St. Patrick’s Day 2025 at Stout Creek Farm: Changing the Course of History

We Barry’s have Irish ancestors. I also own a farm with the first name of Stout. Heck, I was even born in Shamrock Texas! So yesterday, on St. Patrick’s Day 2025, when I was a lot more than “pinched” by a crazy white horse, I know exactly what was going on. I’m calling it “The Failed St. Patrick’s Day Revenge of Oliver Cromwell and His Horse.”

In 1645, Oliver Cromwell became commander of the New Model Army and later the Lord Protector (this title always makes me think of the “Sovereign Protector” in Star Wars) of the Commonwealth of England. He also fervently believed that God’s will always matched up with his will (alert! things never end well in history when humans, especially people in power think this).

On August 15, 1649, Cromwell, a Protestant , entered Ireland with 4,000 men on horseback and many more on foot. He was hellbent on seeking revenge against the Irish Catholics for their rebellion of 1641.

Cromwell and his Parliament Generals easily succeeded, leaving a path of bloody and brutal executions along the way. However…

As Cromwell marched on horseback from Dublin, the Irish forces retreated from coastal territories into the interior. They retreated in fear but also to issue surprise attacks on Cromwell when they could.

In one daring late night raid, under the leadership of Christopher O’Toole, the Irish forces snuck in and did damage to the forces of Cromwell. The cherry on top was that they got away with Cromwells’s favorite horse.

Cromwell would go on to look for that horse until the very end, sending troops out on rescue missions and offered the equivalent of $22,000 current US dollars to whoever would return it. The horse was never seen or heard from again. The color of Cromwell’s horse that was never found? White.

So, here we sit on St Patrick’s day and an older chap with Irish blood, born in Shamrock Texas, with a farm named Stout, just happens to get ferociously bit by a WHITE horse. Coincidence? I think not!

Here is the truth: The ghost of Cromwell came back in the spirit of his white horse to get revenge on me for that white horse that was stolen long ago by my Irish ancestors.

Well, I’ve got news for Cromwell.

The Irish will not be defeated! Cromwell’s white horse went for my jugular and I, with the quick thinking (yes, I do see the irony) of an Irishmen pull away. He tries to take my hand off anyway and with the courage of St. Patrick himself I ripped it out his mouth.

Do I do need medical care? Years of (past) drinking like an Irishman taught me that alcohol will cure anything—at least for a while.

I poured alcohol (rubbing) on that Cromwellian cut and proudly bandaged it up with a green wrap of the Irish.

Cromwell can be sure that on this day at Stout Creek Farm he did not get revenge. He got a mere flesh wound that I shall look at and see only the shamrock of life. Today shall forever change the course of history!

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**** This war in 1649 actually did change relations for years to come. The fascinating English theologian G.K. Chesterton once cleverly wrote that “the tragedy of the English conquest of Ireland in the 17th century is that the Irish can never forget it and the English can never remember it.”

***all of this is true except that I am not YET crazy enough to believe Oliver Cromwell attacked me yesterday and I think I actually have more English blood than Irish blood. That could be a problem in the retelling of this history lesson in a pulpit or around our campfire.