Saturday, May 25, 2013

Cregans of Tullaghanstown get a hard hit

Last week the widow of Paddy (the Buckley) Cregan was buried in Waterford in Ballygunner Cemetery.
Angela Cregan's husband Sean Kelleher died just after that burial and will be arriving at Athboy Church at 7.00 p.m. on Sunday ,with funeral Mass at 11.00 a.m. on Monday.
The poor man wasn't well at all and suffered a lot recently.How he kept going this last few years with the state of his legs is a mystery to me.
Although himself and Angela married late in life they were devoted to each other and she will miss him hugely.
There is no more decent family in the Parish than the Cregans and all our sympathies go out to them.
Ar Dheis De go raibh a hanam dilis.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Muskateers swells to five

The original Muskateers of myself,Leo ,Carmel and Liam have been joined by new addition Deirdre.She is most welcome and a lovely lady.
We continue to pray each Friday in Dunderry Church from 6.00 to 6.30.I barely made it myself today as I have a bad dose of the flu.Leo is not well either.
We pray for ourselves and all the people of Ireland,born and unborn and hope they will get fair play in this life and get a chance to be born..

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Fodder crisis.The solution.

Cattle and sheep are dying of starvation.Hay and its substitutes are being in imported by the ship load from England and the continent.the cost of this fodder is leaving the country.Farmers are in the export business and have been from Famine times.
With a little imagination the problem could be solved countrywide without importing even one square bale of hay.
If you drive on the motorways and big roads anywhere in Ireland you will witness hundreds of thousands of acres of perfectly good grazing land going to waste and actually costing the taxpayer money to cut and dispose of it.
All this land is stock proof where it adjoins the farmers land at its boundaries.It is not stock proof where it adjoins the road.
A campaign to make it stock proof would not cost the world and once  done would be there for decades,Not only would such work prove therapeutic for those doing it but would help stem the plague of emigration.
There is absolutely no way that the sucker and dry stock herds could not  be accommodated to make the remaining stripped land available for the dairy cows that must be milked twice daily.
Britain learned to feed itself during the Great War by ploughing every square yard of ground available.
Sheep and dry stock farmers and their families would have to revert to the old job of shepherding and be with their flocks all the time.So what.
I know that the politically correct do gooders who achieve nothing will have a million reasons for doing nothing but so what.Where there is a will there is a way.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Dunderry Fair 12/5/2013 .

