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Relationship to the sign function.
The absolute value function of a real number returns its value irrespective of its sign, whereas the sign (or signum) function returns a number's sign irrespective of its value. The following equations show the relationship between these two functions:
or
and for ,
Relationship to the max and min functions.
Let formula_37, then the following relationship to the minimum and maximum functions hold:
and
The formulas can be derived by considering each case formula_40 and formula_41 separately.
From the last formula one can derive also formula_42.
Derivative.
The real absolute value function has a derivative for every , but is not differentiable at . Its derivative for is given by the step function:
The real absolute value function is an example of a continuous function that achieves a global minimum where the derivative does not exist.
The subdifferential of at is the interval .
The complex absolute value function is continuous everywhere but complex differentiable "nowhere" because it violates the Cauchy–Riemann equations.
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The second derivative of with respect to is zero everywhere except zero, where it does not exist. As a generalised function, the second derivative may be taken as two times the Dirac delta function.
Antiderivative.
The antiderivative (indefinite integral) of the real absolute value function is
where is an arbitrary constant of integration. This is not a complex antiderivative because complex antiderivatives can only exist for complex-differentiable (holomorphic) functions, which the complex absolute value function is not.
Derivatives of compositions.
The following two formulae are special cases of the chain rule:
formula_45
if the absolute value is inside a function, and
formula_46
if another function is inside the absolute value. In the first case, the derivative is always discontinuous at formula_47 in the first case and where formula_48 in the second case.
Distance.
The absolute value is closely related to the idea of distance. As noted above, the absolute value of a real or complex number is the distance from that number to the origin, along the real number line, for real numbers, or in the complex plane, for complex numbers, and more generally, the absolute value of the difference of two real or complex numbers is the distance between them.
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The standard Euclidean distance between two points
and
in Euclidean -space is defined as:
This can be seen as a generalisation, since for formula_52 and formula_53 real, i.e. in a 1-space, according to the alternative definition of the absolute value,
and for formula_55 and formula_56 complex numbers, i.e. in a 2-space,
The above shows that the "absolute value"-distance, for real and complex numbers, agrees with the standard Euclidean distance, which they inherit as a result of considering them as one and two-dimensional Euclidean spaces, respectively.
The properties of the absolute value of the difference of two real or complex numbers: non-negativity, identity of indiscernibles, symmetry and the triangle inequality given above, can be seen to motivate the more general notion of a distance function as follows:
A real valued function on a set is called a metric (or a "distance function") on , if it satisfies the following four axioms:
Generalizations.
Ordered rings.
The definition of absolute value given for real numbers above can be extended to any ordered ring. That is, if is an element of an ordered ring "R", then the absolute value of , denoted by , is defined to be:
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where is the additive inverse of , 0 is the additive identity, and < and ≥ have the usual meaning with respect to the ordering in the ring.
Fields.
The four fundamental properties of the absolute value for real numbers can be used to generalise the notion of absolute value to an arbitrary field, as follows.
A real-valued function on a field is called an "absolute value" (also a "modulus", "magnitude", "value", or "valuation") if it satisfies the following four axioms:
Where 0 denotes the additive identity of . It follows from positive-definiteness and multiplicativity that , where 1 denotes the multiplicative identity of . The real and complex absolute values defined above are examples of absolute values for an arbitrary field.
If is an absolute value on , then the function on , defined by , is a metric and the following are equivalent:
An absolute value which satisfies any (hence all) of the above conditions is said to be non-Archimedean, otherwise it is said to be Archimedean.
Vector spaces.
Again the fundamental properties of the absolute value for real numbers can be used, with a slight modification, to generalise the notion to an arbitrary vector space.
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A real-valued function on a vector space over a field , represented as , is called an absolute value, but more usually a norm, if it satisfies the following axioms:
For all in , and , in ,
The norm of a vector is also called its "length" or "magnitude".
In the case of Euclidean space formula_66, the function defined by
is a norm called the Euclidean norm. When the real numbers formula_68 are considered as the one-dimensional vector space formula_69, the absolute value is a norm, and is the -norm (see Lp space) for any . In fact the absolute value is the "only" norm on formula_69, in the sense that, for every norm on formula_69, .
The complex absolute value is a special case of the norm in an inner product space, which is identical to the Euclidean norm when the complex plane is identified as the Euclidean plane formula_72.
Composition algebras.
Every composition algebra "A" has an involution "x" → "x"* called its conjugation. The product in "A" of an element "x" and its conjugate "x"* is written "N"("x") = "x x"* and called the norm of x.
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The real numbers formula_68, complex numbers formula_74, and quaternions formula_75 are all composition algebras with norms given by definite quadratic forms. The absolute value in these division algebras is given by the square root of the composition algebra norm.
In general the norm of a composition algebra may be a quadratic form that is not definite and has null vectors. However, as in the case of division algebras, when an element "x" has a non-zero norm, then "x" has a multiplicative inverse given by "x"*/"N"("x").
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Analog signal
An analog signal (American English) or analogue signal (British and Commonwealth English) is any continuous-time signal representing some other quantity, i.e., "analogous" to another quantity. For example, in an analog audio signal, the instantaneous signal voltage varies continuously with the pressure of the sound waves.
In contrast, a digital signal represents the original time-varying quantity as a sampled sequence of quantized values. Digital sampling imposes some bandwidth and dynamic range constraints on the representation and adds quantization noise.
The term "analog signal" usually refers to electrical signals; however, mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic, and other systems may also convey or be considered analog signals.
Representation.
An analog signal uses some property of the medium to convey the signal's information. For example, an aneroid barometer uses rotary position as the signal to convey pressure information. In an electrical signal, the voltage, current, or frequency of the signal may be varied to represent the information.
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Any information may be conveyed by an analog signal; such a signal may be a measured response to changes in a physical variable, such as sound, light, temperature, position, or pressure. The physical variable is converted to an analog signal by a transducer. For example, sound striking the diaphragm of a microphone induces corresponding fluctuations in the current produced by a coil in an electromagnetic microphone or the voltage produced by a condenser microphone. The voltage or the current is said to be an "analog" of the sound.
Noise.
An analog signal is subject to electronic noise and distortion introduced by communication channels, recording and signal processing operations, which can progressively degrade the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). As the signal is transmitted, copied, or processed, the unavoidable noise introduced in the signal path will accumulate as a generation loss, progressively and irreversibly degrading the SNR, until in extreme cases, the signal can be overwhelmed. Noise can show up as hiss and intermodulation distortion in audio signals, or snow in video signals. Generation loss is irreversible as there is no reliable method to distinguish the noise from the signal.
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Converting an analog signal to digital form introduces a low-level quantization noise into the signal due to finite resolution of digital systems. Once in digital form, the signal can be transmitted, stored, and processed without introducing additional noise or distortion using error detection and correction.
Noise accumulation in analog systems can be minimized by electromagnetic shielding, balanced lines, low-noise amplifiers and high-quality electrical components.
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Arecales
Arecales is an order of flowering plants. The order has been widely named as such only for the past few decades; until then, the accepted name for the order including these plants was Principes. The order includes palms and relatives.
Taxonomy.
The APG IV system of 2016 places Dasypogonaceae in this order, after studies showing Dasypogonaceae as sister to Arecaceae. However, this decision has been called into question.
Historical taxonomical systems.
The Cronquist system of 1981 assigned the order to the subclass Arecidae in the class Liliopsida (= monocotyledons).
The Thorne system (1992) and the Dahlgren system assigned the order to the superorder Areciflorae, also called Arecanae in the subclass Liliidae (= monocotyledons), with the single family Arecaceae.
The APG II system of 2003 recognised the order and placed it in the clade commelinids in the monocots and uses this circumscription:
This was unchanged from the APG system of 1998, although it used the spelling "commelinoids" instead of commelinids.
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Principes.
In plant taxonomy, Principes is a botanical name, meaning "the first". It was used in the Engler system for an order in the "Monocotyledones" and later in the Kubitzki system. This order included one family only, the "Palmae" (alternate name "Arecaceae"). As the rules for botanical nomenclature provide for the use of such descriptive botanical names above the rank of family it is quite allowed to use this name even today, but in practice most systems prefer the name Arecales.
Following this, "Principes" became the name of the journal of the International Palm Society, becoming "Palms" in 1999.
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Hercule Poirot
Hercule Poirot (, ) is a fictional Belgian detective created by British writer Agatha Christie. Poirot is Christie's most famous and longest-running character, appearing in 33 novels, two plays ("Black Coffee" and "Alibi"), and 51 short stories published between 1920 and 1975.
Poirot has been portrayed on radio, in film and on television by various actors, including Austin Trevor, John Moffatt, Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov, Ian Holm, Tony Randall, Alfred Molina, Orson Welles, David Suchet, Kenneth Branagh, and John Malkovich.
Overview.
Influences.
Poirot's name was derived from two other fictional detectives of the time: Marie Belloc Lowndes's Hercule Popeau and Frank Howel Evans's Monsieur Poiret, a retired French police officer living in London. Evans's Jules Poiret "was small and rather heavyset, hardly more than five feet, but moved with his head held high. The most remarkable features of his head were the stiff military moustache. His apparel was neat to perfection, a little quaint and frankly dandified." He was accompanied by Captain Harry Haven, who had returned to London from a Colombian business venture ended by a civil war.
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A more obvious influence on the early Poirot stories is that of Arthur Conan Doyle. In "An Autobiography", Christie states, "I was still writing in the Sherlock Holmes tradition – eccentric detective, stooge assistant, with a Lestrade-type Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Japp". Conan Doyle acknowledged basing his detective stories on the model of Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin and his anonymous narrator, and basing his character Sherlock Holmes on Joseph Bell, who in his use of "ratiocination" prefigured Poirot's reliance on his "little grey cells". Poirot also bears a striking resemblance to A. E. W. Mason's fictional detective Inspector Hanaud of the French Sûreté, who first appeared in the 1910 novel "At the Villa Rose" and predates the first Poirot novel by 10 years.
Christie's Poirot was clearly the result of her early development of the detective in her first book, written in 1916 and published in 1920. The large number of refugees in the country who had fled the German invasion of Belgium in August to November 1914 served as a plausible explanation of why such a skilled detective would be available to solve mysteries at an English country house. At the time of Christie's writing, it was considered patriotic to express sympathy towards the Belgians, since the invasion of their country had constituted Britain's "casus belli" for entering World War I, and British wartime propaganda emphasised the "Rape of Belgium".
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Popularity.
Poirot first appeared in "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", published in 1920, and exited in "Curtain", published in 1975. Following the latter, Poirot was the only fictional character to receive an obituary on the front page of "The New York Times".
By 1930, Agatha Christie found Poirot "insufferable"; by 1960, she felt that Poirot was a "detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep". Despite this, Poirot remained an exceedingly popular character with the general public. Christie later stated that she refused to kill him off, claiming that it was her duty to produce what the public liked.
Appearance and proclivities.
Captain Arthur Hastings's first description of Poirot:
Agatha Christie's initial description of Poirot in "Murder on the Orient Express":
In the later books, his limp is not mentioned, suggesting it may have been a temporary wartime injury. (In "", Poirot admits he was wounded when he first came to England.) Poirot has green eyes that are repeatedly described as shining "like a cat's" when he is struck by a clever idea, and dark hair, which he dyes later in life. In "Curtain", he admits to Hastings that he has taken to wearing a wig and a false moustache. However, in many of his screen incarnations, he is bald or balding.
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Frequent mention is made of his patent leather shoes, damage to which is frequently a source of misery for him, but comical for the reader. Poirot's appearance, regarded as fastidious during his early career, later falls hopelessly out of fashion.
Among Poirot's most significant personal attributes is the sensitivity of his stomach:
He suffers from sea sickness, and, in "Death in the Clouds", he states that his air sickness prevents him from being more alert at the time of the murder. Later in his life, we are told:
Poirot is extremely punctual and carries a pocket watch almost to the end of his career. He is also particular about his personal finances, preferring to keep a bank balance of 444 pounds, 4 shillings, and 4 pence. Actor David Suchet, who portrayed Poirot on television, said "there's no question he's obsessive-compulsive". Film portrayer Kenneth Branagh said that he "enjoyed finding the sort of obsessive-compulsive" in Poirot.
As mentioned in "Curtain" and "The Clocks", he is fond of classical music, particularly Mozart and Bach.
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Methods.
In "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", Poirot operates as a fairly conventional, clue-based and logical detective; reflected in his vocabulary by two common phrases: his use of "the little grey cells" and "order and method". Hastings is irritated by the fact that Poirot sometimes conceals important details of his plans, as in "The Big Four". In this novel, Hastings is kept in the dark throughout the climax. This aspect of Poirot is less evident in the later novels, partly because there is rarely a narrator to mislead.
In "Murder on the Links," still largely dependent on clues himself, Poirot mocks a rival "bloodhound" detective who focuses on the traditional trail of clues established in detective fiction (e.g., Sherlock Holmes depending on footprints, fingerprints, and cigar ash). From this point on, Poirot establishes his psychological bona fides. Rather than painstakingly examining crime scenes, he enquires into the nature of the victim or the psychology of the murderer. He predicates his actions in the later novels on his underlying assumption that particular crimes are committed by particular types of people.
