topic..it's inevitable...they shouldn't do so from the opening post.
Ally |
Author: Philip C. Dowe
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 12:57 pm | |
David,
what have you been smoking, drinking, snorting or pumping into veins? Is that meant to be a serious question? So far I thought that the "highest of the land"-theory was way-out, but now this. You are about to make a lot of people.
Seriuos reply: You are out of your mind!
Philip |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 01:16 pm | |
David, I think whoever wrote the "Lusk letter", forgot to end it," Jest funnin wid yer byo"
Rick |
Author: David O'Flaherty
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 02:30 pm | |
| I think about doing it sometimes. |
Author: Martin Fido
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 02:43 pm | |
The answer lies in Tom Lehrer.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: David Radka
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 02:55 pm | |
Tom Lehrer writes and sings funny little skiffle ditties ala' Lonnie Donnegan. He has one in which little children are seen more or less as a forage species. This isn't what I meant.
The rather obtuse reactions to my post above may well speak volumes concerning why the case hasn't been solved in all these years. We can't overlook what may well be legitimate leads.
David |
Author: David O'Flaherty
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 03:01 pm | |
David, you cannot copyright an idea. Only the expression of an idea. However, good luck with your theory.
P.S. My great-grandfather was indeed one for cannibalism.
Top of the morning to ya. . .CHOMP
David |
Author: Jesse Flowers
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 03:57 pm | |
Perhaps some Irishman took Swift's "Modest Proposal" to heart?
AAA88 |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 04:41 pm | |
Deer Mishtur Radka,
Having bitten my knuckles to the elbow in anticipation of "AR" I now discover you have been gorging on my potlash of cannibal snippets... which should be taken with a pinch of salt.
All this, and the threat of The Sacramento Home For Crippled Cowgirls, or failing that...the MATRIX.
David! You have it mixed up with some Sawney Beans
shurly?
A Hungerian Rose :-) |
Author: Simon Owen
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 06:06 pm | |
Serious answer : There was a reported case of cannibalism in the west of Ireland in May 1849 after the Famine , but that is the only case I know of.
The Irish , being a Christian people , tended not to eat each other.
There is however , the ' Modest Proposal ' of Jonathan Swift in which he ( satirically ) suggests that a way to relieve the problems of Irish poverty would be to butcher Irish babies and serve them up for food : thats the only reference to cannibalism and the Irish that there is. The Irish were never considered to be a cannibalistic race !!! |
Author: lucky pierre
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 06:27 pm | |
| Perhaps more Celtic than Irish...something related to the "solar king" sacrifice. I think I remember something about this in Julius Caesar's report on Gaul. Not as crazy as it may seem! |
Author: Chris Hintzen
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 09:06 pm | |
Hi David,
Lucky beat me to the possible Celtic/Gaul legends of human sacrifice and cannibalism. However, there never was proof that it wasn't simply a myth permeated by either the Romans(in hopes of converting people) or by the Catholics(again for the same reason as the Romans).
I'm surprised your theory would lean more towards the Irish, rather than going towards the Moors.(Sure it had been 800 years since the crusades, however, that's a lot more recent than the 2000 years for the supposed Celtic rituals.) Or maybe even the Eastern Europeans, much like Vlad the Impaler.(One time prisoner of the Moors, who used some of their own scare tactics against them.)
I know there was a tale in the papers about a Cannibal family living in a cave, feeding off travellers, which were eventually vanguished by one English King.(But I believe the incestous family was English not Irish.)
Regards,
Chris H.
P.S. I don't wish people to think that I believe the Moors were cannibalistic in the least since. This was just a similar myth that was stated about them, because their religious practices differed from the Christians. |
Author: David Radka
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 09:12 pm | |
I was influenced to pose this question by a program last evening on archaeology in Ireland. They were taking soundings of the circular mounds to discover what lay underneath. I thought the cannibalism might well have come in at the time of the Celtic invasion or the great ancient climactic change and related famine, or indeed might have had to do with the solar god. My thanks to all who have contributed!
David |
Author: Simon Owen
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 09:14 pm | |
Hmm...the Celts might have practiced human sacrifice and votive offerings , and even head collecting , but I am sure 100% that they weren't cannibals !
In times of famine there may have been a bit of cannibalism , but that would apply to the Anglo-Saxons as well.
The clan you are thinking of who prayed on travellers were the Sawny Bean clan , as mentioned above. |
Author: alex chisholm
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 10:32 pm | |
Hi David
Intriguing as ever.
Being to the very bones a Highland Jock, I couldn’t vouch safe for the culinary habits of our Hibernian cousins, but I somehow doubt that human flesh featured on many Irish menus in the last quarter of the 19th century.