Woke up this morning 8.00 a.m.Early for me but late for some.Mac Kenna ,Iaino ,Ollie and the crew were at it for two hours already.
The burning question.Was it raining.It was.Thursday last  the crew met.The weather was bad all week.Like the previous six months.Worst weather ever.Three fine days had flattered to deceive. Livestock were hungry and hay was being imported for the first time ever.The land was sopping.Would the car parking  fields support the traffic or would it be a swamp.The owners gave it their blessing .Show on and feck the begrudgers.And the elements.
It rained Saturday and it was raining now on Sunday.The crew could do no more.All in the laps of the Gods.
I lay down and listened with eyes closed.Less bustle than  previous years.Jennies starting up and clanking of metal against metal as pens for animals were fashioned from steel gates ,but muted I thought compared to previous years.Some bustle but muted.Not near as much traffic.But a buzz o.k.
Surely the weather would improve.Ninish and a drizzle.
Ate the fry and did a recce.Mass  at nine thirty instead of eleven. Fianna Fail are setting up outside the Church for the annual collection.They are not short of neck.Then again the present crew are worse if anything as the mass exodus from this unfortunate country accelerates.Only one independent political seen all day.The main parties know the score and keep away.They are not wanted and they know it.
I don't know how F.F,did but imagine not too well.Literally nobody  has a spare bob.Money  is as scarce as hen's teeth.
Talking of which the outsider of our house is where the sellers of foul are stalled.Chickens,hens geese ,ducks ,whatever you are having yourself.But nowhere nearly  as prolific as in former years.My friend Mark tells me that shifting birds (the feathered variety) is a hard task and he is trying to shift a dog  this year.I don't know if he did.Wouldn't be for the want of trying.And no, now is not the time nor the place for comparison with my own efforts in matters of the heart in my youth.The wife would kill me.I am not that brave.
Dessie Coffey is boiling the spuds up on turf fires to make the col cannon.I counted a dozen half hundred bags of spuds.Has his work cut out.And I spot a sign on a donkey's cart telling the Sheik to stuff his oil that we have our turf.We are bog men here.The carbon footprint that our few sods will leave wouldn't harm a mouse.Didn't stop the scrooges in the Government from taxing it though.And I see they have threatened tenants that they will deduct property tax from their wages if they don't rat on the landlords.And will delay repaying the money back to them.Guilty 'till proved innocent.These people have no scruples.
Decent people wouldn't bend so low to pick so little when dirt is so plentiful.Not those that govern us plainly.
Outside the Hall along the river Clady the farriers and the big horses congregate.I spot the biggest bellows I have ever seen.It was sourced in Tara ,made I guess over a century ago and the proud blacksmith is an East European.He is n making a decorative iron rail on an anvil mounted on a square log buttressed with bands of steel.There is a smattering of fine equines,from the Budweiser lads to the best of piebalds.
Later I would hear it announced that the shoeing of the two legged horse would be at 3.00 p.m.I saw no two legged horse and hared back to see what was it all about.What was meant was that two blacksmiths would concurrently shoe two legs of a four legged horse .
In the Hall the I.C.A.are selling tay and suchlike.In  the GAA Hall the Camogie ladies do like wise.
There is no charge in the latter instance ,just an expectation that a donation towards breast cancer research will be made in a bucket thus marked.
This is seemingly a continuation of the honouring of the late Maggie Morgan a Camogie Club member who recently succumbed to this scourge and a continuation of the field activities on this theme the previous Saturday.As the founder and president of the Club I am immensely proud of this generosity by our members ,especially our long standing ones who are now coming to the fore,and in awe of the modesty of Club Chairman Tom Byrne who sourced and presented a Memorial Cup in her honour the previous Saturday.Well done on this front and there is no need to be so secretive and  modest about  such munificence.It is indeed a fine and  praiseworthy gesture and deserves to be sung from the heights.
But such modesty is the hallmark of our community as the same Tom is scurrying too and fro in the finest machine we have dropping gates and barriers  here and there ,leaving pallets for stages to be  fashioned and being generally useful,all under the guidance and benevolent supervision of Head Honchos Sean , Iano and Ollie.
Mary Stanley is selling the most tasteful tarts and home baked ditties you can imagine as Sonny limbers up for the set dancing.
Gus and Olive and Tommy  and the Feeney ,Martin and Callaghan families are displaying sheep ,cattle .asses and drays and keeping their feelings over the death of Dinny under control,God help them.
I eye up a jackass belonging to Gus and Ollie.
There is method in my madness.I have a mare ass called Tilly .She is bursting with good health and running with our suckler cows.Recently I went down to check on a cow I was expecting to calve at 4.00 in the morning.The cow was calved all right but no sign of the calf.I explored further.Along the ditch stood Tilly with the calf at her bag encouraging the calf to suckle her teats.The cows was  distressed but afraid.I intervened and sundered this unnatural alliance,restoring calf to cow.The calf sucked.I turned to go but Tilly claimed possession again kicking the cow.I had forgotten my walking stick and got stuck in the mud and got help.We separated ass from cow.
Were Tilly a woman ,she would have not known man and was clearly broody in the extreme.I determined then to fix her,as  you might put it,at the first opportunity.I needed a jackass.Gus wasn't selling but another gentleman was.I purchased.His name is Obama as he was born on the day that Barrack was inaugurated.He has sired two foals already. He is smaller than Tilly but as they say ,a small jockey do have a big whip.
I was since told that the jackass is the symbol of the Democrats and an elephant of the Republicans so Obama is doubly appropriate if this is true.
Anyhow they went on honeymoon last evening and are getting on the best.Tilly seems to be an ardent feminist and I have renamed her Justine Martina Vincent as a tribute to three  journalists of  some fame who think little if anything of the rights of the unborn vis a vis the mother.Hopefully this won't be the first ass to seek an abortion if she allows Obama to tickle her fancy and if she keeps.There will be great fun naming her foal.No shortage of candidates to choose names from in the political and journalistic spheres should Obama fix Justine Martina Vincent.
The GAA boys are selling bric a brac and running a raffle and there are feck all stalls in the grounds.Nothing on the  pitch which is water logged.Proper order.A young fella from the place of the first written rules of hurling is selling hurleys .Prices are keen.I'd say he'd do well.
Our Mags sets up a stall in our gateway.She has written a book for  children and illustrated it herself.It is well presented.She has put together a number of knacky items in frames of an Arty slant.I hope she does well .She deserves to as indeed do all the stall holders who are trying might and main to beat this recession.
This is the first year that no butchers lambs are there for sale.Has nobody got suitable lambs hereabouts.Seemingly not.The weather again perhaps.
