Unpleasant Visit has pleasant moments.

I was in Blanchardstown last week twice,Once to attend the funeral of John Keane alongside whom I soldiered on the football fields of Dublin for  few years.He was a good footballer but retired young.I don't know why.Seemingly he went for a routine operation but it went wrong and all who knew him are devastate.
He had a huge funeral in Blanch. Church and there were loads of guys from his generation there ,mostly pensioners ,all of whom now have plenty of time on their hands and not only Tommy Quinn.Big Mick's prophesy has come true big time for a lot of those guy who hurled with him.Our Cecil and Martin were present and correct but had to rush off.Got the tay from Gerry the Hurler .
And I  met a younger Mick who is being dragged through the wrangler of life at the moment and who is a regular reader of this blog.I really hope and pray that things start to turn in your favour my friend.You and yours have had enough sadness in your lives in recent times and ye deserve a break.
And Liam of the golden smile .you are a dinger.
I had to rely on public transport to get home from Blanch .to Dunderry after the funeral and went down to the roundabout at the end of the Village to await the Navan bus where I met a complete stranger to me,a very pleasant young lady who totally unasked used her phone to suss out how long I would be waiting for my bus before heading off on a 39 A BUS.Wouldn't happen 40 years ago mind you..
This benevolence was matched by the driver of the bus who was kindness itself and couldn't do more to help me in entering the bus and alighting from it.The good luck continued when i was picked up in Navan and brought to Dunderry by former butcher ,curent taxi driver and distant cousin Gerry RENNICKS,who brought me home.
On Sunday at three the blessing OF THE GRAVES at Mulhuddart went ahead in torrential rain.Those who regard these occasions as a chore had reason aplenty to give it a miss.but a huge crowd of relatives defied the weather to celebrate the lives of those interred there. My mam and Dad and brother Robert are buried there and poignant memories were relived.
Two young jigsers were there as proud as punch that their sister was gone North to play Camogie with the Dubs. at Junior level  and their Ma had gone with her.And yes they do wear underpants.
Met Tony and Pauler Fagan and Liam Byrne and heard that uncle Sean Byrne,now 95 years young has taken over at the bridge of a retirement home where he continues to skin the bookies of Blanch .with each way doubles ,treble accumulators and YANKEES.
Learned the Shay Carr's son has returned from Hong Kong I think, to Christen his young son in Berkley Road Cfhurch.
And the PATHEISTS would have it that Christianity is dead.Not around Our Lady's Well  thank God.
Also met FORMER NEIGHBOURS ,the Gannons and the Reardons from Hunts town Lawn.,Brendan and May and Mrs,Reardon are  no spring chickens and are in fine fettle.
No more than myself the Reardons are hurling fanatics.For the first time in 39 years Mick is not coaching anyone.
 And Jimmy swears that in his walks around the Papal Cross in the Park he sometime sees Joey Towell .as fit as ever at near seventy ,throwing upa sliotar  behind his back and twisting around to strike it full on as was his wont and was his trademark as many the toothless opponent who tried to bully him found out to his cost.
I played alongside Joey a lifetime ago and won an under 16 and a half Dublin CHAMPIONSHIP at hurling with him at the now defunct Eoghan Ruadh.and played many's the time against him too.
The man is a hurling genius and led Dublin for decades.
The best O Devenney EVER PRODUCED BAR NONE.

This Soccer Lark.

I have a passing interest only in Soccer,Hurling,Gaelic Football and Camogie being my passion.I would love the Irish teams to  do well nevertheless.
But what is it about playing for the Republic that makes the soccer  players so ashamed of our National Anthem that they refuse to sing it.I watched their faces the first night as the cameras panned them during Amhran na Fiann.Only 1 player made any attempt to sing it.
Is it that they can't be arsed learning it or that they just don't give a fiddlers.
Other team's players burst themselves with pride when their Anthems come up but our boys stay sthum.
Or maybe they have learned from the Heather school of Patriotism that the done thing is to celebrate the actions of your opponents and downplay your own achievements.
Seemingly so.

The difference is sixpence

The Minister of Uselessness was being driven  around in circles half the day looking for the town land of Lugananey where lived a man who had benefited from a favour delivered ,who was sure to bung him with a stuffed brown envelope full of mullah.
Knew he was near but just couldn't find the spot.No google earth had ventured there yet.
Then there appeared the local yokel,.finger nails black with dirt from honest labour ,face lined with grease and hair and stubble unkempt because he just didn't give a fiddler's.
Driver pulled up and asked for directions.Got them precisely.Driver puts hand in poca and gives yokel 6 pence ---the currency we once had and will revert to when Brits vote for Brexit."God bless you Sir ".
Minister leans from shadows and slips yokel a shilling-----worth 12 pence.
"God Almighty bless you Sir"
"And tell me what's the difference between God and God Almighty "
"Six pence Sir".

