Puffins stuff in a lot
QUESTION How can the puffin hold so many sand eels in its beak at one time? THE puffin’s key source of food is the sand eel, and the siting of puffin colonies usually depends on the location of eel beds (as the name suggests they spend much of their life buried in submerged sandbanks).
The puffin’s beak is adapted for keeping a firm grip on items caught underwater.
Backwards-facing spines on the roof of the mouth and the tongue lock one fish in place as the hunter goes after another.
The lower mandible also has a flexible hinge where it meets the skull, which helps wedge caught items against the palate when the beak opens to seize another.
In summer, sand eels are active only in daylight, rising into the water at dawn and descending at dusk to hide in the sand.
Gary Heath, via email.
QUESTION Has there ever been an accident with multiple fatalities at an Irish sporting event? IRELAND has never had the equivalent of a Hillsborough or Heysel stadium disaster, but there have been a couple of occasions when fatalities have occurred at a sporting fixture.
The most notable of these was at Croke Park, on November 21, 1920, when 14 people lost their lives in what has become known as Bloody Sunday, a name also attached to the tragic events that happened in Derry on January 30, 1972.
Those killings at Croke Park were a follow-on from what had happened the previous night in Dublin, when 14 undercover British agents were murdered by republicans.
The f ollowing day, as Dublin Gaelic footballers prepared to play Tipperary at Croke Park, a large number of Crown forces, aided by the Black and Tans, were sent to the grounds.
They were allegedly dispatched there to look for gunmen and weapons among the 10,000-strong crowd, but it turned into a massacre, with a total of 14 people killed.
One of them was Michael Hogan, on the Tipperary team and after whom the Hogan stand is named. Another was a man called Thomas Ryan, who was shot dead as he whispered an act of contrition into Michael Hogan’s ear.
Jane Boyle was another casualty; she had been due to be married five days later.
The youngest victim was a 14-yearold boy called William Scott.
This incident at Croke Park was a prime event in hastening the end of the War of Independence and starting the negotiations on a treaty which ended up with the creation of the Irish Free State, which began in 1922.
Another black day in Irish sport was much more recent, on February 15, 1995, when Ireland played England at the old stadium in Lansdowne Road, Dublin.
The first 30 minutes of this international soccer match were peaceful, then some of the English supporters started tearing out the seating and flinging it on the pitch, while making Nazi- style salutes. General mayhem followed with at least 50 people injured, 20 of them seriously.
A fan from Waterford, in his 60s, who had managed to get out of the stadium, collapsed and died from a heart attack.
Much more recent disturbances have been messy, but not fatal.
On March 22, 2008, when soccer
teams from Ballymena and Lisburn were playing an Irish Football Association premiership match in Ballymena, all hell broke loose after chairs, beer bottles and even a leg of lamb, were thrown on the pitch.
In November 2011, in the GAA county league final between Dromore and Carrickmore, serious disturbances broke out on the stand. Although blood was spilled, there were no serious injuries.
Then on June 8, 2014, when Armagh and Cavan were playing in the GAA Ulster football championships, trouble broke out during the pre-match parade, when about 15 players were involved in fights and scuffles.
Disturbances have broken out from time to time at other soccer matches and Gaelic fixtures in recent years, but fortunately, there has never been a serious incident involving multiple fatalities, as has happened with crosschannel and international soccer matches.
Peter Murphy, Cork.
QUESTION There is a wonderful Russian folk song called Monotonously Rings The Little Bell. What are its origins and is there an English translation to the lyrics? THE Lonely Coach-Bell or Monotonously The Little Bell Is Sounding was written by Aleksander L’vovich Gurilyov in 1852.
Gurilyov was born in 1803 and was at the forefront of the Russian romantic movement and composed more than 200 musical pieces imbued with romantic, sentimental moods and subtle lyricism.
At that time the Russian coachman was a popular motif in Russian song. Some, like this, were melancholy, some were cheerful like Coachman, Don’t Drive So Fast.
Bells are prominent in Russian music, holding particular spiritual significance.
The story behind the song is that in Siberia in 1852 the body was discovered of a coachman who had frozen to death.
Among his effects was a notebook containing several poems.
The tale might be contrived but the piece is very beautiful and it has become a staple of Russian choirs.
Its translation is: Monotonously the little bell is sounding, and the dust on the way is stirred up a bit, and sadly over the plan field flows the song of my coachman. There was so much feeling in this song, so much feeling in the familiar tune, that in my cool breast my heart inflamed. And I recalled other nights, and the fields, and the woods of my home, and into my eyes, which had been dry so long, a tear rose like a spark. Monotonously the little bell is sounding, slightly echoing from afar, and my coachman fell silent, but the way in front of me is still so long, so long.’
Numerous recordings of this song available to buy.
A good version can be found by the Moscow Male Voice Choir, conducted by Anatoly Grindenko, from the Songs Of Old Russia album. Ray Kelleher, Ross-on-Wye,
Herefordshire.
QUESTION Apart from the Titanic, have any other large ships sunk on their maiden voyage? KING Gustav of Sweden had the Vasa built as a warship with 64 guns, on two decks, with 150 crew and able to carry 300 soldiers.
Built in oak, the Vasa took more than two years to complete. Its tonnage is given at 1,210.
The Vasa set sail on her maiden voyage from Stockholm on August 10, 1628, carrying no soldiers on board.
As the wind caught her sails, the Vasa heeled over and sank after sailing less than 1,300 yards.
Subsequent inquiries established that the ship was fatally topheavy.
Salvaged in 1961, the Vasa was found to be still 98 per cent complete.
Today, it is housed in a purposebuilt museum i n Stockholm. More details can be found at the website, vasamuseet.se. Alan Richardson, Stamford,
Lincolnshire.
THE German battleship Bismarck was the pride of the German navy, and lorded it over the Royal Navy for eight days in May 1941.
During the Battle of Denmark Strait she – with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen – blew the famous battlecruiser HMS Hood out of the water and badly damaged the newly-built Prince of Wales.
Finally cornered off the coast of France on May 27, 1941, by the British battleships King George V and Rodney, the damaged ship put up a furious fight against the overwhelmingly superior British force before finally succumbing to the onslaught and slipping to the bottom of the Atlantic, taking all but 115 of her 2,200-man crew down with her.
The s hip’s precise l ocation remained largely a mystery until 1989, when she was located by Dr Robert Ballard and his team by use of side-scan sonar and submersibles.
Ade Stuart, Dundee.
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