LEGACY OF STEEL

riddleofsteel · March 6, 2001, 09:22 PM

LEGACY OF STEEL

I am Riddle of Steel.

My legal name is Malloy, of the clan O'Molloy, county Offaly, Ireland. My ancestors, descended from Neil of the Nine Hostages, lived by the sword and the dirk. Our stretch of Ireland for over forty generations was called Fircall and we were its rulers. An eleventh century text reads; “The princes of Fircall, of the ancient sword, are O’Molloy.” The steel was our ally and companion in a wild and dangerous land. Steel in hardened Irish hands protected us while we tilled the soil and raised our cattle. When we warred with other clans we killed and sometimes died, again by the steel. When the English came we fought with the steel until they overwhelmed us. Afterwards we had to hide our swords and concealed the carry of our dirks and knives. Carrying and training with weapons, the pipes, native songs and even Gaelic itself was outlawed. When guns and powder came to our land, in secret, we mastered and added them to our belts. We fought for 300 years against an occupation army on our island. They called us traitors in our own land for not swearing allegiance to an English king or worshiping in an English church. Officially, we were an unarmed population standing in defiance of the most powerful-armed empire on earth. In truth, with guns and powder, bombs and knives we fought and struggled until we freed most of Ireland.

We were also locked in combat with another enemy we could not defeat. Instead it killed us by the thousands, the tens of thousands, the millions. Famine killed and scattered my clansmen to the distant corners of the earth. It was brought on by generations of absentee English landlords raping the land, English taxes, and exportation of shiploads of food to England while the Irish people starved. On the tiny plots of our land the English lords rented us we grew potatoes. It was the only crop that could support a family on such a small area. When the potato crop failed, we starved. No steel could save us, not sword nor gun nor plow.
.
During the time of British occupation some of my clan came to America. We brought with us the steel. My great-great-great-great grandfather settled in the mountains of central Virginia. Law there was mostly what you made of it. Those who were strong and knew the steel and lived and prospered; those who were weak or unarmed died. Our family grew strong farming, hunting, trapping and fishing. We used the steel during the Revolution to free this land from the hated British. With powder, ball and blade my forebear secured the freedom for me I would not have had in Ireland. Again in 1812 we beat back those who would usurp that liberty.

My great-great-great grandfather came to the piedmont of North Carolina in a flat bottom boat on the Dan river. He and his family took a grand adventure and gave up everything to live by their wits in a new land. They used the steel to defend against bandits and Indians. At that time the foothills of our state was a wilderness. From this wilderness he carved an 800 acre farm with sweat, sinew, courage and steel. He carried a brace of pistols and a knife as part of every day of life.

My great-great grandfather went to war to defend the freedom he had come to cherish in our hilly wooded land. Yes, he owned a slave or two, but what he fought for was the freedom to live free and conduct his own affairs as he saw fit. In this war we learned that not all thieves of freedom come from other countries. Any federal government , British or American, that intrudes on the lives of its citizens uninvited cries out for resistance. The thought was, we had traded one tyranny for another. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died for what they believed was this just cause. He had lived his life free with the steel as a tool of war and of peace. He was one of the best shots in the county. His exploits with a knife also survive in family documents. When he returned from the Civil War he carried his brace of ivory handled six-guns and a large knife until the day he died. Best accounts state he was never afraid to use them. At his death they hung on a belt on his bedpost.

My great-grandfather moved to town to take advantage of the new industrial boom. To the city of the new age of steel he had brought the steel of our ancestors with him. We still have the revolver he used to defend himself and his family in this new urban wilderness. His son, my grandfather, was the first generation of my family that never went armed. An overprotective strict mother raised him. His education was the tea party and the textbook, not the woodlands and the steel. Maybe he was a product of the times. Laws had been passed that forbad the carry of weapons in cities. For the first time in history Americans were learning to look to the government for their needs. When he was in his thirties he was murdered in an alley by two thugs over $20.00.

