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Dear Friends,
Ancient Ireland Medicinal Practices
SADOE Board Member Missy Reinheimer has done a nine minute online presentation about medical practices in ancient Ireland. Beginning with a background on folk legends, it goes on to explore topics such as the physician families, medical books and texts, techniques of healing (including surgery), and ancient Irish hospitals.
Since we have put our monthly general meetings on hiatus, I thought this would be a nice thing to feature to all of you. I am sure you will enjoy as I did how she starts the video off by pouring herself a nice bottle of Jameson Whiskey.
Explore The Concrete Arrows That Pointed Airmail Pilots Like Blanchfield
Most of you are aware of the story of the Irish-American Aviator William Blanchfield whom SADOE honors annually in a ceremony at Mountain View Cemetery in NW Reno around St. Patrick’s Da,y which commemorates his death when his plane crashed on Friday, August 1, 1924 while performing an aerial wreath laying for a fallen comrade.
However, there is an interesting story you may not be aware of some the literal landmarks that guided airmail pilots like Blanchfield, who flew the Reno-Elko run in Nevada US Government Postal Service beginning in 1921, after immigrating to America from Ireland.
In 1923, the United States Congress funded a sequential lighted airway along the transcontinental airmail route. An intricate network of beacons and arrows was placed all across the country from San Francisco to New York in order to lead pilots from destination to destination. They were specifically placed here to guide the country's earliest airmail service called the Transcontinental Airway System.
Blanchfield used a series of arrows and beacons which are scattered along areas in rural Nevada near Interstate 80, many which can be located at this page.  
Membership Drive Now Underway
It is about that time of year that SADOE engages in our membership drive and we ask that you begin thinking of renewing your dues if you have not paid them yet. If you have not joined yet, we ask that you do so now. Our membership dues are a significant part of our annual budget and its ability to donate to local charities.
When we last updated our bylaws, we designated June 30 (the end of our fiscal year) as our membership deadline. Obviously, this is going to be a hardship to some of you due to present circumstances and once our board is able to meet again, I am going to bring a proposal to ask that we suspend our bylaws to extend the membership deadline a little further.
While we are grateful that we had a successful dinner (which serves as our largest source of our revenue), recouping our advertising revenue in our dinner program is going to be a challenge especially when so many of the businesses who support us are taking a hit financially due to the mandatory closures in place.
Normally, we would remind you that membership benefits include members-only events such as our whiskey tasting events we held last year and discounts on SADOE events. However, to say that seems disingenuous at the moment since there is so much uncertainty of future gatherings.
So I will ask you to please pay your membership dues if you are able to before our June 30 deadline so we can plan our annual budget. Our model has been to donate to local charities and Celtic organizations, once we have established our operating budget for the year.
We appreciate your ongoing support and look forward to when we can start holding gatherings again. You may download a membership form which is attached in this message or by clicking on this link.
The Irish Connections To The RMS Titanic
Today marks the 108th Anniversary of the Titanic disaster. The story of the Titanic has an huge Irish connection that is worth noting.
An article in Irish Central back in 2016 pointed out some interesting facts:
- The Titanic was designed by the Irish shipbuilder Thomas Andrews and built at Harland and Wolff, the East Belfast shipyard. The shipyard, responsible also for the construction of Titanic's sister ships Olympic and Britannic, two other mammoth liners, employed 15,000 people.
- After disembarking from Southampton, England and stopping in Cherbourg, France, the Irish port of Queenstown (now Cobh), County Cork was the last stop on April 11, 1912, before sailing across the Atlantic Ocean and its fateful iceburg encounter just before midnight on April 14th. The photo above shows the Titanic in Cork harbour prior to its Trans Atlantic voyage.
There were many Irish among the survivors and 129 among the dead. Most who perished were in the steerage class in the lower decks. Over the years Irish Central has published many stories, both joyous and tragic, of the Irish on board. Here are just a few:
There is also a local connection to this story. Those of you who attended our St. Patrick's Day Dinner & Show will recall the story
SADOE Board Member Missy Reinheimer told after being presented her Irish Person of the Year Award about how her great grandparents were supposed to be on that Titanic voyage. However, a fateful decision not to buy the tickets and instead make a trip to the local pub turned out to be one that she is glad he made:
"My great grandparents lived in Limerick Junction, Co. Tipperary. They had survived the Great Hunger. Life continued to be difficult for them because they were Episcopalian, and lived in the Republic of Ireland. The Catholics would throw stones at them when they went to mass. In Spring of 1912, they decided to leave for America. They saved all they had (which wasn't much, because they were very poor). My great grandmother gave my great grandfather the money they'd saved, and one day instructed him to buy tickets for a ship called "Titanic" that was supposed to be leaving in a matter of days. Great Grandfather took the money and went off to work (some kind of hard, physical labor, although I'm not sure exactly what). At the end of the day, he put on his coat, and there was a bunch of money in his pocket.
Fatigue from a hard day's work must have made him forget what the money was for, so he just did what any respectable Irishman would do: he went to the pub! My family will still tell you that he spent it all on himself and his friends (he must have had MANY more friends at the end of that night!), or he lost it in games of chance. One way or the other, the tickets for the Titanic never came home with him. My great grandmother was stark raving mad until those few fateful days later, and the rest was history. She had, no doubt, heard the stories about the third-class Irish families who had not made it. My family, had it not been for the pub, would not have made it, either. So drink up: one day it might save your life!"
American Actor Stuck In Irish Lockdown
American Actor Matt Damon has been stuck in Ireland and his quarantine there is one of the more curious sub-plots to emerge during the COVID-19 pandemic and he seems to be becoming more Irish by the day.
Both Irish Central and Balls.ie have accounts of Damon of local Dublin residents seeing him out and about in the area as he and his family have been in lockdown in Ireland since March 27.
Damon was originally in Ireland for the filming of his latest movie 'The Last Duel', the screenplay for which was written by him, Ben Affleck and Nicole Holofcener. It is an adaptation of the Eric Jager book of the same name and will be directed by Ridley Scott. Damon and Affleck star along with Adam Driver and Jodie Comer. The film is set in medieval France but it will be shot around Dublin, Wicklow, Meath and Tipperary.
While Damon has English and Scottish ancestry on his father’s side and Scandinavian on his mother’s side, he has played some quite convincing Irish roles as a South Boston janitor in Good Will Hunting and Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Colin Sullivan in The Departed.
SADOE President
We are temporarily ceasing to publish Local Irish Bar promotions due to the mandatory closure order by state and local government authorities. When this crisis passes we will encourage gatherings at their establishments to help give them a little support.
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