Update 20th March

‘Guns and Rosaries’…. Father Peyton of Mayo and the U.S.  RTE 1 Thursday 10.15.

 Senior people will remember the year 1954 as Marian Year. (Marian’s of Boyle) Many ladies carry that name as a result of a special  Catholic emphasis on Our lady during that year. Most of the shrines you see in Boyle, Fuerty and so on resulted from then along with other symbols. One of the great advocates of veneration to Our lady was the priest Father Patrick John Peyton through the praying of the Rosary. He was born in 1909 in Attymass, East Mayo and died in California in ’92 aged 83.

On Thursday night on RTE there is a programme on Father Peyton titled ‘Guns and Rosaries’. The Irish Priest who became an unlikely Hollywood celebrity recruiting other celebrities to a global prayer campaign-crusade- that reached millions. It is currently being advertised on television with images of Grace Kelly , Vice-President (then) Richard Nixon and so on. In the background are Fidel Castro, Nikita Khrushchev of Russia and images from the Russian invasion of Hungary in 1956. Peyton was a precursor of Billy Graham. Older people will remember the very strong tradition of families gathering each night before bedtime and saying the rosary. I would not know if that still survives today.

Father Peyton became known as ‘The Rosary Priest’ and  traversed the world with his Rosary Crusade and coined the phrase of ‘The family that prays together stays together’.  I have some recollection of him having a connection to Croghan. Tom Mullaney may advise on that. He is apparently near the end of the process of being canonised a saint. He was a really influential figure in the 1950s of a very dogmatic Catholic ethos more based on a fear of hell than anything else. I remember shards of it.

Brexit Keeps on Giving

 I should have gone, with my three vote forecast regarding Brexit of last week, to the Bookies as it was also Cheltenham. The 3 were; 1. Theresa May’s proposal being shot down again; 2. Taking a No Deal off the table and 3. Looking for an extension. The No Deal had an interesting amendment in that they added a ‘Never’ to No Deal which when it gets cemented in with legal cement (like you use in fire stoves etc.) It is pretty strong stuff.

There were a number of other division 2 votes. One concerned another Referendum. Now that had a nuanced twist to it in that The House of Commons first had to vote if they would allow such a vote. The vote was allowed by a decent majority but when the vote was taken it was shot down by a ‘decenter’ (sic) majority. Play with that for a while. ‘Would you get a decent pub quiz team from the front benches of both Conservatives and labour?’  After that Jeremy mentioned something about backing a Referendum. There is a sense of Boda Berg about it …..but…..I’m….hooked. Box set for next Christmas please.

I took leave of Brexit for some days then and joined the high jinks at Cheltenham. While I am aware of gambling addiction and cruelty to horses (four died during the meeting) it was a theatre of a very different hue.

Forgetting that Monday was not a Bank Holiday it was only late in the day that I heard rumblings of something else going awry at the Commons and poor Theresa being blindsided again. The Chair of the House i.e. The Speaker whose name is John Bercow threw a ‘spaniard’ in the works as I once heard a Dub. expounding on a building site. Bercow resurrected a law or directive from 1604 resisting a motion being brought before the House too many times without significant amendments. It would probably have been defeated anyway. While Bercow seems to be enjoying himself too much in this whole circus, considering how dammed serious it all is, he was probably right in this.

Now the question arises as to the length of the postponement. There are European Election which take place between the 23rd and 26th of May. The U.K. Prime Minister would like a short postponement but that now seems unlikely considering the amount of new thinking required. The danger with a long postponement is that BREXIT may just unravel and offers solace to REMAINERS such as former Tony Blair Secretary Alastair Campbell who we often see on RTE. There is a ‘spaniard’ which could emerge with the May Elections in the U.K. in that the reputational damage being shipped by the Conservatives and Labour is such that it will give Pro-Brexiteers big advantages in the first past the post elections.

COMMENDATIONS

The Rossies House Draw

There are a number of groups who deserve praise for their work in recent times. Before Christmas I waxed as lyrical as I could on the achievement of the Roscommon GAA Group who ran a hugely successful draw for a Sean Mulryan House and netted something near 1 million euro profit.

