'Guest Post' by Copernicus
Who's that poking their heads over the half door and the twilight as purple in the western sky as the heather on the bog? Come in, come in, musha, and settle ye about the hearth. Where were we at all, at all? Oh yes. The fairy was all set to ride Soon-to-be-Glue in the Budweiser Irish Derby, and if ye think a fairy jockey is far-fetched, wait ‘til ye hear what happened next.
Students of narrative will have noticed our tale progress from its introduction through the development of the plot according to the classic conventions of storytelling and will expect that complication must follow before we have our climax and dénouement. On that score, let's hear from our fairy who approaches whip in hand, bedecked in the grandest racing livery:
Things aren't as rosy as I thought. There's a freemason jockey from Wales riding in this race and it'll be touch and go between the pair of us.
The suggestion, of course, is that fairy and Freemason alike will draw in their contest on otherworldly, supernatural power. The race is between them and the merely mortal jockeys don't get a look in as our protagonists hurtle pell-mell over an exciting three-mile course:
But in the finish, the Freemason and the fairy, they were riding very close. The Freemason said, "You're a fairy". "Well if I am," he said, "you're a limb from the devil. We'll have it out now."
Eddie Lenihan explains that peasant suspicion of Freemasonry was based on papal condemnation and political circumstances. And it is no surprise that the prosperous brotherhood of the rolled-up trouser leg should have been controversial among a benighted populace. That the Freemason recognises the fairy demonstrates, at the very least, that in the opinion of the Irish countryperson the veil between worlds and natures is not so opaque to him as it might be to another. Freemasonry is still viewed with mistrust in many quarters, by some for its petit-bourgeois exclusivity and perceived sectarianism and misogyny, while others take a view not a million miles away from that of the fairy jockey. In certain Christian circles, Freemasonry is held to be a dangerous practice, for while membership requires a somewhat vaguely described belief in a supreme being, its dependence on apparently occult ritual is notorious. By entering the spirit realm without the prophylactic of sound Christian belief, it is suggested, Freemasons expose themselves to the influence of its less benign denizens.
Freemasonry has a long tradition in Ireland. Limerick's Sarsfield Bridge sports a stone block adorned with the Masonic escutcheon and the city's mediaeval quarter is home to a newly renovated grand lodge which nestles quietly in the shadow of the gaunt and ancient keep of King John's Castle. Strange and suggestive to modern eyes will be the plaque on Bewley’s Hotel in Ballsbridge pointing out that the edifice formerly encompassed a Masonic School for Orphan Girls, which comes across as perhaps a little bit too Aleister Crowley.
Those who process daily along Molesworth Street in Dublin 2 will be familiar with the Doric sandstone facade of the grand lodge (public tours available), whose Tympanum features Masonic devices in relief carving. I often spy the masons through the window of their impressive library, on the street in dinner jackets smoking cigars or emerging from vintage sports cars. I wouldn't necessarily say I was delighted to see them, but fústarers with an interest in joining up should note that membership is "open to all men1 of integrity and goodwill, irrespective of colour or creed, on condition that they profess a belief in a Supreme Being". How that being is worshipped is not of interest to the fraternal chums. Well that's their story and they're sticking to it.
Which brings us nicely to the work of Alan Moore whose From Hell must surely rank among the finest comic books ever produced and constitute, quite independently of its medium, a literary undertaking of the first rank. In his brilliant aggregation of Ripper lore (for its protagonist is indeed none other than Saucy Jack himself),2 and a thousand and one other cultural reference points, high and low, Moore posits freemasonry in particular, and muscular Victorianism in general, as a kind of fell midhusband to the century of industrial bloodshed and bleak serial murder to which the nineteen hundreds are about to give way.
Moore's Jack is a surgeon and freemason whose royal command it is to assassinate four pitiable prostitutes whose desperate act it has been to attempt to blackmail the throne. But following a mystical encounter with Jahbulon, a figure from Freemason tradition, our man conceives a loftier, more horrid goal whose purpose the terrifying ritual murders will suit very nicely. As it dawns on you what the mind of the ripper is bent on as he traces his ritual killing zone across the real-life, symbolic masonic geography of London, your skin will crawl and your several hairs make to stand on end. Read it if you dare.
And what about our fairy jockey, you ask. Well, he won the race and the farmer cleaned up at the bookies. But of course he failed to heed the fairy's advice to sell the horse immediately and it sickened on its home grass and died. And the moral of the story is….anyone?
