Sean Byrne.Blanchardstown is dead.

When I recently visited Mulhuddard Cemetery for the Blessing of the graves I met Liam Byrne a former next door neighbour from Tolka View and a nephew of the aforesaid Sean and enquired after his health.Liam informed me that Sean had recently gone into a nursing home and at the venerable age of 95 years was still striking terror into the bookies of Blanchardstown with his forays into the horse betting markets.Nothing new there.
Well I got a message last Tuesday evening that Sean had died in his sleep and that his funeral Mass would be the next morning at 10.00 a.m. in Blanchardstown Church .I made it but only just having found a parking place difficult to find .I must say that I find the profiteering from funeral attendees by whoever is getting the parking money is a vile practise and condemn it outright.Seemingly nothing is sacred around Blanch. Church any more.
Anyway when I got to the Church it was filled to capacity and I  couldn't get in so I sat on  a ledge outside the back door.The fullness of the Church is testimony in itself to the esteem in which Sean is held around Blanch .and further afield.
I think that Sean was the oldest true Blanchie alive at the time of his death.He was steeped in Blanch .lore and his pedigree is truly impressive.
His granny was an O Driscoll whose family farmed at market gardening in what was later to become the Phoenix Park Racecourse,which they had to abandon to make way for the racecourse.
His mother was Annie Doyle who founded Doyles Shop at the junction of Main Street with Church Avenue ,which thousands of Blanchies will remember with fondness and which kept hundreds of families supplied with food and other life necessities on tick for generations .
Sean and his siblings were born into a house which stood where Tim Ryan's Garage now stands ,later moved down to Duckie O Brien's Blanchardstown Mills at the end of Mill Lane and thence to the top of Tolka View ,where they lived until 1958 when they moved to the house in Main Street ,where he lived at the time of his death.
It strikes me that his people lived through the Famine of 1845 to 1847 and all the crop failures of that damnable  Century.Perhaps the market gardening was the secret of their survival.
Maybe a half century ago I used inspect the headstones at Cavein graveyard near Dunsink and nearly cry at the huge numbers of the same families buried there who died from the hunger in that period.
Sean's siblings were ;-
Maureen ,who ran Doyles shop.
Una   Mrs FAGAN ...who live beside Sean on Main Street.
Patty   Mrs Carr who lived on the graveyard Road from Mulhuddart village.
Dessie ,who lived next door to us in Tolka View.
Benny ,who lived opposite the Wren's Nest in the Strawberry Beds and Carmel who lived with Sean in Main Street.
I grew up in Blanch.Nine kids were reared in our House in Tolka View.Ten,I think , were reared in Byrnes next door,4 Fagans were reared  nearby on the Main Street and 5 Mulhuddard Carrs spent most of their childhood around our neighbourhood.A further 5 Mac Donalds lived in Tolka View.
This was our core play group and we played together,fought with each other ,palled around with each other,some more than others,chased women with each other.learned to smoke and drink with each other ,and although never living in each others pockets kept up healthy and respectful relationships with each other.
Joe Mullery .a next door neighbour to Sean's on Main Street,was plumb in the centre of our area and spent most of his working life in Africa..His house was empty for months on end each year.
After he retired he returned home and I got to know him fairly well.
He often marvelled at the fact that his house was never broken into nor damaged by any of the kids during all those years.
This ,of course is down to the values inculcated in us by our parents and Sean and his family ,who were made of the right stuff.I like to think that we too are similarly constituted.
Now I was born in1951 and can remember Sean having  BIG SHED on Tolka View within which I never stood but in which was manufactured go carts which we could never equal and greatly envied.
Sean was the master of this shed as long as they owned it and it was a hive of manufacturing activity for the Byrne,Carr and Fagan clan and gave them mechanical superiority over us and the Mc Donalds.
Sean never gloated but was content with the output of his factory of endeavour.
I must say that I never heard Sean Byrne say a bad word to any of us kids nor our parents in all my years living there.
The space where the shed rested was sold to Martin Henry I think and he was just as nice as Sean Byrne,lucky for us kids.
In those innocent times the Gardai used try and summons us kids for kicking football on the lane outside our house and one neighbour in particular used keep any footballs which crossed into their premises.These were not nice people by any stretch of the imagination and I must say that the Gardai were worse for doing what they did.
Neither Sean nor Dessie nor any of the Byrnes were like this and they like our own parents had a good tolerance of all us kids and our lives were the finest given the times that were in it.
Dessie lived next door to us with his wife Betty and he was a hardworking plumber with one of the Hospitals I  think.He was a non smoker and a non drinker and a great man with the kids,his only leisure I  remember being playing music with the Blanchardstown Brass and Reid Band.
It was rumoured that he used help his wife bathe the kids every Saturday night and my mother used tease our Dad on account of this when he would return from the Pub every Saturday night full of the cheer of that week's nickser.He wasn't for turning and didn't.
Dessie always travelled on a Honda 50 with a superb toolbox built into the back.It was brought inside every night I  think.
Our family was GAA inclined and while PAT and Kevin CARR  and Liam and Desmond Byrne played a bit of GAELIC Football with Brigids the Fagans and the other Carrs were more soccer inclined.
Of course we used leather the shite out of each other at casual soccer in Cleary's field behind the Greyhound and at a patch of ground in front of Duckie O Brien's in Mill Lane.
Sean always kept Jack Russell terriers for hunting and was big into fishing and we all had a go at these pursuits.I m fairly sure he worked d in a fishing tackle and  supply store  at Mary's Abbey for many years so the aids to fishing and hunting were readily available.
Sean fished trout from the Tolka like us all,Pepper's pool at the bottom of Moy Mel and a willow tree at the bottom of our garden being fruitful spots for fish.
It is hard to believe now but I remember shoals of trout feeding at the bridge that spanned the Tolka at the entrance to the Hospital from Mill Lane.
The Byrnes were well into Blanch Brass and Reid Band ,Dessie being a stalwart and Sean---Foxy Fagan and maybe Bernard too being enthusiastic members.Don't think that Sean was a member but I  may be wrong.
Certainly Sean and Rory Mooney and many others of that circle used go off the sweets for Lent and save them up as prizes  for  the Grand National Races run at Easter on the impromptu racecourse erected by us all  each year in the field behind Byrnes and Fagans and all those houses.There used even be water jumps and the competition was ferocious.
Sean ,Carmel and Little Mo,their great friend were big into the Concerts staged in Brigid's Old School in the sixties and I well remember Brendan Hilliard,no chicken either and still to the good,singing there and a phrase from a homemade ditty "We have a fine doctor (Cooney) and Chemist (Hughes) here too,to make up the pills and the medicines too "being belted out by Carmel and Little Mo in the Hall to rave applause.
Sean didn't marry and it was rumoured that there was no shortage of admirers and in truth the Fagans,Dessie Byrnes and the Carrs were as much his kids as their parents.
He did take a drink but never to excess as far as I recall.
It is a tribute to him that all his nephews,nieces and the whole of Old Blanch was at his funeral.
I met Foxy,Tony.Bernard and Pau,er Fagan and the latter's fragrant wife Anne ,who I hadn't seen in decades and Pat,Johnnie ,Jem .Brendan Kevin  and Mary Carr and Betty,Jem's wife who hasn't changed a bit in 40 years,She confirmed to me that their son returned recently from Singapore to christen his child in Berkely Road Church where herself and Jem were married.
Mary is the most reluctant culchie I  ever met.
And I  met Mary,Dolores,Liam ,Dermot  and Brenda Byrne but missed the rest in the crush and I met PAT , BARRY and Finnoula mc Donald too.Pat was the last man to see my father alive and I hadn't seen BARRY in 40 years.
I also bumbed into Patrick o Reilly  ,former landlord of my brother Robert's offices and a man who was the essence of decency to him during his long illness.I won't forget.
It must have been hard on Sean Byrne,Old Sean's nephew .who is in Australia and is a friend of mine to miss this funeral and we cannot forget either Lizzie Byrne nor my brother Robert who too knew Sean well but were called ashore well before their time.
Sean was a nice guy,a fine neighbour full of good humour and brimming with decency.
Ar Dheis De go raibh A Hanam Dilis.

The cure of Bleeding.