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Poirot focuses on getting people to talk. In the early novels, he casts himself in the role of "Papa Poirot", a benign confessor, especially to young women. In later works, Christie made a point of having Poirot supply false or misleading information about himself or his background to assist him in obtaining information. In "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", Poirot speaks of a non-existent mentally disabled nephew to uncover information about homes for the mentally unfit. In "Dumb Witness", Poirot invents an elderly invalid mother as a pretence to investigate local nurses. In "The Big Four", Poirot pretends to have (and poses as) an identical twin brother named Achille: however, this brother was mentioned again in "The Labours of Hercules".
"If I remember rightly – though my memory isn't what it was – you also had a brother called Achille, did you not?" Poirot's mind raced back over the details of Achille Poirot's career. Had all that really happened? "Only for a short space of time," he replied.
Poirot is also willing to appear more foreign or vain in an effort to make people underestimate him. He admits as much:
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It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say – a foreigner – he can't even speak English properly. ... Also I boast! An Englishman he says often, "A fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much." ... And so, you see, I put people off their guard.
He also has a tendency to refer to himself in the third person.
In later novels, Christie often uses the word "mountebank" when characters describe Poirot, showing that he has successfully passed himself off as a charlatan or fraud.
Poirot's investigating techniques assist him solving cases; "For in the long run, either through a lie, or through truth, people were bound to give themselves away..." At the end, Poirot usually reveals his description of the sequence of events and his deductions to a room of suspects, often leading to the culprit's apprehension.
Life.
Origins.
Christie was purposely vague about Poirot's origins, as he is thought to be an elderly man even in the early novels. In "An Autobiography," she admitted that she already imagined him to be an old man in 1920. At the time, however, she did not know that she would write works featuring him for decades to come.
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A brief passage in "The Big Four" provides original information about Poirot's birth or at least childhood in or near the town of Spa, Belgium: "But we did not go into Spa itself. We left the main road and wound into the leafy fastnesses of the hills, till we reached a little hamlet and an isolated white villa high on the hillside." Christie strongly implies that this "quiet retreat in the Ardennes" near Spa is the location of the Poirot family home.
An alternative tradition holds that Poirot was born in the village of Ellezelles (province of Hainaut, Belgium). A few memorials dedicated to Hercule Poirot can be seen in the centre of this village. There appears to be no reference to this in Christie's writings, but the town of Ellezelles cherishes a copy of Poirot's birth certificate in a local memorial 'attesting' Poirot's birth, naming his father and mother as Jules-Louis Poirot and Godelieve Poirot.
Christie wrote that Poirot is a Catholic by birth, but not much is described about his later religious convictions, except sporadic references to his "going to church" and occasional invocations of "le bon Dieu". Christie provides little information regarding Poirot's childhood, only mentioning in "Three Act Tragedy" that he comes from a large family with little wealth, and has at least one younger sister. Apart from French and English, Poirot is also fluent in German.
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Policeman.
Gustave ... was not a policeman. I have dealt with policemen all my life and I "know". He could pass as a detective to an outsider but not to a man who was a policeman himself.
Hercule Poirot was active in the Brussels police force by 1893. Very little mention is made about this part of his life, but in "The Nemean Lion" (1939) Poirot refers to a Belgian case of his in which "a wealthy soap manufacturer ... poisoned his wife in order to be free to marry his secretary". As Poirot was often misleading about his past to gain information, the truthfulness of that statement is unknown; it does, however, scare off a would-be wife-killer.
In the short story "The Chocolate Box" (1923), Poirot reveals to Captain Arthur Hastings an account of what he considers to be his only failure. Poirot admits that he has failed to solve a crime "innumerable" times:
I have been called in too late. Very often another, working towards the same goal, has arrived there first. Twice I have been struck down with illness just as I was on the point of success.
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Nevertheless, he regards the 1893 case in "The Chocolate Box", as his only failure through his fault only.
Again, Poirot is not reliable as a narrator of his personal history and there is no evidence that Christie sketched it out in any depth. During his police career, Poirot shot a man who was firing from a roof into the public below. In "Lord Edgware Dies", Poirot reveals that he learned to read writing upside down during his police career. Around that time he met Xavier Bouc, director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits.
Inspector Japp offers some insight into Poirot's career with the Belgian police when introducing him to a colleague:
You've heard me speak of Mr Poirot? It was in 1904 he and I worked together – the Abercrombie forgery case – you remember he was run down in Brussels. Ah, those were the days Moosier. Then, do you remember "Baron" Altara? There was a pretty rogue for you! He eluded the clutches of half the police in Europe. But we nailed him in Antwerp – thanks to Mr. Poirot here.
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In "The Double Clue", Poirot mentions that he was Chief of Police of Brussels, until "the Great War" (World War I) forced him to leave for England.
Private detective.
I had called in at my friend Poirot's rooms to find him sadly overworked. So much had he become the rage that every rich woman who had mislaid a bracelet or lost a pet kitten rushed to secure the services of the great Hercule Poirot.
During World War I, Poirot left Belgium for England as a refugee, although he returned a few times. On 16 July 1916 he again met his lifelong friend, Captain Arthur Hastings, and solved the first of his cases to be published, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles". It is clear that Hastings and Poirot are already friends when they meet in Chapter 2 of the novel, as Hastings tells Cynthia that he has not seen him for "some years". "Agatha Christie's Poirot" has Hastings reveal that they met on a shooting case where Hastings was a suspect.
Particulars such as the date of 1916 for the case and that Hastings had met Poirot in Belgium, are given in "Curtain", Chapter 1. After that case, Poirot apparently came to the attention of the British secret service and undertook cases for the British government, including foiling the attempted abduction of the Prime Minister. Readers were told that the British authorities had learned of Poirot's keen investigative ability from certain members of Belgium's royal family.
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After the war, Poirot became a private detective and began undertaking civilian cases. He moved into what became both his home and work address, Flat 203 at 56B Whitehaven Mansions. Hastings first visits the flat when he returns to England in June 1935 from Argentina in "The A.B.C. Murders", Chapter 1. The ITV series "Agatha Christie's Poirot" uses Florin Court in Charterhouse Square to represent Whitehaven Mansions, even though it is in the wrong part of London and was built in 1936, decades after Poirot fictionally moved in.
According to Hastings, it was chosen by Poirot "entirely on account of its strict geometrical appearance and proportion" and described as the "newest type of service flat". His first case in this period was "The Affair at the Victory Ball", which allowed Poirot to enter high society and begin his career as a private detective.
Between the world wars, Poirot travelled all over Europe and the Middle East investigating crimes and solving murders. Most of his cases occurred during this time, and he was at the height of his powers at this point in his life. In "The Murder on the Links", the Belgian pits his grey cells against a French murderer. In the Middle East, he solved the cases "Death on the Nile" and "Murder in Mesopotamia" with ease, and even survived "An Appointment with Death". As he passed through Eastern Europe on his return trip, he solved "The Murder on the Orient Express". He did not travel to Africa or Asia, probably to avoid seasickness.
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It is this villainous sea that troubles me! The "mal de mer" – it is horrible suffering!
It was during this time he met the Countess Vera Rossakoff, a glamorous jewel thief. The history of the countess is, like Poirot's, steeped in mystery. She claims to have been a member of the Russian aristocracy before the Russian Revolution and suffered greatly as a result, but how much of that story is true is an open question. Even Poirot acknowledges that Rossakoff offered wildly varying accounts of her early life. Poirot later became smitten with the woman and allowed her to escape justice.
It is the misfortune of small, precise men always to hanker after large and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the fatal fascination that the countess held for him.
Although letting the countess escape was morally questionable, it was not uncommon. In "The Nemean Lion", Poirot sided with the criminal, Miss Amy Carnaby, allowing her to evade prosecution by blackmailing his client Sir Joseph Hoggins, who, Poirot discovered, had plans to commit murder. Poirot even sent Miss Carnaby two hundred pounds as a final payoff prior to the conclusion of her dog kidnapping campaign. In "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", Poirot allowed the murderer to escape justice through suicide and then withheld the truth to spare the feelings of the murderer's relatives.
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In "The Augean Stables", he helped the government to cover up vast corruption. In "Murder on the Orient Express", Poirot allowed the murderers to go free after discovering that twelve different people participated in the murder, each one stabbing the victim in a darkened carriage, after drugging him into unconsciousness so that there was no way for anyone to definitively determine which of them actually delivered the killing blow. The victim had committed a disgusting crime which led to the deaths of at least five people, and there was no question of his guilt, but he had been acquitted in America in a miscarriage of justice.
Considering it poetic justice that twelve jurors had acquitted him and twelve people had stabbed him, Poirot produced an alternative sequence of events to explain the death involving an unknown additional passenger on the train, with the medical examiner agreeing to doctor his own report to support this theory.
After his cases in the Middle East, Poirot returned to Britain. Apart from some of the so-called Labours of Hercules (see next section) he very rarely went abroad during his later career. He moved into Styles Court towards the end of his life.
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While Poirot was usually paid handsomely by clients, he was also known to take on cases that piqued his curiosity, although they did not pay well.
Poirot shows a love of steam trains, which Christie contrasts with Hastings' love of autos: this is shown in "The Plymouth Express", "The Mystery of the Blue Train", "Murder on the Orient Express", and "The ABC Murders". In the TV series, steam trains are seen in nearly all of the episodes.
Retirement.
That's the way of it. Just a case or two, just one case more – the Prima Donna's farewell performance won't be in it with yours, Poirot.
Confusion surrounds Poirot's retirement. Most of the cases covered by Poirot's private detective agency take place before his retirement to attempt to grow larger marrows, at which time he solves "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd". It has been said that the twelve cases related in "The Labours of Hercules" (1947) must refer to a different retirement, but the fact that Poirot specifically says that he intends to grow marrows indicates that these stories also take place before "Roger Ackroyd", and presumably Poirot closed his agency once he had completed them.
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There is specific mention in "The Capture of Cerberus" of the twenty-year gap between Poirot's previous meeting with Countess Rossakoff and this one. If the "Labours" precede the events in "Roger Ackroyd", then the Ackroyd case must have taken place around twenty years "later" than it was published, and so must any of the cases that refer to it. One alternative would be that having failed to grow marrows once, Poirot is determined to have another go, but this is specifically denied by Poirot himself.
In "The Erymanthian Boar", a character is said to have been turned out of Austria by the Nazis, implying that the events of "The Labours of Hercules" took place after 1937. Another alternative would be to suggest that the Preface to the "Labours" takes place at one date but that the labours are completed over a matter of twenty years. None of the explanations is especially attractive.
In terms of a rudimentary chronology, Poirot speaks of retiring to grow marrows in Chapter 18 of "The Big Four" (1927) which places that novel out of published order before "Roger Ackroyd". He declines to solve a case for the Home Secretary because he is retired in Chapter One of "Peril at End House" (1932). He has certainly retired at the time of "Three Act Tragedy" (1935) but he does not enjoy his retirement and repeatedly takes cases thereafter when his curiosity is engaged.
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He continues to employ his secretary, Miss Lemon, at the time of the cases retold in "Hickory Dickory Dock" and "Dead Man's Folly", which take place in the mid-1950s. It is, therefore, better to assume that Christie provided no authoritative chronology for Poirot's retirement but assumed that he could either be an active detective, a consulting detective, or a retired detective as the needs of the immediate case required.
One consistent element about Poirot's retirement is that his fame declines during it, so that in the later novels he is often disappointed when characters, especially younger characters, recognise neither him nor his name:
"I should, perhaps, Madame, tell you a little more about myself. I am "Hercule Poirot"."
The revelation left Mrs Summerhayes unmoved.
"What a lovely name," she said kindly. "Greek, isn't it?"
Post–World War II.
Poirot is less active during the cases that take place at the end of his career. Beginning with "Three Act Tragedy" (1934), Christie had perfected during the inter-war years a subgenre of Poirot novel in which the detective himself spent much of the first third of the novel on the periphery of events. In novels such as "Taken at the Flood", "After the Funeral", and "Hickory Dickory Dock", he is even less in evidence, frequently passing the duties of main interviewing detective to a subsidiary character. In "Cat Among the Pigeons", Poirot's entrance is so late as to be almost an afterthought. Whether this was a reflection of his age or of Christie's distaste for him, is impossible to assess. "Crooked House" (1949) and "Ordeal by Innocence" (1957), which could easily have been Poirot novels, represent a logical endpoint of the general diminution of his presence in such works.
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Towards the end of his career, it becomes clear that Poirot's retirement is no longer a convenient fiction. He assumes a genuinely inactive lifestyle during which he concerns himself with studying famous unsolved cases of the past and reading detective novels. He even writes a book about mystery fiction in which he deals sternly with Edgar Allan Poe and Wilkie Collins. In the absence of a more appropriate puzzle, he solves such inconsequential domestic riddles as the presence of three pieces of orange peel in his umbrella stand.
Poirot (and, it is reasonable to suppose, his creator) becomes increasingly bemused by the vulgarism of the up-and-coming generation's young people. In "Hickory Dickory Dock", he investigates the strange goings-on in a student hostel, while in "Third Girl" (1966) he is forced into contact with the smart set of Chelsea youths. In the growing drug and pop culture of the 1960s, he proves himself once again but has become heavily reliant on other investigators, especially the private investigator, Mr. Goby, who provide him with the clues that he can no longer gather for himself.