Anyone?
- It is a matter of some hilarity in Masonic circles it seems that they were once forced to induct the daughter of Lord Doneraile who was discovered observing their proceedings having awoken from a sleep in an adjoining room. "She remained an interested member of the order until her death in 1775 at the age of 80″, whatever that means. [back]
- At this point, fans of the Tap should be singing melifluously along; Saucy Jack, you're a naughty one/ Saucy Jack, you're a haughty one. [back]
From Hell is indeed a masterful piece of comic art, and it haunted my dreams while I was reading it (and for quite a while afterwards).
The ‘new age’ that the ritualistic killings herald is, of course, an explicitly ‘male’ one, with war, chaos, carnage, and commerce all reaching giddy and previously undreamed of heights.
Aside from the obviously brutal misogyny of the slayings themselves, William Gull (aka The Ripper) is clearly established as a (determined) opponent of women’s suffrage, and a patriarchal reactionary of the most vicious kind: He refers (gloatingly) to Queen Boadicea/Boudica’s defeat at the hands of the Romans, raises his arms in triumph when he has visions of the (phallic) skyscrapers of the 20th century City rising into the sky etc.
Not only that, but as the collection draws to a close his near-death ‘ecstasy’ transports him through time, and he becomes a kind of ghostly/demonic influence in the lives of much more recent serial killers (of women): Peter Sutcliffe etc.
“It is beginning…only just beginning. For better or worse, the twentieth century. I have delivered it”.
Incredibly eerie, disturbing, and thoroughly engrossing stuff.
February 24th, 2006 at 1:09 amAnd yet, I bet you still couldn’t resist clicking through the “membership” link!
“One of us, one of us”, I hear them chant.
Fústarers (well the male ones at any rate) will be interested to note that according to the membership bumpf, the idea that one needs to be nominated or sponsored to join is nonsense.
They encourage you (goys) to ask, and ye shall receive.
February 24th, 2006 at 1:24 pmcrazy - they have the ‘craft’ but there’s no one as crafty as the fairies.
apparently the great dan (o’connell) took to detouring around the crescent in limerick to avoid the clash of loyalties he’d experience passing the old masonic lodge directly opposite the jesuits - (on the left heading for tralee before they moved to the new place on d’island). the liberator being ‘on the level’ was obliged to make some kind of funny sign passing the lodge but bless himself passing the church so he skipped up henry street to avoid the hassle.
shannonside readers will be aware that a statue of the same great dan now stands -where else but - at the centre of the crescent.
February 24th, 2006 at 2:56 pmWhat a delicious irony. There’s good thematic material there for a short story.
I’ve been toying with the idea of attempting a biography of the bould Dan as there appears to be a dearth of synthesised material around. There seem to be a nice few tomes from the 19th century on O’Connell in the Kings Inns library. I’m not much of an amateur scholar though. Still, it’s begging to be written.
The masons have long since decamped and the Jesuits are flogging/have flogged the Church on the Crescent, so Statue Dan will be fine.
It’s also worth pointing out that the Liberator’s skipping up Henry St. to avoid an intellectual confrontation between simultaneously held contradictions is a pretty good illustration of the Father Brown thesis re the human condition, which we outlined in Part 1 of From Fairies to Freemasons.
Hence the thematic material. I’m dibbing it.
February 24th, 2006 at 3:35 pmsorry to be clear - by shannonsiders i mean real shannonsiders - not people from athlone and where-ever-the-fuck else it goes before it really takes off
February 24th, 2006 at 3:55 pmI love the idea of a sound Christian faith being a ‘prophylactic’ protecting one from the demonically-transmitted-diseases (DTDs) of the spirit world.
The idea is, of course, that as soon as one opens up one’s mind, one risks invasion by the massed ranks of divils to whom an ‘open mind’ is akin to the call “Come on in boys! The water’s fine!”
Gaze not into the abyss, lest the abyss gazes into you…and all that.
Hmm…better hurry up and close my mind post haste.
February 27th, 2006 at 4:06 pmIndeed fústar, an open mind is the Devil’s playground.
February 27th, 2006 at 6:10 pm[…] with an interest in such things, Bad Librarianship has the low down on the next volume of Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (one of whom is a chick!) […]
June 28th, 2006 at 12:31 amThe simbolism masonic its a circle. Nothing more, nothing less.
May 7th, 2007 at 5:56 pmDucson//
It’s all a joke, innit?
March 30th, 2008 at 2:37 am