The Blindboy Podcast - 43 minutes of me walking around Limerick city and talking into a microphone about the history of a wall and how it's connected to 2pac ASMR

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

43 minutes of me walking around Limerick city and talking into a microphone about the history of a wall and how it's connected to 2pac ASMR Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Greetings, greetings you sweltering emmits, you steamy queevers. Welcome to the Blind Boy podcast. You might notice things sound a little bit differently this week. The reason is there's no podcast this week. There's actually no podcast this week because what's happening is right now I'm in Spain. I'm in Spain on holiday. Well not right now this second, right now this second I'm in Limerick City. But currently as you're listening to this, I'm in Cardaba in Spain having a holiday. For the first time in seven years I want to literally take a week off. I want to take a week off from the podcast.

And I don't want to put out no podcast at all. So what I'm going to do this week, I'm just going to walk, I'm going to take a walk around Limerick City. Is that a bit loud? That's a car beeping. I'm going to take a walk around Limerick City, completely freestyle, for 10,000 steps and just see what happens, just see what happens, rather than put out nothing. And I'm going to, this won't be edited, I'm going to try and put this out unedited, and I'm just going to do one walk and then upload it. And to me that doesn't, that's not work. Because usually a podcast takes me a couple of days to make.

But if I just walk around and talk, that's not really work for me. So I am taking the week off. So right now I'm looking out on the Shannon River. The Shannon River in Limerick City. And I'm looking towards King John's Castle. The river is fat. It's the only way to describe it. It's early morning so the tide is high. So the river itself, the water is very chubby and fat. And I met a fisherman once in a bar.

I was shit-faced, it was about five years ago, but I met a fisherman in a bar. was shit-faced it was about five years ago but I met a fisherman in a bar when I say a fisherman he claimed to be his family he said his family went back about 300 years in limerick salmon fishing and he said to me that the river that flows through limerick city that it's not a river at all that it's the sea in a river costume and I was like what the fuck do you mean it's the sea in a river costume and I was like what the fuck do you mean it's the sea in a river costume you see this river the Shannon River it opens out onto the fucking Atlantic it opens out onto the mouth so apparently even though we

call this a river it behaves a bit more like the sea because just a bit a little bit up there you've got salt water so I don't know who that fisherman was, I'd love to talk to him, he seemed very knowledgeable about the river. But here I am, the Shannon River in Limerick City, and I'm looking at King John's Castle. What I'm looking at specifically is the island,

the Limerick Island. Limerick, which is where I'm from, was founded in the eight hundreds. I'm gonna walk a bit now. Limerick was founded in the eight hundreds by the Vikings. Ireland didn't really have cities and towns. That wasn't our thing. Ireland was covered in rainforest and we had little petty kingdoms and we had little little forts But we didn't really have towns as such. The closest thing we'd have had the towns is when Christianity came in about 500 and we had monasteries, but we didn't have towns

So when the Vikings came and invaded in the 800s Then they founded a couple of towns and one of these was Limerick. So what I'm staring at right now was the island. Limerick was at the mouth of the Atlantic. So you had this small little island in the middle of the river and defensively it was perfect because it's an island. So the Vikings said, right, let's set up a little town here And we can trade we can use our ships to go out to the Atlantic or we can go up the river all together and go up as far as

Fucking Athlone if we want because we all know the Vikings were handy with their ships that's what you're gonna get this week lads because I Can't research I don't I'm gonna say things like the Vikings were handy with their ships And there might be some historical inaccuracies as well. So then by about the year 1100 the Normans came over the Brits but not really the Brits, they were the Normans they were French lads who called themselves Brits and a fella called King John who was the King of England

he built the castle that's there in front of me. And it's one of the best preserved Norman castles in the world. King John was a cunt. King John, he was such a bollocks, they had to invent what's considered modern law. They had to invent a thing called Magna Carta, which is... I suppose it's the world's first legal constitution but they had to invent that because King John was such a fucking prick he was just he didn't abide by the pot rules he used to have