Near enough 20 years ago an uncle of mine handed me down a prayer from the time of Jesus directed to Jesus that He might stop bleeding in a person when all else fails.Thankfully I have said the prayer many times since on request from the person suffering or a concerned friend or relative and it has always been answered save once in a situation where a person had a leg sliced off.
I am a Believer but the person suffering doesn't have to be in my experience.
I do not seek any remuneration of any kind for asking Jesus to work these miracles ,just a  Prayer for my intentions if possible and by God I need plenty of Prayer.
I know that the P/atheists who trool the internet will sneer at this information but such is life and death.
Anyone seeking help should contact me at 085 8452144 giving the name of the sufferer,their location and what ails them.
I have confined this information to a tight circle of friends so far but seeing as life is so short am sharing it with a wider circle .
I am the soul of discretion.

That's dedication for you.

Last weekend a significant milestone was reached in Dunderry.After 40 years Jodie Weldon retired from washing mending ,drying and folding the adult team jerseys for Dunderry GAA Club.Jodies father played with the 1934 Junior Hurling Team that won the Championship for Dunderry,her husband Tommy and his brothers .families  and her sons played with the Club.My uncle Jimmy and my mother's first cousin Sean Mallon are tied up with Jodie's people and I am proud  of this.
Very often in her earlier years on this entirely voluntary job she used the needle and thread as often as not to effect running repairs in the jerseys.She maintains that in latter years the materials used are more robust and tears are less frequent.My personal opinion is that the present day players are not as ,shall we say ,as competitive as some of those I remember in the past who would ate you without salt.
As one who delivered jerseys to her for the Jodie treatment in the past and who collected them after wards I  can vouch for the fact that she too would ate you without salt if any were missing and she would be relentless in pursuit of the missing item.
I am certain that because of her dedicated application to the job on hand that the Club never went into the red nor had to reschedule repayments  on anything to do with jersies nor their replacement.
She is the epitome of what the backbone of the GAA is.
We wish her well in retirement.

Paddy Keeley,Sage od Dunderry,is dead.

Paddy died on 25th July 2016 in Navan Hospital where he had been for a short while.I understand he was 93 years old.Predeceased by his wife Dillie,son Pat and grandson Andrew he is survived by his children Kathleen,Dick,Mary,Mark,John,Sarah,Joan,Phyl,Angie,Jenn and Lucy ,sisters ,grandchildren ,great grand children ans a wide host of in laws ans friends and good neighbours.
For a man of his generation and background Paddy was very well educated ,an achievement down to his mother ,who was widowed at a young age, and he was the possessor of a massive store of historical ,geographic and  folk knowledge of Dunderry Parish and indeed further afield.
As  a matter of historical fact thr father of my good friend Liam Dalton worked on their land for a number of years after Paddy's father died .
Luckily for us and future generations he ,along with his son Johnny and the historical Society recorded much  information in a number of publications.including a historical account of Dunderry GAA Club,which I am proud to say I commissioned from the crew and which was published after exhaustive research mainly by Johnny.
Purely from memory I am fairly sure he met the last native Irish speaker from the Parish long  before our  Irish speakers neighbours people landed from Galway in Lambay in 1935,met people who survived the famine of 1845 to 1847 and knew a man whose folk memory went back over 200 years from the time they conversed.I will have to look these things up again.
His remains are reposing in his residence today Tuesday from 6.00 p.m to 9.00 p.m.
Tomorrow they will be reposing there from 3.00 p.m until they leave to reach Dunderry Church at 7.00p.m.
Funeral Mass is Thursday at Noon with burial after wards in Dunderry Cemetery.

True Love.

For sure he hadn't long to live.Maybe a few days at most as his bachelorhood drew to a conclusion.He was a nice guy and had made many true friends during a fulfilling and well lived life.And as he was still coherent and pain free those friends were calling to bid adieu.
Many years beforehand he had had a torrid and beautiful relationship with a beautiful woman which came to nought when she suddenly broke it off and married another older man,settled down and raised a family.She was widowed now ,her family reared and she wanted to see him one last time after all those years.
She got word to him and he said he would certainly see her one last time.And he did.
She sat on his bed and she said amid a surge of tears "Do you forgive my love for doing what I did to you all those years ago.Of course I do my love.I could never have afforded to keep you and a family on my wages then nor now,You did the right thing and not for one minute did I resent you nor hold it against you my love."And they hugged and kissed like teenagers and the tears flowed copiously.And most tears were mine because  circumstances  and both parties dictated that I should be present.
Talk about a love story.My God,

Dunderry Grave Blessings 2016.

Dunderry. After 7.30 p.m. Mass Saturday 9th July
                After 11.00 a.m. Mass Sunday 10th July.

Churchtown.  7.30 p.m.Tuesday 12 July

Retaine. 7.30 p.m. Wednesday 13th July.

Claddy.7.30 p.m. Thursday 14th July

Kilcooley .8.00 p.m. Thursday 14th July.

Kilbride .After 7.00 p.m.Mass Sunday 17th July.

Moymet.7.30 p.m. Tuesday 19th July.

Tullaghanogue.7.30.p.m.Wednesday 20th.July.

Blackchurch.7.30 p.m.Thursday 21st.July.

Unpleasant Visit has pleasant moments.

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

This Soccer Lark.

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

The difference is sixpence

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

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

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

                                            Ivan M Cormack

Aaron Feeney                        Finn Stephens                          Davy Stephens

Mickey Dowdall                    Brendan Wright                       Davy Mc Cormack

                                     John Moran                    Conor O Shea

Jordan Martin                        Lukie Martin                           Stephen Coogan

Bomber Farrell                      Dylan Keenan                         Chris Harrington.

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

Death of Baba Murtagh nee Mallon.Boyerstown.

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

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

Dunderry connections to Christy Ring meath team.

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

New Chairman puts money where mouth is.

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

Donald Trump,A COLLUSUS.

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

The Stanley Clann on poignant visit home.

Last week I encountered Dermot Stanley ,who I know,with his sister Frannie and another brother Kevin ,who I had heard about but not met before to my knowledge,
Frannie is in her mid seventies and was being lifted in her wheelchair by her lovely brothers up the steps in front of Dunderry Church into the Church.
She is unwell and they spent some days around the village of their birth renewing scenes long since left but never forgotten.
They visited Cellie Bennett nee Kelly who used babysit them maybe 70 years ago believe it or not.Gladly Cellie .who donated the Hanny Kelly perpetual Cup to the Club for Club man of the year .is i fine fettle.after a long life of luxury and leisure ---Not
Hard work brings its own rewards seemingly.
Frannie left Dunderry well over 50 years ago to serve her time to be a nurse in Dartford in Kent at the same time as Rose Tuite .nee Powderly .widow of the late Tommy of Tullaghanstown..
Both qualified,Rosie came home but Frannie settled in Dartford .married and had a family there and lives there to this day.
I know Rosie this long time and only met Frannie lately.They are both treasures and the finest of ambassadors for this part of the Country.
The Stanleys were always different and in keeping with this propensity Kevin is renewing his Marriage vows this year after a fifty year lapse because then no one could afford the fare to England to the wedding and now those who couldn't then attend have a better chance of going.
We often forget to pray for the well being of our emigrants .because being out of sight they are often out of mind, a matter we ought rectify for the future.
Really when you think about it emigration severely stunted the development of this Country and broke the hearts of millions,.a sad reflection on the lack of imagination and ability of civil society this last Century.
We wish all emigrants the  very best and remember them with affection..

