QLR #6: Wolf the Quarrelsome Resurrected with Lt. Colonel T.J. Howley

Welcome to Quarrelsome Life Radio episode 6.

French writer Marcel Proust once wrote that “artists are those who strip away habit and return life to its deserved glory.” I agree.

Quarrelsome Life Radio was started so that I could have chats with writers, musicians, and artists of all forms about their craft. This intention did not last long. Since episode 2 I have used the podcast to discuss current affairs and areas more political, scientific, and philosophical. By no means do I regret this diversion though as I really enjoyed all those dialogues. More importantly, however, I got some wonderful feedback from people about the helpfulness of those discussions in the making sense of the topics covered therein. That said, I must say that I am excited to be at least temporarily getting back to what my original intention was.

In this show I chat to Thomas J Howley about his new book called The Wolf of Clontarf which I am currently reading and really enjoying. It is great fun and essentially a literary action movie grounded in Irish history.

Before I get to Thomas though I’d like to provide some background. This very podcast Quarrelsome Life Radio, my website QuarrelsomeLife.com, my social media handles for Instagram and Twitter @ctquarrelsome which stands for Ciaran the Quarrelsome, and the ink permanently tattooed on my chest are all inspired by a single obscure figure from Irish history from around 1000 years ago—that I may be related to. I learned about this character in 2015 when a man named Ben Thompson who runs a website called Badass of the Week mentioned him in an interview. Ben’s full description of the character is linked in the show notes below but here is the first few lines for a bit of flavour:

 

“Wolf the Quarrelsome was an 11th century Irish warrior who was known at the time as the biggest and most badass motherfucker on the known planet.  Brother of the legendary Irish High King Brian Boru, Wolf's mother was killed by a viking raiding party while he was still young, allowing him to cultivate an unending hatred for everything viking-related.  While Wolf honed his ability to crack peoples' heads open with a gigantic fucking axe and then turn their skulls into decorative wine goblets, Brian made a name for himself by uniting all the Irish peoples under one banner and standing up to the combined forces of viking jackasses across the island.”

 

You can imagine my surprise then when I got an email out the blue by a man telling me he had written a book about this character. I had to do a podcast with him. A full bio for Thomas is linked below as is his website and the Amazon link to his great new book.

 

In this really fun dialogue we discuss many cool areas including:

 

• His military background going from tank commander to army intelligence, and finally to private counter-intelligence work.
• An incident in 1985 resulting in making Soviet soldiers “very uncomfortable”.
• His interest in the Battle of Clontarf and in particular a character from Viking legend called Wolf the Quarrelsome.
• Thomas talks about how seemingly obscure Greek Spartan and Hungarian Magyar military techniques played a role in the fighting style of the Irish in the book. He also talks about how his own background in terrain reading as a tank commander influenced the writing of his fight scenes.
• The difference in military history for ancient Ireland and the Vikings compared to the work of Roman or Greek historians (and the role I suggest alcohol may have played).
• The layout of the book involving Wolf the Quarrelsome seeking revenge against the Vikings, and a female equivalent of himself who establishes a female spy network to gather intelligence.
• Difficulties he encountered while writing the book including the potential role that British historians played in downplaying the importance of the Battle of Clontarf beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries for obvious political reasons.
• The excitement of pulling such an obscure figure as Wolf out of history and making him the central character of a book.
• And much more.

I hope you enjoy it.

Peace.

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Instagram: @ctquarrelsome

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Thomas Howley’s bio:

Thomas Joseph Howley, born in Boston to an Irish immigrant family, is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel. He began in tanks in Armor branch and transferred later to Military Intelligence, spending the bulk of his career abroad, frequently supporting or leading counter-espionage and counter-terrorism operations.. Key tours of duty included U.S. Special Operations Command and as the only U.S. officer on the primary staff of the United Nations Protection Forces (UNPROFOR) in former Yugoslavia during the height of the civil wars there. 

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Earning a Master’s Degree in Management, after military retirement he was employed as a civilian operational intelligence analyst supporting U.S. Defense, Federal Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community. In the course of his career, he has deployed to or supported security and intelligence operations in every continent except Antarctica. 

With an extended Irish family on both sides of the Atlantic, and his training and experience in intelligence and military matters writing about Clontarf was a natural extension of a life-long interest. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife where he is struggling through his sixth year of Irish Gaelic language studies. When not working on a project or in the gym, he can be found making his way through the trails in the deep New Hampshire woodlands with an Irish wolfhound at his side.

Thomas Howley’s website: https://www.tjhowleybooks.com/

To buy his book: https://www.tjhowleybooks.com/books

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Ben Thompson’s review of the book:

 

"...Norse invaders of Ireland discover that the only thing bigger and more badass than a heavily-armed band of Viking beserkers is a man known only as Wolf the Quarrelsome." - Ben Thompson - Badass of the Week

Ben Thompson’s original Wolf the Quarrelsome article: https://www.badassoftheweek.com/wolf