Mago Bill: Mago and Magos
I have posted a lot about Mago Bill and have even had a couple of Mago Bill blogs. He is probably a Munsterman even though his parents brought him to the States as a toddler.
Mago Bill is a name I have given to my great grandfather, M. William Sheehan. Sheehan is a fine and interesting surname, but Mago attracts me more.
Spanish speaking friends tell me that in Spanish mago means magician and the like. Some also tell me that "the three kings'' or "three wise men" of Christmas are called magos and that each of them is a mago. This seems interesting to me but may have been of no interest at all to my great grandfather.
However, I have been told that before Rome came of age and in the early days of Carthage, that Mago was an important family name among the Carthaginian Phoenicians. I see that Magos where friends and family of a famous guy by the name of Hannibal.
Magos were well known traders, navigators, and military leaders of Carthage. Carthaginian traders and navigators came to Ireland for a variety of reasons. The main reason was probably tin. In the Bronze age and beyond tin was important because without it there was little bronze. The Irish of the day were metal workers, craftsmen, and artists. They were also miners, alchemists, poets, and lovers.
Some Irish seem also to have been impressionable, for they heard the name Mago so often from the visiting Carthaginians that a few infants were called Mago. From that time and centuries on, the name Mago was from time to time quite popular Ireland. I have heard that two early bishops each had the name Mago.
The name Mago and Mago Bill have, from time to time, influenced and inspired my research and writing of history.
On this blog you can find out more about him. You can also find a bit about him on the blog History With RCS.
Thanks for your visit and thank you for reading this essay which I have written for you.
More to come,
bye for now
RCS