like his barons killed and he was a bit of a despot so they had to bring in modern law to stop King John so that's his castle over there now he was a Brit he was a Norman I read an article there a couple of years ago by some English historian, rotten article which claimed that the reason King John was such a violent, horrible King was because he spent so much time in Ireland and he learned savagery from us. And that was an article that was printed about three fucking years ago by some slimy English cunt. So now I'm walking up a little bit here and I'm looking at the Hunt Museum. This is one of my favorite places in Limerick City. It's a Georgian building, beautiful, beautiful building looking out onto the river and it's a museum. It's a small museum that we have here in Limerick City

and it's a museum, it's a small museum that we have here in Limerick City with I'm actually a member of the museum so I can go in there as much as I want you know if I want to look at a piece of jewelry that was made in the 8th century I might want to see that maybe three times a day I can just walk in and look at it whenever I want. There's a bit of controversy about the Hunt Museum because Nazi hunters a few years ago apparently, I don't want to get sued now, there were a lot of the art that's inside in this museum might have been stolen by the Nazis.

So like Nazi hunting organizations were knocking on the door here going where'd you get your fucking art did you buy it off Hitler walking up a bit now from the hunt museum I'm looking at it's that st. Mary's Cathedral again another a wonderful Cathedral built jeez it's 1200 years old you know absolutely fantastic one if you want to look at some Protestant graves go up there I don't know much about that place I should know more I didn't want to put out no podcast do you know what I mean? I did want to take a week off. I'm making this podcast

7 fucking years. So, as you can tell now I'm approaching traffic. I'm making this podcast 7 years lads. And I haven't taken a week off. And this is the closest to me taking a week off just outside the Hunt Museum now there's actually a pair of horses here a big pair of plastic horses and they were built to erect these horses as a result of a novelty song that I released in 2010 called Horse Outside and at the back of these horses I'm just beside... wait... I'm beside the horse's arse now It's a statue of a horse and my handprint is actually on the back of it so sometimes I come here to the museum to put my hand on my handprint on this

statue of a horse's arse that was erected because of a song called Horse Outside. Of course no one knows who I am. Currently I just look like a divorced middle-aged man. I've got my trusty outdoor jacket on and my pants aren't very divorced. My pants are cargo pants. And I suppose my shoes. I'm a bit old for these shoes. These are the type of shoes that a 25 year old would wear. But I'm divorced from the waist up. If anyone doesn't know what I'm talking about there, what I mean is...

I just want to wear outdoor clothes all the time. I want to wear outdoor clothes. I don't give a fuck about fashion. I want to be head to toe, Gartex, outdoor clothes. But if you do that, you look fucking divorced. There's nothing wrong with being divorced. You just don't want to look divorced. So I'm after moving to a quieter part of the city, right, because all those cars were very annoying and loud.

I'm in an area called Watergate and what I adore about history is how the place names can tell you the story of the land. Like as I mentioned Limerick is a medieval city, an old medieval city founded by the Vikings then the Brits had a crack at it in 1100 but a thousand years ago Limerick was very very important to the Brits had a crack at it in 1100. But a thousand years ago, Limerick was very, very important to the Brits. Limerick got a town or a city charter ten years before London got a city charter, so that's how important Limerick was. But as Limerick expanded beyond that island I was just looking at, it became separated into two areas known as English Town and Irish Town. I'm talking 1200s here now.

English Town was the area around the castle. That's where all the English live, that's where the richest people live. Then the indigenous Irish and the Vikings, they're sent south to Irish Town. And as you can imagine, the Irish people they're a little bit poorer than the ruling English and the name Watergate there these huge medieval walls were built all around Limerick because Limerick was so important economically it became a fortress an impenetrable fortress and these massive walls huge ones were built all around Limerick.

