By Kathleen Mullane
“Happy St. Pat’s”
Firstly to wish each and every reader both at home and especially abroad who read the Athea Newsletter a very happy “St. Patrick’s Day” and for some, no doubt, it will be a ‘weekend’ with some Athea lads travelling to New York for the occasion, and no doubt whenwe see the parade interviews from Dublin on Friday on RTE1, there will be a huge number of overseas visitors to our shores and isn’t it great. After all he is our Patron Saint – I think everyone claims to have “some drop of Irish blood in them”.
It’s also a great week hopefully for the Irish this week when many will travel to Cheltenham. And when an Irish horse and jockey win the excitement is unbelievable, moreover if they win on St. Patrick’s Day!
Well it’s going to be a great night in our church next Sunday night, March 19th, when the Comhaltas group, headed by Donal de Barra, will put on a great display of Irish music, song and dance. There will be many taking part e.g. Athea Church Choir, Margaret Carroll, Athea N.S. Choir, John Joe Tierney’s and Josephine O’Connor’s set dancers, Daisy Kearney, Athea Wrenboys and many more talented people. Special guest on the night is Nora Butler Swan. There will be a raffle and a bucket collection and all the money raised will help to send some invalids from the parish to Lourdes. There are also 3 of our youths going as volunteer helpers – your support would be greatly appreciated.
Also on Wednesday, March 22nd there will be a coffee morning from 9am – 1pm in the hall in aid of the Lourdes Invalid Fund. Again please give your support.
With threatened closure of many Post Offices and hopefully we here in Athea won’t be affected, we are asked to use our Post Office as much as possible for paying bills, dog and TV licences, getting your pension, buying 1-For All gift vouchers, the lotto quick pick and much more as if it’s seen to be doing good business we may be left with it.
Wasn’t it great on Saturday last to have a grand fine day which enabled the ‘Tidy Towns’ volunteers to get out and do power-washing, digging weeds, planting and a whole lot more – we all have to lend a hand and if you bring a bag with you when walking I’ll guarantee you it will be full when you get home. Our road here (the Glin road) is a “Red Bull” road every day, so many cans or you could call it another way – “A recipe for Diabetes Road” considering how many spoons of sugar it contains, not to mention the 15 spoons in all the coke cans!.
Sympathy is extended to Jim Flaherty of Blaine whose wife Anne was laid to rest in Holy Cross cemetery on Saturday last. Sympathy top her family, relatives and friends. R.I.P.
The grand launch of the DVD of the recent ‘Lip Sync’ battle will be held on this Saturday night at Brown Joe’s at 8.30pm. There will be a marquee and barbecue. No doubt the DVD will go like ‘Hot Buns’. It should be a great night.