by Kathleen Mullane

 

‘Congratulations’

 

Sincere Congratulations and good wishes go to Joe O’Connor (or “Brown Joe” as he is better known to one and all) – who celebrated his “90th Birthday” on Saturday night last with a grand party attended by family,  relatives and friends at Brown Joe’s Pub here in Athea. A great night was enjoyed by everyone – here’s to the next 10 years of health and happiness Joe.

Congratulations and well done also to the U-17 Athea Vixens Basketball team who on Saturday last defeated the Tralee Imperials in Killarney and won the U-17 plate by a good margin. They’ve had some tough games lately and this was a truly deserved victory for them.

The U-8’s, U-10’s and U-12’s girls should present themselves for training at the GAA pitch each Monday evening from now on from 5.30pm – 6.30pm. All current players please come along and of course new players are always very welcome.  Well we are always complaining of our wet and rainy conditions , but we are very lucky really (even though we have had the warmest January in 10 years while the rest of Europe “Froze”) that we have no shortages of water like they do at present in England, where they are having meetings concerning the seriousness of their water shortage. I’ve seen loads of ‘frog spawn’ up the fields last week and Mike Hayes tells me that this is a sign that we are going to have a lovely dry summer – I hope you’re right Mike!

As we all know the International Eucharistic Congress will take place in Dublin from June 10th – 17th. A bus will travel from our Pastoral area for the occasion. If anyone is interested in attending you can get more information from Fr Bowen – 087-6532482, Pat Higgins – 087-2034626 or Mike Hayes – on 087-7751386. The principal Mass will be celebrated in Croke Park on Sunday June 17th. There are 18 tickets allocated to each parish – tickets are €10. Anyone interested please give your name to any of the above immediately who will give you full details.

On this Thursday February 23rd on TG4 the last interview with the Knight of Glin will feature at 10pm in a new programme “Who lived in my House” – should be interesting.

Congratulations to the young boys and girls of the Athea Foroige Youth Group who last week were very busy in the Hall kitchen cooking pancakes and dishing out teas, coffees and drinks to those who came along to support their fundraiser. Well done to them all and they were “a dab hand with the cooking” under the watchful guidance of Natalie Thornton and their leaders.

Best of luck to the Athea United Youths who take on Mervue (Galway) on Sunday next at 2.30pm in The Vales in the FAI Youths Cup. Please give them the support they deserve.