Blog Thursday November 24
‘Cross Street’ by Jarlath Tivnan.
A
lot of people will be familiar with the name Jarlath Tivnan by now. He has
adapted and written a number of plays and this weekend he has his new play at
‘The Arts Centre’ in Roscommon town from Thursday night to Saturday night
inclusive. The play has been developed with the theatre company Fregoli in
which Jarlath’s first cousin, Maria Tivnan, is a founder member in 2007.
‘Cross
Street’ is an actual street in the middle of Galway city that I know pretty
well. There is a real ‘Bohemian’ atmosphere about that core of Galway with the
Druid Theatre, many music pubs, great bookshops like Kenny’s and Byrnes and a
great atmosphere especially on busy sunny summer days.
Jarlath
is also an accomplished traditional musician with his brother Conor.
Fregoli
has been regular players at the Roscommon Arts Centre to the mutual benefit of
both entities. Maria has also been involved in Boyle Arts.
Boyle People on the Box
A
number of Boyle people have been visible on television in recent times. Earlier
this week Rachael Lavin featured on the Claire Byrne programme in a discussion
on the subject of the moment i.e. Covid. The other guest is now a very familiar
face on television it being Luke O’ Neill. Luke had an article in the Sunday
Independent last Sunday titled; ‘Don’t despair…Strength will Get Us Through’. I
hope so ‘with a little help from friends’.
Anyway, Rachael was obviously well prepared as she shot out statistics on the status and
twists and turns that are now the unending story of Covid infections,
vaccinations, age profiles, the non-vaccinated and so on. Rachael is a rising
star and the best of luck to her.
With regard to the ever-optimistic Luke
O’Neill I hope he is right but it is a very tough journey and an awful number
of people will be scarred by it all.
The Oasis of Achill
I
don’t know if oasis is an appropriate word but for many Achill is a special
place. On Nationwide on RTE on Wednesday evening Donie O’ Connor appeared in a segment on his friend, the artist Paraic McCaul. Apparently, along with art
Paraic is an accomplished musician also and of course Donie is a diamond in
terms of his music which we all love here in Boyle. Achill is a significant
part of ‘The Wild Atlantic Way’ and has been a tourist destination for many
decades. An island I have visited a number of times, which I enjoy going to
also, is ‘Inishbofin’ off the coast of Galway, not far from Clifden.
John Mulligan’s ‘The Kettle’s Boyled’
in the Roscommon Herald.
I
am a regular reader of John’s short piece in ‘The Roscommon Herald’. Last week the title of his piece was; ‘Would
cutting the national herd affect farm incomes?’ In it John explores the various
supports which farming benefits from. I am from a farming background but while
I try a little to be informed I would have a long way to go in getting a grip on
the various schemes and supports that obtain. John writes of farm incomes being
made up of 74% of farm subsidies in 2018 and an astonishing 158% in the case of
sheep and cattle. It is somewhat
difficult to get your head around that. I remember farmers getting a subsidy
some years ago for ‘set aside’ land. Perhaps that was an environmental payment
of sorts.
While
farmers can lobby for greater subsidies on an ongoing basis people in the small
business sector traditionally fell or progressed on a business model. Pre Covid
these businesses could not seek supports if their business was not going well.
All they could do was adapt or close down. They had no CAP.
When
I came to live in Forest View and looked out at the sweep of the Curlew Hills
there was a certain amount of tillage and ploughed land for various crops,
potatoes, turnips, oats, and so on. That was the case with what were titled
mixed farms of my youth. There is hardly a sod turned on those hills now.
Farming is now a different animal.
On
the next page I read Gerry Boland’s letter on ‘Industrial Farming’. On this
occasion Gerry was highlighting the fate of breeding pigs and the conditions in
which they are incarcerated. It would nearly influence one to become a
vegetarian.
Apparently, a section of the farming community saw fit to bring their tractors to a protest
rally in Dublin in the last week.
(A
couple of days later some members of the haulage industry did like-wise with
their trucks and were photographed going three abreast driving slowly down the
M50. It certainly was not a way to ‘win friends and influence people’ with all
the concerns that people have right now. That and the season that’s in
it!)
“Our Forestry industry is in crisis,
but nobody cares”
This
was John’s subject for this week’s column. I was a bit aware of this subject
after a conversation some time ago with a retired forester. I will not treat
too much of it here in any depth, John does that much better than I ever could.
Licensing seems to be at the heart of the matter. A stark number stood out
which was that over 24, 000 hectares were licensed for felling while around 5
and half thousand for planting. The Minister for Forestry is Senator Pippa
Hackett. I never heard of her. Also, it is said that farmers are driven away
from tree planting by bureaucracy and time delays. This is an industry that is
seen as a significant element in absorbing carbon
I
have walked in an area where timber has been harvested and thought about how much
timber is actually wasted in terms of being left to rot after the cream has been
taken away. Is there nobody licensed to make use of this renewable fuel?