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Notably, during this time his physical characteristics also change dramatically; by the time Arthur Hastings meets Poirot again in "Curtain", he looks very different from his previous appearances, having become thin with age and with obviously dyed hair.
Death.
On the ITV television series, Poirot died in October 1949 from complications of a heart condition at the end of "". This took place at Styles Court, the scene of his first English case in 1916. In Christie's novels, he lived into the early 1970s, perhaps even until 1975 when "Curtain" was published.
In "Curtain", Poirot himself became a murderer, in order to prevent further murders instigated by a man who manipulated others to kill for him, subtly and psychologically manipulating the moments where others desire to commit murder so that they carry out the crime when they might otherwise dismiss their thoughts as nothing more than a momentary passion. Poirot executed the man, as otherwise he would have continued his actions and never been convicted.
Poirot himself died shortly after having committed murder. He had moved his amyl nitrite pills out of his own reach, possibly because of guilt. Poirot himself noted that he wanted to kill his victim shortly before his own death so that he could avoid succumbing to the arrogance of the murderer, concerned that he might come to view himself as entitled to kill those whom he deemed necessary to eliminate.
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It is revealed at the end of "Curtain" that he fakes his need for a wheelchair to fool people into believing that he is suffering from arthritis, to give the impression that he is more infirm than he is. His last recorded words are "Cher ami!", spoken to Hastings as the Captain left his room. The TV adaptation adds that as Poirot is dying alone, he whispers out his final prayer to God in these words: "Forgive me... forgive...". Poirot was buried at Styles, and his funeral was arranged by his best friend Hastings and Hastings' daughter Judith. Hastings reasoned, "Here was the spot where he had lived when he first came to this country. He was to lie here at the last."
Poirot's actual death and funeral occurred in "Curtain", years after his retirement from the active investigation, but it was not the first time that Hastings attended the funeral of his best friend. In "The Big Four" (1927), Poirot feigned his death and subsequent funeral to launch a surprise attack on the Big Four.
Recurring characters.
Captain Arthur Hastings.
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Hastings, a former British Army officer, meets Poirot during Poirot's years as a police officer in Belgium and almost immediately after they both arrive in England. He becomes Poirot's lifelong friend and appears in many cases. Poirot regards Hastings as a poor private detective, not particularly intelligent, yet helpful in his way of being fooled by the criminal or seeing things the way the average man would see them and for his tendency to unknowingly "stumble" onto the truth. Hastings marries and has four children – two sons and two daughters. As a loyal, albeit somewhat naïve companion, Hastings is to Poirot what Watson is to Sherlock Holmes.
Hastings is capable of great bravery and courage, facing death unflinchingly when confronted by "The Big Four" and displaying unwavering loyalty towards Poirot. However, when forced to choose between Poirot and his wife in that novel, he initially chooses to betray Poirot to protect his wife. Later, though, he tells Poirot to draw back and escape the trap.
The two are an airtight team until Hastings meets and marries Dulcie Duveen, a beautiful music hall performer half his age, after investigating the "Murder on the Links". They later emigrated to Argentina, leaving Poirot behind as a "very unhappy old man". Poirot and Hastings reunite during the novels "The Big Four", "Peril at End House", "The ABC Murders", "Lord Edgware Dies", and "Dumb Witness," when Hastings arrives in England for business, with Poirot noting in "ABC Murders" that he enjoys having Hastings over because he feels that he always has his most interesting cases with Hastings.
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The two collaborate for the final time in "Curtain" when the seemingly-crippled Poirot asks Hastings to assist him in his final case. When the killer they are tracking nearly manipulates Hastings into committing murder, Poirot describes this in his final farewell letter to Hastings as the catalyst that prompted him to eliminate the man himself, as Poirot "knew" that his friend was not a murderer and refused to let a man capable of manipulating Hastings in such a manner go on.
Mrs Ariadne Oliver.
Detective novelist Ariadne Oliver is Agatha Christie's humorous self-caricature. Like Christie, she is not overly fond of the detective whom she is most famous for creating–in Ariadne's case, Finnish sleuth Sven Hjerson. We never learn anything about her husband, but we do know that she hates alcohol and public appearances and has a great fondness for apples, until she is put off them by the events of "Hallowe'en Party". She has a habit of constantly changing her hairstyle. In every appearance by her much is made of her clothes and hats. Her maid Maria prevents the public adoration from becoming too much of a burden on her employer but does nothing to prevent her from becoming too much of a burden on others.
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She has authored more than 56 novels and greatly dislikes people modifying her characters. She is the only one in Poirot's universe to have noted that "It's not natural for five or six people to be on the spot when B is murdered and all have a motive for killing B." She first met Poirot in the story "Cards on the Table" and has bothered him ever since.
Miss Felicity Lemon.
Poirot's secretary, Miss Felicity Lemon, has few human weaknesses. The only mistakes she makes within the series are a typing error during the events of "Hickory Dickory Dock" and the mis-mailing of an electricity bill, although she was worried about strange events surrounding her sister who worked at a student hostel at the time. Poirot described her as being "Unbelievably ugly and incredibly efficient. Anything that she mentioned as worth consideration usually was worth consideration." She is an expert on nearly everything and plans to create the perfect filing system.
In "The Agatha Christie Hour", she was portrayed by Angela Easterling, while in "Agatha Christie's Poirot" she was portrayed by Pauline Moran (where she was shown to be efficient, prim and modest, but not remotely "unbelievably ugly".) On a number of occasions, she joins Poirot in his inquiries or seeks out answers alone at his request.
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Chief Inspector James Harold Japp.
Japp is a Scotland Yard Inspector and appears in many of the stories trying to solve cases that Poirot is working on. Japp is outgoing, loud, and sometimes inconsiderate by nature, and his relationship with the refined Belgian is one of the stranger aspects of Poirot's world. He first met Poirot in Belgium in 1904, during the Abercrombie Forgery. Later that year they joined forces again to hunt down a criminal known as Baron Altara. They also meet in England where Poirot often helps Japp and lets him take credit in return for special favours. These favours usually entail Poirot being supplied with other interesting cases.
In "Agatha Christie's Poirot", Japp was portrayed by Philip Jackson. In the film, "Thirteen at Dinner" (1985), adapted from "Lord Edgware Dies", the role of Japp was taken by the actor David Suchet, who would later star as Poirot in the ITV adaptations.
Major novels.
The Poirot books take readers through the whole of his life in England, from the first book ("The Mysterious Affair at Styles"), where he is a refugee staying at Styles, to the last Poirot book ("Curtain"), where he visits Styles before his death. In between, Poirot solves cases outside England as well, including his most famous case, "Murder on the Orient Express" (1934).
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Hercule Poirot became famous in 1926 with the publication of "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", whose surprising solution proved controversial. The novel is still among the most famous of all detective novels: Edmund Wilson alludes to it in the title of his well-known attack on detective fiction, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" Other critically acclaimed Poirot novels include "Murder on the Orient Express" (1934); "The ABC Murders" (1935)"; Cards on the Table" (1936); and "Death on the Nile" (1937), a tale of multiple murders upon a Nile steamer. "Death on the Nile" was judged by the famed detective novelist John Dickson Carr to be among the ten greatest mystery novels of all time. The 1942 novel "Five Little Pigs" (a.k.a. "Murder in Retrospect"), in which Poirot investigates a murder committed sixteen years before by analysing various accounts of the tragedy, has been called "the best Christie of all" by critic and mystery novelist Robert Barnard.
In 2014, the Poirot canon was added to by Sophie Hannah, the first author to be commissioned by the Christie estate to write an original story. The novel was called "The Monogram Murders", and was set in the late 1920s, placing it chronologically between "The Mystery of the Blue Train" and "Peril at End House". A second Hannah-penned Poirot came out in 2016, called "Closed Casket", and a third, "The Mystery of Three Quarters", in 2018.
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Portrayals.
Stage.
The first actor to portray Poirot was Charles Laughton. He appeared on the West End in 1928 in the play "Alibi" which had been adapted by Michael Morton from the novel "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd". In 1932, the play was performed as "The Fatal Alibi" on Broadway. Another Poirot play, "Black Coffee" opened in London at the Embassy Theatre on 8 December 1930 and starred Francis L. Sullivan as Poirot.
"Black Coffee" was revived by The Agatha Christie Theatre Company for an extensive UK tour in 2014. Poirot was initially portrayed by Robert Powell, with Jason Durr later taking over the role partway through the run.
American playwright Ken Ludwig adapted "Murder on the Orient Express" into a play, which premiered at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey on 14 March 2017. It starred English actor Allan Corduner in the role of Hercule Poirot. A 2022 UK production starred Henry Goodman. A new touring production will star Michael Maloney as Poirot.
Other notable actors who have portrayed Poirot on stage include Ronnie Barker, Leonard Rossiter, Ronald Magill, Patrick Cargill and Alfred Marks.
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Film.
Austin Trevor.
Austin Trevor debuted the role of Poirot on screen in the 1931 British film "Alibi". The film was based on the stage play. Trevor reprised the role of Poirot twice, in "Black Coffee" and "Lord Edgware Dies". Trevor said once that he was probably cast as Poirot simply because he could do a French accent. Notably, Trevor's Poirot did not have a moustache. Leslie S. Hiscott directed the first two films, and Henry Edwards took over for the third.
Tony Randall.
Tony Randall portrayed Poirot in "The Alphabet Murders", a 1965 film also known as "The ABC Murders". This was more a satire of Poirot than a straightforward adaptation and was greatly changed from the original. Much of the story, set in modern times, was played for comedy, with Poirot investigating the murders while evading the attempts by Hastings (Robert Morley) and the police to get him out of England and back to Belgium.
Albert Finney.
Albert Finney played Poirot in 1974 in the cinematic version of "Murder on the Orient Express". Finney is the only actor to receive an Academy Award nomination for playing Poirot, though he did not win.
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Peter Ustinov.
Peter Ustinov played Poirot six times, starting with "Death on the Nile" (1978). He reprised the role in "Evil Under the Sun" (1982) and "Appointment with Death" (1988).
Christie's daughter Rosalind Hicks observed Ustinov during a rehearsal and said, "That's not Poirot! He isn't at all like that!" Ustinov overheard and remarked "He is "now!""
He appeared again as Poirot in three television films: "Thirteen at Dinner" (1985), "Dead Man's Folly" (1986), and "Murder in Three Acts" (1986). Earlier adaptations were set during the time in which the novels were written, but these television films were set in the contemporary era. The first of these was based on "Lord Edgware Dies" and was made by Warner Bros. It also starred Faye Dunaway, with David Suchet as Inspector Japp, just before Suchet began to play Poirot. David Suchet considers his performance as Japp to be "possibly the worst performance of [his] career".
Kenneth Branagh.
Kenneth Branagh played Poirot in film adaptations of "Murder on the Orient Express" in 2017, "Death on the Nile" in 2022, and "A Haunting in Venice", based on the novel "Hallowe'en Party", in 2023. Branagh directed all three and co-produced them alongside Ridley Scott. They were all written by Michael Green.
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Television.
David Suchet.
David Suchet starred as Poirot in the ITV series "Agatha Christie's Poirot" from 1989 until June 2013, when he announced that he was bidding farewell to the role. "No one could've guessed then that the series would span a quarter-century or that the classically trained Suchet would complete the entire catalogue of whodunits featuring the eccentric Belgian investigator, including 33 novels and dozens of short stories." His final appearance in the show was in an adaptation of "Curtain", aired on 13 November 2013.
The writers of the "Binge!" article of "Entertainment Weekly" December 2014/January 2015) picked Suchet as "Best Poirot" in the "Hercule Poirot & Miss Marple" timeline.
The episodes were shot in various locations in the UK and abroad (for example "Triangle at Rhodes" and "Problem at Sea"), whilst other scenes were shot at Twickenham Studios.
Anime.
In 2004, the Japanese public broadcaster NHK produced a 39-episode anime series titled "Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple", as well as a manga series under the same title released in 2005. The series, adapting several of the best-known Poirot and Marple stories, ran from 4 July 2004 through 15 May 2005, and in repeated reruns on NHK and other networks in Japan. Poirot was voiced by Kōtarō Satomi and Miss Marple was voiced by Kaoru Yachigusa.
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Audio.
BBC Radio.
An adaptation of "Murder in the Mews" was broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in March 1955 starring Richard Bebb as Poirot; this program was thought lost, but was discovered in the BBC archives in 2015.
From 1985 to 2007, Radio 4 produced a series of twenty-seven adaptations of Poirot novels and short stories, adapted by Michael Bakewell and directed by Enyd Williams. Twenty five starred John Moffatt as Poirot; Maurice Denham and Peter Sallis played Poirot on BBC Radio 4 in the first two adaptations, "The Mystery of the Blue Train" and "Hercule Poirot's Christmas" respectively.
Audible.
In 2017, Audible released an original audio adaptation of "Murder on the Orient Express" starring Tom Conti as Poirot. The cast included Jane Asher as Mrs. Hubbard, Jay Benedict as Monsieur Bouc, Ruta Gedmintas as Countess Andrenyi, Sophie Okonedo as Mary Debenham, Eddie Marsan as Ratchett, Walles Hamonde as Hector MacQueen, Paterson Joseph as Colonel Arbuthnot, Rula Lenska as Princess Dragimiroff and Art Malik as the Narrator. According to the Publisher's Summary on Audible.com, "sound effects [were] recorded on the Orient Express itself."
