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.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
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..
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Where's your pride Sir Bob, Sir Terry and Sir Tony.
The fact that Margaret Thatcher was an anti Irish racist bigot and that she considered that the Irish could not be trusted and were all liars,as stated by her to Peter Mandleson, came as no surprise to me. I spent six months in England in 1969 and you would have to be a fool not to pick up two facts viz:-
(a)That the Conservatives epitomise the essence of Englishness.
(b)That when the stiff upper lip is bared ,the Irish are regarded as an inferior race by these racist bigots.
This type of prejudice condoned the genocide of the famine and approved the caricature of the Irish as apelike monkeys in Punch magazine at the time of mass starvation in the 1840's.
Now three men ,Bob Geldoff,Tery Wogan and Tony O Reilly are Knights of the Realm and are Irish to boot.
Now that they know what the real English truly think of them will they have the guts to tell them where to put the Knighthoods or will they continue to flaunt them.
(a)That the Conservatives epitomise the essence of Englishness.
(b)That when the stiff upper lip is bared ,the Irish are regarded as an inferior race by these racist bigots.
This type of prejudice condoned the genocide of the famine and approved the caricature of the Irish as apelike monkeys in Punch magazine at the time of mass starvation in the 1840's.
Now three men ,Bob Geldoff,Tery Wogan and Tony O Reilly are Knights of the Realm and are Irish to boot.
Now that they know what the real English truly think of them will they have the guts to tell them where to put the Knighthoods or will they continue to flaunt them.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Two of the best flee to the rest.
I often wonder about the accuracy of the emigration figures and just exactly how they are compiled.In relation to the native Irish ,I think that they are greatly understated.Certainly the evidence of my own eyes and ears suggests that this is so.
One neighbouring GAA Club has just one player remaining in the country from a very successful under 16 football team of fifteen of seven years ago.Another neighbouring Club has lost nine adult players since last year and two have returned leaving a net loss of seven.These are small populated rural clubs,like ourselves.
The lost generation of those in their twenties,the anguish of parents bereft of their children and grandchildren,the brutalisation of the populace by the imposition of austerity ,the inability of the middle aged and elderly to sustain any decent level of lifestyle, the plague of suicides,the granting of increasingly draconian powers to Government agencies ,the attempt of the Government to bully the judiciary into submission and to make it just a rubber stamp for Government ,the lack of decent employment for nearly half a million people,the fear of losing your home,the impossibility of those without homes of securing one and marrying and raising a family,the relentless pursuit of those who owe money and have nothing and never will if they stay here,the determined attempts of Government to turn the populace into informers on their neighbours ,the total abandonment of hope by the majority of decent people,the denigration of religion by a largely bigoted electronic and printed media and certain politicians and academics and the tired untrue cliches about the return of green shoots by the jigger pokers ,have kick started the exodus from the country of the next generation up,viz.those in their thirties and indeed older.
I had cottoned onto this trend some time ago.It is now gaining momentum.This generation just can take no more. Still living at home with the folks,mad willing for work of which there is none,no prospects of settling down here because they will never have a roof of their own over their heads and facing the prospect of never being able to afford to have children if they stay here,e are voting with their feet and heading of as far as they can get.
This week we lost two of the finest people I know to the emigrant plane.Both in their thirties .Both who burst themselves when work was to be got. Both with loving families and at the heart of communities that can ill afford their loss.That mourn their loss.
No decent society can afford the continuing loss of such decent people .
I am beginning to wonder if the three principles Hitler enunciated when he invaded Russia during the 1940's are being deliberately implemented here.These are "Rule ","Administer," "Exploit".
There is no other reason for the imposition of such misery on us.Nor any need for it.
To Keith and Sean bon voyage.
One neighbouring GAA Club has just one player remaining in the country from a very successful under 16 football team of fifteen of seven years ago.Another neighbouring Club has lost nine adult players since last year and two have returned leaving a net loss of seven.These are small populated rural clubs,like ourselves.
The lost generation of those in their twenties,the anguish of parents bereft of their children and grandchildren,the brutalisation of the populace by the imposition of austerity ,the inability of the middle aged and elderly to sustain any decent level of lifestyle, the plague of suicides,the granting of increasingly draconian powers to Government agencies ,the attempt of the Government to bully the judiciary into submission and to make it just a rubber stamp for Government ,the lack of decent employment for nearly half a million people,the fear of losing your home,the impossibility of those without homes of securing one and marrying and raising a family,the relentless pursuit of those who owe money and have nothing and never will if they stay here,the determined attempts of Government to turn the populace into informers on their neighbours ,the total abandonment of hope by the majority of decent people,the denigration of religion by a largely bigoted electronic and printed media and certain politicians and academics and the tired untrue cliches about the return of green shoots by the jigger pokers ,have kick started the exodus from the country of the next generation up,viz.those in their thirties and indeed older.
I had cottoned onto this trend some time ago.It is now gaining momentum.This generation just can take no more. Still living at home with the folks,mad willing for work of which there is none,no prospects of settling down here because they will never have a roof of their own over their heads and facing the prospect of never being able to afford to have children if they stay here,e are voting with their feet and heading of as far as they can get.
This week we lost two of the finest people I know to the emigrant plane.Both in their thirties .Both who burst themselves when work was to be got. Both with loving families and at the heart of communities that can ill afford their loss.That mourn their loss.
