By Peg Prendeville

Congratulations to Nora Mulvihill and Peter Phillips, Glasha, Athea on the birth of their baby boy Patrick last week. Wishing them lots of happiness.

Congratulations also to the Limerick Intermediate Camogie team who were crowned All-Ireland champions last Sunday with a 1-12 to 0-10 win over Kilkenny in the championship final in Croke Park. Loughill/Ballyhahill parish is proud that one of the players is none other than Dymphna O’Brien, Ballyhahill who plays with Killeedy. Dymphna must have a special drawer for her All Ireland medals! Well done to her and her family.

I was watching Would You Believe on RTE 1 on Sunday night. The subject was the Passion Play which was produced in Nicker, Pallasgrean last Easter. I was most impressed by the background work that went into putting it all together and even more impressed by the passion of the people who took part. It would be worth watching this in Player if you have not seen it as it was a brilliant performance. It was lovely to see, among the crowd which gathered around this production, my former neighbour Phil Fealy who now lives in Ballybunion. Phil’s son DJ is married in Nicker.

I have mentioned before that Jim keeps rainfall records for the Met office. It can be interesting to look at them from time to time. We have had no rain in September to date – 15 days. The longest spell, in recent years, without rain was 17 days in July 2013. The driest September since 2000 was in 2002 with 38.5 mm for the whole month. The wettest September was in 2006 when 229.6 mm of rain fell. The driest month this year was June with 55.6 mm. The wettest was February with 297.1. So the weather varies a lot each month with no guarantee of how it will shape up. I was talking to my son in Australia who has done a bit of driving recently from Darwin to Canberra. He passed through regions which have not had rain for over two years, resulting in animals and plants dying. Not ideal either.