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Audible is scheduled to release a dramatisation of "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" in November 2024. The cast includes Peter Dinklage as Poirot.
Others.
In 1939, Orson Welles and the Mercury Players dramatised "Roger Ackroyd" on CBS's "Campbell Playhouse".
On 6 October 1942, the Mutual radio series "Murder Clinic" broadcast "The Tragedy at Marsden Manor" starring Maurice Tarplin as Poirot. At least two other Poirot stories were adapted for the series, but it is unknown who voiced him.
A 1945 radio series of at least 13 original half-hour episodes (none of which apparently adapt any Christie stories) transferred Poirot from London to New York and starred character actor Harold Huber, perhaps better known for his appearances as a police officer in various Charlie Chan films. On 22 February 1945, "speaking from London, Agatha Christie introduced the initial broadcast of the Poirot series via shortwave".
In 2021, L.A. Theatre Works produced an adaptation of "The Murder on the Links", dramatised by Kate McAll. Alfred Molina starred as Poirot, with Simon Helberg as Hastings.
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Video games.
In the video games "Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases" and "Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The London Case", Poirot is voiced by Will De Renzy-Martin.
Parodies and references.
Parodies of Hercule Poirot have appeared in a number of movies, including "Revenge of the Pink Panther", where Poirot makes a cameo appearance in a mental asylum, portrayed by Andrew Sachs and claiming to be "the greatest detective in all of France, the greatest in all the world"; Neil Simon's "Murder by Death", where "Milo Perrier" is played by American actor James Coco; the 1977 film "The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It" (1977); the film "Spice World", where Hugh Laurie plays Poirot; and in "", Poirot appears as a young boy on the train transporting Holmes and Watson. Holmes helps the boy in opening a puzzle-box, with Watson giving the boy advice about using his "little grey cells".
In the book series "Geronimo Stilton", the character Hercule Poirat is inspired by Hercule Poirot.
The Belgian brewery Brasserie Ellezelloise makes a stout called "Hercule" with a moustachioed caricature of Hercule Poirot on the label.
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In season 2, episode 4 of TVFPlay's Indian web series "Permanent Roommates", one of the characters refers to Hercule Poirot as her inspiration while she attempts to solve the mystery of the cheating spouse. Throughout the episode, she is mocked as Hercule Poirot and Agatha Christie by the suspects. TVFPlay also telecasted a spoof of Indian TV suspense drama "CID" as "Qissa Missing Dimaag Ka: C.I.D Qtiyapa". In the first episode, when Ujjwal is shown to browse for the best detectives of the world, David Suchet appears as Poirot in his search.
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Miss Marple
Miss Jane Marple is a fictional character in Agatha Christie's crime novels and short stories. Miss Marple lives in the village of St Mary Mead and acts as an amateur consulting detective. Often characterised as an elderly spinster, she is one of Christie's best-known characters and has been portrayed numerous times on screen. Her first appearance was in a short story published in "The Royal Magazine" in December 1927, "The Tuesday Night Club", which later became the first chapter of "The Thirteen Problems" (1932). Her first appearance in a full-length novel was in "The Murder at the Vicarage" in 1930, and her last appearance was in "Sleeping Murder" in 1976.
Origins.
The character of Miss Marple is based on friends of Christie's step grandmother, Margaret Miller, née West. Christie attributed the inspiration for the character to multiple sources, stating that Miss Marple was "the sort of old lady who would have been rather like some of my step grandmother's Ealing cronies – old ladies whom I have met in so many villages where I have gone to stay as a girl". Christie also used material from her fictional creation, spinster Caroline Sheppard, who appeared in "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd". When Michael Morton adapted the novel for the stage, he replaced the character of Caroline with a young girl. This change saddened Christie and she determined to give old maids a voice; thus, Miss Marple was born.
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It is popularly believed that Christie may have taken her iconic character's name from Marple railway station, through which she passed, while a letter – ostensibly from Christie to a fan – appeared to prove that the name was inspired by a visit to a sale at Marple Hall in the same town, near her sister Margaret Watts' home at Abney Hall. The letter has been established as a fake as the auction had been held after the date of publication of the first Miss Marple story.
Character.
The character of Jane Marple in the first Miss Marple book, "The Murder at the Vicarage", is quite different from how she appears in later books. This early version of Miss Marple is a gleeful gossip and not an especially nice woman. The residents of St. Mary Mead like her but are often tired of her nosy nature and the fact she seems to expect the worst of everyone. In later books, she becomes a kinder person.
Miss Marple solves difficult crimes thanks to her shrewd intelligence, and St. Mary Mead, over her lifetime, has given her seemingly infinite examples of the negative side of human nature. Crimes always remind her of a previous incident, although acquaintances may be bored by analogies that often lead her to a deeper realisation about the true nature of a crime. She also has a remarkable ability to latch onto a casual comment and connect it to the case at hand. In several stories, she is able to rely on her acquaintance with Sir Henry Clithering, a retired commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, for official information when required.
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Miss Marple never married and has no close living relatives. Her nephew, the "well-known author" Raymond West, appears in some stories, including "The Thirteen Problems", "Sleeping Murder", and "Ingots of Gold" (which also feature his wife, Joyce Lemprière). Raymond overestimates himself and underestimates his aunt's mental acuity. Miss Marple employs young women (including Clara, Emily, Alice, Esther, Gwenda, and Amy) from a nearby orphanage, whom she trains for service as general housemaids after the retirement of her long-time maid-housekeeper, faithful Florence. She was briefly looked after by her irritating companion, Miss Knight. In her later years, companion Cherry Baker, first introduced in "The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side", lives with her.
Miss Marple has never worked for her living and is of independent means, although she benefits in her old age from the financial support of her nephew, Raymond. She is not from the aristocracy or landed gentry, but is quite at home among them; as a gentlewoman, Miss Marple may thus be considered a female version of the gentleman detective, a staple of British detective fiction. She demonstrates a remarkably thorough education, including some art courses that involved the study of human anatomy using human cadavers. In "They Do It with Mirrors" (1952), it is revealed that Miss Marple grew up in a cathedral close, and that she studied at an Italian finishing school with American sisters Ruth Van Rydock and Caroline "Carrie" Louise Serrocold.
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While Miss Marple is described as "an old lady" in many of the stories, her age is rarely mentioned and is not consistently presented. In "At Bertram's Hotel", published in 1965, it is said she visited the hotel when she was 14 and almost 60 years have passed since then, implying that she is nearly 75 years old; but in "4:50 from Paddington", published almost a decade earlier in 1957, she says she will be "90 next year."
Excluding "Sleeping Murder", 41 years passed between the first and last-written novels, and many characters grow and age. An example would be the Vicar's nephew: in "The Murder at the Vicarage", the Reverend Mr Clement's nephew Dennis is a teenager; in "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side", it is mentioned that the nephew is now an adult and has a successful career. The effects of ageing are seen on Miss Marple, such as needing a holiday after illness in "A Caribbean Mystery", but she is if anything more agile in "Nemesis", set only 16 months later.
Miss Marple's background is described in some detail, albeit in glimpses across the novels and short stories in which she appears. She has a very large family, including a sister, the mother of Raymond, and Mabel Denham, a young woman who was accused of poisoning her husband, Geoffrey ("The Thumb Mark of St. Peter").
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Bibliography.
Agatha Christie wrote 12 novels and 20 short stories featuring Miss Marple.
Miss Marple short story collections.
Miss Marple also appears in "Greenshaw's Folly", a short story included as part of the Poirot collection "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding" (1960). Four stories in the "Three Blind Mice" collection (1950) feature Miss Marple: "Strange Jest", "Tape-Measure Murder", "The Case of the Caretaker", and "The Case of the Perfect Maid".
The Autograph edition of "Miss Marple's Final Cases" includes the eight in the original plus "Greenshaw's Folly".
Stage.
A stage adaptation of "Murder at the Vicarage", by Moie Charles and Barbara Toy, was first seen at Northampton on 17 October 1949; it was directed by Reginald Tate, starred the 35-year-old Barbara Mullen as Miss Marple, and after touring, reached the Playhouse Theatre in London's West End on 14 December. Having run till late March 1950, it then went on tour again.
In July 1974, Mullen (by then 60) returned to the role in another national tour of the same play, culminating 12 months later when the show opened at London's Savoy Theatre on 28 July 1975. At the end of March 1976, the Miss Marple role was taken over by Avril Angers, after which the production transferred to the Fortune Theatre on 5 July. The role then passed to Muriel Pavlow in June 1977 and to Gabrielle Hamilton late the following year; the production finally closed in October 1979.
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On 21 September 1977, while "Murder at the Vicarage" was still running at the Fortune, a stage adaptation by Leslie Darbon of "A Murder Is Announced" opened at the Vaudeville Theatre, with Dulcie Gray as Miss Marple. The show ran to the end of September 1978 and then toured.
Films.
Margaret Rutherford.
Margaret Rutherford played Miss Marple in four films directed by George Pollock between 1961 and 1964. These were successful light comedies, but Christie herself was disappointed with them. Nevertheless, Agatha Christie dedicated the novel "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side" to Rutherford.
Rutherford presented the character as a bold and eccentric old lady, different from the prim and birdlike character Christie created in her novels. As penned by Christie, Miss Marple has never worked for a living, but the character as portrayed by Margaret Rutherford briefly works undercover as a cook-housekeeper, a stage actress, a sailor, and criminal reformer, and is offered the chance to run a riding establishment-cum-hotel. Her education and genteel background are hinted at when she mentions her awards at marksmanship (and demonstrates her shooting prowess), dancing, fencing, and equestrianism, although these hints are played for comedic value.
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"Murder, She Said" (1961) was the first of the four British MGM productions starring Rutherford. This film was based on the 1957 novel "4:50 from Paddington" (U.S. title, "What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!"), and the changes made in the plot were typical of the series. In the film, Mrs. McGillicuddy is cut from the plot. Miss Marple herself sees an apparent murder committed on a train running alongside hers. Actress Joan Hickson, who played Marple in the 1984–1992 television adaptations, has a role as a housekeeper in this movie.
"Murder at the Gallop" (1963), based on the 1953 Hercule Poirot novel, "After the Funeral" (in this film, she is identified as Miss JTV Marple, though there was no indication as to what the extra initials might stand for).
"Murder Most Foul" (1964), based on the 1952 Poirot novel "Mrs McGinty's Dead".
"Murder Ahoy!" (1964). The last film is not based on any Christie work but displays a few plot elements from "They Do It With Mirrors" (viz., the ship is used as a reform school for wayward boys and one of the teachers uses them as a crime force), as well as similarities to "The Mousetrap".
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The music to all four films was composed and conducted by Ron Goodwin. The same theme is used on all four films with slight variations in each. The score was written within a couple of weeks by Goodwin who was approached by Pollock after Pollock had heard about him from Stanley Black. Black had worked with Pollock on "Stranger in Town" in 1957 and had previously hired Goodwin as his orchestrator.
Rutherford, who was 68 years old when the first film was shot in February 1961, insisted that she wear her own clothes during the filming of the movie, as well as having her husband, Stringer Davis, appear alongside her as the character Mr Stringer. The Rutherford films are frequently repeated on television in Germany, and in that country Miss Marple is generally identified with Rutherford's quirky portrayal.
Rutherford also appeared briefly as Miss Marple in the parodic Hercule Poirot adventure "The Alphabet Murders" (1965).
Angela Lansbury.
In 1980, Angela Lansbury played Miss Marple in "The Mirror Crack'd" (EMI, directed by Guy Hamilton), based on Christie's 1962 novel. The film featured an all-star cast that included Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Geraldine Chaplin, Tony Curtis, and Kim Novak. Edward Fox appeared as Inspector Craddock, who did Miss Marple's legwork. Lansbury's Marple was a crisp, intelligent woman who moved stiffly and spoke in clipped tones. Unlike most incarnations of Miss Marple, this one smoked cigarettes. Lansbury was later cast as Jessica Fletcher in "Murder, She Wrote", a similar role.
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Ita Ever.
In 1983, Estonian stage and film actress, Ita Ever, starred in the Russian language Mosfilm adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel, "A Pocket Full of Rye" (using the Russian edition's translated title, "The Secret of the Blackbirds"), as the character of Miss Marple. Ever has also portrayed the character of Miss Marple in the Eesti Televisioon (ETV) series "Miss Marple Stories" in 1990, and onstage at the Tallinn City Theatre in a production of "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side" in 2005.
Future works.
In October 2024, it was revealed that 20th Century Studios, which has produced the Hercule Poirot films with Kenneth Branagh, plans to adapt more of Christie's work, including unspecified Miss Marple titles.
Television.
The first on-screen portrayal of Miss Marple was by British actress and singer Gracie Fields, playing her in a 1956 episode of the American series "Goodyear TV Playhouse" based on "A Murder Is Announced", the 1950 Christie novel.
In 1970, the character of Miss Marple was portrayed by in a West German television adaptation of "The Murder at the Vicarage "("Mord im Pfarrhaus").
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Helen Hayes.