No decent society can afford the continuing loss of such decent people .
I am beginning to wonder if the three principles Hitler enunciated when he invaded Russia during the 1940's are being deliberately implemented here.These are "Rule ","Administer," "Exploit".
There is no other reason for the imposition of such misery on us.Nor any need for it.
To Keith and Sean bon voyage.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Man's best and warmest friend.
A dog is a great companion.A dog doesn't nag or sulk or whinge without reason.A dog is faithful unless you abuse its trust in which case you don't deserve any loyalty or affection.A dog knows things humans don't.A dog can sense decency and just knows a cruel person instinctively .
Certain people are dog magnets.My uncle Joe was one such.I have photos of Joe taken in the nineteen thirties and forties when he had only better than rags to wear and there was invariably a contented dog or dogs frolicking around him.
A dog can sense the imminence of death in its master/mistress in my opinion.I saw this at first hand when my uncle Tommy was diagnosed with imminent death from cancer.His dog Judy used be all over him before he went to hospital.When he came home to die she refused to have anything to do with him.She just knew.
Anyhow Joe had always two dogs and sometimes three.Always collies.He was a farmer and some character.Also a bachelor,he suffered most of his adult life from maniac depression,bipolar they call it now.His bed was over a hundred years old and had springs and a net of metal mesh under the mattress that were so well worn that when he got into the bed his body gradually jack knifed downwards so that his arse nearly hit the floor while his head and feet stayed on the level.
The family home in which he lived was built from stone drawn from the quarry then at the Moat in Navan by my grand aunt Maggie with an ass and dray.There was no insulation full stop.
Even with blankets and the old LDF coat on board it was cold in winter.But Joe's feet were never cold.One of the collies,Captain being the last ,was always trained to lie on the blankets on the foot of the bed over his feet.His tootsies were always as warm as toast,even on the coldest night.
Many's the night I spent with Joe at bedtime talking about this and that.As a matter of record he told me to my face that "I was thick but dacent".Not a bad epilogue I suppose.
Anyhow he was wont to smoke a fag or two before retiring and then he would say goodnight and pull the sheet and blankets over his head,Within minutes he would be sound asleep.The face stayed under the blankets until he awoke.
A stranger if he saw the bed would never think that Joe was asleep in it ,as all that was visible were bedclothes with no sign of a head ,a hanging matress in the middle and a dog lying at the end of the bed.
If I wanted to know if Joe was in bed the dog lying at the foot of the bed was a dead giveaway.
Joe had no patience.When he said" good night" he meant it..Then immediately the blankets and sheets came over the head and off he went.No offence meant.
When he was near death in Mullingar General Hospital I was advised by the medics of that fact and told a great friend of his that time was short and a visit soon was advised.The particular man was so busy that he said he would get hard to make time ,but did so .On a tight schedule.One hour to travel there,one hour to converse and one hour to get home.
I visited Joe every evening and was there when the friend arrived."Well Joe any craic here"? "Not much Jack ,they won't let me smoke"."How's Dunderry doing in the football"."Didn't hear"."Goodnight Jack ,I'm going asleep now".Threw the blankets over the head and that was it.
57 minutes saved.Actually Joe rallied for a while .The immediate cause of his grave illness was shingles which the medics couldn't clear up and which were rapidly killing him.
I went to a Mr.Leavy in Athboy who had the cure.He couldn't go to see Joe bur prayed over a towel,gave it to me with instructions to rub it on Joe's body where the shingles lay and listed for me the prayers to say.I did this and to nearly everybody' s great surprise but not mine, very suddenly the shingles cleared up fully.But he did die shortly afterwards of other natural causes.
Yep man's beat friend and ,in Joe's case in any event,warmest.
Certain people are dog magnets.My uncle Joe was one such.I have photos of Joe taken in the nineteen thirties and forties when he had only better than rags to wear and there was invariably a contented dog or dogs frolicking around him.
A dog can sense the imminence of death in its master/mistress in my opinion.I saw this at first hand when my uncle Tommy was diagnosed with imminent death from cancer.His dog Judy used be all over him before he went to hospital.When he came home to die she refused to have anything to do with him.She just knew.
Anyhow Joe had always two dogs and sometimes three.Always collies.He was a farmer and some character.Also a bachelor,he suffered most of his adult life from maniac depression,bipolar they call it now.His bed was over a hundred years old and had springs and a net of metal mesh under the mattress that were so well worn that when he got into the bed his body gradually jack knifed downwards so that his arse nearly hit the floor while his head and feet stayed on the level.
The family home in which he lived was built from stone drawn from the quarry then at the Moat in Navan by my grand aunt Maggie with an ass and dray.There was no insulation full stop.
Even with blankets and the old LDF coat on board it was cold in winter.But Joe's feet were never cold.One of the collies,Captain being the last ,was always trained to lie on the blankets on the foot of the bed over his feet.His tootsies were always as warm as toast,even on the coldest night.
Many's the night I spent with Joe at bedtime talking about this and that.As a matter of record he told me to my face that "I was thick but dacent".Not a bad epilogue I suppose.
Anyhow he was wont to smoke a fag or two before retiring and then he would say goodnight and pull the sheet and blankets over his head,Within minutes he would be sound asleep.The face stayed under the blankets until he awoke.