Canadian Ambassador has done some service

Kevin Vickers is the Canadian Ambassador to Ireland ,a job he was appointed to in 2015.Before that he was a Sergeant at Arms to the Canadian House of Commons responsible for the safety and security of the building and its occupants.In that capacity he and a number of colleagues shot dead an armed and  rampaging gunman who ran amok in the House of Commons .
Prior to that appointment he was a long serving member of the Mounted Police.So there is no doubt but that this guy is well versed in fighting crime and the arts of police work.
He is much decorated for his part in the shooting of the rampaging gunman and hid appointment as Ambassador may have been an additional sweetener for his decisive actions .
Now Canada is doing a great service for Ireland by taking in a substantial number of Irish people cut adrift from employment here by incompetent politicians and their equally inept advisers.
So I  have nothing but admiration for that Country and its inhabitants .
Now a week ago this Government held a memorial day in Glasnevin Cemetery to honour those soldiers of the British Empire who died putting down an insurrection by the native Irish in 1916 to try and gain independence after the guts of a millennium of colonization ,oppression ,starvation ,deportation and unspeakable cruelty.
Yes the Blue shirt Government of Fine Gael and Labour sees no difference between those patriots who died in the cause of independence and those who who died denying them that independence. The  mind boggles in disbelief .
Anyhow a protesting Irishman interrupted the ceremony by speaking out at nonsensical equal treatment of oppressor and oppressed and yer man Vickers grabbed him ,manhandled him and held him captive until the Gardai took him into custody.
These actions  made headlines worldwide.
The service that Vickers did was to bring to a wider audience the sick minds of those who authorised the ceremony in the first place .
By the same logic we can now expect ceremonies to honour those of Cromwell troops who died in the sieges of Drogheda and Oldcastle ,all of whose inhabitants were put to the sword by Cromwell and his men.
Like wise we should have a ceremony in Dunderry at the 1798 plot honouring the Red Coats who died hunting down the rebels who ,hen routed from insurrection ,sought shelter here abouts and were killed like vermin.
No doubt we ought celebrate General Coote ,who from his Trim headquarters massacres unarmed civilians in Tullaghanogue,Kilbride and Philpotstown of this Parish .
And why stop there .Surely Enda can bring it closer to home by honouring Trevallion in Atherny and banning the Song lest it offend the spawn of the colonists.
On an international stage the Blueshirts might advise the Japanese to honour the deceased Americans who organized thy bombing of Hiroshima ,the Chinese those who died while perpetrating the rape of Nanking ,the Nazis who died enforcing genocide at the concentration camps .
I  could go on and on.No doubt wholesome Heather Humphries ,who I recently heard boasting about the great job she had done in celebrating the Rising ,can make herself available for consultation internationally
Now to go back to Vickers,
Given the perverse nature of the ceremony he was at ,where the oppressor is valued equally ,if not more than the oppressed,he may  have concluded that any Paddy opposing glorification of the Empire was persona non grata in Ireland and deserved to be kicked out of the ceremony.
He could usefully be unleashed around Summerhill and Sean Mc Dermott Street and its environs to sort the murderous mayhem being perpetrated,
Franny could give Troudeau a tinkle maybe.

Scandal of Club Match admission prices in Meath.

In my Blog on Dunderry V Pauls in the B Junior Football Championship I complained bitterly about the estimation price of E.8.00 charged into Bective for the match ,an outrageous fee.
The hammering of faithful Club fans financially has been further brought home to me by a father and grandfather of sons and grandsons who loves to support them.
Not in employment money is scarce.
Within 10 days recently he had to fork out a lot more than he can afford to support his son's teams and his grandson's team which  was in a juvenile final.
This man spent many years managing juvenile club teams and drove his own car  around the County transporting players .
Counts for nothing now.
The admission fee to the Terrace in Parnell Park for the forthcoming Dublin v Louth Leinster S,F.C.game is E.10.00.
I n the name of the Gaelic Game how can anyone charge E.8.00  for a Club Junior F.C.GAME.
A dose of reality is urgently called for.

PRAY FOR PARISHIONERS

At least a half dozen well known people in village of Dunderry and its surrounds are under severe pressure health wise at the moment,Hard prayer is needed urgently,

My view on the Garda Commissioner actions.

When I was 18 years old I used organize a Disco in the old schoolhouse on Church Avenue in Blanchardstown for local GAA kids who were barred from entry in the hops in Castleknock Tennis Club because of their Blanch addresses.
Then as now I believed in the GAA ideal ,active participation in which has caused me substantial material loss over a lifetime ,but je ne regret rien.
Around that time in the early seventies there was a small Garda presence in Blanchardstown and most of the Country Guards who landed there played football and hurling with Saint Brigids of which I was a devoted member.
The Gardai I knew were all sound as I had been reared to believe.Until I saw what follows.
There used be a 6 foot wall in front of the Olld Shool house and a narrow entrance space no more than three feet wide in the wall in front of the door into the schoolhouse,so that you could only see what was happening on the road onto which the entrance opened at that point.What was going down either side of the entrance in the wall you could hear but not see unless you looked around the entrance.
One Saturday night after 11.00 p.m ,the closing time of the disco ,I finished the music for the night ,saw everybody out,turned the lights down and stayed behind for a sneaky fag.To all intents and purposes the building was empty.
I was startled to suddenly hear the agonized screams of a child somewhere to the side of the road entrance to the hall,so I  creeped towards the entrance and looked at the source of the disturbance and boy did I get the shock of my life.
Maybe ten yards to the right of the school entrance there was and is a pathway then called the car road and now Mary Brennan Park I think ,which enabled a short cut from Church Road to the Main Street.It was poorly lit then.
What I  clearly saw then was two Guards I knew kicking and beating the shite out of a young lad no more than 12 years of age.He was calling them Culchies and the more he did the more they beat him.He was a member of a local and poor family and to this day I AM ASHAMED OF MYSELF THAT I DID NOT INTERVENE.
The truth is that Iwas so shocked at what I thought were upstanding citizens behaving in such a thuggish manner that I was stuck to the spot as it were.
Like the coward I was really I waited until they went off and helped the brutalized young lad clean up his wounds and saw him home.
These guys have no idea that I SAW what they did to this day but one guy might wonder just why I, within GAA rules .lorried him out of it with a legitimate tackle .in a match a number of years later.
The point is that these two guys had two sides to their personality's, one reserved for people like me and another for people like the Skinner.
IT IS A LESSON i HAVE NEVER FORGOTTEN.
Since then I have met many people in Public Service ,including the Gardai ,who were well reared and sound and a minority who are thuggish,sneaky and dishonorable and deceptive.
I have no doubt but that the whistle blowers are the well reared guys who have no moral option but to speak out,
I am not saying that the Garda Commissioner is one of the other type asI know nothing about her,but general;ly it should surprise no body that the possibility exists that people that attain high office can be cunning,deceptive and self serving.
What was it Charles said about Bertie.

Loads to do.

I have a long list of Tributes to do,a long list of GAA Match reports to write up,much to say on the perpetual persecution of the inhabitants of rural Ireland by the authorities ,including the active connivance of Government Departments in making families homeless ,the joke that is the Government's handling of the Garda Commissioner's activities and the despair that Fianna Fail's support of Ministers and Juniors ,some of whom you wouldn't put in charge of a bee hive.
 Not to mention the vile pagan /Atheist,hereafter to be called the Patheist ,influence on society via the media,academia,the Presidency and the so called leftist politician s.
I need your prayer to give me the time and inspiration to attend to these tasks.
Last but not least any society that bans homeless people from using the public roadside seek shelter on ,.especially a society that saw mass evictions during a relatively recent famine when millions died of hunger and without shelter ,does not deserve to survive ans is purely patheistic in law.

Tribute to Vincent Clarke,Dunderry.

Around Dunderry we have known for some time that Vincent was under severe pressure health wise..He had lung cancer as far as I know  and had a lung or part of it removed some time ago.In his eighties the wise decision was made not to have further surgery nor too intrusive treatment.
As was his wont the first Dunderrian Dub,his wife Vera being the second,Maureen Yourell being third  and mise a poor fourth,Vincent motored on in good humour despite his failing health and never became downbeat after his prognosis .
I have never seen him flustered and he continued in this vein right up to the end of his well lived life.
He was the real thing as far as Dubs go, being either from the Liberties or Ormond Square as far as I know --himself and his wife Vera had both historic areas covered --and was a part of what was Dublin in the rare old times and never lost his Dublin accent nor his love for the city,
Don't know how he came to live in Dunderry but he and his family took to it like a duck to water and I never heard of him expressing any interest to live elsewhere.
Last week our AOIFE ,who is involved with a group of musicians who play from time to time in hospitals and nursing homes, happened to be in Navan Hospital and at the request of his family played solo renditions of Raglan Road and Amazing Grace for him as he lay waiting the Call from the Man above.I understand that things got very emotional and we knew that his time was short.
And so it came to pass.
Vincent and Vera ,as far a I know met through the Legion of Mary and 11 children were born to them of which 10 survive to this day.I don't know them all but do know most of them and they are bang on to a man and a woman.
He was a master welder and could turn his gifted hands to any task.Just as well as raising the spondulocks to feed ,clothe and support such a large brood cannot have been an easy task but raise them he did and he did it well.
Of course he wasn't alone in this and God only knows how Vera managed to stretch his wages to meet every bodies needs.
Now while Vincent and Vera became especially devout in latter years ,hosting Prayer Groups and being especially devoted to Mary ,they were by no means crawthumpers entirely and when money and circumstance allowed ,which admittedly wasn't often ,knew how to let rip on a minor scale and as the brood took flight had a jar or two.But always very demurely.
Vincent wasn't a GAA man.The constraints of space in  central Dublin make it more suitable for soccer and this was his sport of choice.He was instrumental in forming the now defunct soccer team in Dunderry and the soccer jersey was presented as a gift during the Funeral Mass in a packed Church last Thursday.
This didn't stop his sons Vincent Junior,aka China and Damien a.k.a.Swiss ,excelling at hurling and football and Olivia also swung a caman with menace in her youth.
His two grand daughter Danielle and Kate are fine Camogie players too as I well know ,having trained them in the dark arts as is a grandson Garry who also played hurling with Dunderry.
Swiss is still a fine footballer and was good enough to represent his County ,an achievement  of which his father was extremely proud as he quietly confirmed to me many times.And why wouldn't he be.
Don't have first hand knowledge of the sporting prowess of his older children as they were past their sporting  primes when I moved to Dunderry to live but no doubt they were cut from the same cloth.
I have lived in Dundeerry since 1986 and in all that time have never heard a wrong word said against Vincent Clark and have personally found him and Vera and their entire flock to have been above reproach and the essence of decency.
I was glad to see that a minutes silence was observed this evening before the League match against Ballinagree in his honour in the Pitch.
We sympathize with his wife,siblings .children ,grand children , great grand children and all his relative and friends in their great sorrow.
Ar Dheis De go raibh a Anam Dilis,