So when you hear the name Gate, Gate in any name in Limerick, it means that there was a gate there for the old walls. But Watergate there, what does that tell you? It's in Irish town. It's called Watergate because it used to flood and just around the corner up there you've got Flood Street. used to flood and just around the corner up there you've got flood streets. So the land that the Irish were given in Limerick city, it was prone to flooding, it was mucky, it was rotten and then the British, the English, they got the better land. Now I'm after walking up from... after walking up from fucking Watergate and I'm moving towards Saint John's Church and I'm on my way towards a place called John's Gate. Close to here we've got...

I'm just at the corner of a very, very famous chip shop in Limerick by the name of Donkey Fords. No one knows why it's called Donkey Fords. It's called Fords. I'm just at the corner now. I'm just at the corner of donkey fords. I think these are the best chips in the country. Anyone from limerick will tell you that these are the best chips in the country. This is famous if you're from limerick. I'm right outside donkey fords right now. All it says is fords, fish and chips. That's it. Nothing fancy. There's only about three things on the menu. They cook their chips in beef fat and they're unparalleled. So if you are coming to Limerick City, hop into Donkey Ford's Chip Shop and get yourself

chips and some battered sausages. So right now I'm in an area called John's Gate in Limerick City, in the old Irish town part of the city. I'm in a housing estate, I'm in a little housing estate, but what I'm looking for are remnants of the old Limerick medieval walls. You see, because not a lot of the limerick medieval walls this this these fortress walls exist anymore there I see them right there so I'm looking right now this is just a fucking housing estate

just a regular fucking housing estate in the middle of Limerick City but what you have is there's demolished I wouldn't call them demolished there's walls in front of me that are a thousand years old and they're about 30 feet high and these are that's a fine stretch of wall there now This is one of the best pieces of unbroken medieval wall that we have in this city. And it's just here in a house, like people's back gardens are backing onto a defensive wall that's a thousand years old. Let's get a look at it here. Limestone incredibly thick. So this is, this wall is maybe 8 foot thick and maybe 25 foot tall and just beside it is a sign that says Irish Town City Wall Park 1997 because that's when they tried to renovate it. in 1997 because that's when they tried to renovate it. And the stretch of Medieval Wall,

I know I'm doing a podcast about a wall, I'm doing a podcast about a fucking wall in Limerick City, but it's not just a fucking wall, this is a very very important wall. All the walls of Limerick City are now demolished. They were demolished in 1691 during a thing called the Siege of Limerick. And the Siege of Limerick is a very very important part of global fucking history, global history. So in 1691 there was a fight for the English throne right? There was a fight for the English throne. You had King William, William of Orange, yeah that fella the Battle of the Bine, you had King William, William of Orange and he was fighting a fella called James, James the something right? So William of Orange was Protestant and James was Catholic and they had their big battle in the Battle of the Bine.

The Battle of the Bine is the thing that the Orange men celebrate today. They had the battle in the Battle of the Bine in 1690. And then the Catholic forces that lost. Here's what I'm going to do. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to connect this fucking medieval wall in Limerick City. I'm gonna connect this Limerick City wall with Tupac. With Tupac Shakur. And this is how I'm gonna do it.

There's the bell of St. John's Cathedral there. Hope it doesn't fuck shit up for me. So it's 1690. The Catholic forces, the Jacobites, they're after losing to the Protestant forces at the Battle of the Bine, the Bine River up there near the north, right? So the Catholic forces flee and they say, fuck it, we gotta go to Limerick. Why do we gotta go to Limerick? Because Limerick is a fucking fortress.