A stranger if he saw the bed would never think that Joe was asleep in it ,as all that was visible were bedclothes with no sign of a head ,a hanging matress in the middle and a dog lying at the end of the bed.
If I wanted to know if Joe was in bed the dog lying at the foot of the bed was a dead giveaway.
Joe had no patience.When he said" good night" he meant it..Then immediately the blankets and sheets came over the head and off he went.No offence meant.
When he was near death in Mullingar General Hospital I was advised by the medics of that fact and told a great friend of his that time was short and a visit soon was advised.The particular man was so busy that he said he would get hard to make time ,but did so .On a tight schedule.One hour to travel there,one hour to converse and one hour to get home.
I visited Joe every evening and was there when the friend arrived."Well Joe any craic here"? "Not much Jack ,they won't let me smoke"."How's Dunderry doing in the football"."Didn't hear"."Goodnight Jack ,I'm going asleep now".Threw the blankets over the head and that was it.
57 minutes saved.Actually Joe rallied for a while .The immediate cause of his grave illness was shingles which the medics couldn't clear up and which were rapidly killing him.
I went to a Mr.Leavy in Athboy who had the cure.He couldn't go to see Joe bur prayed over a towel,gave it to me with instructions to rub it on Joe's body where the shingles lay and listed for me the prayers to say.I did this and to nearly everybody' s great surprise but not mine, very suddenly the shingles cleared up fully.But he did die shortly afterwards of other natural causes.
Yep man's beat friend and ,in Joe's case in any event,warmest.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Abolition of Communion and Confirmation grants further attacks poor Catholics.
Child poverty is common in Ireland.Most working and unemployed try to keep the good side out and do their utmost to protect their children from deprivation and mockery from their peers.Decent people would die for their children and to protect them.
Children can be cruel..They pick on those who are different.In my own case I was the eldest of nine.My mothers people used take us under their wing for the summer in Dunderry and send us back to Blanchardstown togged out for the year.Part of the outfit was hob nailed boots,which were grand for Dunderry but regarded as culchie regalia by some sophisticates in Blachardstown.The amount of taunting and bullying we suffered as a result haunts me to this day.Imagine the result were we to go about dressed in clothes that were noticeably inferior to those worn by our peers.
We were dressed simply and cheaply for our Communion and Confirmation.Everybody was similarly dressed.
Now we have an odious Government ,a marriage or partnership of the Rancher's Party and a Labour Party which is supposed to look after the poor.
I guarantee you that the children of Fine Gael supporters will be well togged out for their ceremonies.The atheist and aggressive secular Labour Party does not give one hoot about the poor Catholics in this country who cannot afford to tog out their children in a decent fashion,If the children of the poor do attend the ceremonies dressed in an inferior fashion to their peers they will be subject to the same type of bullying and sneering I was subject to all those years ago.
Only it is worse now with the widespread use of cyber bullying and commonality of child suicide,an event never heard of in my day.
Broke and broken hearted Catholic parents will probably stop their children from receiving the sacraments rather than make them an object of ridicule.
This attack on Christianity is par for the course for this Government and this secular European Union.
It follows on from the Taoiseach's oral attack on the Vatican,the withdrawal of the Irish Ambassador from the Vatican, the attempts of the Government to seize Catholic schools and the sneering of certain Labour Deputies at the Christian prayers at the start of Dail and Seanad secessions .
The womb raiders are trying to terminate preborn Catholics before birth,are actively discriminating against third and fourth children and more by paying a lesser allowance for them (Catholics tend to have more children than others),are now making it difficult for them to receive the Sacraments , preside over emigration figures that are on a par with the famine years and are indifferent to the increase in suicide by the beleaguered middle aged and elderly
The complete anti Catholic package you might say.
All this while press ganging the household tax from those they know well cannot afford to pay.Of course the well pensioned or paid and expense paid Mary Robinson and Marie Geoghan Quinn ,a Euro Commissioner ,are extended free of charge the executive facilities in Dublin Airport when the frequently pass through on business of the utmost importance of course.
Shining examples of Mna na hEiireann.
But that's what you would expect from a Government and a Union who sees nothing wrong with forcing two human beings to sleep in a public toilet and which refuses to give then m any assistance whatsoever.Talk about Trevallion.
P,S.
Since I wrote this article it is reported that the Labour Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has intimated that he wants to cut back on the times given to Religious instruction in Catholic Schools.Just another piece of the anti Catholic ethos that permeates this Government.
Just twenty years ago I got a hint of the way that certain Labour supporters were thinking when a supporter of whom I wrongly though reasonably well asked the Question what the Irish for Priest was.When I replied "Sagairt ",he smiled and said "no its paedophile"and doubled over laughing at his own wit.
This hatred is long fermenting and is now bubbling to the surface.
Children can be cruel..They pick on those who are different.In my own case I was the eldest of nine.My mothers people used take us under their wing for the summer in Dunderry and send us back to Blanchardstown togged out for the year.Part of the outfit was hob nailed boots,which were grand for Dunderry but regarded as culchie regalia by some sophisticates in Blachardstown.The amount of taunting and bullying we suffered as a result haunts me to this day.Imagine the result were we to go about dressed in clothes that were noticeably inferior to those worn by our peers.
We were dressed simply and cheaply for our Communion and Confirmation.Everybody was similarly dressed.
Now we have an odious Government ,a marriage or partnership of the Rancher's Party and a Labour Party which is supposed to look after the poor.