Kildalkey v Dunderry 12/06/2016 H.l.3

At 11.00 am this morning in Kildalkey we played their second hurling team in the League.This match was played so early to allow our lads time to get to Parnell Park to get the Meath v Louth Leinster SFC game which our Finn and grandson Padraigh did for sure.
My long suffering wife Agnes spent a considerable part of our courtship shivering on the sidelines of Parnell at one stage as I trained with the Dublin under 21 team a lifetime ago ,so this is the third generation of my own family to experience this hallowed ground.
Both it and Dublin have greatly improved since then needless to say.
Back to Kildalkey where the match was played this morning.
After overnight rain the surface was slippy and a few of our guys didn't have the proper foot gear as more than Kildalkey we were inclined to slither and slide from time to time.
Kildalkey are a specialist hurling club,unlike us who have most of our players bursting themselves to keep football and hurling going and their first touch and interchange of positional places were initially difficult for our guys to cope with but we adapted as we progressed.
TEAM was.

                                            Ivan M Cormack

Aaron Feeney                        Finn Stephens                          Davy Stephens

Mickey Dowdall                    Brendan Wright                       Davy Mc Cormack

                                     John Moran                    Conor O Shea

Jordan Martin                        Lukie Martin                           Stephen Coogan

Bomber Farrell                      Dylan Keenan                         Chris Harrington.

Sub introduced .Alex Walshe.
Pady Melia was the referee and he made some peculiar decisions against both sides.In all fairness his calls were hampered by the notable reluctance of some of our supporters to volunteer for sideline or umpire duties but when the brave few who did step into the breach did so ,matters improved somewhat.Paddy is basically a decent guy doing his best .
This match was competitive throughout and it was only our ability to poach goals at times that kept us in the game and the Kildalkey goalkeeper denied us on a number of occasion's.
They gave us a lesson in staying alert at all times and concentrating all of the time and not letting your immediate opponent drift away and getting easy possession.must be concentrated on in future.
We went in two points up and after a torrid second half when tempers on both sides frayed somewhat we held on for a two point victory on a scoreline of 2-16 to 1-17.But overall it was a clean match without excessive rancour.
Well deserved and hard fought for.
If ever a man made his hurling bones Aaron Feeney did so today.Always a gritty and fearless competitor today he stood out and he had one of those dream days when everything went rigth for him.
His cousin Lukie showed brief flashes of that which he is capable of and one wonders whether guys of his undoubted talent would be better developed and their skills better honed with more Club Games.
Haarrow is coming into his own at long last and the team spirit is good .
Everybody gave it diddy .
Slack marking at times out the field made the jobs of our backs  difficult but we just did enough to hold out.
We will have to get it into our noggins that defending starts in our full forward line and that everybody is a defender as well as an attacker.That is the way the game has gone,
This team of brothers and cousins are a tight bunch and a pleasure to watch and support.
Alex Walshe ,still doing his Leaving is a brave guy and his Dublin Family are a most welcome addition to the Parish and despite being unable to train much lately answered the call when  he knew we would be in trouble number wise .Opponents pick on him because his diminutive size but he does not back down.He is a clean player and in my opinion got an unfair red today.
I know that this was only Kildalkey's second string but their first can't be much better.
If they are then God help every other team in the Senior Championship.
I was delighted to see that our  female cheerleaders and ardent supporters from Baconstown and Trim were present and correct.Lovely ladies both.

Death of Baba Murtagh nee Mallon.Boyerstown.

Baba was my mothyer's first cousin and her father was my grandmother's brother.
The tears are running down my cheeks as I remember a lady who met life's turbulent challenges  head on and without self pity and to whom I am already praying.
Ar Dheis De go raibh a hAnam.

Reposing at home beside Navan Commercials tomorrow Sunday 12 June from 4 to 8 p.m. and Monday from 4 to 6.30 p.m.,whence her mortal remains  will be removed to arrive at Bohermeen Church arriving at 7.30 p.m.
Funeral Mass at 11.00 a.m,,Tuesaday in Bohermeen Church ,the Parish of her birth 87 long years ago.
There is no convenient time to die.

Dunderry connections to Christy Ring meath team.