Dunderry 1-12 St.Pauls 2-6 JFB CH.

Played in a deserted Bective on 14th inst .this match most definitely didn't have the tension that matches between these teams had in the 1970's when competition between  the Clubs was  at an all time high..
Then thousands would have attended the matches to savour the craic.
Perhaps the organisers of the match last week thought that the old tmes had returned and that people were willing to pay 8 hard earned Euros in memory of times gone bye.
Yes this was the admission fee to see a Junior B football match.
Maybe the people who set the fee at this level believe all this shit about the recovery lifting all boats and perhaps they are operating under the illusion that that the few followers and supporters Dunderry have left these days are willing to do without the necessities of life to pay such an outrageous admission fee to follow their team..
Well they are wrong.Never again will I go to such a match at such a fee.This is an insult to genuine supporters and will see to it that future matches are played to empty stadiums.If this type of overcharging nonsense is persisted with soon no one will go there at all.
Bective was in fine fettle.
TEAM WAS.
                                                    Dooley.
Kenny Fay                                 Seamus Harte                               Gary Newman

Fitzie                                           J.Martin                                        Shane Maguire

               Bob Doherty                                                  Declan Mahon
 Gilkie                                    Ted                                                Darren  Conroy

Jack Brady                            Thomas Doherty                        k.Slattery

Came in ,K,Bruton,Sprog Stephens,M. Casey
 There was no rancour at all in the match and referee Ennis from Longwood had it handy,Nothing to blow up for.The first half was tit for tat and a point separated the teams at half time .
The second half was more lively as Manager Goff and assistant Leavy freshened up the team and made some positional changes and we took complete control.Pauls launched a late surge and nearly caught us on the hop but we just about held out.
The number 8 was surely in vogue on the night.The excessive entrance fee was E.8 .00.And Grainne Dowd was training three gasuns togged out in full Dunderry gear,.her own two and Liam Rattigan ,all of whom wore the number 8 on their backs,on the sideline before the match started,.
And Pat Goff didn't have to don the number 8 ON THIS OCCASION TO MAKE UP A TEAM,which feat he had to repeat since against OLDCASTLE IN THE LEAGUE ,WHEN WE AGAIN FAILED TO MUSTER  THe  REQUISITE NUMBER OF BODIES ,AT THIS LEVEL.
Actually Pat can't have been a million miles away from playing against Pauls in the seventies ,when I think of it.
Disgracefully for the first time in two decades and despite the major increase in population ,we are bereft of Minor Teams in Dundrry this year. .An absolute disaster  and those past Officers  responsible ought hang their heads in shame.
A look at the age profile of this team is instructive  in this regard.
Lucky enough three gasuns mentioned above and their team mates brought home the under 12 laurels since.            

Vicious Face book campaign hsas inevitable result.

For some time now a vicious and dangerous campaign has been mounted against one  the most decent and long established  families  in the Parish over the shooting of a dog or dogs on the land of the family on which land there were livestock.
I don't know the ins and outs of the incident but the Mulligan family have been abused horribly on the Internet by so called neighbours and many more who have jumped on the bandwagon of verbal abuse.
Inevitably this ridicule bore fruit when the house wall ,cobbles and gates of the Mulligan House on the Meadstown Road was splashed with scarlet paint over the weekend.
I don't know who did this but this a new low for this Parish .
To make it worse a few neighbours trying to clear up the mess were taunted by a female motorist who mocked them by saying she would gladly treat the criminal who did this to a drink for his or her actions..
The lowest of the low and the planting of bad blood for generations.
This will fester.

Dunderry now Meath Capital of Fir Breaga

This last week the Village of Dunderry has about 6 extra inhabitants who don't move at all and to the uninitiated who believe in the undead are fairly scary.Life size  figures both male and female are tied to assorted uprights and lie on public benches absolutely unmoving.Nearest to me is the Colander girl......the top of her head is a colander.She resides opposite Horans pub door and she is in risk of attack by some boozed up  love hungry bachelor who has a hunger for women and whose eye sight is shot
Being made from straw she might not feel distressed but you never know,
Around the corner near the school a huge jockey is astride a tiny rocking horse and outside Geraghtys a stout straw man faced in plastic like the rubber bandits lies on a bench sleeping off an excess of stout.
Outside the GAA Club an attractive camogie player swings her caman.
I don't know whether those who dreamt up the scary crow competition which will take place during the Fair on Sunday drew inspiration from my Fir Breaga ...the Irish for SCARE CROW.. from my articles in Dunderryderumbeat.com whereby I have described various public figures who broke their word as  scarecrows....false men ....but there is no doubt that the manufacture of these straw beings has caught on hereabouts .
The imaginations of Dunderrians is limitless and I expect a big entry in the competition on Sunday.
As most of the Fir Breaga I have identified over the years are politicians of various hues and as I don't wish to offend people I won't be entering an exhibit but my kids and grandchildren will.
A good day is promised and you should come if ye can.

The ARC IS BACK IN DUNDERRY

I made reference to the sighting of an Arc  similar to the Biblical one in Dunderry earlier this year.
It has sailed through the Village then  and returned today empty to pick up another cargo  hold full of the spoiled ,spiteful .work shy ,insulting ,over educated semi degenerates of a certain age who think it cool to piss on the values their parents hold sacred by sneering at their beliefs whilst simultaneously bowsieing their meals and lodgings from the very parents they despise so blatantly.
Too lazy to dirty their hands with work less it interfere with their obsessive and consuming addictions to  Social Media these spoiled brats think the World owes them a living and were over  represented on last night's RTE Programme which purported to showcase the view of Ireland by giving undue credence to  a cohort of hand picked bowsies who pissed on the ideals for which decent men and women sacrificed their lives100 tears ago.
But then it is totally in keeping with a Station which is awash with the type of broadcaster who falsely accused a decent man of being a paedo just because he was a Priest and who paid dearly for this most gross violation of  human rights.
Maybe this utterly hateful broadcast was part of a continuing pattern of revenge on Catholics Ireland for being caught out by the Courts over that Programme.
With one or two exception those profiled on the show were more reminiscent of NERO  and Herod in their rantings than the vast bulk of their generation who are are interested in earning their keep and contributing taxes through their labours than living like bowsies and expecting the rest of us to be in awe of the nonsense they spout .
Their semi Socialist ideology is best summed up in the old definition of  SOCIALIST AS SOMEONE WHO HAS SWEET F.A. AND WANTS TO SHARE IT WITH EVERYBODY.
The abuse the Catholic faith and practise got left me with some idea of how the Jews must have felt under Hitler and would no doubt justify ISIS in their practises of modern day Crucifixion of Catholics in their area of influence.
However it is good to have a permanent record of who exactly these spewers of hate are so appropriate legal action can be taken when the time arrives to call the bigots to account.
Dunderry have used the Pitch only once since the start of the year.It is awash.
And it has rained non stop yesterday and today.Depressing.
Actually there would be only a few of the types I castigate around this place so the ARC WILL BE HEADING FOR THOSE AREAS WHENCE THOSE THAT ROB US CONTINUOUSLY RESIDE ,WHERE IT WILL EASILY BE FILLED UP BY THE TYPE OF WASTER WHO  I DESCRIBE ABOVE.