I guarantee you that the children of Fine Gael supporters will be well togged out for their ceremonies.The atheist and aggressive secular Labour Party does not give one hoot about the poor Catholics in this country who cannot afford to tog out their children in a decent fashion,If the children of the poor do attend the ceremonies dressed in an inferior fashion to their peers they will be subject to the same type of bullying and sneering I was subject to all those years ago.
Only it is worse now with the widespread use of cyber bullying and commonality of child suicide,an event never heard of in my day.
Broke and broken hearted Catholic parents will probably stop their children from receiving the sacraments rather than make them an object of ridicule.
This attack on Christianity is par for the course for this Government and this secular European Union.
It follows on from the Taoiseach's oral attack on the Vatican,the withdrawal of the Irish Ambassador from the Vatican, the attempts of the Government to seize Catholic schools and the sneering of certain Labour Deputies at the Christian prayers at the start of Dail and Seanad secessions .
The womb raiders are trying to terminate preborn Catholics before birth,are actively discriminating against third and fourth children and more by paying a lesser allowance for them (Catholics tend to have more children than others),are now making it difficult for them to receive the Sacraments , preside over emigration figures that are on a par with the famine years and are indifferent to the increase in suicide by the beleaguered middle aged and elderly
The complete anti Catholic package you might say.
All this while press ganging the household tax from those they know well cannot afford to pay.Of course the well pensioned or paid and expense paid Mary Robinson and Marie Geoghan Quinn ,a Euro Commissioner ,are extended free of charge the executive facilities in Dublin Airport when the frequently pass through on business of the utmost importance of course.
Shining examples of Mna na hEiireann.
But that's what you would expect from a Government and a Union who sees nothing wrong with forcing two human beings to sleep in a public toilet and which refuses to give then m any assistance whatsoever.Talk about Trevallion.
P,S.
Since I wrote this article it is reported that the Labour Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has intimated that he wants to cut back on the times given to Religious instruction in Catholic Schools.Just another piece of the anti Catholic ethos that permeates this Government.
Just twenty years ago I got a hint of the way that certain Labour supporters were thinking when a supporter of whom I wrongly though reasonably well asked the Question what the Irish for Priest was.When I replied "Sagairt ",he smiled and said "no its paedophile"and doubled over laughing at his own wit.
This hatred is long fermenting and is now bubbling to the surface.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Dunderry footbal genes surface in Mayo.
Older residents and families will well remember the late and great John Conroy from the Meadstown Road.He was a great GAA man,first with Dunderry in his youth,then with St.Teresa's in London and then again with Dunderry on his and his family's t return to the ancestral home in his fifties.He was a great personal friend of mine right up to his sudden and unexpected death.
Anyhow a son of his Michael ,who moved to Mayo some years ago, has a son called Tommy Conroy,who I hear is a nifty and talented corner forward.
He is a minor and a little birdie tells me he has a chance of figuring for Mayo this year.
Keep an eye out.
Anyhow a son of his Michael ,who moved to Mayo some years ago, has a son called Tommy Conroy,who I hear is a nifty and talented corner forward.
He is a minor and a little birdie tells me he has a chance of figuring for Mayo this year.
Keep an eye out.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Friday 5th April 2013 a sad sad day in Dunderry
The pain was palpable.Two funerals the same morning in a tiny village of one shop, two pubs a school , a Church and fifty houses.The community managed well. The Coffey funeral was at 11.00 a.m.,the Feeney funeral an hour and a half later.The Coffey mourners were in the graveyard before the Feeney mourners arrived in the Church.Two desperate sad occasions.One life lived to its fullest span,exceeding the four score and ten,the other tragically cut short in its prime.
There is no convenient time to die.no matter what age you are.
The locals know and love the bereaved families.Every house was represented.Both families were consoled ,if consolation is possible.These people will not die in the minds of their families .There is not a day that I don't think of those who went before me and I expect everybody is the same.Our religion tells us that life is everlasting and that there is a Resurrection of the body on the Last Day.The Church was overflowing for both funerals so that many,many more were left outside than were inside.Thoughtfully outside loudspeakers were mounted.Lapsed and a la carte Catholics were not long getting back into harness.Just scratch the surface.
Many stayed in the Church from before 11.00 a.m. to after 1.30 p.m.to pay their respects to both.Thousands of mourners from outside the Parish turned up ,both on the Thursday night and the Friday to pay their respects.Many came from abroad.
Dinny's brother P.J .came home from America.Daughters Blaithnid and Siobhain came from Australia and England respectively.Joe Coffey came from England and the Fagan brothers also came from England.Gerry Coogan came from the States.
I'.m sure there were more.
Cromwell could not scatter us better than our own.
Normally at funerals you get at least some animated chatter as the non locals scan for the "boys",i.e.the boozers and the "wild men "to sidle up to and have the craic.All the while paying respect to the bereaved and thanking the Lord it is not themselves.
But not on Friday,with a few exceptions.You could cut the sadness with a knife.Why .why oh why.Were there some there who may have pushed too far ?You would go mad wondering.
There were those there who have gone through this process in their own circle.The first thing a family thinks of in the morning and the last thing at night,.You could see it in their faces.
Under the governance of our own it is getting too common by far.
A Day of Reckoning will come and authors of the glib cliches will get their just desserts.
Friday evening at six meself and Liam prayed hard.Everybody here is doing likewise.
