Councillor John Sheahan and Ned Mahony at the Fair of the Village

Rosary

For the Holy Souls in Graveyards

Holy Cross – Sunday, November 27th at 12.15pm.

Con Colbert Hall Church Gate Collection

The annual church gate collection for the Con Colbert Community Hall will take place this weekend 26th/27th November. Your support would be appreciated.

CFRs AGM

The AGM of the Community First Responders (CFRs) will be held in the Hall on Thursday 01^st December at 8:30pm.  Everyone is most welcome.  It is a great opportunity for the public to hear of the group’s activities over the past year, new developments, and to ask about learning emergency life saving skills.

Athea Christmas Street Lighting Collection

A sincere thank you to all who supported our Church gate collection for the Christmas street lighting last weekend. The total raised was €660.50.

Athea Senior Citizens Christmas Party

Takes place on Wednesday 7th December at the Top of the Town Bar. Music by Blue Rhythm. Spot Prizes galore!

Dinner, Afternoon Tea, Song and  Dance.

All for €10 per Person! Names for Catering purposes to be given to  ROSE ENRIGHT – PEGGY CASEY – MARY O’KELLY or any Committee Member before Friday 2nd  December. There is a choice of main course this year, Turkey or  Beef so please state your choice when you give your name in.

If anyone wishes to donate spot prizes it would be greatly appreciated, they can be given to any of the committee members.

St. Vincent de PaulChurch Gate Collection

The St. Vincent de Paul annual collection takes place on Sat. 3rd/ Sun.4th December. Your support, as always, would be appreciated.

Different but the same

Every generation wants to do things different to the one that went before. They think that their parents and grandparents have made a mess of the world and they are going to put it all right. That is only natural and really a good way for the world to move forward. On the other hand, older generations sometimes think the younger ones are irresponsible, binge drinking, drug taking nutters who have low moral standards and should act a bit more like their parents did. It is just the way of the world and today’s teenagers are tomorrow’s parents and they will perpetuate the circle all over again. But are we all that different?

What are the young people doing today that we didn’t do in our time?  Young men in particular drive fast cars and like to do “doughnuts” in the road. The only reason we did not do that is because we did not have either the cars or the money to run them. If we had we would, I’m sure, do exactly as they are doing today. “Binge drinking” is a term that is frequently used,  especially with reference to the way young people “do” bars and night clubs. I would wager that, if it was properly researched, our generation drank far more than the young people of today. They only go out once or twice a week but, in years gone by, some people were known to drink all day. Many a man went to the creamery in the morning and had his first pint before most of the parish had their breakfast. You might meet someone coming from the creamery at three or four o’clock in the day. Bars were well frequented each night , not to mention at the weekends and a good time was had by all.  Not so different. The notion that we did not experiment with drugs is a myth. I already have mentioned one drug; alcohol.

The other one we succumbed to was tobacco. The other night, at a set dancing class, a birthday cake was  produced to honour one of the members. Unfortunately the candles on the cake weren’t lit because nobody in the room, and it was well crowded, had a match or lighter. In my day over 90% of the people would have been smokers. The reason we smoked at all is fairly obvious; it was the cool and manly thing to do. Hard to understand today but back then there were ads for cigarettes on the radio every day. Smoking was good for you. It relaxed you after  a hard days work and made you happy. All the stars of the silver screen smoked. The way they held the cigarettes was mimicked by the rest of us. Sometimes the ladies used  cigarette holders, the longer the better. Ingenious devises were created to hold cigarettes. There was one that  shot a cigarette from the box at the touch of a button.  There were different styles of holding the cigarette and blowing out the smoke. Some smokers became quite artistic and could blow smoke rings of various sizes. Yes we thought we were great and there wasn’t a word about the harmful effects of filling our lungs with dangerous substances that would bother us in later life. At least today, people are aware of the dangers of all types of drugs and the vast majority experiment for a little while and then give up. Of course there are some who end up on heroin or worse just the same as some drinkers are alcoholics. My point is; we are not so different after all. If the drugs that are there today were available long ago, we would have used them as well.

We all have to live with the temptations that surround us on a daily basis. The names may change over the years but the challenges are the same.  That is why I do not like to hear people decrying the younger generations. I have the utmost respect for them. They are, in general, a well educated, good natured, caring group who are a credit to their parents and their country. In the city slums things are different but they have always been different there. No fault of the young people who live there. They have little choice but to fall into the trap created by society, a society that has abandoned them.

I was in Cork recently at the graduation ceremony for my grandson. I felt a great pride in all the young people who were about to reap the rewards of their hard work at college and I looked around at the parents and grandparents who had made sacrifices so that this day could have become a reality. With such a talented population, surely our future is looking bright. Our schools and colleges are doing a good job but it all begins in the home and in national school. We are extremely lucky to have such a good school in Athea. Our young people are well looked after by the school and by the sporting and artistic organisations in the parish. Let us celebrate them and realise that we would have been like them if we had the same opportunities. We are not so different; we only think we are.