Whats his second name

"And who is your best friend in school little lady."  "Alex."says she .And whats his second name."Zander "says she.
Where would you get it.

Kill one every Sunday,

My uncles were serious GAA men.Then ,as now ,decisions of certain referees drove them crazy..
I once heard one of them saying that a referee should be shot every Sunday,only half joking.
Bit extreme said I and how would you pick him.
Wouldn't matter really how they were picked .At random would be fine and it would surely concentrate the minds of the rest of them and improve performance.
Should be applied to politicians daily now until a Government is formed.
And if FF DON'T SEE TO IT THAT THE water charge and Property TAX ARE ABOLISHED they are finished for all time,Simple as.

Caught Rapid

After a hard day the Judge....not Dermot Dempsy I hasten to add......went on the beer hard.He overdid it ,got locked and got sick all over himself.
His driver dropped him off at his home and pulled off pronto as Mrs Judge was an anti drink harridan and more likely than not would blame the driver for leading her husband astray.
Fortunately she was in bed asleep and he found a spare bed and slept it off.
Next morning he was gone at daybreak and headed to Court to avoid her interrogation and muster his excuses.
At 12.30 she rang and asked what the hell happened his clothes of yesterday.
To tell the truth said he this notorious bowsie was before me yesterday ,drunk as a skunk ,at a late sitting and he puked all over me.
He will be back before me this evening and I will give him 6 months.
Wouldn't.t be enough said she .Give him 12 months,He shit in your britches as well.

Life ain't bad

Hey Daithi,said a six year old grandson,I'm playing a football blitz tomorrow at 6.00 .Will you come.

Begod I will ,said I.
And Daithi said his 4 year old sister.I'm going to tamogie training.Wouldn't miss it said I.

The Steam Horn

1930's Ireland was a tough place to live in.With the Brit's customs levy on cattle imported from Ireland so great as to make their export prohibitive, the Irish economy nose dived and money was as scarce as hen's teeth.
But cometh the hour cometh the man.
Twinnie Byrne was hewn from the rock on which the Black Quarry is nested and was as hard as nails and just as driven.
He was a cabinet maker and a perfectionist to boot.He made furniture of the highest standard and of lasting endurance.It was much in demand especially in hard times,believe it or not.
Gradually he expanded until he employed over 250 men all under the one roof ,expert tradesmen all and above all  punctual to a fault.
A job with Twinnie was much sought after and carefully minded.
Twinnie watched everything in microscopic detail,never relenting .Firm but fair.
A steam horn blasted off  at 9.00  a.m. each morning and 6.00 .p.m.each evening.Woe to anyone who failed to meet the signals for starting and quitting.
Then the Padna Riley got the start.He was good enough at the cabinet making but not great at the time keeping in the morning.
His lateness grew from 5 minutes up to 30 on occasion.Twinnie saw all.
He was fuming and one morning planted himself behind a row of planks stacked adjacent to the entrance door to the factory in such a position that he could see all but was hidden from view himself.
20 minutes after kick off the Padna saunters up in no particular hurry.
Twinnie nabbed him and in his grating falsetto voice started to berate him for his lack of punctuality his  voice rising the further he went.
All the windows in the factory were wide open and 250 men were as silent as the night listening intently and as Twinnie's voice rose higher the could hear snatches like "Time is fucking  money, my money "and "Collect your wage packet now and don't come back".And then the Padna pleading for one more chance.
Twinnie relented screaming "And remember Padna as long as work here you come in on the horn and go home on it."
And 250 men rolled around the floor with laughter AND LIFTED THE CEILING WITH ONE HUGE CHEER.
That cured the Padna.

Blueshirts and Abortionists continue termination of entire families.

It is a source of mystery to me how the electorate dumped so few candidates of the Fine Gael/Labour Coalition considering their utter disregard for the living unborn and born unsheltered,who they appear to be dead set on persecuting.
I m sick to the teeth of  mouthy chipmunk females and macaroon male mouthpieces and their utter false expressions of concern for decent families they have destroyed and are now routing by taking the most basic of commodities from them ,namely their homes.
When these bousies arise from their prayer mats after venerating Cromwell each morning they must be elated at the increasing numbers of citizens they are hourly sacrificing to the speculators and the vulture fund capitalists to whom they have encouraged the Banks to sell the loans at a discount.
If these charlatans don't go to Hell there is no such place.

The monkey is at it again

The monkey with the tapping finger has hit into my blog over 200,000 times since I started it.Some monkey.

Murphy's War.

Murphy joined the Irish Navy in 1969 ,just in time for the Troubles to break out in Ulster,when certain of the Citizens had their bellies full of institutionalised discrimination and took up arms against a Statelet and an Empire that revelled in persecuting them and the Provisional IRA was born.
Like the vast bulk of the populace in the Republic I sat on the ditch and was too cowardly to help my fellow Irishmen out,taking my lead from successive Governments in the Republic.
Anyhow the logo of the Provos was not dissimilar to that displayed by the Irish Navy as Murphy found out  when he was sent to a secret Royal Navy base in England to participate in deep sea training in facilities not available in Ireland at the time.
Himself and a handful of other Irish trainees were unmercifully bullied and intimidated by the so called hosts because the were Irish ,because thy were members of a mickey mouse Navy ,because of the similarity of the logos and finally because of the killing of their compatriots by the Paddy terrorists---THEIR WORDS.
It finally came to a head when the prime bully and his acolytes planted a cardboard box containing a ticking clock marked as a bomb under Murphy's bed and found it hilarious.
Enough was enough.
Soon afterwards Murph found himself alongside the prime bully at the bottom of a deep water tank with deep sea diving equipment attached.
As part of the exercise to preserve oxygen they were instructed to doze off .Seemingly you use less of it when dozing than when awake.
And off they dozed ,save Murphy.
When chief bully was sound asleep with legs wide apart,Murph grabbed them .twisted them and squeezed as hard as possible.Yer man coughed off his mask and air nozzle ,gulped a belly full of water and surfaced too quick to the surface thereby suffering the bends.
So I am told.
No more bullying.

And so it came to pass.

The initial election results fully support my analysis in a  recent article in this blog .I am far more in touch with ordinary ,indeed extraordinary people ,than all the pollsters and the secular,anti Catholic ,agnostic and intellectual groupies of the discredited Labour Party and decrepit auld wagons that populate the newspapers and RTE AND TV3.
I hope now that the first acts of the next Government is to revoke all the anti Religious regulations  that the vile Labour Party and the Cromwellian Fine Gael Party of the rich and greedy snuk through in the dying days of the unfairest administration of the State since  a previous Government dragged unconvicted prisoners from jail and shot them without trial.
No way should Fianna Fail either enter into nor support any Government involving Fine Gael.
The Parties of the left now have the ball at their feet.If they can stay in the same room long enough to avoid an internectine bloodbath thy ought be given the space to form a Government and put their money where their huge mouths are.
Sinn Fein should cease its war against the unborn and widen its electorate base.
Water charges and Property taxes should be immediately abolished and the dictatorial powers given the Revenue to steal from the wages of the employed and the welfare payments of the unemployed rescinded.
Let no one believe that any of these Parties paid a single penny towards the raising of the minimum wage .
They simply imposed them on employers and ultimately on the general public who are the customers of these employers.
And  God willing  I will run in the forthcoming rerun within 6 months,

No recovery for meter readers.

We all know the meter readers who visit our houses and read the meters for Electric Ireland formerly the ESB.
Betcha ya didn't know that these people are self employed sub contractors to the   ESB WHO HAVE TO SUPPLY TAX CLEARANCE to the ESB every year.
Ye would also understand that if their contracts are terminated that they have no entitlements to the dole etc.
Well under this so called caring Government their contracts are about to be terminated and they will be thrown on the scrap heap,some after 30 years.
Another reason for the whingers to vote for Fine/Gael /Labour.

Apologies to supporters who voted for me .