My father is also a stranger to the steel. He was raised in that same city by his mother with no father. To him the steel was something to be taken up in war and then turned into a plow during the peace. To my knowledge, the first weapon he ever owned was obtained as collateral for a loan to an employee. Uninterested, he later gave it to my sister. However, luck of the Irish has been with him and he still lives.

As for me, far removed from the green Irish hills, I have again taken up the steel. The gun and blade are constants of my life. Through them I reach back across the generations to a distant skin clad chieftain on a shaggy Irish pony griping the hilt of his sword, to a Revolutionary soldier loading his musket as the redcoats cross the field toward him, to the settler on the eastern frontier feeding and protecting his family, to the Civil War soldier sitting in the mud at Sharpsburg with the pungent smell of burned powder in his nose, to my grandfather laying in a stinking alley his blood on the bricks.

You ask me why I carry the steel?

I ask you why were laws passed and kept on the books for almost one hundred years that choked my right to carry it? This right my clan has cherished for over a thousand years. A right secured for my family and me by the blood of patriots. Why does the same intrusive federal government we bled to rid ourselves of now seek to disarm me? Why is there American soil I can not tread upon armed? Why do honest Americans fear the steel?

Why do I carry the steel? Indeed sir, why do you not carry it!?

[Edited by riddleofsteel on 03-07-2001 at 03:18 PM]

Don Gwinn · March 6, 2001, 09:46 PM

Perfect. Check the spelling one more time and send it to every major newspaper, magazine, radio talk show, and television talk show you can think of.

G. Gordon Liddy would love to read that on the air. I don't get Neal Boortz, but he sounds like he would do the same. It should be read and heard by as many people as possible.

Thank you.

Thibault · March 7, 2001, 08:26 AM

Whoa!
I'm speechless.
Do you mind if I copy/paste this part on my scrapbook? There are friends I have that really have to read this, might punch a little sense in their heads... who can remain insensible to a piece like this one?
Oh, BTW, them gun-grabbers think gun owners are a bunch of semi-litterate rednecks: they'd really ought to take this piece under close scrutiny...
Best luck to you and your Clan!

Dennis · March 7, 2001, 09:44 AM

Mr. Malloy,

Great post, Sir!

This American, a descendant of clan O’Connor of County Cork, salutes you and the clan O'Molloy. We, too, carry the steel - as will our descendants. Faith, and the Higher Law shall prevail!

bedlamite · March 7, 2001, 12:42 PM

As a decendant of the clan McGrath from county Tipperary, this really hits close to home. Excellent post.

Correia · March 7, 2001, 01:47 PM

Wow. Most excellent essay. Thank you.

Any .45 · September 30, 2004, 10:05 AM

NICE VERY NICE!!!! A good example of what this country is made of. Although it wasn't the English where my ancestors are from ( it was the spanish), I feel your words.

gifted · September 30, 2004, 09:30 PM

I'd like this on another forum. Do you mind if I post it, or you you like to?

possenti · October 3, 2004, 07:43 PM

I'm speechless.

All I can say is:
Get this as much exposure as you can. Fax to conservative talk radio stations, other websites, etc.

GREAT writing!

**4V50 Gary** · October 3, 2004, 07:49 PM

And all my kinfolk did was follow the cow around. The blood of docile peasant-farmers runs in my veins.

armabill · October 3, 2004, 08:27 PM

That brought a lump in my throat, I'm part Irish on my father's side.

tcdrennen · October 3, 2004, 08:40 PM

Drennens of the Ui Maine (Tribes of Galway) + O'Briens of Killaloe, Co. Clare here; well written!

Though my g-g-g'father O'Brien emigrated to Westfield MA and volunteered twice during the War Between the States (21st MA Infantry then 102nd MA Heavy Artillery - the "Plymouth Pilgrims " who were captured at Plymouth NC in June 1864 - and died at Andersonville) I appreciate your sense of history and pride, and of the DUTY, not just right, of defense fof self and family.

Slainte!

FrankDrebin · October 3, 2004, 08:43 PM

Quote:

From this wilderness he carved an 800 acre farm with sweat, sinew, courage and steel. He carried a brace of pistols and a knife as part of every day of life.