Mainin 93 years young, is churning butter in a mini churn from pasteurised milk.Brendan is helping her .His wife was very good to me when I was in Navan Hospital.Mainin is of sound memory.I need  information from her on events a century ago.She has it. We don't talk nearly enough to our elders.I recently heard it surmised that Collier the Highway man of yesterday was from Bellewstown ,Robinstown.Was he ?A century ago it was known as the  town of the high collars.
There was a Battle in Curraghtown during the Civil War.Two men died.The Free Stater died in the house of Smyths of Curraghtown ,the same Smyths who are in partnership with Harrington in the Auctioneering business in Navan.And a neighbour of the Smyths in time gone bye,after defying his two sisters in announcing his engagement reckoned without  feminine disapproval and vengeance.They castrated him when he fell asleep.The weaker sex me hole.
I forget the names but a bursary exists to this day to help out newly weds from a trust set up by this unintentional eunuch..Can you just imagine.
He should have practised as advised by the old adage"Love many ,Trust few,Always paddle your own canoe."
At the front of the Church the settled travellers from Navan display their wares.They have resurrected the trade of making the old horse drawn caravans and two are on display and a tin smith displays his wares.A basket weaver weaves his baskets sitting in an edifice like a monk's cell he has fashioned from reeds.Mickey displays his vintage Model  4 Ford .Beside him a vendor of all things equine displays a tub trap in immaculate condition.A few short years ago it would be gone in the blink of an eye.Now even the horsey set seem to be feeling the pinch.Did it sell ?I don't know.
And beside them again are Alison and Anita,two of the finest,who transmogrify the wool of Jacob sheep into cloth via the age old method of spinning wheel and loom,all hand or foot operated.These items are made in Holland.No one in Ireland is making them.Enterprise Ireland please note.
The names of the parts are fascinating.We have bobbins,whorls,flyers,feet treadles,heddles and shuttles,both rigid and flying.Later these ladies had to move to the porch of the Church and abandon their canvas shelter as they were drowned in the downpour.
Announcement."Paddy Keally and Professor Paddy Wall will officially open the Fair this afternoon."
Our Paddy is ninety years young and the definitive local historian.His son John is following in his footsteps and is putting the final touches to a book on Dundery G.A.A. Club ,a job of work in being for some time because of the loss of the century old minute book of the Club.He has interviewed all the key people in the Club,including myself and our history is in his hands.Professor Paddy was a close friend of Dinny Feeney and gave a eulogy at his funeral which displayed the closeness of their friendship and his shock at his tragic death.
Dinny's father Tom is in private conversation with Mairtin Melett..Dinny died tragically,Mairtin's son  in a traffic accident.Mairtin found Dinny.These men suffered un natural trauma.God help them.
As the morning Angelus tolls there are few punters around.The maors are stewarding the maors and any stallholder who steps out of line is lit upon .Too many stewards too little to do.
I nod to Mick Mingue and Iiam O Farrell of the GAA Club.These close buddies are scoping the horizons for punters ,worried perhaps that  if they don't materialise the sponsorship of the Club will be affected.They could be spotters for a hit man waiting to finger the as yet absent target.
The River Rescue people pull up in their motorised column and their troops disembark .
The bands start up and the show is on the road.The singer asks the Almighty to turn off the tap.
I seek shelter in my home.All thirteen grandchildren are there  with their parents.Aisling,Cormack,Ciaran,Niamh,Tom,Sarah,Kate,Ciara ,Senan,Padraic,Emily ,Liam and Chloe are present and correct.Liam is in period dress,with a country cap on his 7 month old head and would go on to win a prize in the bonny baby contest.Our special child Ciaran is overwhelmed by the noise.Myaha and Ellie join them.
I grab some shut eye.
An hour later I awake.My good friend Breeda Mc Kenna drops in for a cuppa.We chew the cud.A Camogie and Farmers Mart fanatic,she is a breath of fresh air to converse with.We share a hatred of the ever enveloping and smothering bureaucracy increasingly paralysing Ireland.We are not alone.
At three I venture with the man bag and a few bob into Geraghty's field.The Country Band is in full flight."Sweet Caroline"is belting out.And the chorus of the fiddler who took on the Devil has the toes tapping.There is a crowd.They are sopping but hey you only get wet the once and once saturated don't get any wetter.
The set dancers are at it in Geraghty's hay shed.Clever divils are under shelter.Place is packed as they give it diddy to the tunes of a deadly box man,whose music has the toes of even the most cynical tapping the beat .There are rows of small straw bales lined up for people to rest on and Henry and Carmel are wathcing them closely to stop distressed traders from swiping them to place atop the mud in front of their stalls.
The main "gateway" through the field is a swamp kept navigable by scattered scraws of straw.Food stalls and toy stalls galore and whirly gigs of all sorts and description.all there but no where as many as last year,never mind in the inaugural years before the bubbles burst. You have to admire the determination of the punters as they have a go on the attractions at two Euro a go.But then they have good rain gear,which the recession has made affordable.
Only one stall there selling tools and such like.I buy a chain for the tractor and the stallholder can easily afford the fifteen minutes haggling time the sale takes.It is a sign of the times that the numbers selling these items have almost vanished. And no sigh of the pickpockets either.They are the new wealthy
It lashes down and the Scout's tent advertises shelter and food.I am drowned and return home for shelter.
The crowd swells to decent proportions and the day spins out.Most locals turn out but some,especially those with small kids took off elsewhere as they hadn't the wherewithal to afford even the reasonable prices charged for entertainment.
The six o clock Angelus tolls and the tired livestock and punters head for the hills.At 6.15 on the button the sun peeks through for the first time.I kid you not.
At 7.00 the Black Crow does flag man for a tractor collecting gates and barriers and the clean up begins.Those with any go left in them head for a pint or to Trim for the official opening of the Pitch where Meath face Louth in a challenge.
The Pubs are the silver lining in these clouds.The determination of the Government to close them is twarthed for the time being.
I join the lads for a few sociables later.Current and sole holder of the Timmy Kennedy Cup for football excellence,T.J.Garry drops in for a jar and a chat.He came home from Australia out of the blue to surprise his Ma,Momica for her fiftieth birthday a week ago.He is in horses order and as mad about football as always.A nice guy he returns there this week to meet his brothers ,cousins and friends living and working there,including Tomas,the son of Mairtin earlier mentioned .
We badly miss the hundreds of economic emigrants from this Parish in Australia and America and all over the world who we missed so much today as we do every day. We pray that the gob shites who got us here and keep us down get their just deserts,.The sooner the better.
Given the weather and the economic climate the Fair Committee did the very best they could.Fair dues.


