The other day, I used the term "beyond the pale" in conversation with some delegates, and as an afterthought commented - "I don't know where that saying comes from / originates". Well - they knew one origin at least!

It comes from Ireland ... the English aristocracy settled centuries gone by in the Dublin area, and spread out somewhat from there - but not all the way across the island. There was a certain boundary, rather beyond the current M50 motorway, I understand - a fence with pailings beyond which the land was regarded as wild country. And if people went out there ... they were Beyond the Pale


Illustration - Mellifont Abbey from A weekend in Ireland.
(written 2009-10-22, updated 2009-10-24)

 Z201 - Holidays and Business Trips
  [3381] Report - day trip from Swindon / Chippenham / Melksham to Weymouth - (2011-08-07)
  [3372] Wearing the new London uniform - (2011-07-28)
  [3346] Gibraltar - said to have a few residents less than Chippenham - (2011-07-05)
  [3345] Cruising - (2011-07-04)
  [3321] Travelling around - (2011-06-09)
  [3306] Photogenic Place - (2011-05-28)
  [3303] Flying tonight - (2011-05-26)
  [3300] Wildlife and other pictures from holiday - (2011-05-24)
  [2803] Travelling across Europe - (2010-06-12)
  [2797] Sur la T.G.V. - (2010-06-07)
  [2796] Sunday - waiting for the ferry. - (2010-06-06)
  [2759] Touching base - (2010-05-10)
  [2313] Seeing Guadalajara - a first glimpse downtown - (2009-08-01)
  [2306] Melksham to Mexico for the week - (2009-07-27)
  [2269] Sipping at York - (2009-07-05)
  [2265] A chance to do the tourist thing - (2009-07-01)
  [2208] A beautiful coastline - (2009-05-30)
  [2200] England, Scotland, Northern Ireland - (2009-05-26)
  [2198] On the road, at a Service area thats a cut above the others - (2009-05-25)
  [2101] A B C D of GA and TN - (2009-03-23)
  [2100] Visiting Family - (2009-03-23)
  [2098] A room without a view - (2009-03-22)
  [2090] Melksham to Georgia - (2009-03-19)
  [2030] The final step to being British - (2009-02-07)
  [1992] A good time to travel - (2009-01-14)
  [1868] Liverpool - a friendly city - (2008-11-03)
  [1746] London for the visitor, for free - (2008-08-09)
  [1740] Vertical London - (2008-08-06)
  [1657] Farewell, Newcastle to Stavanger, Haugsund and Bergen - (2008-05-29)
  [1457] A day in Ljubljana - (2007-12-04)
  [1454] From Sunday to Monday, from Melksham to the Balkans - (2007-12-03)
  [1308] Good to be home - (2007-08-18)
  [1299] In the USA for a few days - (2007-08-11)
  [1293] Weymouth - Sunny Summer Sunday afternoon - (2007-08-07)
  [1291] Day trip to Weymouth - (2007-08-05)
  [1231] Sur le Continent - (2007-06-13)
  [1150] Helsinki - what comes naturally - (2007-04-15)
  [1143] A course in Helsinki - (2007-04-11)
  [1120] 1200 miles in 3 days - (2007-03-28)
  [1025] Tomorrow's keywords - London, Training, Course, PHP, Ruby. - (2007-01-08)
  [1004] Old dog, old tricks - (2006-12-22)
  [878] Easy criteria to meet - (2006-09-25)
  [684] Staying in the country - (2006-04-13)
  [620] Familiar names, close to home - (2006-02-23)
  [548] San Francisco - (2005-12-30)
  [518] Passport office - a much improved system - (2005-12-05)
  [420] Towards Tebay - (2005-08-20)
  [374] Instant availability - (2005-07-11)
  [373] Vik, Iceland to Melksham, England - (2005-07-10)
  [370] From Iceland - (2005-07-06)
  [368] Vacation Week - (2005-07-04)
  [81] Cafe keyboards - (2004-10-10)
  [65] Ireland - (2004-09-27)

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Exploring Old Railways
split and join in tcl and expect
A short form of if ... then ... else
Windows 7 and Open Source Programming
Beyond the Pale
What are Tcl lists?
Tcl - catching an error before your program crashes
Tcl - passing arrays and strings in and back out of procs
Melksham Town - asleep or awake?
Beauty in pictures