Nor do I think that such practices need necessarily have been personally experienced by the Lusk letter writer. Cannibalism was a fairly prominent feature of press reports in the weeks leading up to the receipt of the Lusk package. Although unrelated to Whitechapel murder, reports of cannibalism in Africa did appear alongside coverage of the crimes, and so, perhaps, forged a connection in a practical joker’s mind.
Best Wishes
alex |
Author: David Radka
Thursday, 13 June 2002 - 10:41 pm | |
| ...or the murderer's. |
Author: Joseph
Friday, 14 June 2002 - 12:01 am | |
Hello Everyone,
Highly regarded Roman historians mention the practice of ritual cannibalism among the Celtic priesthood, known as Druids, as being part of a surgery cum healing ceremony. Polybius, an Achaean Greek writing in Rome circa 160 BC, reports the removal of a fleshy mass from the back of a Keltoi warrior chief, which the priest cooked over the fire, and ate soon after (Polybius, 160 BC: Histories book five). A similar story is repeated by Diodorus Siculus, and later echoed by his contemporary Titus Livius of Patavium better known as Livy; both writers describe ritual healings or surgeries using a mistletoe, samolus, salago cocktail, and a sharp knife to remove lumps, or slabs of skin that were cooked and eaten by the priests. Fava beans and Chianti are not prominently mentioned in their chronicles.
Romans didn't use mythology to subjugate peoples or cultures, they used force, and the Catholic Church was still some 200 years into the future when Polybius recorded the first incident.
Slavic, and Moorish civilizations were certainly influenced by the Celtic peoples, but by Vlad the Impaler's time, they both had fully developed cultures that excluded cannibalism as a rule, but perhaps not as an exception.
. References .
Polybius of Megalopolis
160 BC Histories. Rome: forty books: V
Livius, Titus
9 BC Ab urbe Condita. Rome: 142 books: XXI
Siculus, Diodorus
60 BC Historical Library. Rome: forty books: IX, XI
Herm, Gerhard
1975, The Celts. New York: St. Martin's Press
Lewis, Naphtali and Meyer Reinhold
1951, Roman Civilization. New York: Columbia University Press |
Author: Robin A. Lacey
Friday, 14 June 2002 - 01:18 am | |
Hello David,
Thought this might interest you.
The Times May 23, 1849
IRELAND
(From Our Own Correspondent.)
DUBLIN, Tuesday Morning.
THE FAMINE IN THE WEST
The Protestant rector of Ballinrobe, in a third letter addressed to the Premier, narrates the following horrifying tale of human misery:
"In a neighbouring union a shipwrecked human body was cast on shore; a starving man extracted the heart and liver, and that was the maddening feast on which he regaled himself and his perishing family!
Robin |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 14 June 2002 - 06:16 am | |
Your cave-dwelling cannibals, Chris, were Sawney Bean and family of Galloway, Scotland - supposedly destroyed by a Scottish king. Unfortunately recorded first some two hundred years or so after the supposed events, so regarded by cynics like me as legendary.
Tom Lehrer's thoughts on Irish cannibalism, David:
One day when she had nothing to do
(Sing Ricketty-ticketty-tin!)
One day when she had nothing to do
She chopped her baby brother in two
And served him up in an Irish stew
And invited the neighbours in.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Chris Hintzen
Friday, 14 June 2002 - 07:42 am | |
Hi David,
Sure your A.R. theory shouldn't be A.D.? As in Arnold Donner?
Regards,
Chris H. |
Author: David Radka
Friday, 14 June 2002 - 12:34 pm | |
Joseph,
You've really got some intimidating credentials up there for your scholarship. I don't research or reference anywhere near as well as you do.
David |
Author: David O'Flaherty
Friday, 14 June 2002 - 01:05 pm | |
Everyone,
There isn't a culture in the world that hasn't produced cannibals. They are abberations. I respectfully submit the Irish as a people do not and have never practiced cannibalism.
Best wishes,
Dave |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Friday, 14 June 2002 - 02:39 pm | |
Dear Dave,
I agree wholeheartedly (burp!).
Rosey :-) |
Author: Simon Owen
Friday, 14 June 2002 - 05:46 pm | |
I personally don't think it would be possible to cook , eat and digest tumerous flesh ( would it ? ).
I personally think its Roman propaganda we are seeing above , used to discredit the Druids who were politically powerful among the Celtic tribes : and there is nothing that suggests savagery more than eating human flesh. Imagine the effect on the audience reading that at the time !
Even if reported faithfully , these accounts are probably still based on rumours , which may of course be made up.
So , take it with a big portion of salt then ! |
