1997 Athea Junior Team
Halloween Disco
A Halloween Disco with Fancy Dress will take place on Monday, October 30th at the Community Hall, Athea from 6.00pm. Admission is €3 at the door.
Proceeds in aid of the Straight Ahead project, a medical support group affiliated to the CMRF which provides surgery support and medical equipment for children with Orthopaedic conditions including Scoliosis.
Athea Graveyards Collection
The Annual Graveyards collection will take place on the weekend of 28th, 29th October. Envelopes will be distributed to all households. The solar panel has been installed at the statue in front of Holy Cross graveyard this past week. This will mean that we will no longer have to pay ESB bills to keep the statue lit and will be a great saving on an annual basis.
Ladies monthly night out
The next night out will take place on Friday, November 3rd at Brown Joe’s. All the usual fun and games and the raffle this month will be for the organisation ‘Straight Ahead’ which deals with Scoliosis. So please come along for a good night out.
Going Strong Church Gate Collection
Will take place on Saturday/Sunday November 4th &5th. Your support, as always will be greatly appreciated.
Athea Parish Journal
Closing date for material for the Journal is October 31st.
We would ask all contributors, clubs, associations etc. to please send in their material, photo’s etc as soon as possible so that the Journal will be in the shops as early as possible. Photos and articles can be emailed to [email protected] or photos can be handed in to the office for scanning.
Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann
The local branch of Comhaltas had a meeting on Monday last to try and finalise membership and make arrangements for the future. The music class is up and running under the tutorship of Brian Scannell from Abbeyfeale.
At the moment we are trying to find a suitable slot for a traditional singing class The teacher is ready to start so we need to know how many would be interested . Please contact secretary Gráinne Ahern on 087 7527127.
It was proposed that we would have a Féile Cheoil in conjunction with the Vintage Day in Athea in July 2018. More details on that later. There was a good crowd at the session at Collins’ bar on Sunday evening last.
Our next session will be at the Top of The Town on Sunday December 10th starting at 6.30 p.m. with the juniors from the music class. This will be our Christmas party so there will be refreshments on offer. Don’t miss it.
Could anyone who has not yet paid their annual membership fee please contact Domhnall at 087 6758762 asap
ATHEA TIDY TOWNS
Our church gate collection was held last weekend before all masses. The fantastic sum of €1266.47 was raised exceeding all expectations. Many thanks to everyone for their continued support and generosity. Be assured the funding will be put to good use!
At our meeting last week, it was decided to unveil the telephone box on Sunday November 5th at 1pm. Our four local councillors who supported theproject (Councillors Galvin, Foley, Browne & Sheahan) will be asked to unveil the box. Fr Duggan will then be asked to bless the box. Refreshments will be served following the launch at the Top of the Town bar. We continue to receive many requests from individuals/families in the village seeking to purchase a sponsorship plaque for the telephone box. New sponsors added since last week include; 10.The Brosnan Family in memory of Eileen Brosnan RIP, 11. O’Sullivan Family, Glasha in memory of Paddy & Lizzy O’ Sullivan 12. Rose Enright, 13. Margaret Scanlon in memory of her parents Jack & Peggy Scanlon. Many thanks to all of our generous sponsors who have supported this project. We have extended the date for sponsorship until Wednesday October 25th so if interested please contact any member of the committee as soon as possible.
Jamie Kelly is currently busy researching and developing a heritage trail for the village. We look forward to delivering this project in the coming weeks.
Our TUS worker Tom continues to be busy completing work on behalf of Athea Tidy Towns. Tom is a pleasure to work with and his contribution is greatly appreciated. One project currently underway is the erection of a shed to the rear of the Library to house tools and equipment used for village maintenance.
The Roses on the Glin Road continue to be in full bloom. Special thanks to Sean Barrett for maintaining the rose beds throughout the year and for spending many hours of spraying, fertilising, dead heading etc. We are very lucky to have volunteers like Sean in the parish. Anyone else out there willing to ‘adopt a patch’ please get in touch!
Our group will be busy over the winter months planning projects for 2018 while responding to issues raised in our 2017 adjudication. We were delighted with our 9 points increase and hope to continue this trend in 2018. On this end, we will be calling on local residents to aid us in our work. The adjudicator praised many building in the village for their attractive paint work but also suggested that other building could benefit from a coat of paint. We would respectfully request householders to consider this request for 2017. We are lucky to have many artists in the village available to aid with colour choices for maximum impact. Also presently there are many gutters in the village that would benefit from weed removal. Working together, we can achieve much!