Good thing he "..owned a slave or two", he might have really sprained his sinews otherwise....

pbass · October 3, 2004, 09:32 PM

Great story there. My great-great-grandpa was the last of my line to carry daily (until my late little Bro got his Florida CCW when it was introduced). The government said it was time to put down the swords and he was determined to die before that happened to him, but his friends tricked him. They arranged for him to be appointed captain of artillery for the local castle, and the job required him to wear his swords. Really it was only a ceremonial office as the guns were hopelessly antiquated, but duty required him to accept. My grandpa reminisced about accompanying his grandpa on his daily inspections.

Archie · October 4, 2004, 06:43 PM

Montgomery, from Scotland.

According to family legend, we were here in time to fight the Revolutionary war, too.

I salute you, my Celtic brother. And I reflect the Irish always had a good way with words, too!

J. Scott · October 4, 2004, 07:04 PM

Kudos... A most excelent post. The name is McIlhinney my great grandmother was from Ireland my great grandfather was from Port Glasgow Scotland. I have a picture of him in the army in his dress kilt and wearing steel, it hangs on the livingroom wall. Our tartan is royal Stewart.

March 6, 2001, 09:22 PM	#1
riddleofsteel Senior Member Join Date: January 18, 2000 Location: above ground Posts: 1,558	LEGACY OF STEEL I am Riddle of Steel. My legal name is Malloy, of the clan O'Molloy, county Offaly, Ireland. My ancestors, descended from Neil of the Nine Hostages, lived by the sword and the dirk. Our stretch of Ireland for over forty generations was called Fircall and we were its rulers. An eleventh century text reads; “The princes of Fircall, of the ancient sword, are O’Molloy.” The steel was our ally and companion in a wild and dangerous land. Steel in hardened Irish hands protected us while we tilled the soil and raised our cattle. When we warred with other clans we killed and sometimes died, again by the steel. When the English came we fought with the steel until they overwhelmed us. Afterwards we had to hide our swords and concealed the carry of our dirks and knives. Carrying and training with weapons, the pipes, native songs and even Gaelic itself was outlawed. When guns and powder came to our land, in secret, we mastered and added them to our belts. We fought for 300 years against an occupation army on our island. They called us traitors in our own land for not swearing allegiance to an English king or worshiping in an English church. Officially, we were an unarmed population standing in defiance of the most powerful-armed empire on earth. In truth, with guns and powder, bombs and knives we fought and struggled until we freed most of Ireland. We were also locked in combat with another enemy we could not defeat. Instead it killed us by the thousands, the tens of thousands, the millions. Famine killed and scattered my clansmen to the distant corners of the earth. It was brought on by generations of absentee English landlords raping the land, English taxes, and exportation of shiploads of food to England while the Irish people starved. On the tiny plots of our land the English lords rented us we grew potatoes. It was the only crop that could support a family on such a small area. When the potato crop failed, we starved. No steel could save us, not sword nor gun nor plow. . During the time of British occupation some of my clan came to America. We brought with us the steel. My great-great-great-great grandfather settled in the mountains of central Virginia. Law there was mostly what you made of it. Those who were strong and knew the steel and lived and prospered; those who were weak or unarmed died. Our family grew strong farming, hunting, trapping and fishing. We used the steel during the Revolution to free this land from the hated British. With powder, ball and blade my forebear secured the freedom for me I would not have had in Ireland. Again in 1812 we beat back those who would usurp that liberty. My great-great-great grandfather came to the piedmont of North Carolina in a flat bottom boat on the Dan river. He and his family took a grand adventure and gave up everything to live by their wits in a new land. They used the steel to defend against bandits and Indians. At that time the foothills of our state was a wilderness. From this wilderness he carved an 800 acre farm with sweat, sinew, courage and steel. He carried a brace of pistols and a knife as part of every day of life. My great-great grandfather went to war to defend the freedom he had come to cherish in our hilly wooded land. Yes, he owned a slave or two, but what he fought for was the freedom to live free and conduct his own affairs as he saw fit. In this war we learned that not all thieves of freedom come from other countries. Any federal government , British or American, that intrudes on the lives of its citizens uninvited cries out for resistance. The thought was, we had traded one tyranny for another. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died for what they believed was this just cause. He had lived his life free with the steel as a tool of war and of peace. He was one of the best shots in the county. His exploits with a knife also survive in family documents. When he returned from the Civil War he carried his brace of ivory handled six-guns and a large knife until the day he died. Best accounts state he was never afraid to use them. At his death they hung on a belt on his bedpost. My great-grandfather moved to town to take advantage of the new industrial boom. To the city of the new age of steel he had brought the steel of our ancestors with him. We still have the revolver he used to defend himself and his family in this new urban wilderness. His son, my grandfather, was the first generation of my family that never went armed. An overprotective strict mother raised him. His education was the tea party and the textbook, not the woodlands and the steel. Maybe he was a product of the times. Laws had been passed that forbad the carry of weapons in cities. For the first time in history Americans were learning to look to the government for their needs. When he was in his thirties he was murdered in an alley by two thugs over $20.00. My father is also a stranger to the steel. He was raised in that same city by his mother with no father. To him the steel was something to be taken up in war and then turned into a plow during the peace. To my knowledge, the first weapon he ever owned was obtained as collateral for a loan to an employee. Uninterested, he later gave it to my sister. However, luck of the Irish has been with him and he still lives. As for me, far removed from the green Irish hills, I have again taken up the steel. The gun and blade are constants of my life. Through them I reach back across the generations to a distant skin clad chieftain on a shaggy Irish pony griping the hilt of his sword, to a Revolutionary soldier loading his musket as the redcoats cross the field toward him, to the settler on the eastern frontier feeding and protecting his family, to the Civil War soldier sitting in the mud at Sharpsburg with the pungent smell of burned powder in his nose, to my grandfather laying in a stinking alley his blood on the bricks. You ask me why I carry the steel? I ask you why were laws passed and kept on the books for almost one hundred years that choked my right to carry it? This right my clan has cherished for over a thousand years. A right secured for my family and me by the blood of patriots. Why does the same intrusive federal government we bled to rid ourselves of now seek to disarm me? Why is there American soil I can not tread upon armed? Why do honest Americans fear the steel? Why do I carry the steel? Indeed sir, why do you not carry it!? [Edited by riddleofsteel on 03-07-2001 at 03:18 PM] __________________ For him there was always the discipline of steel.