We don't need more days like this.
There is no convenient time to die.no matter what age you are.
The locals know and love the bereaved families.Every house was represented.Both families were consoled ,if consolation is possible.These people will not die in the minds of their families .There is not a day that I don't think of those who went before me and I expect everybody is the same.Our religion tells us that life is everlasting and that there is a Resurrection of the body on the Last Day.The Church was overflowing for both funerals so that many,many more were left outside than were inside.Thoughtfully outside loudspeakers were mounted.Lapsed and a la carte Catholics were not long getting back into harness.Just scratch the surface.
Many stayed in the Church from before 11.00 a.m. to after 1.30 p.m.to pay their respects to both.Thousands of mourners from outside the Parish turned up ,both on the Thursday night and the Friday to pay their respects.Many came from abroad.
Dinny's brother P.J .came home from America.Daughters Blaithnid and Siobhain came from Australia and England respectively.Joe Coffey came from England and the Fagan brothers also came from England.Gerry Coogan came from the States.
I'.m sure there were more.
Cromwell could not scatter us better than our own.
Normally at funerals you get at least some animated chatter as the non locals scan for the "boys",i.e.the boozers and the "wild men "to sidle up to and have the craic.All the while paying respect to the bereaved and thanking the Lord it is not themselves.
But not on Friday,with a few exceptions.You could cut the sadness with a knife.Why .why oh why.Were there some there who may have pushed too far ?You would go mad wondering.
There were those there who have gone through this process in their own circle.The first thing a family thinks of in the morning and the last thing at night,.You could see it in their faces.
Under the governance of our own it is getting too common by far.
A Day of Reckoning will come and authors of the glib cliches will get their just desserts.
Friday evening at six meself and Liam prayed hard.Everybody here is doing likewise.
We don't need more days like this.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Death of Alacoque Coffey,Dunderry.
With the tragic death of Dinny Feeney the death of probably the oldest woman in the Parish has gone relatively unnoticed except by those nearest to her and her many friends and neighbours.She was 92 years old and a she was a very pleasant and charming woman.She lived in Churchtown ,Dunderry and for many years called in to visit us with her great friend Dot Rattigan on her way to or from the Bingo in Dunderry Hall in the days when when the Bingo was well attended before the smoking ban emptied it effectively.
She is survived by her sons Pat ,Francie and Joseph and daughters May and Evelyn and many grandchildren and great grandchildren and a wide circle of friends and neighbours.
GAA fans will remember well the exploits of Pat and Francie on the football fields of Meath when the graced the Dunderry football team which won the 1970 I.F.C. of which my uncle Tommy Mac Cormack was manager and of whom he was a great friend.
Pat is a regular at Dunderry Mass and Francie often drops into the Church for a private prayer.I met him recently on one such occasion and he said that he often prays for Tommy MC Cormack and Peter Brady who ferried them around the football fields of Meath a half century ago ,when cars were as scarce as hen's teeth.Great to see that someone remembers them with affection.
The remains will arrive in Dunderry Church at 7.00 this (Thursday ) evening and will be brought to Dunderry Graveyard after 11.00 a.m. Mass tomorrow (Friday).
ON my own behalf and the wider GAA community I extend my sincere condolences to her family.friends and neighbours.
Ar dheis DE go raibh a hanam dilis.
She is survived by her sons Pat ,Francie and Joseph and daughters May and Evelyn and many grandchildren and great grandchildren and a wide circle of friends and neighbours.
GAA fans will remember well the exploits of Pat and Francie on the football fields of Meath when the graced the Dunderry football team which won the 1970 I.F.C. of which my uncle Tommy Mac Cormack was manager and of whom he was a great friend.
Pat is a regular at Dunderry Mass and Francie often drops into the Church for a private prayer.I met him recently on one such occasion and he said that he often prays for Tommy MC Cormack and Peter Brady who ferried them around the football fields of Meath a half century ago ,when cars were as scarce as hen's teeth.Great to see that someone remembers them with affection.
The remains will arrive in Dunderry Church at 7.00 this (Thursday ) evening and will be brought to Dunderry Graveyard after 11.00 a.m. Mass tomorrow (Friday).
ON my own behalf and the wider GAA community I extend my sincere condolences to her family.friends and neighbours.
Ar dheis DE go raibh a hanam dilis.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Dinny Feeney deceased.
On Easter Monday last Dinny Feeney died tragically.He was 57 years young.His land mearned mine at one side and we often interacted in a farming as well as a sporting and social sense.I fround him to be an absolute gentleman as a neighbour.It is in the nature of things that sometimes animals stray ,either one way or another.Between us these matters were not a problem. A gentleman through and through.
We spoke Sunday night at mid nigh at the birthday bash of his brother Tommy.I had a few on board and not having seen him for a while,compared notes about the shortage of fodder and we parted extolling the decency of each other.He seemed the finest.
I hurled and kicked football with Dinny.At that stage we were not in the first bloom of youth.He was hard and fair and gave it all he had.He worked that hard at the farming that he had little time for training.He was an exemplary farmer.
Feeneys always kept ponies and horses.Dinny ,his wife and children were avid horse people and great hunt supporters.
Lately himself and his wife Niamh joined the Lycra cycling brigade and took to it like ducks to water.
I drank with him,played football and hurling with him,farmed alongside him,had the craic with him and had the great pleasure of training his daughters, son ,brothers and nieces and nephews in hurling and camogie.