Book Season
This
time of year seems to be the high point of the book season. I see that Sean
O’Dowd highlights a book by his brother Michael on the ‘Home Page’ of
realboyle.
Last
week saw Barry Feely another of his books. Fair play to him as to have a book
in print is a big task. This one is titled ‘Good
Mercy…The Life & times of the Mercy Nuns, Building Boyle Community’.
It
is a tribute, as the title says, to the role played by the Mercy nuns to a
number of key elements in the life of Boyle and its people.
They
arrived in Boyle in January 1875 and their involvement ended in April 2012.
While
the educational work of the nuns is fully treated of the role of the nuns with
their commercial laundry is also described.
While
the official launch was cancelled due to Coved the book with his other
publications is available in the Una Bhán Shop at King House.
Dukie …The Game of Life
The
above title was launched recently in Roscommon by Seamus Duke who has had a
career in local Journalism and especially from his time as a political and
sporting commentator with Shannonside Radio.
Seamus
is one of the core group of those who go by the moniker true blue Rossies. I
was not at the launch but as might he said, all the usual suspects were there
in force. Seamus is a colourful character and has a very visible presence in
Roscommon town and well beyond it. He has a zest for life and living it and that
is displayed in this account of ‘The Game of Life’. The centrality of Roscommon
town has been a help in all that and the book name-checks a myriad of
sporting, political and social personalities. He developed a large circle of
friends and colleagues with whom he associated and shared many memorable
occasions. All these get the full and effective treatment in this enjoyable
book.
His primary sporting reference is with Gaelic
football. He begins with an account of the passage of the 2006 minor team to an
All-Ireland final replay v Kerry in Ennis. While he describes several sporting
highlights this was probably THE top of the list. As someone who was also there, I can say that he really does the victory that day justice.
He has always been a great supporter of
Roscommon Gaels Club and devotes a number of chapters to their great days
especially during the seventies when they had a fine team.
By
association with Brian Keenan and Ollie Hannon, he shared great days and wins
when their horses Montelado and Sir OJ were performing at top venues like
Cheltenham. He also covers Leitrim’s memorable win in the Hyde when they won
the Connacht title in ’94 for the second time the last being in 1927. He
describes his interaction with many politicians and details the excitement of
memorable election counts. Another highlight was his being, with friends,
always with friends, when Padraig Harrington won the British Open golf title at
Birkdale.
From
page 104 he relays to story of a great young Roscommon golfer Ken Kearney. He
was an outstanding amateur golfer. He then joined the professional circuit but
reverted to the amateurs soon again. It was the era when Harrington, McGinley
and Clarke and others were his contemporaries and went on to do great things. I
had been aware of Ken at the time and wondered what he did then and this is the
first time that I have read a brief account of his career.
Another
phase in life was Dukie’s support of Manchester Utd. and his visits to matches
there, with friends. A highlight was interviewing George Best who was always an
idol of his from boyhood days.
He
obviously loved doing radio and could multi-task to a dizzying degree. After a
long run with Shannonside the station was taken over by another group and the
choice presented to Seamus was not palatable and he decided to leave. His
account of this fracture is personal and emotive. He was leaving something he
obviously loved doing. He was going to an uncertain future and he with a young
family.
Seamus
is the son of Seamus Duke senior from Elphin who died a young man leaving his
mother with a young family. He pays tributes all around to his mother, wife and
family.
His
very full life was a series of improvisations and he jumped many fences. It is
all described in this very enjoyable book with great zest as he ticks off his
bucket list of exciting sporting events, with friends and ‘banter’. The book is
available in Boyle at Supervalu beside the wee entrance gate and costs
€15.
So
in terms of Roscommon, there are books this year from Frankie Dolan a few months
ago and also one by John Scally from Brideswell on ‘Great GAA Teams’ which
includes the Roscommon team of the forties.
I
would still and always recommend Mike Lennon’s monumental ‘A Dictionary of
Roscommon Biography’ for aspiring young Roscommon local historians (and I hope
they are out there). It has over 800 pages and lists thousands of Roscommon
people of note and those connected with the county from outside. It will set
you back 30/40 euro.
Sports
Boyle
Under 20 team takes on Strokestown in the Abbey Park on Saturday the 25th
at 12 noon in the Division 2 Championship.
This
weekend there are a number of interesting provincial games. A top one is
Roscommon’s senior champions Padraig Pearses v Mountbelllew-Moylough of Galway,
in Hyde Park. I presume it will be streamed some way.