Saturday, May 4, 2013

Brother Devane,a fair man.

As a Dublin culchie in Brunner from 1964 to 1969 I hadn't it easy.Having battled daily against a succession of peer bullies for the first three years I thought I had it bet.But no, ,not just yet.
I lived too far away to go home for lunch due to time constraints and used bring a packed lunch which I ate in the school premise.There were a few like  me in every year.Just me self and two others were from outside the Pale and the remainder were jackeens who lived within the city boundaries but too far away to make it back in time for class.
In my Inter Cert .year the class room we occupied had to be accessed through a room occupied by the Leaving Cert. class.18 year olds against 16 year olds.
One lunch hour while returning from the toilet through the sixth year room a Leaving Cert. pupil who I barely knew grabbed a hurley as I passed by and without provocation or reason lashed me full force across the arse and the back and proceeded to break his heart laughing as did his buddies.O Looney
(not his real name) thought it hilarious.I was in fierce pain and carried a black bruise for many weeks after.
Despite his strength ,weight and age advantages I lost it in an eruption of rage and sowed into him.I was shorter and got him  down where I had the advantage.I was mad with pain and anger and got the upper hand and was administering some of his own medicine when a crowd materialised and cheered us on.Then silence and a hand on my shoulder."O Looney ,leave Stevo alone.""Get up both of ye."O Looney,hold out you two hands ."And he gave him six of the best.On each hand.The tough man cried.I trembled."You Stevo ,out to the corridor."We couldn't be seen.I put one hand out."I was only defending myself "said I ."I know full well you were."O Looney is bullying children these six years and his victims were too terrified to report him" said Kerryman Devane.I'll hit the wall hard with the leather  a dozen times and you roar each time it hits the wall."I'll get your bag and stay home for two days."Swelling should be gone down by then."And it was.
Brother Devane died in Croke Park years after supporting Kerry.Or at least I hope this is how he died.

