Killer clowns are no joke...
QUESTION Has anyone been killed by a clown? DURING the 19th century, the clown Grimaldi was one of the most famous entertainers in Britain. It was claimed that an eighth of London’s population had seen him on stage.
However, under the face paint was an extreme melancholic who would often say: ‘I make you laugh at night, but am grim all day.’
Similarly, the major clown figure on the Continent was Jean-Gaspard Deburau, a difficult man whose alter-ego was Pierrot, a clown with white face paint punctuated by red lips and black eyebrows whose silent gesticulations delighted French audiences.
In 1836, Deburau killed a boy with a blow from his walking stick after the youth, who had recognised the unpainted clown in the street, had taunted him. He was acquitted of the murder.
Remy, Deburau’s chief biographer, wrote of him: ‘When he powdered his face, his nature, in fact, took the upper hand. He stood then at the measure of his life — bitter, vindictive and unhappy.’
Ian Forrest, Belfast. ONE of America’s most notorious serial killers was a clown. John Wayne Gacy Jr tortured and murdered at least 33 boys and young men between 1972 and 1978 in Cook County, Illinois.
Born on March 17, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois, Gacy suffered childhood abuse at the hands of his alcoholic father.
Gacy’s first marriage, to Marlynn Myers, saw him father a son and daughter, but she divorced him after he was convicted of sexually abusing a 16-year-old in 1968.
After Gacy’s release on parole in 1970, he started a successful house maintenance business and married divorcee Carole Hoff in 1972.
An avid Democrat, Gacy became a member of the ‘Jolly Joker’ clown club. He became Pogo the Clown, performing at Democratic fundraising events and entertaining sick children in hospital.
According to Gacy, acting as a clown allowed him to regress into childhood. Gacy used his clownish talents to capture his victims. He would trick the youths into donning handcuffs, enabling him to subdue them.
He is recorded as having told investigating officers before his arrest: ‘You know . . . clowns can get away with murder.’
Gacy was captured on Decembefore ber 22, 1978, sentenced to death in 1980 and died by lethal injection in 1994.
Stuart Bingham, Nottingham. QUESTION Why is the English soccer team Sheffield Wednesday so called? THE Wednesday Cricket Club was founded in 1820, according to a Bell’s Life journal article in 1842. The name ‘Wednesday’ was introduced because this was the day of the week the founding members had a day off work to enable them to play cricket.
In 1867, the cricketers decided that it would be an excellent idea to keep up the summer comradeship in the winter months and formed a soccer club.
In 1871, The Wednesdays were settled at Bramall Lane (now home of Sheffield United) after the Wednesday Cricket Club was one of six clubs who helped build this ground in 1855.
The soccer section kept its name until 1929, then became Sheffield Wednesday.
Simon Myers, Offerton, Stockport. QUESTION Who owns the Curragh Plains and what size are they? FURTHER to the earlier answer, the overall ownership of the Curragh Plains remains in State ownership.
The history of the plains goes back to pre-historic times and there’s a famous legend about St Brigid.
About 480 AD, when she wanted to set up a monastery in Kildare town, she asked the High King of Leinster for land on which she could build the monastery. He said that he would give her as much land as her cloak would cover and when she put her cloak on the ground, it covered the entire Curragh Plains. Even today, the plains are still sometimes called St Brigid’s Pastures.
Apart from St Brigid, in ancient times, the people of Leinster often gathered on the Curragh Plains to make new laws, while marriages and funeral ceremonies were also held there.
In much more recent times, the famous boxing match in 1815 when Irish champion boxer Dan Donnelly defeated the English champion, George Cooper, was staged on the Curragh Plains.
Then in 1903, the first international motor race in these islands was held across the Curragh. Motor racing continued there until 1955.
But in sporting terms, the Curragh Plains are most connected with horse racing. The heart of the Irish bloodstock industry is based here, with about a quarter of all horses trained in Ireland being trained on the Curragh.
When the new style Curragh racecourse is unveiled, it will demonstrate the importance of the Curragh Plains in Ireland’s horse breeding and racing industry.
The Curragh has also been of great military importance for many centuries.
When the whole of Ireland was ruled by Britain, the Crown owned the Curragh Plains.
The Crown managed the area through the Office of the Ranger; this office can be traced back to 1680 and it lasted until 1961, when it was abolished by the Curragh of Kildare Act 1961.
Since the Crown owned the area, it also became renowned for its military barracks, which passed to Irish control in 1922, when the Irish Free State came into being.
When that happened, the ownership of the Curragh Plains changed over to Irish State control, through the Department of Defence.
But quite apart from the military uses of the Curragh Plains, the care and management of this vast area of flat grassland was also closely scrutinised.
An Act of Parliament in 1868 defined the brownlands, the bluelands and the greenlands and the areas were redefined by an Act of the Oireachtas in 1961, which defines the size of these three areas to the present day.
Another piece of legislation, in 1869, specified that only sheep could be grazed on the Curragh Plains.
The Curragh Plains is a remarkable area, for its natural history, its military history and its linkage to the Irish horse breeding and racing industry, all of which is an amazing convergence within less than 5,000 acres.