I was humbled that I received almost 400 first preference votes in the last General Election considering that I only put up two posters and had no Party Machine to back me up.Nor did I have any financial backing save a few bob from one only concerned citizen.
Given that the most humble Councillor spends upwards of E.30,000.00 in election expenses to get elected to the Council ,as far as I can gauge ,the mind boggles at what it costs to run a campaign for the Dail.
I 'm not in that category and actually the decisive factor in my decision not to run was the fact that the campaign clashes with  the lambing season and even though I have feck all sheep I cannot afford to to subcontract it out.
I,d say I know everybody who voted for me and I' d like to give them a big thanks and I'd also like to thank those who have approached me and expressed sorrow at the fact that I am not running this time around.
If the Man above grants me the health ,physical and mental to do so in the future I may return.
Having said that I fully intend to vote in the Election and am in the process of deciding who to vote for.
I most definitely will not be voting for the following candidates who have either voted in favour of abortion or whose parties wish to revisit the 8 th amendment to reconsider the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn child viz;-
Peadar Tobin ,who personally voted against abortion but whose Party's policy is to repeal the 8th amendment.Pity he wouldn't leave Sinn Fein and then I could vote for him.
Damian English voted in favour of abortion so he is out.
Likewise Ray Butler.
Similarly the Labour Party is totally committed to the murder of the innocent unborn so Tracy Mc Elhinney is out.
As are the Green Party whose policy is to repeal the 8th amendment and whose candidate is Seamus Mc Menamin and who I believe is a medical doctor .
Alan Lawesss DDI is against keeping the 8 th amendment so he too is out.
Shane Cassells and Trevor Golden have made no declaration on the matter so their position is unclear.
The one man who has stated that he supports the 8th amendment is Independent John Malone so he gets my vote as things stand.
This matter aside my views on the Parties are as follows;-
Fine Gael and Enda Kenny '
They have broken every promise of substance they ever made.
1.Kenny promised before the last election that no evictions would take place on his watch.This was a lie of gargantuan proportions as the absolute failure to provide shelter for so many citizens has proved.
2.Successive Fine Gael Ministers have made a total bags of the Health Service making it into a system akin to the the County homes of years ago ,which the populace live in dread of ending up in on trolleys irrespective of age or gender.
3.The abject failure to get debt relief from the European Union for the 64 billion debt the Party imposed on the citizens and the insistence that the Greeks too were crucified in similar fashion by Noonan has destroyed hundreds of thousands of families in the Country ,led to massive emigration and in my view countless deaths by suicide and other stress related illnesses.
4.These guys are selling another huge lie in their claim that they will bring back the half million people that force to emigrate.Where are they going to house them,IN BADGERS BURROWS PERHAPS ,or are they so delusional that they believe their own nonsense rhetoric.
About one in five have done well under Fine Gael and the are what the.y always were,the Party of the BIG FARMER,THE SMOOTH TALKING CHARITY EXECUTIVE and the slave to the millionaires and billionaires who they wish most of all to emulate.
Labour and Joan Burton. 
Barring a few very rare working class supporters who haven't yet seen the light the Labour Party is a home for certain career civil servants and charm free academics whose main aim in life is to live up to the redness of the rose which is its emblem by legalising the murder of as many of the unwanted and defenceless unborn as it can under the misnomer of equality,but not for the child.
It detests the notion of the nuclear family of mother ,father and children and much prefers the alternative unions which it panders to.It has copped that Irish people has seen through it so it panders to all the foreigners it claims to care about.
THEY HAVE PRESIDED OVER THE LEVYING OF A PROPERTY TAX AND WATER TAX WHICH IS OF NO CONSEQUENCE TO THE RICH BUT DISEMPOWERS THE POOR AND MIDDLE CLASSES.AND HAVE ROWED IN WITH THEFT OF THESE TAXES FROM THE WAGE PACKETS OF WORKERS AND UNEMPLOYED.
It has done nothing for the poor and unemployed save to stigmatise them at every hands turn.
It is universally despised in rural Ireland,having sold its body for power and its soul to the devil and will be decimated and deservedly so.
Fianna Fail and Michael Martin.
It was deservedly  nearly decimated last time out but barely hung in there.It is a different animal from Fine Gael and historically catered for the less well off .Many many Fianns Failers believed the bumph of Fine Gael and Labour the last time out and voted for them but have since discovered that the present coalition are more untrustworthy and infinitely more arrogant than Fianna Fail ever were,so they will be flocking back in unprecedented numbers this time around.
Personally I think young Dev should be leader and that Martin is just a stopgap,but he has done good.
The country needs a champion on the issue of the rights of the unborn and this Party ought give the lead.
Sinn Fein and Gerry Adams
I always think of Nicky Keogh when I think of Sinn Fein.Nicky did time for the Republican movement and fell just short of election for the Dail when he ran for them.He handed the seat on a plate to Mary Lou ,who has no history of activism.
Personally i think that the people who vote Sinn Fein don't regard involvement with the physical war as an impediment to voting for them .On the contrary they regard it as a badge of honour.
They are massively popular with working people and small business men and women and are clearly hated in RTE and by the written media,especially the Independent and the Times,both Irish and English.
They will clean up .
An awful pity they see the innocent unborn as the enemy.
Other left wing parties
The one objectionable thing uniting them is their irrational hatred of he innocent unborn ,whose civil rights they totally and vilely disregard.

Death of Vincent Mc Cormack,Tullaghanogue.

Word is just filtering in of the recent death of Vincent Mc Cormack of Tullaghanogue at the tender age of 63 years.
I am told that he had a short illness and anticipated accurately the time of his demise God Bless him and that he died at home.
I didn't know him very well but had the pleasure of giving him a lift in my car from Tullaghanogue to Athboy on a number of occasions when I thoroughly enjoyed his company and am living proof to his ability to converse fluently as Gaeilge through conversations in that medium.He was more proficient than me and said to me a number of times that he was the only true Meath man in his locality that was so proficient in the language having picked it up from his neighbours and from  from childhood friends.
He was good and intelligent  company  and I imagine well known and liked in Athboy at least  ,which was his theatre of operations.
I drank with him a few times in Dunderry in times of yore when he was visiting his sisters Jean Rowan and Kathleen Reilly and their families who are highly respected members of this community.
The girls of both families played Camogie with Dunderry ,when times were rough and Lettie and Tara stuck with it through thick and thin and Lettie still yields a cultured Caman for the Club.
Jean helped out for many years and indeed played alongside her  daughters now and again so it is with certainty that I can say that he must have been a man of sound character and decent disposition were he like them and I hear he was.
He is survived also by his brothers Willie ,who lived with him and Leo a well known and respected  Athboy resident.
On behalf of myself ,the Camogie Club ,the GAA Club ,the wider GAA family and the people of the Parish I offer sincere condolences to all his surviving family and wide circle of friends and neighbours.
His mortal remains will be reposing at Mullen's Funeral Home from 4.00 p.m till 6.30 p.m tomorrow Wednesday 17th February whence they will be removed to Kilbride Church to arrive at 7.00 p.m.
The Funeral Mass is on Thursday at 12.00 noon and burial afterwards in Tullaghanogue Cemetery.
Ar DHEIS DE GO RAIBH A H'ANAM DILIS.

The Devil's Soapbox

The T.V.Repair man was at the back end of beyond as they say around here.He was hopelessly lost and had but the name of the customer who rang in with the request  to repair his telly.
He came across an elderly gent out walking in the rain with hair down to his waist wearing a leather sombrero hat from which the water dripped .
"Would you be Stephens,with a broken television"said the repair man.Without breaking pace nor looking up yer man said "Television ,the soap box of the Devil ""Na not me ",
It's as well he hadn't heard of the Internet.

In the morning Lord.

The trusses and timber work in the Church roof were magnificent ,complex and mind numbing.They were primed,painted and varnished by hand every five years and generally treated with the respect they fully deserved.It took a number of skilled craftsmen a month from start to finish to complete the work,nestled as they were on high and perched on top of the objects of their lavish attention.
They worked all day long from dawn to dusk carrying up with them enough food and equipment to last the day.Once up they stayed up and Masses and all the other ceremonies continued apace as they worked.The Parishioners forgot them after a while and continued about their Church business as though they didn't exist.
Including the Budda Stephens the most devout attendee at the Church and so nicknamed because of his obvious devotion.
The painters watched down on all from on high and the Budda was in the habit of doing the Stations of the Cross after every ceremony he attended ,which was each day in effect.His last act was to light a dozen candles and pray fervently on his knees.But the Budda never put any mulla in the candle cash box.Ever.
The boys copped this and told their boss ,himself a genuine devout man.
The next morning he hid above in the trusses out of sight entirely.
Things progressed as per normal and the Budda pulled his normal stunt of lighting the candles and getting up to leave sans payment,whereupon the foreman intoned in his best and deepest voice"Pay for the candles Budda "to which the reply issued as the Budda bowed without breaking pace  "In the morning LORD".
In Dunderry the craic never ends.

TALK TO THE HAND.

