The Black Milk of All Mind-stuff

Dundalk Herald, April 1983

Gardai have issued an appeal for calm in the wake of 'mischief' in recent weeks by what some are calling a 'satanic' cult.  Not much is known about the cult except that they have been operating within the Cox's Demesne part of town.  A number of private residences in the area have been affected with gardens and backyards being vandalised in a variety of ways.  In some cases, the remains of dead animals such as pigs and bovines have been found on doorsteps and windowsills and in other cases, bizarre shapes have been cut into the grass.  Some local residents believe that the 'cult' is targeting teenage girls with blonde hair, though this rumour has yet to be given weight by police.   'It's the young blonde girls they're after supposedly,' said Maureen Gaffney of Aisling Park.  'That's the word.  I've had my two turned into brunettes in the last few days to put the devil-worshippers off.  Be careful if you're a blonde is all I can say.  Dye it, or go the Telly Savalas way to be safe.'  Gardai are calling for a composed response to the vandalism, but have urged the public to stay vigilant when outdoors, and whenever possible, to stay in groups.

Da McNamee formed the Leftover Snakes in the early 1980's after he was kicked out of secondary school for dealing hash in the hallways.  The earliest members were his customers, mostly teenage boys who would meet him in Fatima Park to buy their cannabis.   McNamee would eventually gather them in the fields behind Cuchullain's Castle where they would smoke and drink beer and talk in the evenings.  It was all fairly run-of-the-mill at first, a teenage gang, but then McNamee began to cook up schemes and pranks for them to execute.  He'd become a leader, so he wouldn't get involved himself, a sort of wrathful Fagin .  He had a power over them.  He would make them attack the schools nearby, his way of revenging himself on the institutions of the world that had banished him.  They would creep over the walls late at night with buckets of paint and smear classroom windows.  When the buckets were empty, they would start smashing the windows and kicking doors.

There was a rumour that McNamee chose the fields behind Cuchullain's Castle to assemble the Leftover Snakes as they lay adjacent to Maeve House, an 18th Century homestead which had a dreadful history in the area and was said to be cursed.  In pagan times, it was a sacred site of great importance to the druids, and as time went on, it became a gathering place for practitioners of witchcraft.  Many of the witches in Ireland were spared the frenzied purges that occurred in England.  The descendents of that period learned the lessons of England well, and kept themselves hidden from the church and those parties who would wish the demise of their activities.  For centuries, covens would meet in the area until a time came when they couldn't be bothered anymore, and they all went home.  It's thought that Maeve House was built by the last remaining warlock in the town in 1765 who continued to practice the dark arts in the basement of the house as a means of influencing his wife's cooking.  In the year 1835, the Ribbonmen, a group of radical and violent young Catholics, targeted Maeve House for attack due to its proprietor at the time, Sir Roderick Butler, a society man with ties to the Orange Order.  It was through co-operation with Sir Roderick that the magistrate was able to jail Tomas Hogan, then regional leader of the Louth Ribbonmen.  On May 2nd, the Ribbonmen crowded Maeve House and began their assault, barricading the doors and windows, and setting the building aflame.  All occupants, Sir Roderick, his young male companion, and his housekeeper, perished in the terrible fire.  Stories of apparitions in the surrounding fields and ugly howls in the night had plagued Maeve House ever since that violent event, so it became a place of meaning for the Leftover Snakes, something to fuel their dark agency.

Inspired by a new interest in matters of the occult and a growing speculation on local history, Da McNamee soon began to steer the Leftover Snakes in a more foul and cabalistic direction.  Already taking his writing very seriously, it's thought that he turned to black magic in order to achieve new artistic heights.  By invoking spirits and complying with their nefarious desires, he would be shown the source of all beauty in the universe and offered the grail containing its purest milk.  The black milk of all mind-stuff, the elixir, the course to spiritual perfection.  

He soon learned spells for the following:

(to cause, not reverse)

Pregnancy

Kakidrosis

Copraemia

Transmutation

Earthquakes

Balbuties

Empyesis

Ejaculation

Unfortunately, of all these spells he collected, only one of them ever worked.  Pregnancy.  And it backfired.  He had cast the spell on himself, but it worked on his girlfriend, Tricia, instead. 

As McNamee became more preoccupied with his literary endeavours, and found his interest in magic waning, his seating as the High Snake came under threat.  Sometime in 1985, McNamee was ousted from the group  and it fell into the possession of a local elite of artists and the well-fed.  The name Leftover Snakes was discarded and the new collective became known subsequently as the Order of the Last Serpent, a moniker which McNamee publicly criticised in a poem written on the second kerbstone to the right of the entrance of the Town Hall.

Judge not books of wisdom and laughter and light

Judge the covers of books of shadows and shite

The Last Serpents were more serious in their engagement with the black arts than Da McNamee ever was.  They became even more secretive as their rituals and crimes turned more unholy and monstrous.  The inner circle became harder to crack as the walls around them grew taller and stronger.  Their crimes, unspeakable ones, went almost completely unnoticed.

McNamee's break from the Order of the Last Serpent led to long animus with senior members as his eccentric personality and literary terrorism continued to develop.  Many leading figures in the sect believed his flagrant ways would one day prove disastrous to the Order, revealing their existence to the public at large and, even worse, the identities of individual members.

Castletown Post, June 1986

The body of a man was found on the banks of the Castletown River early Tuesday morning.  Gardai are treating the man's death as foul play.  The body was discovered by a local resident who was out picking mushrooms.  The deceased has yet to be named and no further information regarding the circumstances of his death is available at this time.  Gardai are appealing to members of the public who were in the area near Boyle O'Reilly Terrace on Monday evening to come forward and assist if they happen to have seen anything suspicious.

Enchanters, one and all, teach me your ways/Give me your essence/Show me the core

I will drink all that you pour/and we'll stand together/Drink till the fall

reportedly the work of Da McNamee, spotted on the side of a big yellow skip on the Ecco Road and recorded by Mr. James Mulligan, before the skip went where skips go when they're full-up.