‘Nothing compares to local’
This
was the heading for ‘Hold the Back Page’ by Eamonn Sweeney (former St. Mary’s
College student) in the Sunday Indo. of last Sunday. He went through a number
of counties where some pretty extraordinary things were happening. In Tipp. for
instance, the club players of Loughmore were out for the 17th
weekend in a row playing competitive championship games. The reason for this
lay in them being a dual club who were contenders for both football and hurling
championship wins. A number of replays filled in any gaps there might have
been!
In
both Armagh and Galway the two great clubs lost out. The Armagh kingpins
Crossmaglen-winners of 21 of the last 25 county- titles- being ousted by Clann
Eireann of Lurgan. Corofin lost out to Mountbellew-Moylough. He them cited
happenings in Clare and then came Antrim.
I
got quite interested in the happenings in Antrim as a club called Creggan
Kickhams won their first title in 67 years, the last one being in 1954. A phone
call confirmed that Kickhams was the club of a really great Boyle Club activist,
a while ago now, Kevin Young. The
winning injury-time goal was appropriately scored by Sam Maguire! Wasn’t it
great and yes Kevin was there. Experiencing a moment like that is one of the
great communal joys of life in this country. North, South, East or West there
is nothing like winning a county final, only one that has not been won for a
very long time such as this one. Cheers Kevin.
The Evergreen Beatles
BBC
dedicate 3 to 4 hours of its Saturday night schedules to one group. It seems to
have started with Abba but last Saturday it was the turn of Paul McCartney and
The Beatles. I found it very interesting and it showed what great songwriters
McCartney and John Lennon were. They began when I started to tune into pop
music as such on Radio Luxembourg in the early sixties. Through the sixties, they were a phenomenon and it was a great period for good popular songs. Paul
McCartney has always come across as a very humble, accessible and easy to talk
with individual. This was very evident on Saturday night. On Sunday morning listening to Miriam O’Callaghan
one of her guests was the Belfast poet Paul Muldoon. He was there talking of
his book on the Lyrics of the Beatles songs. While the early Beatles songs are
fairly straightforward forward there are undercurrents to the many of the later ones
that deserve scrutiny. So for the millions of people for whom the Beatles are
still their music heroes Paul Muldoon’s treatise will be interesting.
Next
Saturday night it is Queen and Freddie Mercury who are in the Spotlight
beginning at 8 and going on until 11.35.
‘The Lake District of England’
I
saw this very interesting programme on Saturday last but in looking at the
television programme now, for the times of the Queen series, it pops up again
at 7 on BBC 2 on Saturday. The interpreter is the excellent Simon Reeve. The lake
District has been made famous by its association with the poet William Wordsworth.
The main river there is the Eden river and on one a number of occasions it
caused Carlisle to be flooded to a major depth. Simon investigates efforts at
rewilding and returning the Eden to its original windy way as mitigation
during severe rainfalls. Another, of the number issues he looks at, is the
impact of long-term tourism on The Lake District in terms of locals being
unable to afford housing and employees having to be bused from long distances
to service the tourist facilities there and so on. Could that happen in our
superb lake District?
Anyway, it was interesting to me and Simon Reeve is a guide to follow on his many
worldly travels.
It’s a Small World
We
have all heard that said for decades now. But as I try to write here now on
Thursday the 25th of November the following happening of 15 or so
minutes ago may be a good example of that phenomenon. In another room I hear a
set of Irish music. Nothing very strange in that you might say. However, when I
investigate, it is a WhatsApp from Anne’s niece in…Abu Dhabi.
She
had just happened on an Irish music session in a hotel there, where there is a Board
Fáilte promotion of Ireland in train. She recognises one of the musicians who
was from… Boyle… and with whom she had played music when they were teenagers.
It was… James Carty… and friends who were there courtesy of Bord Fáilte. So she
gets on her phone and within seconds, James’s music is to be heard in our
kitchen.
An
early example of this, maybe 8 years ago now, went as follows (from my memory
of it) made radio, maybe the Joe Duffy Show. A young man in Tulsk comes across
sheep on a road in the area and puts it up on Facebook as ‘Gridlock in Tulsk
traffic’. Looking into his Facebook in Perth Western Australia was another chap
from Tulsk. I’ll call him Tommy. The sheep
area is very familiar to Tommy and he gets on his phone to his mam. ‘Hello
mam’….’ Tommy is that you. OMG’. ‘Mam I just rang to tell you your sheep are
out on the road’. Mam, another ‘OMG’. Tommy ‘Mam sort that out and I’ll ring
you back’.
In
our next edition here we will be sending greetings to all (that we know of)
Boyle people abroad, as we do. So if there is anyone you’d like to add to the
list let me know.
My
phone is down at the moment but should…’be back soon’.
We
will leave it at that. Go get your Booster. It is a gift for Christmas.
Take
care wherever you are. Tony.