Like everybody else in the Parish I am shattered ,heartbroken and in a state of shock .
His remains will be reposing at his home tomorrow Thursday from 4.00 to 8.00.
The funeral will be to Dunderry Church on Friday at 12.00 noon,burial afterwards at the local cemetery.
To his devastated wife Niamh,son Thomas,daughters Blaithnid and Siobhan,father Tom ,brothers Tommy and P.J.,sisters Anne ( Callaghan )and Olive (Martin ) and his many nieces and nephews we extend our sympathies in these their darkest hours and days.
Dinny and his extended family were at the core of the GAA Club for generations and indeed the Camogie and Fair Committee ,to mention but a few of the clubs he was involved with.His untimely death strikes at the very heart of the community.
Ar dheis DE go raibh a hanam dilis.
We spoke Sunday night at mid nigh at the birthday bash of his brother Tommy.I had a few on board and not having seen him for a while,compared notes about the shortage of fodder and we parted extolling the decency of each other.He seemed the finest.
I hurled and kicked football with Dinny.At that stage we were not in the first bloom of youth.He was hard and fair and gave it all he had.He worked that hard at the farming that he had little time for training.He was an exemplary farmer.
Feeneys always kept ponies and horses.Dinny ,his wife and children were avid horse people and great hunt supporters.
Lately himself and his wife Niamh joined the Lycra cycling brigade and took to it like ducks to water.
I drank with him,played football and hurling with him,farmed alongside him,had the craic with him and had the great pleasure of training his daughters, son ,brothers and nieces and nephews in hurling and camogie.
Like everybody else in the Parish I am shattered ,heartbroken and in a state of shock .
His remains will be reposing at his home tomorrow Thursday from 4.00 to 8.00.
The funeral will be to Dunderry Church on Friday at 12.00 noon,burial afterwards at the local cemetery.
To his devastated wife Niamh,son Thomas,daughters Blaithnid and Siobhan,father Tom ,brothers Tommy and P.J.,sisters Anne ( Callaghan )and Olive (Martin ) and his many nieces and nephews we extend our sympathies in these their darkest hours and days.
Dinny and his extended family were at the core of the GAA Club for generations and indeed the Camogie and Fair Committee ,to mention but a few of the clubs he was involved with.His untimely death strikes at the very heart of the community.
Ar dheis DE go raibh a hanam dilis.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Dunderry numb in Shock
This Parish has suffered more than its fair share of tragedy this while back.I thought that we had seen it all.I was wrong.Everybody was rocked to their foundation today by a tragedy of unimaginable sadness and despair. I am devastated.
Time will enable fuller reportage.
Time will enable fuller reportage.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Easter Weekend Church times Dunderry
Dunderry.
Sat. 30/3/2013 7.30 p.m.Solemn Easter Vigil
Sun.31/03/2013 11.00 a,m. Mass
Kilbride.
Sat. 6.00 p.m. Mass.
Robinstown
Sun. 9.30 a.m.Mass
Sat. 30/3/2013 7.30 p.m.Solemn Easter Vigil
Sun.31/03/2013 11.00 a,m. Mass
Kilbride.
Sat. 6.00 p.m. Mass.
Robinstown
Sun. 9.30 a.m.Mass
Friday, March 29, 2013
Labour Party in total freefall.
An earlier blog of mine on the issue of Labour's hatred of rural Ireland has been borne out by the fact that out of 24,300 votes cast only 1,112 were for their misfortunate candidate.About 4.6 % of the vote cast.This compares to 8,994 out of 42,752 in the general election of two years ago.21% of the votes cast.
While there was a huge wave of sympathy for Helen Mc Entee the winner ,on account of the death of her father by his own hand , it is only a remote possibility that any true blue Labour supporter would have voted for her for sympathy reasons, as a second preference vote would have been just as good.
So I would guess that all Fine Gael diehards in the constituency did come out to vote for her and maybe about another 2,000 or thereabouts because of respect for the work her father and grandfather put into the IFA and the GAA. In my view about 33 % of people are fairly comfortable financially under this Government and these wealthier people belong to Fine Gael.(The Patsy of the ranchers.)
I would guess that keeping this 33 % sweet is the overarching policy of Fine Gael if they want to have a second term in Government and this is what they will do,Labour or no Labour.
Labour has long lost its natural base of the working and labouring classes.If there are only 1,112 tradesmen ,labourers and working class people in East Meath then I am a monkey's uncle.
Under the authoritarian influence of those who kicked away from Sinn Fein ,via Sinn Fein the Worker's Party via the Workers Party via Democratic Left to take over totally the reins of the Labour Party , it has been shaped into an anti Cathollic , anti Christian,stridently feminist,niche for aggressive secularism and atheism,a rallying point for pro choice womb raiders and a promulgator of the gay lifestyle over and above that of the nuclear and extended family.
There is no point reiterating that when all the principal leaders of Europe were honouring the Pope on his elevation to the shoes of the fisherman in Rome,our two buckos ,who are way too educated for God ,were away in America sucking up to Obama.
People do not forget that Gilmore,the Labour leader broke off diplomatic relations with the Vatican ,in what is a 90% Catholic country.
Nor do they forget that Burton actively discriminates against third and fourth children in the Budget by treating them as less worthy of financial assistance than their first and second siblings and cut the mobility allowance for the most severely disabled members of society.And introduced a household charge etc etc etc.