Limerick is, you cannot get into Limerick. So the Catholic forces, they flee the Battle of the Bine, 1690, they head down to Limerick is, you cannot get into Limerick. So the Catholic forces, they flee the Battle of the Bines, 1690, they head down to Limerick and they go into Limerick and they begin to use the walls of Limerick to defend themselves, okay? Then King William and his forces follow them down and what begins is called the Siege of Limerick. The Catholic forces are inside the wall and the Protestant forces are outside But they can't get in doesn't matter how many cannons they fire doesn't matter anything you cannot Penetrate the walls that I'm staring at right now. They're too big

then during the first siege enough cannon fire enough Explosions happen that they manage to break the wall a bit so they start to dig a rampart and I'm looking at that rampart right now. Behind this wall is like a grassy hill, a grassy hill. Now this is someone's back garden, this is somebody's back garden right? Imagine, you know when you've got a back garden and your back garden is on a slope a big slant. There's someone living in that house and the choice of lawnmower that they buy

in B&Q is determined by a battle that happened in 1690 because what they did was, as the walls were about to fall, they built a rampart, they backed it up with a bunch of soil and rocks at the back so the wall wouldn't fall. So the siege lasts for a while and the Catholic forces win. The Protestants cannot get into Limerick City. Then they have the second siege of Limerick a year later in 1691. Now by that time the Catholic forces inside Limerick City, people started to starve, people

started to run out of resources and when the second siege of Limerick, now the civilians are involved, in particular the women of Limerick. The women of Limerick stood on these fucking walls that I'm looking at now, and they poured boiling oil and rocks down on the Protestants. But the Protestants won, the Protestants got into Limerick. Now the thing is with the siege of Limerick, and why it's globally important, and how I can link this to Tupac, I just said when the Protestant forces won effectively okay and they broke into Limerick city they got past the city walls the Catholic forces inside of which there were thousands of soldiers they surrendered right so they surrendered and then they started to negotiate the terms of surrender

to the Protestant forces of King William. And those terms became what was known as the Treaty of Limerick. That's why, this is why Limerick is called the Treaty City. Limerick was called the Treaty City because the Treaty of Limerick was signed here. And the Treaty of Limerick guaranteed rights for Catholic people in Ireland. So the Catholic soldiers said, okay here's the deal, we will leave the country, we're going to leave completely, thousands of us right, all these these these men who fought, the Protestants, we're going to get the

fuck out, we're going to go to Spain, we're going to go to France, whatever you want we leave, but if we do that you have to guarantee equality for the Catholic people behind So the Brits said the Protestants said okay, we'll do that and they signed the Treaty of Limerick and Then thousands and thousands of soldiers left Ireland for France left Ireland for for Spain and Did the Brits honor that treaty? No, they not. They broke the Treaty of Limerick immediately and replaced it with the exact opposite. They invented the Penal Laws. And the Penal Laws were a system of apartheid

where first off what it meant now that so King William the Protestant King is now the Protestant King of England and Ireland, right? And the penal laws came into effect in Ireland. And the penal laws were Catholic people couldn't own land, they couldn't vote, they couldn't receive an education, they couldn't practice their religion. It was apartheid. It was a way to subjugate an entire population and disenfranchise them of any power, agency and rights so that they would experience generational poverty, so that colonisation could occur basically. And that's what the Penal Laws were. And the Penal Laws were, it was a spit in the face of the Treaty of Limerick.

So while the Penal Law laws take effect, all these Catholic soldiers who'd fucked off over to Spain and over to France, they became known as the Wild Geese, okay? And they were over in France and Spain going, those fucking dirty cunts, those dirty bastards back home. I can't believe they ignored the treaty that we signed and they replaced it with the exact opposite. What a show of dirty cunts. One of these Wild geese was a fella by the name of Patrick Hennessey, right? So Patrick Hennessey had been a Catholic soldier in Ireland, he fled after the Treaty of Limerick and he went to an area of France known as Cognac, the Cognac region of France. Patrick

Hennessey was a wealthy Catholic, right? This is when Catholics had a few quid before the fucking penal laws and And his family were, there was whiskey makers in his family. And when he got to the region of Cognac in France in about 1710, right? He's like, what the fuck am I gonna do with myself? All right, I'm gonna start making drink. What if I tried to make whiskey out of wine?