American stage and screen actress, Helen Hayes, portrayed Miss Marple in two American television films near the end of her decades-long acting career, both for CBS: "A Caribbean Mystery" (1983) and "Murder with Mirrors" (1985). Sue Grafton contributed to the screenplay of the former. Hayes's Marple was benign and chirpy. She had earlier appeared in a television film adaptation of the non-Marple Christie story, "Murder Is Easy", playing an elderly lady somewhat similar to Miss Marple.
Joan Hickson.
From 1984 to 1992, the BBC adapted all of the original Miss Marple novels as a series titled "Miss Marple". Joan Hickson played the lead role. In the 1940s, she had appeared on stage in an Agatha Christie play "Appointment with Death", seen by Christie, who wrote in a note to her, "I hope one day you will play my dear Miss Marple". Hickson portrayed a maid in the 1937 film "Love from a Stranger", which starred Ann Harding and Basil Rathbone, another Agatha Christie play adaptation. As well as portraying Miss Marple on television, Hickson narrated Miss Marple stories for audio books. In the "Binge!" article of "Entertainment Weekly" Issue #1343–1344 (26 December 2014 – 3 January 2015), the writers picked Hickson as "Best Marple" in the "Hercule Poirot & Miss Marple" timeline.
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Listing of the TV series featuring Joan Hickson:
Geraldine McEwan (2004–2008)/Julia McKenzie (2009–2013).
Beginning in 2004, ITV broadcast a series of adaptations of Agatha Christie's books under the title "Agatha Christie's Marple", usually referred to as "Marple." Geraldine McEwan starred in the first three series. Julia McKenzie took over the role in the fourth season.
The adaptations change the plots and characters of the original books (e.g. incorporating lesbian affairs, changing the identities of some killers, renaming or removing significant characters, and even using stories from other books in which Miss Marple did not originally feature). In the Geraldine McEwan series, it is revealed that when she was young (portrayed by Julie Cox in a flashback), Miss Marple had an affair with a married soldier, Captain Ainsworth, who was killed in action in World War I, in December 1915. It is also said (in "A Murder Is Announced") that she served as an ambulance driver during World War I.
Listing of the TV series featuring Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie:
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In 2015, CBS planned a "much younger" version of the character, a granddaughter who takes over a California bookstore.
In 2018, Miss Marple was portrayed by Yunjin Kim in the South Korean television series "Ms. Ma, Nemesis".
Anime.
From 2004 to 2005, Japanese TV network NHK produced a 39 episode anime series titled "Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple", which features both Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. Miss Marple's voice is provided by Kaoru Yachigusa. Episodes adapted both short stories and novels.
The anime series dramatised the following Miss Marple stories:
Radio.
June Whitfield starred as Miss Marple in Michael Bakewell's adaptations of all twelve novels, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1993 and 2001.
Three short stories with Whitfield ("Tape-Measure Murder", "The Case of the Perfect Maid" and "Sanctuary") were later broadcast under the collective title "Miss Marple's Final Cases" weekly 16 – 30 September 2015.
Other appearances.
Marple was highlighted in volume 20 of the "Case Closed" manga's edition of "Gosho Aoyama's Mystery Library", a section of the graphic novels (usually the last page) where the author introduces a different detective (or occasionally, a villain) from mystery literature, television, or other media.
In the 1976 Neil Simon spoof "Murder by Death", Miss Marple is parodied as "Miss Marbles" by Elsa Lanchester.
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April
April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian and Julian calendars. Its length is 30 days.
April is commonly associated with the season of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is the seasonal equivalent to October in the Northern Hemisphere and vice versa.
History.
The Romans gave this month the Latin name "Aprilis" but the derivation of this name is uncertain. The traditional etymology is from the verb "aperire", "to open", in allusion to its being the season when trees and flowers begin to "open", which is supported by comparison with the modern Greek use of άνοιξη ("ánixi") (opening) for spring. Since some of the Roman months were named in honor of divinities, and as April was sacred to the goddess Venus, her Veneralia being held on the first day, it has been suggested that Aprilis was originally her month Aphrilis, from her equivalent Greek goddess name Aphrodite ("Aphros"), or the Etruscan name "Apru". Jacob Grimm suggests the name of a hypothetical god or hero, "Aper" or "Aprus".
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April was the second month of the earliest Roman calendar, before "Ianuarius" and "Februarius" were added by King Numa Pompilius about 700 BC. It became the fourth month of the calendar year (the year when twelve months are displayed in order) during the time of the decemvirs about 450 BC, when it was 29 days long. The 30th day was added back during the reform of the calendar undertaken by Julius Caesar in the mid-40s BC, which produced the Julian calendar.
The Anglo-Saxons called April "ēastre-monaþ". The Venerable Bede says in "The Reckoning of Time" that this month "ēastre" is the root of the word Easter. He further states that the month was named after a goddess "Eostre" whose feast was in that month. It is also attested by Einhard in his work "Vita Karoli Magni".
St George's day is the twenty-third of the month; and St Mark's Eve, with its superstition that the ghosts of those who are doomed to die within the year will be seen to pass into the church, falls on the twenty-fourth.
In China the symbolic ploughing of the earth by the emperor and princes of the blood took place in their third month, which frequently corresponds to April. In Finnish, April is "huhtikuu", meaning "slash-and-burn moon", when gymnosperms for beat and burn clearing of farmland were felled.
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In Slovene, the most established traditional name is "mali traven", the month when plants start growing. It was first written in 1466 in the Škofja Loka manuscript.
The month April originally had 30 days; Numa Pompilius made it 29 days long; finally, Julius Caesar's calendar reform made it 30 days long again, which was not changed in the calendar revision of Augustus Caesar in 8 BC.
In Ancient Rome, the festival of Cerealia was held for seven days from mid-to-late April, but exact dates are still being determined. Feriae Latinae was also held in April, with the date varying. Other ancient Roman observances include Veneralia (April 1), Megalesia (April 10–16), Fordicidia (April 15), Parilia (April 21), Vinalia Urbana (April 23), Robigalia (April 25), and Serapia (April 25). Floralia was held April 27 during the Republican era, or April 28 on the Julian calendar, and lasted until May 3. However, these dates do not correspond to the modern Gregorian calendar.
The Lyrids meteor shower appears on April 16 – April 26 each year, with the peak generally occurring on April 22. The Eta Aquariids meteor shower also appears in April. It is visible from April 21 to May 20 each year, with peak activity on or around May 6. The Pi Puppids appear on April 23, but only in years around the parent comet's perihelion date. The Virginids also shower at various dates in April.
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The "Days of April" ("journées d'avril") is a name assigned in French history to a series of insurrections at Lyons, Paris and elsewhere, against the government of Louis Philippe in 1834, which led to violent repressive measures, and to a famous trial known as the "procès d'avril".
Symbols.
April's birthstone is the diamond. The birth flower is the common daisy "(Bellis perennis)" or the sweet pea. The zodiac signs are Aries (until April 19) and Taurus (April 20 onward).
Observances.
"This list does not necessarily imply official status or general observance."
Non-Gregorian.
"(All Baha'i, Islamic, and Jewish observances begin at the sundown prior to the date listed, and end at sundown of the date in question unless otherwise noted.)"
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August
August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Its length is 31 days.
In the Southern Hemisphere, August is the seasonal equivalent of February in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, August falls in summer. In the Southern Hemisphere, the month falls during winter. In many European countries, August is the holiday month for most workers. Numerous religious holidays occurred during August in ancient Rome.
Certain meteor showers take place in August. The Kappa Cygnids occur in August, with yearly dates varying. The Alpha Capricornids meteor shower occurs as early as July 10 and ends around August 10. The Southern Delta Aquariids occur from mid-July to mid-August, with the peak usually around July 28–29. The Perseids, a major meteor shower, typically takes place between July 17 and August 24, with the peak days varying yearly. The star cluster of Messier 30 is best observed around August.
Among the aborigines of the Canary Islands, especially among the Guanches of Tenerife, the month of August received the name of Beñesmer or Beñesmen, which was also the harvest festival held that month.
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The month was originally named "Sextilis" in Latin because it was the 6th month in the original ten-month Roman calendar under Romulus in 753 BC, with March being the first month of the year. About 700 BC, it became the eighth month when January and February were added to the year before March by King Numa Pompilius, who also gave it 29 days. Julius Caesar added two days when he created the Julian calendar in , giving it its modern length of 31 days.
In 8 BC, the month was renamed in honor of Emperor Augustus. According to a Senatus consultum quoted by Macrobius, he chose this month because it was the time of several of his great triumphs, including the conquest of Egypt. Commonly repeated lore has it that August has 31 days because Augustus wanted his month to match the length of Julius Caesar's July, but this is an invention of the 13th century scholar Johannes de Sacrobosco. Sextilis had 31 days before it was renamed. It was not chosen for its length.
Symbols.
August's birthstones are the peridot, sardonyx, and spinel. Its birth flower is the gladiolus or poppy, meaning beauty, strength of character, love, marriage and family. The Western zodiac signs are Leo (until August 22) and Virgo (from August 23 onward).
Observances.
"This list does not necessarily imply official status or general observance."
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Aaron
According to the Old Testament of the Bible, Aaron ( or ) was a Israelite prophet, a high priest, and the elder brother of Moses. Information about Aaron comes exclusively from religious texts, such as the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament (Luke, Acts, and Hebrews), and the Quran.
The Hebrew Bible relates that, unlike Moses, who grew up in the Egyptian royal court, Aaron and his elder sister Miriam remained with their kinsmen in the northeastern region of the Nile Delta. When Moses first confronted the Egyptian king about the enslavement of the Israelites, Aaron served as his brother's spokesman to the Pharaoh (). Part of the Law given to Moses at Sinai granted Aaron the priesthood for himself and his male descendants, and he became the first High Priest of the Israelites. Levitical priests or "kohanim" are traditionally believed and halakhically required to be of direct patrilineal descent from Aaron.
According to the Book of Numbers, Aaron died at 123 years of age, on Mount Hor, in the fortieth year after the Israelites had come out of the land of Egypt. Deuteronomy, however, places these events at Moseroth.
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Biblical narrative.
According to the Book of Exodus, Aaron first functioned as Moses' assistant. Because Moses complained that he could not speak well, God appointed Aaron as Moses' "prophet" (Exodus 4:10–17; 7:1). At the command of Moses, he let his rod turn into a snake. Then he stretched out his rod in order to bring on the first three plagues. After that, Moses tended to act and speak for himself.
During the journey in the wilderness, Aaron was not always prominent or active. At the battle with Amalek, he was chosen with Hur to support the hand of Moses that held the "rod of God". When the revelation was given to Moses at Mount Sinai, he headed the elders of Israel who accompanied Moses on the way to the summit. While Joshua went with Moses to the top, however, Aaron and Hur remained below to look after the people. From here on in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, Joshua appears in the role of Moses' assistant while Aaron functions instead as the first high priest.
High Priest.
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In later books of the Hebrew Bible, Aaron and his kin are not mentioned very often except in literature dating to the Babylonian captivity and later. The books of Judges, Samuel and Kings mention priests and Levites, but do not mention the Aaronides in particular. The Book of Ezekiel, which devotes much attention to priestly matters, calls the priestly upper class the Zadokites after one of King David's priests. It does reflect a two-tier priesthood with the Levites in subordinate position. A two-tier hierarchy of Aaronides and Levites appears in Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles. As a result, many historians think that Aaronide families did not control the priesthood in pre-exilic Israel. What is clear is that high priests claiming Aaronide descent dominated the Second Temple period. Most scholars think the Torah reached its final form early in this period, which may account for Aaron's prominence in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers.
Conflicts.
Aaron plays a leading role in several stories of conflicts during Israel's wilderness wanderings. During the prolonged absence of Moses on Mount Sinai, the people provoked Aaron to make a golden calf. This incident nearly caused God to destroy the Israelites. Moses successfully intervened, but then led the loyal Levites in executing many of the culprits; a plague afflicted those who were left. Aaron, however, escaped punishment for his role in the affair, because of the intercession of Moses according to Deuteronomy 9:20. Later retellings of this story almost always excuse Aaron for his role. For example, in rabbinic sources and in the Quran, Aaron was not the idol-maker and upon Moses' return begged his pardon because he felt mortally threatened by the Israelites.
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On the day of Aaron's consecration, his oldest sons, Nadab and Abihu, were burned up by divine fire because they offered "strange" incense. Most interpreters think this story reflects a conflict between priestly families some time in Israel's past. Others argue that the story simply shows what can happen if the priests do not follow God's instructions given through Moses.
The Torah generally depicts the siblings, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, as the leaders of Israel after the Exodus, a view also reflected in the biblical Book of Micah. Numbers 12, however, reports that on one occasion, Aaron and Miriam complained about Moses' exclusive claim to be the 's prophet. Their presumption was rebuffed by God who affirmed Moses' uniqueness as the one with whom the spoke face to face. Miriam was punished with a skin disease ("tzaraath") that turned her skin white. Aaron pleaded with Moses to intercede for her, and Miriam, after seven days' quarantine, was healed. Aaron once again escaped any retribution.
According to Numbers 16–17, a Levite named Korah led many in challenging Aaron's exclusive claim to the priesthood. When the rebels were punished by being swallowed up by the earth, Eleazar, the son of Aaron, was commissioned to take charge of the censers of the dead priests. And when a plague broke out among the people who had sympathized with the rebels, Aaron, at the command of Moses, took his censer and stood between the living and the dead until the plague abated (Numbers 16:36, 17:1), atoning in the process.