Anti Rural bias of Government has roots in labour Party.

In my blog on Blanch to Brunner 1965 I outlined how I was persecuted by certain other pupils because I was a culchie in their eyes and therefor entitled to be bullied and picked on.In fairness to the Christian Brothers and the other teachers I was never picked on by them either on this account or for any other reason.I considered them a fine and fair body of men.As far as I know I was never considered a lesser person because I was a culchie.
I am shocked ,but not surprised to read the recorded  comments made by Aodan O Riordan  to a constituent on the piecemeal way that Labour would see  to the widespread availability of abortion in Ireland starting with the X case and broadening it thereafter ,about which more anon.
In relation to T.D.s representing rural Ireland and its inhabitants he is quoted as saying"I mean em,you have to realise ,em,somebody representing somewhere like Monaghan,now my wife is from  Monaghan,start talking about  abortion rights in Monaghan and ,you know you don.t get too far.Or Donegal or Mayo  or you know.""The idea of being a good rural T.D.is you go to Mass  and you are a good Catholic .You are against abortion and everything is fine.""You know ,as I say ,my wife is from Monaghan and I go there and sometimes I just scratch my head at some of the ,just some,of the ,latent latent homophobia "".The ,em you know,it's bizarre .You think Irish  society has moved on."
Clearly Andy Riordan looks down his nose on Catholics,Countrymen and heterosexuals.He has previously railed against Christian prayer.How he condescended to marry a Monaghan country woman is beyond me.She must be delighted that he considers her neighbours to be so contemptible.
What is altogether more worrying is that he is a school teacher in central Dublin.And no doubt would insist on his right to teach there and have the anti Catholic and anti Rural prejudices he has.
Now I don't know if he lets his mask slip on theses subjects in school.In my schooldays there was no doubt about the tendencies  of the teachers in these matters.A teacher who has your undivided and unsupervised control for 6 hours a day invariably imparts his prejudices or beliefs on gullible pupils.
If Andy displays this  guff and nonsense in his class room I am delighted that it was Brunner I went to in 1965 before he was born.
Seeing as he is pushed out at every opportunity by Labour in the public arena all the Party must be like minded in their approach to rural people ,especially Catholics. This  contempt has found expression  for example in a provision in the proposed legislation on abortion that Catholic hospitals allow and participate in  the killing of unborn children in their hospitals.This is the equivalent of legislating for the extermination of Jewish unborn in Jewish Hospitals or Muslim unborn in Muslim hospitals.
Labour has totally outflanked Fine Gael on this issue.The hair on the tail of the dog is waggiing the dog.And the Labour President is using his position  to belabour the Fine Gael led Government on its approach to the economic direction of the country.A pincer movement.
The  blue rinse brigade of Church goers who led the canvass for this Government must be delighted that they have opened the door for the intentional killing of the unborn.Although I have heard that some are confused.
And when next you wonder just why your rural schools,police stations ,pubs and shops close down in increasing numbers just scratch your head and wonder who thinks of you the same way that the cartoonists  in Punch magazine portrayed you a century ago.Walking apes.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Start of Summer ?

The last 6 months have been an unmitigated disaster weather wise and from a farming perspective.Fusty hay and poor silage were the order of the day,with a few a few notable exceptions.It was cold wet and miserable.Our cattle just aren't able for six months of pure misery and the death rates of both cattle and sheep were well up on last year.Farmers are using edible straw mixed with molasses and fierce expensive nuts to sustain life at the moment.Many haven't the price of fertilizer.
Despite the farming community being broke this merciless Government is proceeding apace with the inequitable Local Property Tax and the levy of the carbon tax on briquettes and turf.They will kill off  farming in the same way that retailing ,the pub trade and manufacturing is dying  if they don't take their fingers out of their holes soon.
How soon till the first human death from Ocras or exposure in Ireland ?
I did however notice that the cowslips ,wild primroses and dandelions are beginning to peek through on the roadsides.
Would the Lord be good enough to come to our rescue ?Do we as a nation deserve his mercy ?Will He send a summer of plenty.Or will he despair at the hysterical clamour to allow the killing of the most defenceless of his unborn flock.
We pray He shows more mercy than we do.