So he starts making Cognac, Hennessy, Hennessy fucking cognac, you know Hennessy cognac don't you? Have you ever seen Hennessy? Have you ever picked up a bottle of Hennessy and thought this feels Irish but it's not, it's French well it is fucking Irish, one of the wild geese who fled as a result of the Treaty of Limerick, he started fucking Hennessey, he started making whiskey out of wine. Cognac, his great-grandson, right? So Hennessey-Cognac starts to establish itself in France as the finest cognac around the place. Patrick Hennessey's great-grandson, right? In 1896, who's now

the heir of the Hennessey Empire, he travels to fucking New York in 1896 and what he sees in New York in 1896 is he sees African American people being treated terribly. So he starts a charity organization in 1896 in New York for African American workers and what this starts is a relationship between the Hennessey Cognac and African American people kind of a solidarity you'd call it. Now I don't want to be talking up any corporation who performatively has social justice as part of his branding. But this was very

different at the turn of the century. You have this great-grandson of an Irish man who had to flee Ireland, the Irish revolutionary spirit who's aware of the penal laws now having solidarity with a community in America, African American people who are being downtrodden. You have to remember too, in America African American people who are being downtrodden you have to remember too In America like especially up around New York African American people started to have a few quid in their pocket They started to work. They wanted to drink Whiskey brands American whiskey brands like Jack Daniels and Jim Bean They were all from fucking Tennessee and Mississippi and places like that

They didn't want to advertise or to sell their whiskey to black people in 1909. But Hennessey did. And Hennessey also became the first corporate, in 1910 Hennessey became the first corporate sponsor of the NAACP, which is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It was a human rights organization, still around, human rights organization for black people in America. Then what happens is that African American soldiers, they go over to France in World

War II, they start to see Hennessey there, they remember Hennessey from back home. And you have this long standing rel- Hennessey in the 1950s as well, they used to appoint African American people to their board of directors, which in America in the 1950s, that was exceptional. So the Hennessy Corporation, yes they advertised to African American people, they didn't have a problem doing that. A lot of brands would not advertise to African American people, Hennessy did and they also appointed African American people and they supported African American civil rights organizations and in the context of the 20th century that wasn't performative. It's not like now where corporations have

their LGBTQ flag or corporations claim to support social justice where it's completely performative. Hennessy appeared to actually lose customers over this. They did this because they felt it was the right thing to do. And there's a direct connection there and this wall in Limerick that I'm fucking standing in front of. And to bring it back to Tupac, Tupac's ma was a Black Panther, Tupac introduced Hennessy or Henny to hip hop slang. If you hear Hennessy all over rap songs, you can trace Hennessy as a popular drink in rap songs to this fucking wall that I'm standing in front of.

A fucking shitty wall at the back of a housing estate in Limerick that I'm standing in front of. And I think that's fantastic. I love that. This message comes from BetterHelp. Can you think of a time when you didn't feel like you could be yourself? Like you were hiding behind a mask? BetterHelp online therapy is convenient, flexible, and can help you learn to be your authentic self so you can stop hiding. Because masks should be for Halloween fun, not for your emotions. Take off the mask with BetterHelp.

Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com. So listen, I'm trying to do an unrehearsed, unrehearsed fucking podcast here, but I know what this is about, history. Subscribe to my Patreon please, patreon.com forward slash the blame by podcast. I hope you're enjoying this podcast lads, because like I said there's no podcast this week I'm just walking around and I'm rambling. Something I've mentioned before when you're dealing with any medieval city, if you want to get to the real interesting history, you go to the area beyond the city walls.

