An Irish Blessing





















Aye and Begorrah!

There was this old Irish folktale about one of the ultimate Celtic anarchist protagonists, The Tinker of Tamalcht and his Deals with the Devil.

The Tinker rejects both God and the Devil for allowing injustice to exist in the world, but he accepts Death as the Godfather of his firstborn child, because Death does not discriminate between the rich and the poor.

Death offers The Tinker 100 extra years of life in gratitude, but he then takes advantage of this arangement, extending his natural life-span in various tricks and deals. Along the way, The Tinker exasperates the Devil by pranking him into some abuse at the tongs of a blacksmith.

By the time that The Tinker, now unnaturally aged, perhaps 1000 years old, agrees to submit to Death, neither God nor the Devil will accept him into heaven nor hell.

A compromise is reached. The Tinker of Tamalcht is re-incarnated as a Salmon swimming in the River Erne, reputedly impossible to catch by frustrated anglers.

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