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To emphasize the validity of the Levites' claim to the offerings and tithes of the Israelites, Moses collected a rod from the leaders of each tribe in Israel and laid the twelve rods overnight in the tent of meeting. The next morning, Aaron's rod was found to have budded and blossomed and produced ripe almonds. The rod was then placed before the Ark of the Covenant to symbolize Aaron's right to priesthood. The following chapter then details the distinction between Aaron's family and the rest of the Levites: while all the Levites (and only Levites) were devoted to the care of the sanctuary, charge of its interior and the altar was committed to the Aaronites alone.
Death.
Aaron, like Moses, was not permitted to enter Canaan with the Israelites when Moses brought water out of a rock to quench the people's thirst. Although they had been commanded to speak to the rock, Moses struck it with the staff twice, which was construed as displaying a lack of deference to the .
There are two accounts of the death of Aaron in the Torah. Numbers says that soon after the incident at Meribah, Aaron with his son Eleazar and Moses ascended Mount Hor. There Moses stripped Aaron of his priestly garments and transferred them to Eleazar. Aaron died on the summit of the mountain, and the people mourned him for thirty days. The other account is found in Deuteronomy 10:6, where Aaron died at Moserah and was buried. There is a significant amount of travel between these two points, as the itinerary in Numbers 33:31–37 records seven stages between Moseroth (Mosera) and Mount Hor. Aaron died on the 1st of Av and was 123 at the time of his death.
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Descendants.
Aaron married Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab and sister of Nahshon of the tribe of Judah. The sons of Aaron were Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar; only the latter two had progeny. A descendant of Aaron is an Aaronite, or Kohen, meaning Priest. Any non-Aaronic Levite—i.e., descended from Levi but not from Aaron—assisted the Levitical priests of the family of Aaron in the care of the tabernacle; later of the temple.
The Gospel of Luke records that both Zechariah and Elizabeth and therefore their son John the Baptist were descendants of Aaron.
Historicity.
Thomas Römer argues that external evidence and biblical texts suggest the Pentateuch reflects tensions among three groups: (1) a lay group aligned with Moses, (2) a priestly group linked to Aaron, and (3) the Levites. These tensions, particularly evident during the Persian and early Hellenistic periods, are seen in conflicting narratives about Moses's and Aaron's roles. Compromises are evident in texts like Exodus and Leviticus, where Moses and Aaron work together, though Moses is dominant. Disagreements persisted, with some texts emphasizing Moses's superiority and others elevating Aaron's status. The Pentateuch ultimately preserves these unresolved conflicts while portraying Moses as the unparalleled mediator of the Torah (Deut. 34:10–12).
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In religious traditions.
Jewish rabbinic literature.
The older prophets and prophetical writers beheld in their priests the representatives of a religious form inferior to the prophetic truth; men without the spirit of God and lacking the willpower requisite to resist the multitude in its idolatrous proclivities. Thus Aaron, the first priest, ranks below Moses: he is his mouthpiece, and the executor of the will of God revealed through Moses, although it is written fifteen times in the Torah that "the Lord spoke to Moses "and" Aaron."
Under the influence of the priesthood that shaped the destinies of the nation under Persian rule, a different ideal of the priest was formed, according to Malachi 2:4–7, and the prevailing tendency was to place Aaron on a footing equal with Moses. "At times Aaron, and at other times Moses, is mentioned first in Scripture—this is to show that they were of equal rank," says the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael, which strongly implies this when introducing in its record of renowned men the glowing description of Aaron's ministration.
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In fulfillment of the promise of peaceful life, symbolized by the pouring of oil upon his head, Aaron's death, as described in the aggadah, was of a wonderful tranquility. Accompanied by Moses, his brother, and by Eleazar, his son, Aaron went to the summit of Mount Hor, where the rock suddenly opened before him and a beautiful cave lit by a lamp presented itself to his view. Moses said, "Take off thy priestly raiment and place it upon thy son Eleazar!" said Moses; "and then follow me." Aaron did as commanded; and they entered the cave, where was prepared a bed around which angels stood. "Go lie down upon thy bed, my brother," Moses continued; and Aaron obeyed without a murmur. Then his soul departed as if by a kiss from God. The cave closed behind Moses as he left; and he went down the hill with Eleazar, with garments rent, and crying: "Alas, Aaron, my brother! thou, the pillar of supplication of Israel!" When the Israelites cried in bewilderment, "Where is Aaron?" angels were seen carrying Aaron's bier through the air. A voice was then heard saying: "The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found on his lips: he walked with me in righteousness, and brought many back from sin." He died on the first of Av. The pillar of cloud which proceeded in front of Israel's camp disappeared at Aaron's death. The seeming contradiction between Numbers 20:22 et seq. and Deuteronomy 10:6 is solved by the rabbis in the following manner: Aaron's death on Mount Hor was marked by the defeat of the people in a war with the king of Arad, in consequence of which the Israelites fled, marching seven stations backward to Mosera, where they performed the rites of mourning for Aaron; wherefore it is said: "There [at Mosera] died Aaron."
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The rabbis particularly praise the brotherly sentiment between Aaron and Moses. When Moses was appointed ruler and Aaron high priest, neither betrayed any jealousy; instead they rejoiced in each other's greatness. When Moses at first declined to go to Pharaoh, saying: "O my Lord, send, I pray, by the hand of him whom you will send", he was unwilling to deprive Aaron of the high position the latter had held for so many years; but the Lord reassured him, saying: "Behold, when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart." Indeed, Aaron was to find his reward, says Shimon bar Yochai; for that heart which had leaped with joy over his younger brother's rise to glory greater than his was decorated with the Urim and Thummim, which were to "be upon Aaron's heart when he goeth in before the Lord". Moses and Aaron met in gladness of heart, kissing each other as true brothers, and of them it is written: "Behold how good and how pleasant [it is] for brethren to dwell together in unity!" Of them it is said: "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed [each other]"; for Moses stood for righteousness and Aaron for peace. Again, mercy was personified in Aaron, according to Deuteronomy 33:8, and truth in Moses, according to Numbers 12:7.
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When Moses poured the oil of anointment upon the head of Aaron, Aaron modestly shrank back and said: "Who knows whether I have not cast some blemish upon this sacred oil so as to forfeit this high office." Then the Shekhinah spoke the words: "Behold the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard of Aaron, that even went down to the skirts of his garment, is as pure as the dew of Hermon."
According to Tanhuma, Aaron's activity as a prophet began earlier than that of Moses. Hillel held Aaron up as an example, saying: "Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace; love your fellow creatures and draw them nigh unto the Law!" This is further illustrated by the tradition that Aaron was an ideal priest of the people, far more beloved for his kindly ways than was Moses. While Moses was stern and uncompromising, brooking no wrong, Aaron went about as peacemaker, reconciling man and wife when he saw them estranged, or a man with his neighbor when they quarreled, and winning evil-doers back into the right way by his friendly intercourse. As a result, Aaron's death was more intensely mourned than Moses': when Aaron died the whole house of Israel wept, including the women, while Moses was bewailed by "the sons of Israel" only. Even in the making of the golden calf the rabbis find extenuating circumstances for Aaron. His fortitude and silent submission to the will of God on the loss of his two sons are referred to as an excellent example to men how to glorify God in the midst of great affliction. Especially significant are the words represented as being spoken by God after the princes of the Twelve Tribes had brought their dedication offerings into the newly constructed Tent of Meeting: "Say to thy brother Aaron: Greater than the gifts of the princes is thy gift; for thou art called upon to kindle the light, and, while the sacrifices shall last only as long as the Temple lasts, thy light shall last forever."
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Christianity.
In the Eastern Orthodox and Maronite churches, Aaron is venerated as a saint whose feast day is shared with his brother Moses and celebrated on September 4. (Those churches that follow the traditional Julian calendar celebrate this day on September 17 of the modern Gregorian calendar). Aaron is also commemorated with other Old Testament saints on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers, the Sunday before Christmas.
In Eastern Orthodox Church he is commemorated on 20 July, 12 March, Sunday of the Forefathers, Sunday of the Fathers and on April 14 with all saint Sinai monks.
Aaron is commemorated as one of the Holy Forefathers in the Calendar of Saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church on July 30. He is commemorated on July 1 in the modern Latin calendar and in the Syriac Calendar.
The "Moses and Aaron Church" (), in the Waterlooplein neighborhood of Amsterdam, is one of the most well-known Catholic churches in the city.
One version of the Bible has an encyclopedia that describes Aaron's role in Scripture as the "spokesman for Moses".
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Mormonism.
In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Aaronic priesthood is the lesser order of priesthood under the higher order of the Melchizedek priesthood. Those ordained to this priesthood have the authority to act in God's name in certain responsibilities in the church such as the administration of the sacrament and baptism.
In the Community of Christ, the Aaronic order of priesthood is regarded as an appendage to the Melchisedec order, and consists of the priesthood offices of deacon, teacher, and priest. While differing in responsibilities, these offices, along with those of the Melchisidec order, are regarded as equal before God.
Islam.
Aaron (Arabic: هارون, "Hārūn") is mentioned in the Quran as a prophet of God. The Quran praises Aaron repeatedly, calling him a "believing servant" as well as one who was "guided" and one of the "victors". The Quran additionally denies the role of Aaron in the creation of the golden calf, attributing the action to Samiri. Aaron is important in Islam for his role in the events of the Exodus, in which, according to the Quran and Islamic belief, he preached with his younger brother, Musa (Moses) to the Pharaoh of the Exodus.
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Aaron's significance in Islam, however, is not limited to his role as the helper of Moses. Islamic tradition also accords Aaron the role of a patriarch, as tradition records that the priestly descent came through Aaron's lineage, which included the entire House of Amran.
Baháʼí Faith.
In the Baháʼí Faith, although his father is described as both an apostle and a prophet, Aaron is merely described as a prophet. The "Kitáb-i-Íqán" describes Imran as his father.
In art.
Aaron appears paired with Moses frequently in Jewish and Christian art, especially in the illustrations of manuscript and printed Bibles. He can usually be distinguished by his priestly vestments, especially his turban or miter and jeweled breastplate. He frequently holds a censer or, sometimes, his flowering rod. Aaron also appears in scenes depicting the wilderness Tabernacle and its altar, as already in the third-century frescos in the synagogue at Dura-Europos in Syria. An eleventh-century portable silver altar from Fulda, Germany depicts Aaron with his censor, and is located in the Musée de Cluny in Paris. This is also how he appears in the frontispieces of early printed Passover Haggadot and occasionally in church sculptures. Aaron has rarely been the subject of portraits, such as those by Anton Kern [1710–1747] and by Pier Francesco Mola []. Christian artists sometimes portray Aaron as a prophet holding a scroll, as in a twelfth-century sculpture from the Cathedral of Noyon in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and often in Eastern Orthodox icons. Illustrations of the Golden Calf story usually include him as well – most notably in Nicolas Poussin's "The Adoration of the Golden Calf" (–34, National Gallery, London). Finally, some artists interested in validating later priesthoods have painted the ordination of Aaron and his sons (Leviticus 8). Harry Anderson's realistic portrayal is often reproduced in the literature of the Latter Day Saints.
Aaron has been depicted in Exodus-related drama, such as "The Ten Commandments" (1956) and "" (2014).
Further reading.
References in the Qur'an
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Alcohol (chemistry)
In chemistry, an alcohol (), is a type of organic compound that carries at least one hydroxyl () functional group bound to a saturated carbon atom. Alcohols range from the simple, like methanol and ethanol, to complex, like sugar alcohols and cholesterol. The presence of an OH group strongly modifies the properties of hydrocarbons, conferring hydrophilic (water-loving) properties. The OH group provides a site at which many reactions can occur.
History.
The flammable nature of the exhalations of wine was already known to ancient natural philosophers such as Aristotle (384–322 BCE), Theophrastus (–287 BCE), and Pliny the Elder (23/24–79 CE). However, this did not immediately lead to the isolation of alcohol, even despite the development of more advanced distillation techniques in second- and third-century Roman Egypt. An important recognition, first found in one of the writings attributed to Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (ninth century CE), was that by adding salt to boiling wine, which increases the wine's relative volatility, the flammability of the resulting vapors may be enhanced. The distillation of wine is attested in Arabic works attributed to al-Kindī (–873 CE) and to al-Fārābī (–950), and in the 28th book of al-Zahrāwī's (Latin: Abulcasis, 936–1013) "Kitāb al-Taṣrīf" (later translated into Latin as "Liber servatoris"). In the twelfth century, recipes for the production of "aqua ardens" ("burning water", i.e., alcohol) by distilling wine with salt started to appear in a number of Latin works, and by the end of the thirteenth century, it had become a widely known substance among Western European chemists.
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The works of Taddeo Alderotti (1223–1296) describe a method for concentrating alcohol involving repeated fractional distillation through a water-cooled still, by which an alcohol purity of 90% could be obtained. The medicinal properties of ethanol were studied by Arnald of Villanova (1240–1311 CE) and John of Rupescissa (–1366), the latter of whom regarded it as a life-preserving substance able to prevent all diseases (the "aqua vitae" or "water of life", also called by John the "quintessence" of wine).
Nomenclature.