Beyond the city walls is where it's the unconscious mind of a city it's where the dark things happen it's where the things happen that people don't want to see or it's where warnings happen so I'm gonna move beyond the city wall there where the siege of fucking Limerick happened, John's Gate and I'm gonna move up a little bit to a street by the name of Clare Street it's just around the corner. There's a lot of ivy right beside me and a whole lot of wasp doesn't come out. So I'm up in Clare Street. About 600 years ago there was nothing here. This, where I'm standing right now, was outside the city walls. And this was known asáon na Mhoc and Máon na Mhoc means

bog of pigs so where I'm standing right now 600 years ago it was nothing it was a bog like the river is only fucking it was only two minutes away this was a bog where pigs lived and then around 1500 it became known as a place called Farran Crohe. And Farran Crohe, I think it means like tall hill. This was where people were executed. This spot right here was a hill where people were executed outside the city walls. But then, after that, what I'm trying to get at is this exact spot here, Clare Street, this has been a site of misery for a long time. Okay? Bit unfair on the pigs, alright, it was a bag of pigs.

Not a very fun place to be, but then it becomes a site of public execution, so a lot of people outside the walls of the city were killed here, executed. Then, around the seven hundredths, a school, or sorry. Then around the 1700s a school is built here. This school is a Lancastrian school. Now what's interesting about a Lancastrian school in the 1700s is it was the Lancastrian system of education. Lancastrian education was a way to educate the poor so that the poor could work in factories. It came about around the Industrial

Revolution. I can't remember the cunt's name but his second name was fucking Lancaster. So right here they got rid of the execution spot and they built a school and this was a Lancasterian school. A school to educate lots and lots of poor limerick children, not to inspire curiosity, but to basically give exams that reward rote learning. And a lot of the classroom system that we live with and suffer with today comes from the Lancastrian education system. So right here I'm standing outside an old Lancastrian school. But what happens after the Lancastrian school ends? In 1888, the very building I'm staring at, they hand it over to the Catholic Church, to the Good Shepherd, an order of fucking nuns, and in 1888 this becomes a Magdalen laundry.

I'm standing at the gates right now of the old Magdalene Laundry in Limerick City. I cannot describe to you the pain, misery, hardship, torture and injustice that occurred inside these walls. Not only can I not explain it, it's very difficult for me to even find any information about it because the dirty pricks in the fucking Catholic church they like to hide it. But this is a site of a farmer, Magdalen Laundries founded in 1888 and it didn't close till 1996. Which means that when I was a kid, when I was a child, when I was alive 1996 and my ma would have driven me past this building there were women inside that were held prisoner. A magnolian laundry, a magnolian institution, it was a home for quote unquote fallen women. Women who had had children out of wedlock.

Women who were simply deemed as young girls who were too attractive. If a young girl was considered very attractive, they'd fuck her into a magnoling laundry so that she doesn't have premarital sex. The children that were born were kept in here as a type of fucking orphanage. When I try and find information about this particular place, I look up the blogs and the history stuff and then I go to the comments section and when you go to the fucking comments section of anything about this laundry, all you see in the comments section and when you go to the fucking comments section of anything about this laundry all you see in the comments are women saying I stayed here in the 1950s in the 1950s I was I was in this fucking magnate laundry or I grew up here and they all say

there's women buried in the walls there's women hidden in the walls there's women buried in the garden there's babies buried in the, there's a lot of darkness and secrets right here at this building, I'm staring at. I went to college in this building. So I'm just going to take you around the corner here. This was, I don't know if I'm, I don't know if I'm doing this justice, I'm going to do a magazine laundry podcast at some point, maybe speak to an expert, I don't know if I doing this justice. I'm gonna do a magazine laundry podcast at some point. Maybe speak to an expert I don't know am I doing this justice This was a prison. I'm gonna call it a prison