There are many people of my vintage who have made valuable contributions to Irish Society over the decades and the zenith of our educational achievements was the Primary  Certificate which was a State exam which one sat after 9 years at Primary School at about 13 years of age.
Passing it meant that one had mastered the three R s i.e reading writing and arithmetic.
With these at your disposal you were fit to take on the world and many millions did and continue to do.
Of course many fell between the cracks and are illiterate to this day.Many of my vintage could  not afford to get second level education as it had to be paid for and that was as far as we went.
Relatively few got Second level education and fewer still went to Third level.
These last two decades have seen huge advances in Technology and the State has paid to upgrade the computer skills of millions of youngsters the vast majority of whom now go to third level at least,largely on the taxes contributed by my generation.
Generally there are millions of my age and older who might as well be looking into a bush as confronting a computer screen and a  keyboard,but who can perfectly execute the three Rs in totally legible hand writing.
Instead of showing some element of appreciation towards us  for our contributions to society over the years this State and the major Financial Institutions do all in their power to victimise ,bully .penalise and intimidate those of us who can read ,write and do arithmetic but have not yet nor will master the complexities of computerisation.
Many Government Office sand Financial Institutions will not accept the written word as a valid form of communication but insist on computer text to deal with customers and even if they do reluctantly accept perfectly written text as valid severely penalise and disadvantage the writers in monetary terms.
This is callousness.ageism and discrimination of the most insidious type.
Imagine the uproar that would ensue were a defined minority,say Japanese people ,who were known to be computer deficient ,penalised in its dealing with the State and the Financial Institutions Yet this happens daily to millions of people of my vintage and older in the Ireland of today at all levels of society.
I can best illustrate the point being made by the  abominable treatment I witnessed of a person I know to be a pensioners and severely disabled  in a Pillar Bank recently.
This person subsequently nformed me that he was banking with this Bank for 40 years or more.
I was behind this man in the queue.
The Bank has a number of machines to which we were directed and told to use instead of the two tellers who were behind the counter and totally unoccupied.
The man had two things to do,he had a cheque to lodge and he wanted a cash withdrawal.Of the 6 machines there only one allowed both transactions.I strongly suspect that the Government's strong aversion to cash and its use and its desire to know what you had for breakfast is the reason for the glaringly obvious dearth of cash dispensers generally .
Not only did this man look his age but he had severe discomfort standing in the queue on a clearly lame leg.
We had the misfortune to be behind a woman who had a handbag as big as a Santa's sack on the start of his rounds and who proceeded to lodge individual cheque after individual cheque in the machine for several long minutes with no end in sight.
The life long customer ,by now visibly wilting, called a female clerk who was one of the posse of people herding us to the machines and asked would it be all right to do his business with the idle clerks behind the counter to which she replied that the female ahead of him would be finished shortly and to wait on.
Now how she could know this was beyond him  and so it proved as five minutes later yer wan was still parked in front of the machine talking to it.
On the point of collapse the old guy just turned on his heel and left.
This is what Baldy Noonan and Enda the Cromwellian ,their ilk and their devotees think of our generation.
 Bad cess to them one and all.

Death of Eithne Lee Dunderry

Eithne died recently in a Dublin Hospital after suffering for some time from severe accidental burns,which compounded the discomfort she has suffered from multi weekly dialysis treatment she had to undergo in recent years.
These last few months have been severely taxing on her and her exemplary daughters Anne,Maura and Eithne who have maintained vigils at her bedside and have for some time feared the worst.
Eithne was a Louth woman ,of quiet disposition and was married for many years to the late Bob Lee ,a Galway man ,who was the more outgoing of the two.
Bob died some years ago in some distress also and I know his family suffered considerably at the time.
The Parish was lucky that such a decent and outstanding exemplary family chose to live here and enlighten the lives of those fortunate enough to know them.
Bob was a life member of Dunderry GAA Club and so enrolled because of the involvement of their youngest daughter Eithne in the Camogie Club and she remains to this day the firmest of friends with  our Mags as a consequence of friendships then forged.
Her many friends and neighbours in the Parish mourn her passing.
Her mortal remains will arrive at Dunderry Church this evening ,Sunday  17th, January at 6.00 p.m.and the funeral Mass is on Monday at 11.00 a.m.
Her remains will be cremated in Mount Jerome at approx.1.30.p.m. afterwards.
Ar Dheis SDe go raibh a hanam dilis.

Sunday Independent.A total rag.

Two weeks ago I momentarily forgot just why I had years ago ceased buying and reading the Sunday Independent and made the gross and inexcusable once off mistake of buying it just the once..After reading a scurrilous article by a being  called Carol Hunt the reasons came flooding back.
She wrote an article demonising the life's work of Nobel Prize winner Mother Teresa who has been nominated for Sainthood.
Firstly let me state that this was cowardly journalism in its most invidious  form in that this insufferable wagon knows full well the first rule of knavish journalism is that you can spread whatever lies that you wish about the dead because they are not alive to defend their good name.
Secondly this anti Catholic bigot thinks it kosher to belittle the beliefs of Catholics by besmirching the Status of Sainthood which as even a smidgen of research would reveal Sainthood is held sacred to us who practise Catholicism.At the very least it is disrespectful and at its worst is bigotry of the worst sort ,far worse than that practised by that French Satirical Magazine which has put world peace at risk.
Maybe she thinks she is being clever and cool in asserting that Mother Teresa took pleasure in the suffering of the poor and that She subjugated them to such suffering for her pleasure.
Of course she can make such false allegations in the sure knowledge that Catholics will not place a fatwa on her,unlike Muslims who might.
Such a cowardly journalist would not repeat in print ,nor would her Rag publish such damning and hateful rubbish, about any Muslim prophet nor religious icon.Guess why.
Satan himself could have found it difficult to more effectively demonise such a Holy Woman and Saint as the pro abortion Carol Hunt has done and therein may lie a clue for her hateful vindictiveness towards Catholicism and Saint Teresa.
In my very simple take on Catholicism there are good and evil.There are God and the Devil.Obey God's laws and after death you will have eternal happiness in HEAVEN in the company of the Saints and the good people.
Deliberately disobey God's laws and you will enter the realm of Hell from which there is no escape.
Do the Devil's work in this life by calumnising  God's Saints and you will serve Satan for eternity in the next life.
It may be that in Satan's realm in the afterlife that Carol Hunt will be renamed Mike Hunt  (SAY IT QUICK) and when Satan calls her from the ranks of the damned ,she will scurry on all fours to serve him in the capacity that best suits her.

Dunderry Adult Management 2016

Word is filtering through that the following is the set up.

Football.
Manager Kevin Dowd.
Selectors.Phil Fay Junior,Mickey Molloy,Lee Mulligan.

Hurling.
Mark Nolan.
Selectors.Christy Coogan,Kevin Heffernan,Paddy Darcy.
And Tom Ryan ,former Dunderry and Meath Manager has agreed to give a hand. from time to time.

All these guys have a huge wealth of Experience under their belts and are good guys as indeed were the retiring Managers and their selectors led by Stephen O Rourke and Paddy Gorey.
It is great to see that volunteerism is still alive and kicking in Dunderry for jobs that make you either a hero ,if you succed or a knave ,if you fail.
But would we have it any other way.
Kevin would have more managerial experience at Hurling level including at County level.He is the fourth member of the 2005 team which I managed and was demoted from Senior to Intermediate to take up the challenge of regaining Senior status,the others being his brother Tommy ,Barry Callaghan and Stephen O Rourke.
I will be watching to see if he can succed where the others failed and hope that the players will give him the full loyalty he gave me.
All his backup team is hugely impressive and all were dual players so there should be a smooth relationship with their hurling counterparts.

Older Dunderrians may not know Mark Nolan and Kevin Heffernan.Mark is a Boardsmill man and married to Eunice O Brien whose mother is Mary Newman.He has been involved with juvenile hurling here for some years,Kevin is a fanatical Limerick hurling man doing fantastic work wit the juveniles.He really loves hurling and has a name that is hard to live up to.Paddy was a selector before if I am not mistaken .
Tom I WORKED WITH BEFORE.He knows his onions.
INTERESTING TIMES AWAIT US .

Dunderry Christmas Masses 2015

Christmas Eve 24th December.

Kilbride.6.00 p.m. Carols and Music from 5.30 on under tutelidge of Aoife Stephens on trombone with Deirdre Mc Hale singer,Lauren Finnegan Harp,and David Lamb organ.

Dunderry.7.30 with Carols beforehand and during by Dunderry Church Choir.

Christmas Day 25/12/2015.

