Commonly believed historical inaccuracies

Two towns in Cork claim to be the birthplace of Napoleon's favourite horse but there seems to be no solid evidence for either.

Two Cork locations have fought a long battle maintaining it was in their areas that Napoleon's famous white horse Marengo was bred - the village of Bartlemy, near Fermoy and Buttevant, where it's said the horse changed hands on it way to France after being sold at Cahirmee Fair.

The Cahirmee Fair is a horse fair held annually just outside Buttevant and it has a long history. No doubt it supplied many horses used in the Napoleonic Wars but it seems fanciful to claim that Marengo was bought there, especially as Britain was at war with France since 1793, the year Marengo is believed to have been born.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-40229498.html

As a bonus, it is claimed that Wellington's horse Copenhagen was also bought at Cahirmee Fair. Although more plausible, that claim too is unsupported by historical evidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_(horse)

Sorry to spoil a good yarn. Marengo deserves to be remembered - here he is crossing the Alps in probably the most famous equestrian painting. Has there ever been a more dramatic image of man and horse. Contrast Marengo's wild stare with Napoleon's calm determination. Once he crossed the Alps, Napoleon looted the finest art and sent it to the Louvre.

Red Hare wrote: »

I was always taught in Primary school by the Mercy Nuns that the synod of 1111 was in Rathkeale. I cannot find any info online except wikipedia stating that it was in Rathbrasil near Portlaoise.

Has anyone gone a better source of information as to the location of the synod of 1111?

Wikipedia puts it near Mountrath


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synod_of_R%C3%A1th_Breasail


I've seen claims for a Tipperary location, and even suggestions that the Glankeen bell shrine was made to be used at the synod


http://irelandbyways.co.uk/ireland-routes/byroute-7/byroute-82-co-tipperary-co-clare/3/


So - no one really knows, but probably not Rathkeale - it needed to be somewhere physically central, but near to the territory of the power brokers. Probably the most important synod until Thurles in 1850, so it would be nice if it was in Tipp!

Eamonn De Valera was the only person apart from Einstein who could understand and explain the latter's Theory of Relativity.

Mary probably came up with that story by herself as once a hack, always a hack and the first rule of journalism is to garble the facts.

Del.Monte wrote: »

Mary probably came up with that story by herself as once a hack, always a hack and the first rule of journalism is to garble the facts.

And perhaps that is why the M 1 Boyne bridge was named in honour of Mary Mc.
The local population or its leaders may have been thanking her for putting Drogheda on the map in Turkey.

The vegetable broccoli is named after the James Bond producer, Albert R Broccoli's family.

This 'fact' was recently repeated on a Bond podcast I was listening to and I've heard it a few other times over the years - the story being that the family crossed cauliflower with rabe to produce the vegetable.


This is bollox however, broccoli comes from the Italian plural of broccolo, which means "the flowering crest of a cabbage".

facehugger99 wrote: »

The vegetable broccoli is named after the James Bond producer, Albert R Broccoli's family.".

This may be a light hearted claim but surely not commonly believed.

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

I am not sure if it has been mentioned but a Commonly believed historical myth is the idea that some musical notes were onced banned in the Catholic Church due to being linked to satan (tritone interval/ devil's interval). It never happened and is used regularly in religious music.

Leonard Cohen knew that chord

“It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor falls, the major lifts
...
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand right here before the Lord of song“

saabsaab wrote: »

That Hitlers panzers were superior to the French and British tank designs in 1939.

The electrics probably were,

Del.Monte wrote: »

Mary probably came up with that story by herself as once a hack, always a hack and the first rule of journalism is to garble the facts.

The story of the Ottoman shops docking at Drogheda is hardly a new invention by McAleese, the Drogheda soccer club have based their crest on it



And apparently the Turks funded wheat sent to Ireland which provided a variety of wheat "Red Stettin" (Ruadhán) grown in Ireland for the next 60 years. Perhaps this matter is not as clear as it looks.

Aegir wrote: »

The star and crescent is the royal charter given to Drogheda by King John.

While soccer heads are somewhat West British by nature, do you not think that they might have preferred to associate themselves with an act of generosity by the Sultan rather than the King of England?

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

I am not sure if it has been mentioned but a Commonly believed historical myth is the idea that some musical notes were onced banned in the Catholic Church due to being linked to satan (tritone interval/ devil's interval). It never happened and is used regularly in religious music.

The song black sabbath literally is the tri tone

Charles Babbage wrote: »

While soccer heads are somewhat West British by nature, do you not think that they might have preferred to associate themselves with an act of generosity by the Sultan rather than the King of England?

They are more likely to have preferred to associate themselves with the town of Drogheda than twith either King John or Sultan Abdulmejid. It's obvious that the soccer club took this emblem from the town's coat of arms. There's not the least reason to think that they either knew or cared how the emblem came to be in the coat of arms in the first place.

magicbastarder wrote: »

still untrue. the greatest pressures probably came from land clearance for agriculture, firewood and charcoal, pit props, barrel staves etc.

Yez are all wrong, there was a guy on Prime Time a few weeks ago, talking about Bord na Mona ending Peat production... and he said

"We cut down all our trees"

So there !!