The story of an Irish hero
QUESTION The song The Green Fields Of France mentions the gravestone of a Private Willie McBride, aged 19 when he died in 1916. Was Willie McBride real? PRIVATE Willie McBride served with the Inniskilling Fusiliers and lost his life on April 22, 1916. He was 21 when he was killed, one of so many Irish men to have lost their lives in the Great War, but in song his memory is preserved.
Records show there were eight soldiers named William McBride listed with the British Forces, and a further six listed as W McBride who died in Belgium and France during World War I.
It is believed the William McBride buried in Authuille is the one on whom the song Green Fields of France is based. The song’s Scottish composer Eric Bogle confirmed it was one of the graves he sat beside, before writing the emotive words, though McBride was 21 when he perished, not 19 as the lyrics state. John Chapman, Member Guild Battlefield Tour Guides, Halesowen, West Mids. THE tune penned by folk singer Eric Bogle is actually called No Man’s Land but is more commonly known as The Green Fields of France. For many it is simply Willie McBride.
It tells of how Bogle, resting by a grave, begins to think about the young soldier lying there, his death and, ultimately, about the horror and futility of war. Bogle claimed to have written the song in response to the anti-Irish sentiment in Britain during the IRA bombing campaign of the 1970s.
The song (as ‘The Green Fields of France’) was a huge success for The Furey Brothers and Davey Arthur in the 1980s.
Willie McBride was one of four children, born to Joseph and Lena McBride in the Armagh village of Lislea in 1897.
A cobbler by trade, McBride worked as an apprentice in Aitkens, Cootehill. He then went to Irvinestown for a short time before moving to work in Belfast.
Willie enlisted in the British army in Belfast in 1915. He served with the 9th Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, which was formed in Omagh in 1914 and was known as ‘the Tyrones’.
Willie McBride was just one of the hundreds of thousands of young men killed during The Battle of the Somme. QUESTION Who is regarded as Ireland’s greatest poker player? IN terms of winnings, the numberone Irish poker player is regarded as Andy Black, who has won close to $4.7million (€4million). Black, who hails from Belfast but who now lives in Dublin, began playing poker seriously when he was studying for a law degree at Trinity College Dublin. He also began playing in a casino in Dublin, reportedly because of the free food and coffee. Nearly a decade after he began playing poker, he played in the 1997 World Series of Poker, where he was knocked out of the main event by the eventual winner, Stu Ungar.
Black then went to live in England for several years, in a semimonastic Buddhist environment, having discarded all his worldly possessions, but he made a successful return to poker in 2004, dominating Irish tournaments, then coming fifth in the 2005 World Series of Poker main event.
He is at No.1 in the current All Ireland All Time Money List for poker players.
No.2 is Marty Smyth, also from Belfast, who has been playing poker since his early teens. His total winnings in live tournaments now amount to nearly $3.9million (€3.3million).
Cat Taylor is the top female Irish poker player, and is at No.208 on the All Ireland list, with tournament winnings of $100,000 (€85,000). Cat is an online fraud analyst by profession and is a comparative newcomer to poker, since she’s only been playing the game for the past couple of years.
Trish Mullin is the second best-placed woman, with total live earnings of $65,397 (€55,000).
Among the other women poker players who have done well is Colette Doherty, who won the Irish Poker Open tournament twice, first in 1980, and again in 1991. She also became the first European and the first female to play in the World Series of Poker.
David Mooney, Wexford town. QUESTION Where does the word butler come from? Who was the first butler? ALCOHOLIC beverages were historically stored first in earthenware vessels, then later in wooden barrels, rather than in glass bottles; these containers would have been an important part of a household’s possessions. The care of these assets was therefore generally reserved for trusted slaves or sometimes freemen.
The earliest reference to a butler figure comes from the Book of Genesis. Chapter 40 tells how Joseph interpreted the dreams of two of the Pharaoh’s servants who had been imprisoned for offending their master; these were the baker and the ‘shaqah’ (literally ‘to give to drink’), which is most often translated into English as ‘chief butler’ or ‘chief cup-bearer’. In the medieval household, the butler was the yeoman servant in charge of the beer cellar and of the buttery, from where he served out the beer. Butler is derived from the Old French ‘bouteillier’, meaning ‘the cup-bearer’ or ‘the one in charge of the bottles’.
This was in turn derived from boteille: ‘wine vessel, bottle’.
Bottle and boteille are derived from the medieval Latin terms buttis (meaning ‘a barrel’) and butticula, hence our word butt for a large wooden container for liquid. The original buttery then had nothing to do with butter; it was a service room in a large medieval house in which barrels, bottles, or butts of alcoholic drink were stored, and from which they were served into the Great Hall, chosen by the butler.
Over time the butler rose through the social ranks, to be in charge not only of the buttery, but also of the ewery (a room for ewers, table linen, and towels) and the pantry, and later still he took over the cellarer’s duties of looking after the wine.
By the middle of the 19th century, he’d become the senior male servant of a household’s staff.
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