I would say that only a totally out o f touch lunatic would parade Ivana Bacchic from Trinity mouthing about gay marriage and spouting pro abortion views at the start of the Labour campaign,But she did and they did.
I hazard a guess that the 1,112 votes they gathered represents the gay,atheist ,anti Christian and pro abortion sector of the constituency,although Sinn Fein may also have captured a slice of the womb raider vote ,given their strong pro choice policy.
The only chance Labour have to survive is to jettison the former Workers Party infiltrators and over educated third level anti Catholic bigots and aggressive secularists and atheists from its ranks and revert to being a Party that promotes the well being of the working classes ,as it once did.
Otherwise the downwards slide will continue and accelerate to hover around the 263 votes (1.1 %) that the eviscerated Workers Party and former comrade of the Labour leader e Seamus Mc Donaugh got.
While there was a huge wave of sympathy for Helen Mc Entee the winner ,on account of the death of her father by his own hand , it is only a remote possibility that any true blue Labour supporter would have voted for her for sympathy reasons, as a second preference vote would have been just as good.
So I would guess that all Fine Gael diehards in the constituency did come out to vote for her and maybe about another 2,000 or thereabouts because of respect for the work her father and grandfather put into the IFA and the GAA. In my view about 33 % of people are fairly comfortable financially under this Government and these wealthier people belong to Fine Gael.(The Patsy of the ranchers.)
I would guess that keeping this 33 % sweet is the overarching policy of Fine Gael if they want to have a second term in Government and this is what they will do,Labour or no Labour.
Labour has long lost its natural base of the working and labouring classes.If there are only 1,112 tradesmen ,labourers and working class people in East Meath then I am a monkey's uncle.
Under the authoritarian influence of those who kicked away from Sinn Fein ,via Sinn Fein the Worker's Party via the Workers Party via Democratic Left to take over totally the reins of the Labour Party , it has been shaped into an anti Cathollic , anti Christian,stridently feminist,niche for aggressive secularism and atheism,a rallying point for pro choice womb raiders and a promulgator of the gay lifestyle over and above that of the nuclear and extended family.
There is no point reiterating that when all the principal leaders of Europe were honouring the Pope on his elevation to the shoes of the fisherman in Rome,our two buckos ,who are way too educated for God ,were away in America sucking up to Obama.
People do not forget that Gilmore,the Labour leader broke off diplomatic relations with the Vatican ,in what is a 90% Catholic country.
Nor do they forget that Burton actively discriminates against third and fourth children in the Budget by treating them as less worthy of financial assistance than their first and second siblings and cut the mobility allowance for the most severely disabled members of society.And introduced a household charge etc etc etc.
I would say that only a totally out o f touch lunatic would parade Ivana Bacchic from Trinity mouthing about gay marriage and spouting pro abortion views at the start of the Labour campaign,But she did and they did.
I hazard a guess that the 1,112 votes they gathered represents the gay,atheist ,anti Christian and pro abortion sector of the constituency,although Sinn Fein may also have captured a slice of the womb raider vote ,given their strong pro choice policy.
The only chance Labour have to survive is to jettison the former Workers Party infiltrators and over educated third level anti Catholic bigots and aggressive secularists and atheists from its ranks and revert to being a Party that promotes the well being of the working classes ,as it once did.
Otherwise the downwards slide will continue and accelerate to hover around the 263 votes (1.1 %) that the eviscerated Workers Party and former comrade of the Labour leader e Seamus Mc Donaugh got.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Gonad politics to the fore.
Prior to and subsequent to the election of Shane Mc Entees daughter to the Dail I heard a number of female politicians and commentators ,some of whom are so hateful that they are pushing for a gender quota in politics because they know full well that they have no chance of election if the were to run on their merits alone, laud her because she is "young " and a "Woman".As a middle aged ,some would say auld man ,I take fierce exception to remarks of this nature as being sexist in the extreme and ageist to boot.
If the criteria for selection and election depends on the sex and age of the candidates it would cut to the chase and save a fortune were the gonads alone of all the candidates photographed and displayed beside each other so that the electorate could decide which set they fancied more and whose owner would be more suitable for the Dail on that account only.
There has to be a limit to nonsense or am I naive ?
If the criteria for selection and election depends on the sex and age of the candidates it would cut to the chase and save a fortune were the gonads alone of all the candidates photographed and displayed beside each other so that the electorate could decide which set they fancied more and whose owner would be more suitable for the Dail on that account only.
There has to be a limit to nonsense or am I naive ?
Time please gents and ladies.
How often our revelry was deflated by the cry of the publican at closing time of "Time please ladies and gentlemen,time.Ye have to leave.The polis are outside.No ye can't stay here.Have ye no homes to go to ?"
Those were the days,only a few short years ago.The days when some polis had little more to do than rack up brownie points by "doing" the publican and customer after hours and wait in ambush for the drinkers with a few on board to" do them for driving over the limit.
The days when every politician worth his /her salt pleaded with the publican for the use of the pub to hold his clinic.The days when pubs were places where you could have a smoke and a decent drink with your friends and neighbours without being weighed down by the incessant hectoring of the health Taliban about the political correctness and certitude of their puritan and Cromwellian views .The days before joy was banished and misery,"pain " and subjugation elevated to the pinnacle of human expectation.( I must admit that it defies logic and flabbergasts me how a medical profession ,some of whose practitioners must rate as the greatest and most cowardly of humankind for the callous murder of countless billion of helpless unborn children ,has the temerity to lecture anyone else on proper behaviour.).
