I extend sincere sympathy to the Lynch and Mulvihill families on the death of Peg Mulvihill, Blaine Bridge Athea during last week. Peg had a short illness and departed this life at a relatively young age. May she rest in peace.

Congratulations again to Gearoid Brouder who, this week, eight days after riding his second winner at Leopardstown, took his tally to three at Limerick when winning the Online Packages Handicap on Conan’s Rock. Nana Mary is delighted with him.

I am very impressed with “Local Living”, a magazine produced by Ballyhahill National School as part of the Junior Entrepreneur Programme. It was launched by John Sheahan at the school last Friday. The design and layout is brilliant and it contains an awful lot of useful information about our neighbouring parishes as well as our own. It highlights all our local businesses, which gives us a sign of hope for the future. Well done to all involved. It is on sale for €5. Buy it!

Thanks to my good friend George Langan for the following interesting bit of news. George says “ Wasn’t there a sense of pride on hearing President Michael D. Higgins mention one of our own fighting Irish when addressing the House of Commons last week. I refer to no other than Tom Kettle MP whose grandmother was one of the McCoy’s from Ballyhahill. I don’t know who drew up Michael D’s speech, maybe he had an input into it himself, he being an avid historian but it was moving to say the least. In addition I would like to add a few extra words quoting the great patriot himself who lost his life at the battle of the Somme in September 1916. Five days before he was mortally wounded he wrote the following lines in a letter home to his little daughter in Ireland, describing the soldiers going into battle he said ‘ Not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor, but for a dream born in a herdsman’s hut and for the secret scripture of the poor.’ and as Michael D alluded to – ‘Kettle died as an Irish patriot, a British soldier and a true European.

He understood that to be authentically Irish we must also embrace our European identity. It is an identification we proudly claim today, an identification we share with the United Kingdom, with whom we have sat around the negotiating table in Europe for over 40 years. We recognise that it has been in that European context of mutuality and interdependence that we took the most significant steps towards each other’.” Good man George for your research. I often ring George when I want some detail on an item of local interest and he never lets me down. He has a lot of stuff recorded for future generations. 

Wishing all readers a very Happy Easter. It is lovely to see the sunshine this week.