Robinstown 9.30 a.m.with Carols before and during by Robinstown Church Choir.

Dunderry 11.00 a.m.with Carols before and during by Dunderry Youth Choir.

Stephens Day.

10.00 a.m. Robinstown.

IT IS ADVISABLE TO ATTEND WELL IN ADVANCE OF STARTING TIME TO GET A SEAT ON CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY

And give a thought to Father Hornick who celebrates all these Masses and organises the shoot bang lot.No easy job that.

The seagulls know.

Our land is over 30 miles from the sea,that is the part of it not covered in water from the incessant rain.Today the non submerged part was covered with seagulls picking maggots from the ground as said maggots surfaceed from the earth in fear of drowning from the upcoming deluge. I assume.
If I am right in this analysis we are in for some deluge.And these seagulls have an uncanny ability for foresight and how to turn nature to advantage.
The hoors have set up house in it and have started to squalk to me.Bad cess to them.

Death of J,Doonan and my tribute to,

Word is just filtering in of the unexpected death of the very well respected J,Doonan of the Meadstown Road,Dunderry,husband of the late Breda Stanley .
He was suffering from pneumonia in a Dublin Hospital ,as I understand it and died there..They had no children .
J was  Down man and kicked football with them in his youth.If I remember correctly his brother subsequently played in goal for the County.He also played professional soccer in England and was interested in boxing and at one stage approached me to see would I be interested in setting up a club in Dunderry,Because of my time consuming involvement in the GAA I had to decline and the idea was stillborn.
He was a die hard Republican and spent several years in Long Kesh on remand ,never being charged with an offence ,as far as I know.
He was also a nurse by profession and worked for many years with Sister Consilio in the fields of addiction in which he was an acknowledged expert.
Indeed when one of my extended family had a habit he did all humanely possible to help and I will be eternally grateful to him for this.
I think but am not certain that no State Hospital gave him employment because of his Republican past but that Sister Concilio was above that sort of retribution ,I may be wrong in this.
Well after his retirement date he continued to ply his trade and was working until recently.
I found him to have been a decent guy and good neighbour.
I have no knowledge of the funeral arrangements yet.
Ar Dheis De go raibh  hanam dilis.
P.S  .J.was brought to Dunderry Church last evening at 7.30 to a good crowd of neighbours and a wider congregation of friends and colleagues and Father Hornick paid fair tribute to him and his late wife Breda Stanley,who he  now joins after 9 years separation.
She too died around this time of the year and it is hard to realise that it is 9 years since she walked this earth.
They were devoted to each other and had to be considering the continuing disruption that occurred in their nursing and personal lives because of their Republican beliefs..
Long after he was able to walk with comfort because of wonky knees you would see J.on the bicycle with Breda alongside, as they prepared for the annual Dublin Marathon which they participated in until they were physically unable .I am full sure that all the funds raised were for the laudable aims of sister Concilio.
The funeral Mass took place this morning to a packed Church ,consisting of a combination of neighbours,work colleagues,Down family and  friends ,Fellow Republicans and the wider GAA community from the North.including Oisin Mc Conville and several members of the Kilcoo Club ,the Down County Champions.
Orations were made at the graveside by both Joe Reilly ,Sinn Fein Councillor and Sister Concilio,who were ad idem on a number of things ,particularly that J.was an exemplary member of the caring profession and that he left a lasting impression on all who met him.
Around here we had no idea he was so sick but he himself must have known that the end was near as Sister CONSILIO said that she arranged his final confession shortly before he expired .
I called to see him last summer to thank him for all his efforts regarding my extended family member's difficulties and to inform him of the outcome.
I can say that there was no behaviour in the addiction world that would have surprised J.,HE HAD SEEN IT ALL and more.
I quizzed him about getting his memories down in writing and he said he intended to do this in due course.I hope he did, but suspect that death crept up on him before he could.
No matter.He lived his life by his beliefs and made no efforts to hide them.
Any man who has  moving orations by a true blue Republican and a Sister verging on Sainthood can consider his life well spent.
Ar DHEIS dE GO RAIBH A HANAM.

PRAY FOR dUNDERRY BURN VICTIMS.

In recent times two Dunderry people ,one man and one woman, have received fairly severe accidental burns.The woman is way worse than the man and he is under some pressure also.
Sustained prayer wouldn't go astray.

Down Memory Lane

I was blessed to move to Dunderry in 1986 as that was the start of the Golden decade in Gaelic Games in the GAA  Club.
Tommy MC Cormack my uncle had recently retired as Chairman of the  Club,having thus served for over three decades I reckon.There was never a more fanatic member .In fact he died less than a decade later and his dying wish to be visit the Pitch one last time before being buried was honoured .
I atttended my first AGM shortly after arriving and declined the nomination for Secretary proposed by Gerry Callaghan as I was of the view that one should start on the factory floor ,as it were before looking for the Gaffer's job and boy did I spend many years on said floor before the chance came around again.
At that time we had some of the foremost dual players in the County at underage level and there was no adult hurling team here and the neighbouring hurling clubs were salivating at the prospect of getting their mitts on our boys.
The men and women who had achieved this underage hurling miracle were loath to see these boys dispersed to our hurling neighbours and naturally had a preference to keep them together in our club but were very much aware that there would be stiff resistance within the Club to upsetting the footballing apple cart as it were by entering a hurling team,
So a number of them approached me and requested me to propose such a team as they were somewhat afraid to do so themselves less they be chastised.
At the appropriate stage during the AGM I put the motion to enter a team and it was just carried despite the virulent opposition of most of the top table.To say I was shocked was an understatement.
Anyhow the work went on and there was a fierce buzz around the place.a buzz grounded not only in the high expectations of success on the playing fields because of the undoubted emerging underage talent allied to the acquisition after fierce machinations at Provincial level ,which  enabled Parish residents the Rennicks brothers and Pat Gibbons  transfer here from Trim for whom they had played at Juvenile level and in respect of whom Trim refused transfers, but also because o the excitement of finally acquiring our own Pitch.
Basically it involved the transferees thansferring to another County ,playing with a a club  there and then transferring back to Meath when they could play with whatever Club they chose .
My ex club Saint BRIGIDS of Blanchardstown gave a hand in this process and I AM ETERNALLY GRATEFUL FOR THIS.
By this route we eventually got these men onto our books and they contributed significantly to our unfolding success.
And Dermot Dempsey also threw in his lot with us and added his considerable maturity to the gosoons on the hurling fields of Meath and added to his considerable haul of county medals .
The Rennick transfers s sparked a rule change in the GAA and the new rule now applicable that you play with your home Parish makes those machinations irreverent today
I played a small part in the drive for the top in that I did my best for the adult hurlers on the field of play at full back for as long as my battered and ageing chassis was able to compete and picked up two Junior medals as a player and one Intermediate one as a sub,being usurped at full back by Plug Levy and more luck to him.
On the football front I turned up for training a number of nights ,fully intent of competing for a place ,but never got further than being mandated to kick the ball in between  back and forwards in competing drills.
It rapidly became clear to me that anyone nearing the three o wasn't wanted  and a guy of my vintage, nearer 40 than 30 was not flavour of the month.
I felt huge sympathy with lifelong and ebullient Dunderry men of the era who were thrown on the scrapheap at the time in order to make way for the emerging youth ,in what I still consider to have been premature retirement.
Anyhow what happened happened and the Club prospered,but in due course.
In 1988 the Pitch was opened to great jubilation and to the profound credit of those who had made such valiant sacrifices in putting it there,.
But not everybody in the Parish fully grasped the full extent of our achievement in the overall scheme of things GAA.
On the way to open the Pitch Tommy and Joe were stopped by a man whose hobby and job were farming exclusively and who had never darkened a football pitch ever nor never would  and on being told here they were off to said"Well that's Croke Park fucked ,I hear that Dunderry is so good that Croker will get no more matches."And he genuinely meant that.
Well the pitch was opened and Meath played Cavan in a challenge to a huge crowd .I remember a guy called Cahill fielded for Cavan and I think he was related to our Phil.
Tommy had a prodigious memory and dictated an article from memory to me about the history of Dunderry GAA which i wrote down and it was published in the programme written for the opening.
He concluded by wishing that the Club would attain Senior status in the near future.
Hid wish came to fruition as we attained Senior status in football in 1990,in Hurling in 1991 and as a bonus in Camogie in 1991 also.
And all this in an era when the MEATH on the national stage GAA SPORTS WISE WAS  VERY STRONG.
 to be continued.