It wasn't called a prison at the time it was seen as a compassionate place for for young girls who had kids out of wedlock No, this was a fucking prison. It was a fascist run prison where women were punished for women were punished for having sex That's what the fuck it was. And this prison had a form of forced labour. And the forced labour that happened inside this prison in the 20th century up until 1996, the forced labour that happened in here was laundry. Laundry fucking washing, right? So they would wash people's clothes. They would wash people's clothes. If you wanted your clothes washed in Limerick, it got sent to this laundry and women who were kept prisoner were forced to wash this without any payment as a form of penance for their sins. And just

as I turn the corner here on Clare Street, and this is the amazing thing about history, there's still a little laundry here. There's still the remanence. There's still a little laundry here. There's still the Remlins. There's a small little dry cleaners just at the side of the building. A business that exists. Because before that, it was women being kept prisoner and they had to wash the clothes. But one thing, I understand I'm rambling a bit lads but I'm walking around the fucking street talking into a microphone and I don't have any research done

and normally a podcast takes me three or four days to make that you have to understand them I'm pulling this one out of my hole this site of misery, this site of misery where I am right now, I went to college here. I went to art college here where I had some of the happiest years of my life. I spent five years in this place as an art student when I was 20. This building of misery was the first place that anybody ever told me I was worth something. I spent five years in here

studying art, studying how to become an artist, studying how to research, developing and gaining the skills that make me a writer today and make me someone who makes this podcast. And when I was, this is still the art college right, it's still the art college now. I used to, when I was here 20 years ago, I knew the caretaker and the caretaker used to let me go upstairs to the parts that were the remnants of the old Magdalen and Laundrie. The bits that were undeveloped that weren't the art college and I used to walk around the attic and I found a bathtub full of women's hair. It was like the 1970s you could still see crimes that

had been committed in this fucking building right here in Limerick City. That used to be the place of execution 600 years ago. And also what was said to me is that when this place was being built there's little tunnels, there's little tunnels all over this building. And I'm staring right now at the church, the church space of this old magnolian laundry. The church space is now the gallery, it's now the art gallery. I was told that there's little tunnels all over this building. And the reason these tunnels exist is that if you look

at the way that the church is built if you were to look at it from the sky if you were a crow looking down you'd see a crucifix right so the women who were kept prisoner in this laundry they were on one one side of the church what one part one arm of the crucifix but then their little children their little children that were born here that were born here, that were born here and taken from them, they were on the other arm of the crucifix. But they had built little, the dirty rotten bastards in the catholic church, had built little tunnels in this building so that the children could go to mass on a Sunday and their mothers would never see them even though they were only sitting fucking 20 feet away from them. And that's deeply evil. And one positive end to

this story is this has been a site of misery for hundreds of years. A site of absolute misery and then in 1996 it became the art college where I spent some of the happiest years of my life and it's the art college now and this this place that was a site of torture and imprisonment for women specifically if you were to walk in there today 80% of the students are women 80% of the students are women and sometimes I feel like art is healing the space. You've got women inside there now and they're just, they're creating art, feminist art, the most radical shit you can think of that would make a Catholic priest's head explode if he fucking saw it and that's what's happening inside in that building now.

And that gives me a little feeling of justice. Justice is the wrong word. I just feel like for a building to have so much misery inside it, for it now to be a place with no rules where you create, where you make art, where you make radical art, where you challenge authority with ideas. That's now what's happening inside that building and it's mostly, it's mostly women that are doing it. Women who, 50 years ago might have been thrown in there if they had a kid before they were fucking married. And something about that, there's something spiritual about that. And I don't mean any Catholic fucking religious bullshit. I mean a spirit of the land. You

know what I'm saying? I'm gonna conclude this week's podcast. So I'm now walking up by an area called Sexton Street, okay? And Sexton Street, it's the end of old medieval Limerick. Old medieval Limerick. And I'm going to connect, I connected the Johns Gate ancient walls of Limerick with Tupac. Now I'm going to connect this area, Sexton Street, with Biggie Smalls for the crack. I'll connect it with the notorious B.I.G. quite tenuously, but I'll connect the two. So where I am right now, there's a corner but I'll connect the two. So where I am right now there's a corner right here right in front of me and it has a type of red brick. I used to stand here because it looked like New York. Right now there's a there's a place called the