No Justice
Domhnall de Barra
Isn’t amazing how, all of a sudden, nearly all our politicians are on one voice demanding action from the banks in relation to the tracker mortgage scandal. Of course they are absolutely right but where have they been for the past few years while people’s lives were ruined by the ruthlessness and greed of the banking industry. If it happened in America there would be not just an outcry but swift action and those who made the decisions to defraud their customers would find themselves in jail. There is a reluctance in this country to deal with white collar crime. A poor woman may be sentenced to months in jail for stealing a loaf of bread but our financial institutions seem to be able to act with impunity, taking money illegally out of peoples pockets. Our answer to every crisis here is to have a tribunal. This will cost millions and line the pockets of the legal eagles and at the end of a lengthy charade nobody will be held accountable. We should have learned from the beef tribunal where the only ones to be punished were two ordinary factory workers in Rathkeale who were only doing their job. Those who caused the problem were fined but, after a while, the money was given back to them because we needed the exports. It is quite plain to anyone with half a brain that the financial institutions colluded with each other to defraud their customers. Someone at the top had to give the instructions to their staff to take people off the tracker mortgages they were on because it was costing the banks money. Why has it taken so long to force them to give back the money they stole? Why didn’t the Central Bank act earlier and nip it in the bud? There seems to be a small circle of people who control everything in this country. It is not a healthy state and one we would do well to tackle head on. Compensation is the first step, not just the money that was taken but proper compensation for the hardship and heartache that some families suffered. Some people who actually lost their homes can never be properly compensated. The banks should be there to serve their customers but the truth is they don’t give a damn about them. Their only aim is to maximise profits for the shareholders and put more money into the already swollen pockets of the CEOs. Look at the way they are treating day to day customers at local level. In Abbeyfeale you have to deal with a machine if you want to do business. You can’t deposit change or get your own money out anymore, you have to go to Listowel or Newcastle. It shows a contempt for customers who have been with the bank for years. Thank God we still have our local Credit Union. Let us hope that they will be able to for us in the future what the banks used to do.
It isn’t only the banks that are capable of taking us for a ride. Our own government is continuing to treat some of us who have paid, over the years, for our contributory old age pension. The regulations state that a minimum amount of contributions are required to claim the full pension. That is only right and proper but they then calculate from the first contribution date to the last spread over that period so the average contribution may fall short and the pension is reduced. One person can start work at the age of fifty five, make ten years contributions and claim a full pension at the age of 65/66. The person next door started work on the same day and put up the same amount of contributions but, because that person did a couple of weeks holiday work when going to college, the total contributions are calculated over the whole period and the pension id reduced so even though the second person has actually more contributions than the first, the pension granted is less. It makes no sense and should be remedied straight away. I am a victim of the system myself and so is my wife Noreen. We both had plenty of “stamps” up but because I worked in Ireland for a while in 1966 and Noreen worked in the early sixties as well, we are both on reduced pensions. Some politicians are making a bit of noise about it but I am not holding my breath at the moment. You would have to wonder though as to what bright spark thought up the system in the first place and what was the motivation if it was not just to save money for the government. This is not the government’s money, it is our money that we paid in over the years as an insurance to be there when retirement loomed. We often don’t think about that situation until late in the day but it is very important that people are treated fairly and that there is an even playing pitch. We live in hope.
While I am on a rant I might as well have a go at the big stores who are now displaying Christmas fare. We haven’t reached Halloween yet so what is all the rush for. We will now be bombarded with advertising and jingles for the next couple of months all in an effort to coax us into spending more money than we can afford buying presents for people that don’t want or need them and making sure that our children’s presents will be as good or better than the neighbours. December the 8th used to be the start of the Christmas market and it gave people plenty of time to do the necessary shopping. Christmas is a wonderful time of the year but when it starts too early we will be thoroughly fed up by the time it comes. It won’t be long until we see decorations on the houses and fake Santas climbing over roofs. A little common sense is needed here but when was that ever in abundance? Don’t let them brainwash us into following like sheep.