I’m a Celebrity Get me Out of Here…Organisers and Participants

Last Saturday night St. Joseph's, the Town Hall was packed and enjoyed a fun fund-raising event organised by a Boyle GAA ‘Young Turks’ Committee. They comprised of Brian Furey, Roch Hanmore, David Kelly, Karl Kennedy, Marc O’Connor, Mark O’Donohoe, Sean Purcell and Cian Smith. It took a great amount of organising and tying all the strings together and they were just great in doing all that. It is said that Barack Obama won his first U.S. Presidential election in the States on the foot of modern technology and communications platforms. I am not tuned into much of those but they are obviously the future and I’m sure they played a big role for Saturday night’s event as it had done for Roscommon last winter.

The competitors also deserve great credit. It was for a few a really nervy/tricky time dealing with the spider touch and snake familiarisation process. This was really evidenced with Michael Cawley during those two Trials. The panel here included; Barry Simon, Damien Butler, David McKenna, Derek Brady, Donal Connaughton, Enda Smith, Ian Cooney, Jacinta Callaghan, Joe Ryan, Karl Keenan, Laura Horan,  Mairead McKeon, Mark O’Connor, Mary Flynn, Niamh Beirne, Ray Hannon, Seamus Keane, Saoirse O’Flaherty, Seanie McDermott [Who grew up (a little) in Brooklyn N.Y. until he was 9], Sham Hanifa-‘I use fake tan a lot’; Shauna Moran, Sinead O’Donohoe and Vickie Lavin.  These represented a formidable cast with Donal Connaughton and Seamus Keane coming out tops.

The more senior members of the club were delighted to see the energy and innovation of these young guns and it is fair to say that the future of the club is in rude good health with this imaginative and linked in community. Fair play to you all.

St Patrick’s Day Organising  Committee

I may have only imagined hearing, some time ago of the possibility of there being no St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Boyle this year. Anyway a committee emerged comprising of Joe Ryan, Derek Dooley, Martin Downes, Lorcan Egan, Brian Kelly, A Kohler, D. Shannon, B. Simon and Keith Suffin. A successful parade emerged. The day was dry, the crowds were out and the atmosphere was fine and business was done. So hats off to the Committee and all who helped them; Gardai, sponsors, participants, helpers, M.C., platform  and the photographers who recorded and posted to their various media platforms.

I have pondered on mentioning this but since I did last week I had broken the ice. It emerged again at the parade. Standing for a while with a cup of tea outside Mattimoe’s I could not hear the introductions of the M.C. Jnr. Smith. I moved up to the bridge and it resulted in only minimal improvement. Not to be able to hear Jnr. at say 20 feet is something. At Boyle GAA grounds we use an old inadequate East European sound system. So maybe someone who would be qualified in the arts of sound systems for outdoor events might come on board with a system that would straddle the main line of Bridge St. to The Crescent next year.

Fair play to Danny Tiernan with his themed messaged entry. I was happy to see Richard Connolly Snr. back from Crufts. Who actually won? There is a very decent prize pot for the winners, plus the honour …not to be sneezed at!

Schools For Climate Change

Climate change is an accepted fact by most (excepting Donald Trump and similar geniuses). I open with the obvious by saying that I am no expert in any way in all this. Still in accepting the veracity of climate change it behoves us all to make our contribution to help turn the tide on this. It may not impact on senior people like myself but it certainly will on people I care greatly about. Last Friday thousands of school children throughout many different countries took to the streets to highlight the issue and bring pressure to bear on those in positions of power and influence to address the issue more aggressively. The EU has allotted certain fossil fuel emission quotas to its member countries to be reached by a certain year. Ireland apparently are falling way behind in their required targets. Its approach is lazy and deferential. Of course it needs courses of action that will not be popular especially with the farming community. Bord na Mona too with its power stations and the harvesting of peat on an industrial scale are in the cross hairs.