Domhnall de Barra

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By Kathleen Mullane

Bits & Pieces 

Sincere congrats to Maria & Pádraig Reidy on the birth of their first baby last week, a little boy they are calling Hunter. Good wishes are also sent to the proud grandparents Margaret & Paudie Reidy of Upper Athea.

Congrats and good wishes are also extended to Chloe O’Connor of Hillside Drive who celebrated her 18th birthday on Saturday night last in Killarney along with her friends and relative – all enjoyed the night.

I’ve been asked by my daughter Denise to extend a welcome to everyone to their Bank of Ireland enterprise weekend which takes place on this Friday, November 25th from 6-9pm and on Saturday, November 26th from 11am – 2pm in the Listowel Community Centre. This is a completely ‘FREE EVENT’ and is open to everyone including families. There will be over 90 exhibitors over the 2 days. After the opening welcome by Denise Mullane, Branch Manager, at 6pm on Friday evening – Gavin Duffy of ‘Dragon’s Den’ will cut the ribbon. Timmy Flaherty (grandson of Joan & Donal Carroll, Dirreen) & All Ireland fame will entertain with his banjo and Darragh O’Donnell of ‘Celtic Steps’ fame will give a ‘few steps’. There will be Cookery demonstrations, hat making with Aoife Hannon (Milliner) and a fashion display at 8.40pm with some familiar Athea faces!. The Ballybunion Choir will close the Friday evening event.

Saturday starts at 11am with the Listowel Church Choir, followed by Zumba dancing and Patrick O’Mahony of ‘Riverdance’ fame – Marc O’Shea and various sports stars will have a sports panel discussion – more cookery demonstrations from ‘Lizzies Little Kitchen’ and TV3 fame!

Entertainment from all the local secondary schools will bring an end to what promises to be a great enterprise weekend.

Also on Saturday there will be Face painting for the kids and goodie bags and entertainment for all the family. Again Denise welcomes everyone from Athea and the surrounding areas, (and you don’t have to be a Bank of Ireland customer).

We’ve been hit with a “cold snap” these past few days, but it’s lovely, dry, frosty weather and thankfully we have no earthquakes or threatened Tsunamis like they are experiencing in New Zealand and Japan. And having spent the weekend in London – I think we should be glad of our ‘open spaces’ and no running and rushing for buses and tubes – we haven’t got it too bad at all !

Peg Prendeville

Sympathies to Nancy Langan and family, Glenagragra, on the death of her sister Josie Leane last week.

A few Knockdown locals have been involved in Team Limerick Clean- Up over the past few years picking rubbish off the roadsides. So it is great to hear that  Team Limerick Clean- Up  has been shortlisted for a major award in the European Excellence Awards for 2016. The Awards celebrate their 10th Anniversary this year.

These awards recognise and honour outstanding performance in an extensive range of categories embracing organisations, companies and projects throughout Europe. TLC has been shortlisted along with four other European nominations for the Sustainability and Environment Award. The Award winners will be announced at a ceremony in Berlin on 8th December. This shortlisting is a wonderful acknowledgement of the great work done by the 13,000 plus volunteers throughout the county who have shown such commitment in making TLC an outstanding success.

A huge crowd travelled to the Gerald Griffins grounds last weekend for the Munster semi-final Junior football. Although our team did not win it was a joyous occasion and great to see so many supporters.

The whole country was sad to hear Gay Byrne announce last Sunday on Lyric fm that he has to go for tests for a “touch of prostate cancer”. Everybody wishes him well, I am sure. We all have memories of Gay Byrne whether on the Late Late Show or his radio programme. He has been such an influence on everybody. Back when I was a young mother at home every day I loved to hear his voice on the radio every morning. I never felt alone. Of course there were times when he exasperated everybody too with the various topics he had for discussion but whatever you say about him he was a true professional. I once had an opportunity to be in the audience of the Late Late Show (1995 I think) and it was nice to see him in such command of the whole show. He allowed me to say this verse which I had composed:

Hello there Gay, I just want to say

I’ve realised my life’s ambition

To get on the Late Late I just couldn’t wait

But I must make one confession.

Sometimes I get mad when I think you’re being bad

And I resent all the time that you waste

The day seems so long when I think you are wrong

And the topic is not to my taste.

But just for tonight I’ll sit back and be quiet

And proclaim you the greatest of all.

To all those at home, sorry you couldn’t come

But I’m here and I’m having a ball.

I liked this little snippet which was in the Ballyhahill Newsletter last weekend.

One day Buddha was walking through a village. A very angry and rude young man came up and began insulting him. “You have no right teaching others,” he shouted. “You are as stupid as everyone else. You are nothing but a fake.” Buddha was not upset by these insults. Instead he asked the young man “Tell me, if you buy a gift for someone, and that person does not take it, to whom does the gift belong?” The man was surprised to be asked such a strange question and answered, “It would belong to me, because I bought the gift.” The Buddha smiled and said, “That is correct. And it is exactly the same with your anger. If you become angry with me and I do not get insulted, then the anger falls back on you.