Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

I want to take this opportunity to wish my good fried Jonathan Smyth all the best of luck in his talk on Thomas Barron tomorrow night in Bailieborough.  Jonathan is to be truly commended in helping to bring to the attention of the public the achievements of this overlooked genius.

 Such an epithet truly belongs to Tom Barron, but given the quiet, self-effacing nature of the man he would have been perhaps the first to reject it as misapplied. His intellect was enormous, allowing him to see far beyond the narrow, artificial constructs imposed on him by pseudo-academia and their mercenary foot soldiers. If I may transcribe Sir Issac Newton. He once wrote that if he had seen  further it was because he had been privileged to stand on the shoulders of giants. Tom Barron surely did stand on giants’ shoulders,; the shoulders of the common people of Knockbride and Bailieborough, for so long despised (even to this day. He was possessed of the perspicacious eyesight of an intellectual giants and there were few giants who could have stood taller.

 As is so often the case in Co. Cavan, there are the detractors, those who are not and never were entitled to tie his shoelaces, who have attempted with their habitual cowardice to besmirch him and his reputation, even though he cannot defend himself from his tomb. I know that I can trust Jonathan to do Thomas Barron’s memory prou.

I am delighted to hear that Tom Barron, probably the greatest scholar to be produced by Co. Cavan, is to be the subject of a lecture by my good friend Jonathan A. Smyth in Bailieborough on September 7th at 8 pm.

 I remember the first time I met Tom. It was in March 1976 or 1977, when I accidentally gave a talk he gave in one of the anterooms of Cavan’s Town Hall. I had gone there with my late sister Anita to visit an exhibition of drawings by the contemporary Irish artist, Louis le Brocquy. Instead we stumbled on an illustrated journey into Cavan’s past: its archaeology, its history, its folklore, its religion, all of the things which go together to make up the area’s cultural heritage. It was presented by this affable and accessible man whose scholarship was very deep, but nevertheless worn lightly.

 Tom was never parochial in his outlook. I recall on another occasion how I mentioned my interest in looking at the history of a particular location, and Tom answered that such researches might carry me to the four corners of Europe.  

 Tom was someone who was greater than a historian or a folklorist. He was capable of looking outside of the box, and observing links between disciplines which those imprisoned within could not or dared not see. His curiosity, once excited, could never be satisfied by the limited pseudo-intellects of others. It was this element of his genius which excited the scorn and disdain of those who could never aspire to the breadth of his knowledge within a millennium.

 He was man whose quiet character endeared him to all of those who like him were motivated by the highest standards of scholarship. He was certain of what he had been able to achieve and never sort to adorn his intellectual plumage with feathers borrowed from others, whether willingly or unwillingly.

 I am looking forward with avidity to Jonathan’s talk, as it will repay a debt that has been for too long outstanding.

 http://jonathansmyth.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/thomas-james-barron-lecture-september-7th/