Unfortunately for Meath they are often actors in situations where referees make a shambles of things.
Going back to the first All Ireland in which sometime in the 1890's  Pearse O Mahony's ,including Barney M Cabe from the Curragh Boreen as a player,drew with Arravale Rovers ,but in which the referee got it wrong  and awarded the game to Arravale and via the shambles against Louth ,where the referee in contravention of rule allowed a blatant thrown ball to the net to stand as a valid score, until last Saturday when nearly everybody knew the game against Antrim was a draw and that extra time was needed,but the referee initially called it wrong and allowed Meath to be proclaimed Champions ,Meath are put in the eye of the storm.
I have been a lifetime promoting the GAA and have always stressed the ideal of honour in all aspects of life.Very often of course this is easier said than done but you do your best.
The game was a draw.Meath are well fit to reconfirm their ability to win any replay  and in my humble opinion this is what ought happen.
I m fully aware of the long frustration and abiding passion that huirling folk in the County have for the game and the prejudices that certain football folk have against the sport as most famously espoused by football legend Gerry MC Entee ,to his eternal discredit ,and my heart goes out to those who soldiered with the small ball game over the years.
Now to the Dunderry connections.
1.Luke Martyn was on the official panel and well worth his place on it.He stuck with it even though he got little match time during the year.He is a son of Guss and Olive Feeney.
2.Ciaran Fitzsimons and his brothers played their juvenile hurling here until they emigrated to Athboy.He was an immensely talented hurler when he was here.He too was also on the panel.
3.Gerry Mc Loughlin is bagman and general  factorum for the team for many years now,A hurling fanatic he won every medal possible with Dunderry in his day bar a Senior Championship.
4.Kevin Dowd was for many years a player and until recently a selector with the County Team,
5.Not many would know this but John Andrews was for a very brief period manager of our SENIOR HURLING TEAM.No doubt his brief spell here helped considerably in honing his selectorial talents for Meath.
No more than myself he finds Tipp referees sometimes strange.
And on the same day that Meath hurlers created history two products of our Camogie arm ,the Misses Minogue and Daly of Connells Cross  ,were part of a Meath setup which won the Leinster Intermediate Champoinship.
Not so bad all round.

New Chairman puts money where mouth is.

Willie Egington is the new And current Chairman of Dunderry GAA CLUB.At the moment there is a fierce burst of activity ongoing in the Pitch.The development of the top pitch is progressing apace,the posts surrounding the pitch were recently painted and Mulligan Fencing has installed new wire to the highest standard.Ball retention nets to the highest standard are next on the agenda.And then steps to enable easier access from the lower to the higher leased pitch are planned.
All this costs money of course and it is far from plentiful hereabouts.
Now if I am not mistaken the bauld Willie personally is sponsoring a major part of the cost incurred in the renewal activities.
Certainly this most welcome new comer and  major addition to the Parish is setting the bar high for existing and past Officers and all wellwishers who have the wherewithal to do likewise.

Donald Trump,A COLLUSUS.

I have never been to America.But of my grandfather's family ,the Mac Cormack's of the Curragh Boreen,8 of the 11 siblings emigrated there between the late 1890.s AND THE 1920'S,so we are well represented over there.
The reasons these people emigrated there was poverty and lack of a future here.Precisely the same reasons why Irish people are still queing up to get in there.
There are countless undocumented Irish in tie States unable to leave there because of the fear of being caught and barred from reentry or escorted home to Ireland in chains.
Despite the love affair that the P/atheists here have had for decades with the Democratic Party in the States ,Obama ,aside from slick spake has done nothing for these people.Nor has Clinton,whose main source of appeal to her gushing followers seems to be the shape of her gonads  and whose stint as Secretary of State has left the middle east in turmoil and where hundreds of thousands of deaths have resulted.
Nevertheless our Taoiseach thinks himself qualified to belittle Donald Trump ,despite the fact   that he himself  frittered away the biggest majority that a serving Taoiseach ever had in this Country's history and is now effectively Fianna Fail's bitch in America speech.But there again this guy thought himself fit to lecture the Vatican on its business and to oversee the withdrawal of the Irish ambassador from the Vatican.
Well he now has Kevin Hackers from Canada so he must be well pleased.
The fact that one of the last chameleon ship jumpers from the  stickies,ye know yer man from WATERFORD  Halligan,,who makes it a point of despising Catholics and sneering at Catholic prayer ,is supporting his tottering Government doesn't  seem to bother him.
Well it should as yer man's former comrades have destroyed both the Worker's Party and the Labour Party in their quest for power and pensions.
Any how this guy Kenny ts himself up as a sneerer at Donald.
He is backed up in this by O Higgins who has described himself as spiritual but not religious,who never fails to sneak in an insulating phrase against the States when the occasions presents itself and who is the defacto High Priest of the Patheists in Ireland and whose High Priestess wife has no problem shooting her mouth in encouraging the murder of the disabled unborn.
In this hatred of Trump and the American system of democracy they are joined by such insignificant political minnows as the Greens ,who were main instigators in creation of the homeless crisis by objecting to any sort of house that didn't meet their ecological non human standards ,the AA Alliance.A socialist from Dublin W est called Coppinger and  guy called Boyd Barrett from Dunlaoighre.
Now we note in passing that there is a massive queue of People waiting to move into the areas of Ireland these people control and that no wall will be built to keep them out.No like the Berlin WALL more than likely it will be needed to keep the inhabitants from fleeing.
Of course one thing all these diverse critics of Trump share is a passion for abortion.
Some time ago I  watched one of these Yank shows where a so called  medic called Phil was advising a feuding married straight couple who regularly beat the shite out of each other.HE told the guy that the thing to do was to take the beating until he could take no more and then ,rather than defend himself ,to run away.
Yep this is the stage that the Fannyista has brought AMERICA TO .This is what passes as correctness in AMERICA under the Democrats .And this is why Trump will win unless he is shot .which is not beyond the bounds of possibility