March 7, 2001, 12:42 PM	#5
bedlamite Senior Member Join Date: August 10, 2000 Location: WI Posts: 1,395	As a decendant of the clan McGrath from county Tipperary, this really hits close to home. Excellent post. __________________ A plan is just a list of things that doesn't happen.

September 30, 2004, 10:05 AM	#7
Any .45 Senior Member Join Date: June 21, 2004 Location: SW FLORIDA, USA Posts: 604	NICE VERY NICE!!!! A good example of what this country is made of. Although it wasn't the English where my ancestors are from ( it was the spanish), I feel your words. __________________ Foster and polish The warior spirit While serving in the world; Illuminate the path According to your inner light" "Spring forth from the Great Earth; Billow like Great Waves; Stand like a tree, sit like a rock; Use One to strike All. Learn and forget! " "At the instant A warrior Confronts a foe, All things Come into focus" Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969) Founder of Aikido

October 3, 2004, 07:49 PM	#10
4V50 Gary Staff Join Date: November 2, 1998 Location: Colorado Posts: 21,849	And all my kinfolk did was follow the cow around. The blood of docile peasant-farmers runs in my veins. __________________ Vigilantibus et non dormientibus jura subveniunt. *Molon Labe!*

October 3, 2004, 08:40 PM	#12
tcdrennen Member Join Date: December 17, 2002 Location: Tustin, Orange County, PDR of Kalifornistan Posts: 50	Drennens of the Ui Maine (Tribes of Galway) + O'Briens of Killaloe, Co. Clare here; well written! Though my g-g-g'father O'Brien emigrated to Westfield MA and volunteered twice during the War Between the States (21st MA Infantry then 102nd MA Heavy Artillery - the "Plymouth Pilgrims " who were captured at Plymouth NC in June 1864 - and died at Andersonville) I appreciate your sense of history and pride, and of the DUTY, not just right, of defense fof self and family. Slainte! __________________ An Armed society is a polite society. An Unarmed society is a police state. A Disarmed society is a tyranny.