Etymology.
The word "alcohol" derives from the Arabic "kohl" (), a powder used as an eyeliner. The first part of the word () is the Arabic definite article, equivalent to "the" in English. The second part of the word () has several antecedents in Semitic languages, ultimately deriving from the Akkadian (), meaning stibnite or antimony.
Like its antecedents in Arabic and older languages, the term "alcohol" was originally used for the very fine powder produced by the sublimation of the natural mineral stibnite to form antimony trisulfide . It was considered to be the essence or "spirit" of this mineral. It was used as an antiseptic, eyeliner, and cosmetic. Later the meaning of alcohol was extended to distilled substances in general, and then narrowed again to ethanol, when "spirits" was a synonym for hard liquor.
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Paracelsus and Libavius both used the term "alcohol" to denote a fine powder, the latter speaking of an "alcohol" derived from antimony. At the same time Paracelsus uses the word for a volatile liquid; "alcool" or "alcool vini" occurs often in his writings.
Bartholomew Traheron, in his 1543 translation of John of Vigo, introduces the word as a term used by "barbarous" authors for "fine powder." Vigo wrote: "the barbarous auctours use alcohol, or (as I fynde it sometymes wryten) alcofoll, for moost fine poudre."
The 1657 "Lexicon Chymicum", by William Johnson glosses the word as "antimonium sive stibium." By extension, the word came to refer to any fluid obtained by distillation, including "alcohol of wine," the distilled essence of wine. Libavius in "Alchymia" (1594) refers to "". Johnson (1657) glosses "alcohol vini" as "." The word's meaning became restricted to "spirit of wine" (the chemical known today as ethanol) in the 18th century and was extended to the class of substances so-called as "alcohols" in modern chemistry after 1850.
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The term "ethanol" was invented in 1892, blending "ethane" with the "-ol" ending of "alcohol", which was generalized as a libfix.
The term "alcohol" originally referred to the primary alcohol ethanol (ethyl alcohol), which is used as a drug and is the main alcohol present in alcoholic drinks.
The suffix "-ol" appears in the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) chemical name of all substances where the hydroxyl group is the functional group with the highest priority. When a higher priority group is present in the compound, the prefix "hydroxy-" is used in its IUPAC name. The suffix "-ol" in non-IUPAC names (such as paracetamol or cholesterol) also typically indicates that the substance is an alcohol. However, some compounds that contain hydroxyl functional groups have "trivial names" that do not include the suffix "-ol" or the prefix "hydroxy-", e.g. the sugars glucose and sucrose.
Systematic names.
IUPAC nomenclature is used in scientific publications, and in writings where precise identification of the substance is important. In naming simple alcohols, the name of the alkane chain loses the terminal "e" and adds the suffix "-ol", "e.g.", as in "ethanol" from the alkane chain name "ethane". When necessary, the position of the hydroxyl group is indicated by a number between the alkane name and the "-ol": propan-1-ol for , propan-2-ol for . If a higher priority group is present (such as an aldehyde, ketone, or carboxylic acid), then the prefix "hydroxy-"is used, e.g., as in 1-hydroxy-2-propanone (). Compounds having more than one hydroxy group are called polyols. They are named using suffixes -diol, -triol, etc., following a list of the position numbers of the hydroxyl groups, as in propane-1,2-diol for CH3CH(OH)CH2OH (propylene glycol).
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In cases where the hydroxy group is bonded to an sp2 carbon on an aromatic ring, the molecule is classified separately as a phenol and is named using the IUPAC rules for naming phenols. Phenols have distinct properties and are not classified as alcohols.
Common names.
In other less formal contexts, an alcohol is often called with the name of the corresponding alkyl group followed by the word "alcohol", e.g., methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol. Propyl alcohol may be "n"-propyl alcohol or isopropyl alcohol, depending on whether the hydroxyl group is bonded to the end or middle carbon on the straight propane chain. As described under systematic naming, if another group on the molecule takes priority, the alcohol moiety is often indicated using the "hydroxy-" prefix.
In archaic nomenclature, alcohols can be named as derivatives of methanol using "-carbinol" as the ending. For instance, can be named trimethylcarbinol.
Primary, secondary, and tertiary.
Alcohols are then classified into primary, secondary ("sec-", "s-"), and tertiary ("tert-", "t-"), based upon the number of carbon atoms connected to the carbon atom that bears the hydroxyl functional group. The respective numeric shorthands 1°, 2°, and 3° are sometimes used in informal settings. The primary alcohols have general formulas . The simplest primary alcohol is methanol (), for which R = H, and the next is ethanol, for which , the methyl group. Secondary alcohols are those of the form RR'CHOH, the simplest of which is 2-propanol (). For the tertiary alcohols, the general form is RR'R"COH. The simplest example is "tert"-butanol (2-methylpropan-2-ol), for which each of R, R', and R" is . In these shorthands, R, R', and R" represent substituents, alkyl or other attached, generally organic groups.
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Applications.
Alcohols have a long history of myriad uses. For simple mono-alcohols, which is the focus on this article, the following are most important industrial alcohols:
Methanol is the most common industrial alcohol, with about 12 million tons/y produced in 1980. The combined capacity of the other alcohols is about the same, distributed roughly equally.
Toxicity.
With respect to acute toxicity, simple alcohols have low acute toxicities. Doses of several milliliters are tolerated. For pentanols, hexanols, octanols, and longer alcohols, LD50 range from 2–5 g/kg (rats, oral). Ethanol is less acutely toxic. All alcohols are mild skin irritants.
Methanol and ethylene glycol are more toxic than other simple alcohols. Their metabolism is affected by the presence of ethanol, which has a higher affinity for liver alcohol dehydrogenase. In this way, methanol will be excreted intact in urine.
Physical properties.
In general, the hydroxyl group makes alcohols polar. Those groups can form hydrogen bonds to one another and to most other compounds. Owing to the presence of the polar OH alcohols are more water-soluble than simple hydrocarbons. Methanol, ethanol, and propanol are miscible in water. 1-Butanol, with a four-carbon chain, is moderately soluble.
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Because of hydrogen bonding, alcohols tend to have higher boiling points than comparable hydrocarbons and ethers. The boiling point of the alcohol ethanol is 78.29 °C, compared to 69 °C for the hydrocarbon hexane, and 34.6 °C for diethyl ether.
Occurrence in nature.
Alcohols occur widely in nature, as derivatives of glucose such as cellulose and hemicellulose, and in phenols and their derivatives such as lignin. Starting from biomass, 180 billion tons/y of complex carbohydrates (sugar polymers) are produced commercially (as of 2014). Many other alcohols are pervasive in organisms, as manifested in other sugars such as fructose and sucrose, in polyols such as glycerol, and in some amino acids such as serine. Simple alcohols like methanol, ethanol, and propanol occur in modest quantities in nature, and are industrially synthesized in large quantities for use as chemical precursors, fuels, and solvents.
Production.
Hydroxylation.
Many alcohols are produced by hydroxylation, i.e., the installation of a hydroxy group using oxygen or a related oxidant. Hydroxylation is the means by which the body processes many poisons, converting lipophilic compounds into hydrophilic derivatives that are more readily excreted. Enzymes called hydroxylases and oxidases facilitate these conversions.
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Many industrial alcohols, such as cyclohexanol for the production of nylon, are produced by hydroxylation.
Ziegler and oxo processes.
In the Ziegler process, linear alcohols are produced from ethylene and triethylaluminium followed by oxidation and hydrolysis. An idealized synthesis of 1-octanol is shown:
The process generates a range of alcohols that are separated by distillation.
Many higher alcohols are produced by hydroformylation of alkenes followed by hydrogenation. When applied to a terminal alkene, as is common, one typically obtains a linear alcohol:
Such processes give fatty alcohols, which are useful for detergents.
Hydration reactions.
Some low molecular weight alcohols of industrial importance are produced by the addition of water to alkenes. Ethanol, isopropanol, 2-butanol, and "tert"-butanol are produced by this general method. Two implementations are employed, the direct and indirect methods. The direct method avoids the formation of stable intermediates, typically using acid catalysts. In the indirect method, the alkene is converted to the sulfate ester, which is subsequently hydrolyzed. The direct hydration uses ethylene (ethylene hydration) or other alkenes from cracking of fractions of distilled crude oil.
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Hydration is also used industrially to produce the diol ethylene glycol from ethylene oxide.
Fermentation.
Ethanol is obtained by fermentation of glucose (which is often obtained from starch) in the presence of yeast. Carbon dioxide is cogenerated. Like ethanol, butanol can be produced by fermentation processes. "Saccharomyces" yeast are known to produce these higher alcohols at temperatures above . The bacterium "Clostridium acetobutylicum" can feed on cellulose (also an alcohol) to produce butanol on an industrial scale.
Substitution.
Primary alkyl halides react with aqueous NaOH or KOH to give alcohols in nucleophilic aliphatic substitution. Secondary and especially tertiary alkyl halides will give the elimination (alkene) product instead. Grignard reagents react with carbonyl groups to give secondary and tertiary alcohols. Related reactions are the Barbier reaction and the Nozaki–Hiyama–Kishi reaction.
Reduction.
Aldehydes or ketones are reduced with sodium borohydride or lithium aluminium hydride (after an acidic workup). Another reduction using aluminium isopropoxide is the Meerwein–Ponndorf–Verley reduction. Noyori asymmetric hydrogenation is the asymmetric reduction of β-keto-esters.
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Hydrolysis.
Alkenes engage in an acid catalyzed hydration reaction using concentrated sulfuric acid as a catalyst that gives usually secondary or tertiary alcohols. Formation of a secondary alcohol via alkene reduction and hydration is shown:
The hydroboration-oxidation and oxymercuration-reduction of alkenes are more reliable in organic synthesis. Alkenes react with "N"-bromosuccinimide and water in halohydrin formation reaction. Amines can be converted to diazonium salts, which are then hydrolyzed.
Reactions.
Deprotonation.
With aqueous p"K"a values of around 16–19, alcohols are, in general, slightly weaker acids than water. With strong bases such as sodium hydride or sodium they form salts called "alkoxides", with the general formula (where R is an alkyl and M is a metal).
The acidity of alcohols is strongly affected by solvation. In the gas phase, alcohols are more acidic than in water. In DMSO, alcohols (and water) have a p"K"a of around 29–32. As a consequence, alkoxides (and hydroxide) are powerful bases and nucleophiles (e.g., for the Williamson ether synthesis) in this solvent. In particular, or in DMSO can be used to generate significant equilibrium concentrations of acetylide ions through the deprotonation of alkynes (see Favorskii reaction).
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Nucleophilic substitution.
Tertiary alcohols react with hydrochloric acid to produce tertiary alkyl chloride. Primary and secondary alcohols are converted to the corresponding chlorides using thionyl chloride and various phosphorus chloride reagents.
Primary and secondary alcohols, likewise, convert to alkyl bromides using phosphorus tribromide, for example:
In the Barton–McCombie deoxygenation an alcohol is deoxygenated to an alkane with tributyltin hydride or a trimethylborane-water complex in a radical substitution reaction.
Dehydration.
Meanwhile, the oxygen atom has lone pairs of nonbonded electrons that render it weakly basic in the presence of strong acids such as sulfuric acid. For example, with methanol:
Upon treatment with strong acids, alcohols undergo the E1 elimination reaction to produce alkenes. The reaction, in general, obeys Zaytsev's rule, which states that the most stable (usually the most substituted) alkene is formed. Tertiary alcohols are eliminated easily at just above room temperature, but primary alcohols require a higher temperature.
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This is a diagram of acid catalyzed dehydration of ethanol to produce ethylene:
A more controlled elimination reaction requires the formation of the xanthate ester.
Protonolysis.
Tertiary alcohols react with strong acids to generate carbocations. The reaction is related to their dehydration, e.g. isobutylene from "tert"-butyl alcohol. A special kind of dehydration reaction involves triphenylmethanol and especially its amine-substituted derivatives. When treated with acid, these alcohols lose water to give stable carbocations, which are commercial dyes.
Esterification.
Alcohol and carboxylic acids react in the so-called Fischer esterification. The reaction usually requires a catalyst, such as concentrated sulfuric acid:
Other types of ester are prepared in a similar manner−for example, tosyl (tosylate) esters are made by reaction of the alcohol with 4-toluenesulfonyl chloride in pyridine.
Oxidation.
Primary alcohols () can be oxidized either to aldehydes () or to carboxylic acids (). The oxidation of secondary alcohols () normally terminates at the ketone () stage. Tertiary alcohols () are resistant to oxidation.
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The direct oxidation of primary alcohols to carboxylic acids normally proceeds via the corresponding aldehyde, which is transformed via an "aldehyde hydrate" () by reaction with water before it can be further oxidized to the carboxylic acid.
Reagents useful for the transformation of primary alcohols to aldehydes are normally also suitable for the oxidation of secondary alcohols to ketones. These include Collins reagent and Dess–Martin periodinane. The direct oxidation of primary alcohols to carboxylic acids can be carried out using potassium permanganate or the Jones reagent.
