That Old Time Fire

Stephen Barranco gave me a copy of the note below, he is a nephew of Victor, the writer of the note. We met Stephen and his son in North Carolina last August as part of the U.S. filming of "A Captain Unafraid." This typewritten recollection of his uncle was just one of many resources Stephen gave us access to. I've written out the whole note under the image.

the last page of Victor's reminiscence 

"Dead," exclaimed "Dynamite" Johnny O' Brien, at his home 896, South 17th Street, Newark, N.J. when I visited him on June 24th. "Dead, huh? not by a damn sight! I'm going back to Havana this winter, and I'll beat the block off the man who spread the story." The man who made the Cuban Republic was reclining in an easy chair in the living room of his little cottage in New Jersey, but the news that his death had been published in Havana brought him to an erect position and filled him with indignation. He was undeniably very feeble but his eyes were bright with their old time fire as he promised to come back to Havana for at least one more winter before his activities on earth should be ended forever. "Tell 'em at the Plaza" said Johnny, "that I'll be there and to have a small glass, a little sugar, lemon peel-lemon-not lime- and a bottle of Bacardi ready, I'm going to meet all my friends and have a drink and a cigar with 'em all." The old man was sick and tired and I urged him to recline in the chair again. 

Victor Barranco and Dynamite John

His eyes became remininisent as he obeyed and it was easy to imagine that he once more saw the bright waters of the gulf, the blue heavens and the cool, green shoreline of his beloved Cuba, something was said of the Spanish War Veterans and he became interested again. " Tell 'em all "how" for me when you write" he said. "I wish I could be with 'em on the Fourth. Tell Fitzgerald to send me that medal they have for me and be sure and tell 'em that I'll be back in Havana again before I die" added Johnny before I departed, under the promise to call on him again and tell him the latest news from Havana.

signed, 

Victor H. Barranco

I was surprised to see Johnny back in New Jersey in 1914. I had thought he had moved permanently to Cuba in 1904 (only returning home in the winter of 1916).  The Cuban Newspaper "La Lucha" mentions Johnny moving to Cuba along with his wife and two daughters. It seems, like in earlier years, Johnny did wander in his last days.

Porridge, Politics, and other Staples

Richard II marches off to Ireland

My staple diet at breakfast these last few weeks, besides porridge, has been the book "A History Of Medieval Ireland," by Edmund Curtis. The book is full to the brim of politics, winks, nods, decapitations, confiscations, conferrings, marches, marshes, marsh Irish, march English, and a-lot more dense but surely fascinating material. Not unlike my food, replete with cinnamon, figs, and honey, what might first sound unappealing, say "porridge," or "A History Of Medieval Ireland," can often hold so much more than is first expected for the eater/reader!

While reading the book, in amongst all the machinations of politics and the vagaries of war, there appears a short account of the life of one particular squire of King Richard II of England-Henry Christede. The account appears in the writings of Jean Froissart. Froissart, a French chronicler of the 14th century, met Christede, Christede related his tale -

Christede told the chronicler that he spoke French, English, and Irish, for from his youth he had been brought up in Ireland and had spent many years with the Irish. At last, when riding to war against the Irish with his master the Earl of Ormond, his horse took fright and carried him among the Irish, of whom one, by a great feat of  agility, jumped on the back of his horse, held him fast and carried him to his house "which was strong and, in a town surrounded with wood, palisades and still water called Herpelipen." With his captor, who was a very handsome man, called Bren Costerec, Christede lived for seven years, married Costerec's daughter and had two girls, "until Art MacMurrough, King of Lenister, raised war against Lionel, Duke of Clarence, and, as the English prevailed, my father-in-law was taken, but was released on condition he would free me, which at first he would not do, because of his love for me, his daughter and our children, but finally accepted on condition he might keep one of my daughters. So I returned to England with my wife and the other daughter and dwelt at Bristol. My two children are married; the one in Ireland has five children and the one with me has six; and the Irish language is as familiar to me as English, for I have always spoken it to my wife and introduce it as much as I can among my grandchildren."

As the march of Kings through foreign lands to be subjugated go, King Richard II's march through Ireland was undertaken in an general atmosphere of appeasement. In a token of grace (says Curtis) he substituted for the leopard flag of England, the arms of Edward the Conquerer, a saint "much venerated by the Irish." It was in this manner, according to Froissart, "that the four princypall kynges and moste puyssaunt after the maner of the countrey come to the obeysaunce of the Kynge of Englande by love and fayreness, and not by batayle nor constraynte." Oh, if only the rest of our dealings with the English were as fair and flowery!

The second last paragraph is taken directly from Edmund Curtis's book "A History of Medieval Ireland," page 273.

Richard II sails home from Ireland