Anyway the young school people are a very important pressure group as they have most to lose. They also have time and many of them will become influencers and decision makers in the near future. Oddly some school managements adopted a negative attitude to their pupils involvement in last Friday’s protests. One would have thought it would have been a great and memorable ‘field trip’ for them and a chance to make a real difference to show leadership in a zone where it is obviously lacking with the political classes and vested interests. The Australian minister for education saying that the Friday strikes were illegal for example!

The original school protestor was a 16 year old Swedish girl called Greta Thunberg and she has spoken to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Poland; to the super rich at Davos and the E.U. Friday was chosen as the day last week because it is the day Great was allowed/allocated for her protests in her home school. She will probably be nominated for a Nobel Prize.

She is following in the footsteps of Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan who won a Nobel Prize in 2014 in pursuit of education for female students in her country prohibited by extremist elements.

There is a young Cork lady with disability who I am a great admirer of Joanne O’Riordan who also addressed the U.N.  in 2012. Donald Walshe from Tralee I think who died of cancer in May 2013. A young lady with disability who I see at Roscommon GAA games regularly and is Wheelchair hurling All-Star i.e. Sarah Cregg. These are some of the young people who set major examples to us all. Let us work with them for as I applaud them and wish them well. There are many hurdles to negotiate.

Boyle Athletic Club Up and Running

Tonight Tuesday I came across a group of Boyle Athletes out for their run. On enquiry I was told that this a fairly recent club i.e. Boyle Athletic club and now they were up and running with a membership of 170 or so. That is a magnificent number for a young club. I believe they had a huge number participate in a Drumshambo Run recently and that they can travel to venues far and wide to participate. Again the leaders are as follows that I know of; Dean and Melissa Beirne, Noel Scally. Neil Conlon, John Brennan, Helen Beirne. A number of these people are involved in the very popular Lough key run on Saturday mornings  and have extended to this Athletic Club chrysalis.

SPORT

GAA

Roscommon went down to Galway last Saturday in Salthill. I missed this one for a variety of reasons. Roscommon host Kerry on Sunday next and it would take a great performance to see Roscommon get a result that would retain them in the premier division. The points in this division are as follows; Kerry-10/ Galway-8/ Mayo-8/ Tyrone-7/ Dublin-6/ Monaghan-4/ Roscommon-3/ Cavan-2. Sunday’s games are as follows; Cavan v Dublin/ Mayo v Monaghan/ Roscommon v Kerry/ Tyrone v Galway.  The pity is that Kerry could still need a point I imagine since Mayo beat them last week and I am not sure could Galway overtake them? Tyrone have come a good way since we gifted them a point. They were impressive on Saturday v Dublin.

One thing I was not impressed with though was the ‘tackle’ of the Tyrone goalie on Paddy Andrews. It deserved a red card. Paddy Andrews got badly injured in this ‘tackle’. Another bad ‘shoulder- to- the- chest charge that got away lightly was that of the Rd. Croke's defender early in the first half v Corofin. Referees have a duty of care to players and there seems to be a season of aggression emerging.

A man who paid a big price, reputationally, for an incident he was involved in with Galway in the All-Ireland of ’83 was Kieran Duff of Dublin. I watched a poignant documentary on his life on Friday 15^th on TG4 as part of the Laochra Gael series. Perhaps it will be repeated and I recommend it. I t follows a very good similar documentary on Jason Sherlock around Christmas. One I missed was ‘Players of the Faithful’ on the Offaly team which stopped Kerry’s drive for five in ’82.

In two weeks the County Senior League-O’Rourke Cup- begins with a game in Boyle v St. Brigid’s and then there are a series of games on a regular basis. This new process should be interesting as it segues into the championship nicely in the later summer. Boyle should be contenders this year so bring it on.

Boyle Celtic after some blips are still in with a chance of the Roscommon League but have a last away game against title champions and leaders St. Peter’s Athlone. They had a very good win in Connemara to qualify for the Connacht junior Cup Quarter finals when they meet Manuella of Mayo.

Sin e from this bridging blog.

‘And so to bed’.