The days when you would notice that your neighbour was missing from his usual stool and enquire after him and look him up afterwards.The days before successive governments and clueless politicians and civil servant advisers turned pubs from "Public " houses into deserted excuses for funeral homes where despairing publicans and disillusioned customers share and swap stories of misery.And where each have to face out in all weathers to have a smoke to satisfy the health Taliban fronted by a medical profession of know alls who regard those who oppose them as neaderals beneath contempt.
The scourge of cancer is endemic .Smokers with a terminal prognosis absolutely dread going to hospital in the knowledge that these Taliban will even in their final days deny them the comfort of a smoke.Many older people,I suspect, commit suicide in this knowledge,knowing that if MRSA doesn't got them something else will .
Happy those who can finish their days in their own homes free of these interfering busy bodies.And I have heard one such interferon fanatic state that he would have no compunction policing people's homes to see that this evil was suppressed.I suppose that a profession which routinely murders the defenceless unborn has no problem in bullying those that survived gestation and that this is just a natural progression.
The smoking ban heralded the epitome of State bullying so far and heralded the death knell of the pub trade.It is unashamed bullying on a massive scale,nothing more and nothing less.The Seamin na Caices that conceived this ban and implemented it,heralded the destruction of rural society and having got away with it ,introduced successive punitive measures against a populace who are too programmed and fearful to "take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them".In a democratic sense of course.
Anyhow time was when the ownership of a pub,any pub,was a thing to be desired .As was a mid sized farm.
A man of my acquaintance once said"If you have a son you actively hate ,give him a 45 acre farm on condition that he makes a living from it exclusively and generates enough income to support a wife and family.This should break his spirit in a short time."I thought he was nuts.It was me that was nuts.And you could now substitute or add a rural or small town pub instead of a farm.Imagine the poor ludraman who volunteered for both.
Land has held its value.I doubt you could give away a pub at present were it to be run as a pub.And finally,the publicans were way ahead of their time in the cry "Have ye no homes to go to" as a considerable number of people will find out soon.The Government and the Central Bank are demanding more evictions,despite the pre election false promises of the Taoiseach and Tanaiste on the matter.
Those were the days,only a few short years ago.The days when some polis had little more to do than rack up brownie points by "doing" the publican and customer after hours and wait in ambush for the drinkers with a few on board to" do them for driving over the limit.
The days when every politician worth his /her salt pleaded with the publican for the use of the pub to hold his clinic.The days when pubs were places where you could have a smoke and a decent drink with your friends and neighbours without being weighed down by the incessant hectoring of the health Taliban about the political correctness and certitude of their puritan and Cromwellian views .The days before joy was banished and misery,"pain " and subjugation elevated to the pinnacle of human expectation.( I must admit that it defies logic and flabbergasts me how a medical profession ,some of whose practitioners must rate as the greatest and most cowardly of humankind for the callous murder of countless billion of helpless unborn children ,has the temerity to lecture anyone else on proper behaviour.).
The days when you would notice that your neighbour was missing from his usual stool and enquire after him and look him up afterwards.The days before successive governments and clueless politicians and civil servant advisers turned pubs from "Public " houses into deserted excuses for funeral homes where despairing publicans and disillusioned customers share and swap stories of misery.And where each have to face out in all weathers to have a smoke to satisfy the health Taliban fronted by a medical profession of know alls who regard those who oppose them as neaderals beneath contempt.
The scourge of cancer is endemic .Smokers with a terminal prognosis absolutely dread going to hospital in the knowledge that these Taliban will even in their final days deny them the comfort of a smoke.Many older people,I suspect, commit suicide in this knowledge,knowing that if MRSA doesn't got them something else will .
Happy those who can finish their days in their own homes free of these interfering busy bodies.And I have heard one such interferon fanatic state that he would have no compunction policing people's homes to see that this evil was suppressed.I suppose that a profession which routinely murders the defenceless unborn has no problem in bullying those that survived gestation and that this is just a natural progression.
The smoking ban heralded the epitome of State bullying so far and heralded the death knell of the pub trade.It is unashamed bullying on a massive scale,nothing more and nothing less.The Seamin na Caices that conceived this ban and implemented it,heralded the destruction of rural society and having got away with it ,introduced successive punitive measures against a populace who are too programmed and fearful to "take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them".In a democratic sense of course.
Anyhow time was when the ownership of a pub,any pub,was a thing to be desired .As was a mid sized farm.
A man of my acquaintance once said"If you have a son you actively hate ,give him a 45 acre farm on condition that he makes a living from it exclusively and generates enough income to support a wife and family.This should break his spirit in a short time."I thought he was nuts.It was me that was nuts.And you could now substitute or add a rural or small town pub instead of a farm.Imagine the poor ludraman who volunteered for both.
Land has held its value.I doubt you could give away a pub at present were it to be run as a pub.And finally,the publicans were way ahead of their time in the cry "Have ye no homes to go to" as a considerable number of people will find out soon.The Government and the Central Bank are demanding more evictions,despite the pre election false promises of the Taoiseach and Tanaiste on the matter.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)