Turkmen Grill. The Turkmen Grill again another wonderful takeaway it's where all if you meet any fucking anyone here who's from Afghanistan or Syria, this is where they eat really really fucking good kebabs, in particular a type of food called a kabouli, which is, it's like a lamb rice thing. Turkmen Grill, fucking great food. But at the corner here of the Turkmen Grill, Sexton Street. This really ends old medieval Limerick and what you get here now is what's called Newtown Perry. This would have been built in the late 1700s. Now this again is very very important on a global scale. As mad as it sounds this is very important. So when I was in the Hunt Museum there about

20 minutes ago, the Hunt Museum used to be the customs house So when... So first off as well, after the siege of Limerick Limerick becomes quite a Protestant fucking city Quite a lot of wealthy Protestants start to live in Limerick city from the siege of Limerick onwards and Limerick becomes a very wealthy town in terms of

in terms of trade Limerick becomes a very wealthy town in terms of trade. Limerick becomes a very wealthy town because a lot of ships were coming in and the hunt museum back there, that used to be the customs house. So all the ships that would come into Limerick they used to pay a bit of money into the customs house so there was a fine bit of money floating around the place by the 1700s. And there was a fella by the name of, I think his name was Edward Perry, right? And he owned a lot of land south of the medieval part, and he built a modern city in the 1700s called the New Town Perry. That's where I am right now, the New Town Perry. Georgian, the Georgian part of the city. but what makes this part of the city very very fucking unique

It was designed by a fella called Christopher Coles Where I am right now This is the first ever city This is the first ever part of a city to be designed under a grid system right straight fucking grids Christopher Coles who designed these grids in front of me, 10 years later he fucked off to America and designed Manhattan So when you go to fucking Manhattan and you've got your 45th street and your 46th street

and everything is designed in fucking blocks and designed into grids, that cunt did that in Limerick 10 years previously. So that's how I can connect where I am right now. Where I used to stand here without knowing this information. I used to say to myself, wow this looks like New York. This is how I can connect this street to Biggie Smalls. Because Biggie Smalls was from Brooklyn and Christopher Coles, he would have designed the streets of Brooklyn ten years after he designed these streets, this fucking Newtown Perry that I'm looking at right now. I hope this podcast didn't...

It's not a podcast. This is the ramblings of a fucking artistic man walking around Limerick. That's what the fuck this is. This isn't a podcast. I just didn't want to put out nothing. I didn't want to put out no pod... I didn't do an ocarina pause! For fuck's sake! Didn't advertise any fucking gigs! Ah bollocks! Look I have an Australian New Zealand tour I think it's all with Salt

Vicar Street there on November the 19th That's the important one will ya? Come along to that I'll get my head kicked in for not promoting gigs Come to Vicar Street in November I'm out of breath now for getting too excited I got too excited about that road There's a Belfast gig there in 2025 in the waterfront is that what it's fucking called? Why the fuck am I Galway? Leisureland? Fuck's sake. Alright look I'm in, right now I'm in Spain.

I'm in fucking Spain not thinking about making a podcast. That's what the fuck I'm doing right now. And I want, for the first time in seven years, I just want a week. Not a week off, I just want a week where I don't have to be thinking about writing a big giant podcast. I actually want to go to Spain and just do fuck all. I just want to do fuck all. I just wanna do fuck all. I'll probably end up... I'll do some amount of work, but I just wanna go to Spain and... enjoy cocktails. Okay, I'll catch you next week. I hope this isn't a piece of shit. I hope this podcast wasn't a piece of shit. Alright, dog bless. This message comes from BetterHelp. Can you think of a time when you didn't feel like you could be yourself?

Like you were hiding behind a mask? BetterHelp online therapy is convenient, flexible, and can help you learn to be your authentic self so you can stop hiding. Because masks should be for Halloween fun, not for your emotions. Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P dot com.