Coincidence or Irony?

[Guest skrubber]

Seven Times Seven

 

When the late Arthur Koestler published The Roots of Coincidence, a study of curious synchronicities in time and place, he was bombarded by letters from people who had had similar experiences.

 

The most consistently coincidental of all probably came from Anthony S. Clancy of Dublin, who was born on the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of the century, which also happened to be the seventh day of the week. “I was the seventh child of a seventh child,” he wrote, “and I have seven brothers; that makes seven sevens.”

 

Actually, it makes eight sevens if one counts the number of letters in his first name, but to continue: On his twenty-seventh birthday, according to Clancy, he went to the track. The seventh numbered horse in the seventh race was named Seventh Heaven, and was handicapped seven stone. The odds against Seventh Heaven were seven-to-one, but Clancy bet seven shillings anyway.

 

Seventh Heaven finished seventh.