March 6, 2001, 09:46 PM	#2
Don Gwinn Staff Emeritus Join Date: March 9, 2000 Location: Virden, IL Posts: 5,917	Perfect. Check the spelling one more time and send it to every major newspaper, magazine, radio talk show, and television talk show you can think of. G. Gordon Liddy would love to read that on the air. I don't get Neal Boortz, but he sounds like he would do the same. It should be read and heard by as many people as possible. Thank you.

March 7, 2001, 08:26 AM	#3
Thibault Senior Member Join Date: January 27, 2000 Location: Middle of nowhere, Northern Quebec Posts: 336	Whoa! I'm speechless. Do you mind if I copy/paste this part on my scrapbook? There are friends I have that really have to read this, might punch a little sense in their heads... who can remain insensible to a piece like this one? Oh, BTW, them gun-grabbers think gun owners are a bunch of semi-litterate rednecks: they'd really ought to take this piece under close scrutiny... Best luck to you and your Clan!

March 7, 2001, 09:44 AM	#4
Dennis Staff Emeritus Join Date: November 23, 1998 Location: a small forest in Texas Posts: 7,079	Mr. Malloy, Great post, Sir! This American, a descendant of clan O’Connor of County Cork, salutes you and the clan O'Molloy. We, too, carry the steel - as will our descendants. Faith, and the Higher Law shall prevail!

March 7, 2001, 01:47 PM	#6
Correia Senior Member Join Date: December 3, 1998 Location: SLC Utah Posts: 3,740	Wow. Most excellent essay. Thank you.

September 30, 2004, 09:30 PM	#8
gifted Senior Member Join Date: June 5, 2004 Location: New Mexico Posts: 409	I'd like this on another forum. Do you mind if I post it, or you you like to?

October 3, 2004, 07:43 PM	#9
possenti Member Join Date: September 7, 2004 Location: Northern KY Posts: 23	I'm speechless. All I can say is: Get this as much exposure as you can. Fax to conservative talk radio stations, other websites, etc. GREAT writing!

October 3, 2004, 08:27 PM	#11
armabill Senior Member Join Date: August 16, 2001 Location: Glenolden, Pa. USA Posts: 250	That brought a lump in my throat, I'm part Irish on my father's side.

October 3, 2004, 09:32 PM	#14
pbass Member Join Date: September 23, 2004 Location: Virginia Posts: 65	Great story there. My great-great-grandpa was the last of my line to carry daily (until my late little Bro got his Florida CCW when it was introduced). The government said it was time to put down the swords and he was determined to die before that happened to him, but his friends tricked him. They arranged for him to be appointed captain of artillery for the local castle, and the job required him to wear his swords. Really it was only a ceremonial office as the guns were hopelessly antiquated, but duty required him to accept. My grandpa reminisced about accompanying his grandpa on his daily inspections.

October 4, 2004, 06:43 PM	#15
Archie Senior Member Join Date: May 26, 2000 Location: Hastings, Nebrasksa - the Hear Posts: 2,209	My people came from just east of you... Montgomery, from Scotland. According to family legend, we were here in time to fight the Revolutionary war, too. I salute you, my Celtic brother. And I reflect the Irish always had a good way with words, too! __________________ There ain't no free lunch, except Jesus. Archie Check out updated journal at http://oldmanmontgomery.wordpress.com/

October 4, 2004, 07:04 PM	#16
J. Scott Member Join Date: July 14, 2004 Location: Casco Maine Posts: 66	Kudos... A most excelent post. The name is McIlhinney my great grandmother was from Ireland my great grandfather was from Port Glasgow Scotland. I have a picture of him in the army in his dress kilt and wearing steel, it hangs on the livingroom wall. Our tartan is royal Stewart.