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Achill Island
Achill Island (; ) is an island off the west coast of Ireland in the historical barony of Burrishoole, County Mayo. It is the largest of the Irish isles and has an area of approximately . Achill had a population of 2,345 in the 2022 census. The island, which has been connected to the mainland by a bridge since 1887, is served by Michael Davitt Bridge, between the villages of Achill Sound and Polranny. Other centres of population include the villages of Keel, Dooagh, Dooega, Dooniver, and Dugort. There are a number of peat bogs on the island.
Roughly half of the island, including the villages of Achill Sound and Bun an Churraigh, are in the Gaeltacht (traditional Irish-speaking region) of Ireland, although the vast majority of the island's population speaks English as their daily language.
The island is within a civil parish, also called Achill, that includes Achillbeg, Inishbiggle and the Corraun Peninsula.
History.
It is believed that at the end of the Neolithic Period (around 4000 BC), Achill had a population of 500–1,000 people. The island was mostly forest until the Neolithic people began crop cultivation. Settlement increased during the Iron Age, and the dispersal of small promontory forts around the coast indicates the warlike nature of the times. Megalithic tombs and forts can be seen at Slievemore, along the Atlantic Drive and on Achillbeg.
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Overlords.
Achill Island lies in the historical barony of Burrishoole, in the territory of ancient Umhall (Umhall Uactarach and Umhall Ioctarach), that originally encompassed an area extending from the County Galway/Mayo border to Achill Head.
The hereditary chieftains of Umhall were the O'Malleys, recorded in the area in 814 AD when they successfully repelled an incursion by Viking attackers in Clew Bay. The Anglo-Norman invasion of Connacht in 1235 AD saw the territory of Umhall taken over by the Butlers and later by the de Burgos. The Butler Lordship of Burrishoole continued into the late 14th century when Thomas le Botiller was recorded as being in possession of Akkyll and Owyll.
Immigration.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, there was migration to Achill from other parts of Ireland, including from Ulster, due to the political and religious turmoil of the time. For a period, there were two different dialects of Irish being spoken on Achill. This led to several townlands being recorded as having two names during the 1824 Ordnance Survey, and some maps today give different names for the same place. Achill Irish has been described as having an Ulster Irish superstratum on top of a northern Connacht Irish substratum. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, seasonal migration of farm workers to East Lothian to pick potatoes took place; these groups of 'tattie howkers' were known as Achill workers, although not all were from Achill, and were organised for potato merchants by gaffers or gangers. Groups travelled from farm to farm to harvest the crop and were allocated basic accommodation. On 15 September 1937, ten young migrant potato pickers from Achill died in a fire at Kirkintilloch in Scotland.
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Achill was connected to the mainland by Michael Davitt Bridge, a bridge connecting Achill Sound and Polranny, in 1887.
Specific historical sites and events.
Grace O'Malley's Castle.
Carrickkildavnet Castle is a 15th-century tower house associated with the O'Malley Clan, who were once a ruling family of Achill. Grace O' Malley, or Granuaile, the most famous of the O'Malleys, was born on Clare Island around 1530. Her father was the chieftain of the barony of Murrisk. The O'Malleys were a powerful seafaring family, who traded widely. Grace became a fearless leader and gained fame as a sea captain and pirate. She is reputed to have met Queen Elizabeth I in 1593. She died around 1603 and is buried in the O'Malley family tomb on Clare Island.
Achill Mission.
The Achill Mission, also known as 'the Colony' at Dugort, was founded in 1831 by the Anglican (Church of Ireland) Rev Edward Nangle. The mission included schools, cottages, an orphanage, an infirmary and a guesthouse.
The Colony gave rise to mixed assessments, particularly during the Great Famine when charges of "souperism" were leveled against Nangle. The provision of food across the Achill Mission schools - which also provided 'scriptural' religious instruction - was particularly controversial.
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For almost forty years, Nangle edited a newspaper called the "Achill Missionary Herald and Western Witness", which was printed in Achill. He expanded his mission into Mweelin, Kilgeever, West Achill where a school, church, rectory, cottages and a training school were built. Edward's wife, Eliza, suffered poor health in Achill and died in 1852; she is buried with six of the Nangle children on the slopes of Slievemore in North Achill.
In 1848, at the height of the Great Famine, the Achill Mission published a prospectus seeking to raise funds for the acquisition of significant additional lands from Sir Richard O'Donnell. The document gives an overview, from the Mission's perspective, of its activities in Achill over the previous decade and a half including considerable sectarian unrest. In 1851, Edward Nangle confirmed the purchase of the land which made the Achill Mission the largest landowner on the island.
The Achill Mission began to decline slowly after Nangle was moved from Achill and it closed in the 1880s. When Edward Nangle died in 1883 there were opposing views on his legacy.
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Railway.
In 1894, the Westport – Newport railway line was extended to Achill Sound. The railway station is now a hostel. The train provided a great service to Achill, but it also is said to have fulfilled an ancient prophecy. Brian Rua O' Cearbhain had prophesied that 'carts on iron wheels' would carry bodies into Achill on their first and last journey. In 1894, the first train on the Achill railway carried the bodies of victims of the Clew Bay Drowning. This tragedy occurred when a boat overturned in Clew Bay, drowning thirty-two young people. They had been going to meet the steamer SS "Elm" which would take them to Britain for potato picking.
The Kirkintilloch Fire in 1937 almost fulfilled the second part of the prophecy when the bodies of ten victims were carried by rail to Achill. While it was not literally the last train, the railway closed just two weeks later. These people had died in a fire in a bothy in Kirkintilloch. This term referred to the temporary accommodation provided for those who went to Scotland to pick potatoes, a migratory pattern that had been established in the early nineteenth century.
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Kildamhnait.
Kildamhnait on the south-east coast of Achill is named after St. Damhnait, or Dymphna, who founded a church there in the 7th century. There is also a holy well just outside the graveyard. The present church was built in the 1700s and the graveyard contains memorials to the victims of two of Achill's greatest tragedies, the Kirchintilloch Fire (1937) and the Clew Bay Drowning (1894).
The Monastery.
In 1852, John MacHale, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, purchased land in Bunnacurry, on which a Franciscan Monastery was established, which, for many years, provided an education for local children. The building of the monastery was marked by a conflict between the Protestants of the mission colony and the workers building the monastery. The dispute is known in the island folklore as the "Battle of the Stones".
A monk who lived at the monastery for almost thirty years was Paul Carney. He wrote a biography of James Lynchehaun who was convicted for the 1894 attack on an Englishwoman named Agnes MacDonnell, which left her face disfigured, and the burning of her home, Valley House, Tonatanvally, North Achill. The home was rebuilt and MacDonnell died there in 1923, while Lynchehaun escaped to the US after serving 7 years and successfully resisted extradition but spent his last years in Scotland, where he died. Carney's great-grandniece, Patricia Byrne, wrote her own account of Mrs MacDonnell and Lynchehaun, entitled "The Veiled Woman of Achill".
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Carney also wrote accounts of his lengthy fundraising trips across the U.S. at the start of the 20th century. The ruins of this monastery are still to be seen in Bunnacurry today.
Valley House.
The historic Valley House is located in Tonatanvally, "The Valley", near Dugort, in the northeast of Achill Island. The present building sits on the site of a hunting lodge built by the Earl of Cavan in the 19th century. Its notoriety arises from an incident in 1894 in which the then owner, an Englishwoman, Mrs Agnes McDonnell, was savagely beaten and the house set alight by a local man, James Lynchehaun. Lynchehaun had been employed by McDonnell as her land agent, but the two fell out and he was sacked and told to quit his accommodation on her estate. A lengthy legal battle ensued, with Lynchehaun refusing to leave. At the time, in the 1890s, the issue of land ownership in Ireland was politically charged. After the events at the Valley House in 1895, Lynchehaun would falsely claim his actions were carried out on behalf of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and motivated by politics. He escaped from custody after serving seven years and fled to the United States seeking political asylum (although Michael Davitt refused to shake his hand, calling Lynchehaun a "murderer"), where he successfully defeated legal attempts by the British authorities to have him extradited to face charges arising from the attack and the burning of the Valley House. Agnes McDonnell suffered terrible injuries from the attack but survived and lived for another 23 years, dying in 1923. Lynchehaun is said to have returned to Achill on two occasions, once in disguise as an American tourist, and eventually died in Girvan, Scotland, in 1937. The Valley House is now a hostel and bar.
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Deserted Village.
Close to Dugort, at the base of Slievemore mountain lies the Deserted Village. There are approximately 80 ruined houses in the village. The houses were built of unmortared stone. Each house consisted of just one room. In the area surrounding the Deserted Village, including on the mountain slopes, there is evidence of 'lazy beds' in which crops like potatoes were grown. In Achill, as in other areas of Ireland, a 'rundale' system was used for farming. This meant that the land around a village was rented from a landlord. This land was then shared by all the villagers to graze their cattle and sheep. Each family would then have two or three small pieces of land scattered about the village, which they used to grow crops. For many years people lived in the village and then in 1845 famine struck in Achill as it did in the rest of Ireland. Most of the families moved to the nearby village of Dooagh, which is beside the sea, while others emigrated. Living beside the sea meant that fish and shellfish could be used for food. The village was completely abandoned and is now known as the 'Deserted Village'.
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While abandoned, the families that moved to Dooagh (and their descendants) continued to use the village as a 'booley village'. This means that during the summer season, the younger members of the family, teenage boys and girls, would take the livestock to the area and tend flocks or herds on the hillside and stay in the houses of the Deserted Village. They would then return to Dooagh in the autumn. This custom continued until the 1940s. Boolying was also carried out in other areas of Achill, including Annagh on Croaghaun mountain and in Curraun. At Ailt, Kildownet, the remains of a similar deserted village can be found. This village was deserted in 1855 when the tenants were evicted by the local landlord so the land could be used for cattle grazing; the tenants were forced to rent holdings in Currane, Dooega and Slievemore. Others emigrated to America.
Archaeology.
In 2009, a summer field school excavated Round House 2 on Slievemore Mountain under the direction of archaeologist Stuart Rathbone. Only the outside north wall, entrance way and inside of the Round House were completely excavated.
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From 2004 to 2006, the Achill Island Maritime Archaeology Project directed by Chuck Meide was sponsored by the College of William and Mary, the Institute of Maritime History, the Achill Folklife Centre (now the Achill Archaeology Centre), and the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP). This project focused on the documentation of archaeological resources related to Achill's rich maritime heritage. Maritime archaeologists recorded a 19th-century fishing station, an ice house, boat house ruins, a number of anchors which had been salvaged from the sea, 19th-century and more recent currach pens, a number of traditional vernacular watercraft including a possibly 100-year-old Achill yawl, and the remains of four historic shipwrecks.
Other places of interest.
The cliffs of Croaghaun on the western end of the island are the third highest sea cliffs in Europe but are inaccessible by road. Near the westernmost point of Achill, Achill Head, is Keem Bay. Keel Beach is visited by tourists and used as a surfing location. South of Keem beach is Moytoge Head, which with its rounded appearance drops dramatically down to the ocean. An old British observation post, built during World War I to prevent the Germans from landing arms for the Irish Republican Army, still stands on Moytoge. During the Emergency (WWII), this post was rebuilt by the Irish Defence Forces as a lookout post for the Coast Watching Service wing of the Defence Forces. It operated from 1939 to 1945.
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The mountain of Slievemore, (672 m) rises dramatically in the north of the island. On its slops is an abandoned village, the "Deserted Village". West of this ruined village is an old Martello tower, again built by the British to warn of any possible French invasion during the Napoleonic Wars. The area also has an approximately 5000-year-old Neolithic tomb.
Achillbeg ("", "Little Achill") is a small island just off Achill's southern tip. Its inhabitants were resettled on Achill in the 1960s. A plaque to the boxer Johnny Kilbane is situated on Achillbeg and was erected to celebrate 100 years since his first championship win.
Caisleán Ghráinne, also known as Kildownet Castle, is a small tower house built in the early 1400s. It is located in Cloughmore, on the south of Achill Island. It is noted for its associations with Grace O'Malley, along with the larger Rockfleet Castle in Newport.
Economy and tourism.
While a number of attempts at setting up small industrial units on the island have been made, its economy is largely dependent on tourism. Subventions from Achill people working abroad allowed a number of families to remain living in Achill throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. In the past, fishing was a significant activity but this aspect of the economy has since reduced. At one stage, the island was known for its shark fishing, and basking shark in particular was fished for its valuable shark liver oil.
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During the 1960s and 1970s, there was growth in tourism. The largest employers on Achill include its two hotels. The island has several bars, cafes and restaurants. The island's Atlantic location means that seafood, including lobster, mussels, salmon, trout and winkles, are common. Lamb and beef are also popular.
Religion.
Most people on Achill are either Roman Catholic or Anglican (Church of Ireland).
Catholic churches on the island include: Bunnacurry Church (Saint Josephs), The Valley Church (only open for certain events), Pollagh Church, Dooega Church and Achill Sound Church.
There is a Church of Ireland church (St. Thomas's church) at Dugort.
The House of Prayer, a controversial "religious retreat" on the island, was established in 1993.
Artists.
For almost two centuries, a number of artists have had a close relationship with Achill Island, including the landscape painter Paul Henry. Within the emerging Irish Free State, Paul Henry's landscapes from Achill and other areas reinforced a vision of Ireland of communities living in harmony with the land. He lived in Achill for almost a decade with his wife, artist Grace Henry and, while using similar subject-matter, the pair developed very different styles.
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