Inspired By Mago

 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

 

"Mago" and the Phoenicians

Phoenicians                

                They had certainly heard of Atlantis, but that fabled land had disappeared thousands of years before the Phoenician posted themselves near the Pillars of Hercules. Those same pillars may once have been called the Pillars of Atlas or even the Gates of Atlas. They certainly guarded  the way to the great Atlantic sea and to the isle beyond the western isle. 

Those Phoenicians were a knowledgeable people who we might now begin to call Carthaginians. The knew much of trade and of navigation. They also knew of mining, metallurgy, language writing, warfare on land and sea. They knew that the islands not far beyond the Pillars not only contained gold, silver, and tin, but also contained men experience in mining and metalworking. They may even have known of the little people there who aided in the extraction of those precious metals from beneath the earth.

Carthage and the Carthaginians

                The name and title of Mago was very well known among those Carthaginian Phoenicians. I have found the use of the title among them as early as 750 BC. You my find that it was used much earlier. I do find strong evidence  that they were carrying on regular trade with Western Isles 500 and 400 BC.

The Magonids were a political dynasty of Carthage from about 550 to
340 BC. The dynasty began with Mago I, under whom Carthage became preeminent among the Phoenician colonies  in the western Mediterranean.  Under the Magonids the Carthaginian Empire expanded to include Spain, Sardinia, Libya, and erhas Sicily. Diodorus and Herodotus tell us Of the Magonids better than do most Romans.

Mago

                There was a Mago II and then a Mago III who led Carthaginians. There also seems to have been a Mago who commanded, or navigated for, the trading fleet which connected the Western Isles to the Mediterranean. You may know, or have guessed, that the isle beyond the western isle is now called Ireland. 

                It might have been Mago, that knowledgeable shipmaster, who impressed an early Sheehan and led him, or her, to adopt the name Mago for their son.  My Irish great grandfather had the name Mago William Sheehan. That is the source of the name Mago Bill for this blog.

                So, Mago Bill has a history.







by Richard sheehan
for Mago Bill