Creative History

From time immemorial the site at Clonmacnoise in central Ireland on the banks of the storied River Shannon has been considered a mystical and spiritual place.  Clonmacnoise, literally translates from ancient Gaelic as, “Meadow of the Sons of Nois” , named in honor of the offspring of a mythical figure in the  Pagan lore of prehistoric Ireland. In the year 544 missionary Saint Ciarian founded a Catholic Monastery at the site of Clonmacnoise.  Today, Saint Ciarian, along with the much more well known Saint Patrick and Saint Columbia is considered to be one of the “Twelve Apostles of Ireland and Scotland”, those church fathers who first brought Christianity to the British Isles. During his lifetime in the sixth century Saint Ciarian was renowned for his love of learning, knowledge of scripture and his vast collection of manuscripts.  Due largely to Saint Ciarian’s reputation as an intellectual and bibliophile, within a few decades of its founding, the Monastery at C...

Still called the Old Stone Mill by many locals to this day, the Newport Tower--a famed landmark in Newport, Rhode Island--sits just off the coast of Narragansett Bay in Touro Park.  It rises to a height of twenty-eight feet and is roughly circular in nature, though contrary to popular belief, it is not a true circle.  Located on a hilltop, it was once clearly visible to passing ships far out in Narragansett Bay, though construction in Newport during the twentieth century has since obscured most views of the Tower from out at sea.  It is built on land that was once owned by the family of the first Governor of Rhode Island and his eponymously named great grandson, the famous Revolutionary War traitor, Benedict Arnold. Traditionally, it has been believed that construction of the Tower occurred sometime during the 1660’s and that it was used as some sort of windmill, examples of which are common in England to this day--hence the name that many locals still use of the Old St...

With the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620 reports began to reach King James I of England regarding the state of the inhabitants on the coast of New England.  These reports pointed out the desolate nature of the landscape and related tales from the native inhabitants that spoke of a great plague which had only recently visited them and had so utterly decimated their once healthy and vibrant communities by bringing death and disease.  The indigenous peoples themselves had named this mysterious curse of death and suffering, “The Great Dying”. King James I--renowned for his staunch Puritanism and not exactly sympathetic to the sufferings of native peoples whom he considered to be ungodly heathens--wrote of the reports that he had received, and rather happily related that, “Within these late years, there hath by God’s Visitation reigned a Wonderful Plague that has caused the utter devastation, destruction and depopulation of these lands.”  The lands that the King of...