Dylan Griffin who graduated recently with a Bachelor of Business in Recreation and Leisure Management from CIT Cork

Going Strong Christmas Party

The Going Strong Christmas Party will be held on Wednesday, December 6th starting with Mass at 12.30pm (sharp) in the Top of the Town. Meal will be served at 1.30pm with music afterwards by Ger Connaghan. The cost is €10 per person and names must be handed in before December 3rd to Rose at Brouder’s Shop, Peggy Casey or Maireád Langan. There is a choice of beef or turkey for the main course so please state which you want when booking.  A great day is in store with music, song, dance and spot prizes galore. If anyone wants to donate at spot prize we would greatly appreciate it.

St. Vincent de Paul

The St. Vincent de Paul annual Church gate collection will take place on Saturday/Sunday December 2nd & 3rd. Your support as always will be greatly appreciated.

Christmas Street Lighting

A sincere thank you to everyone who supported our Christmas Street Lighting collection last weekend. The amount raised was €641.85

Gorta Self Help

Thank you to all who supported our Church gate collection at the weekend which totalled €593.40

The Three Tenors in Concert in Moyvane Church

On Tuesday 28th November, The Three Tenors will be in concert in Moyvane Church.  This concert will have a Christmas flavour to it as we begin Advent.  Tickets €25 available from the following outlets: The Flying Saucer Listowel, Holly’s Gala, Moyvane and The Post Office in Moyvane or The Parish Office, phone no. 068/49308.  Concert starts at 8pm sharp.

A limited number of tickets will be available at the door.  The proceeds of this concert will go towards the renovations in Moyvane Church.  Your support would be greatly appreciated.

A Blessing and a Curse 

Domhnall de Barra 

How time flies!  It only seems like yesterday that we were working on the last journal yet here we are, a whole year gone by. “The years go by more quickly than you think” is a line from a song that encourages us to enjoy ourselves now, while we can . I thought it was only me but, talking to others I know that I am not alone in thinking that the world is going around the sun a little faster each year. Every year brings its own changes, some good and some not so good. The advance of technology  has made life easier in some ways but it  also has damaging effects. There is an obsession with mobile phones and tablets, especially among the younger generation who are constantly playing games or engaging in social media interaction. Every detail of life has to be shared on Facebook or Instagram or whatever, in real time. In the past, if you wanted to read the news you bought a newspaper. Now, just click on to Twitter and the whole world, it seems, are expressing themselves up to and including the President of the USA.  Handwriting has become a thing of the past, a fact that is to be lamented. Teachers long ago were obsessed with handwriting and woe betide any poor pupil who strayed outside the  lines with their unsteady hands. Some people prided themselves on their handwriting. Going back a few years, most of the articles for the journal came to us written in long hand.  Some were almost impossible to decipher but others were a work of art. One of the best was Mairéad McGrath R.I.P.   We still have samples of her contributions and they are beautiful. The demise of handwriting is not the only problem. Through the use of texting abbreviations, many have forgotten how to spell properly.  Maybe this is progress and another chapter in the advancement of man’s behaviour. After all, nothing stands still for long. The language we use today is very different to what was spoken and written a couple on centuries ago but I, for one, think things are changing a little too fast. The phrase “stop the world, I want to get off” springs to mind. We have to be extremely careful about how we monitor social media. Just this morning, on the radio, I heard of a Dublin man, an employee of RTE, who had travelled to Leeds for a sexual liaison with a 13 year old girl that he had groomed on line. Unbeknown to him., a group of adults had set a trap for him. The young girl didn’t exist so when he arrived in Leeds the group apprehended him and called the police. He is now in custody. This is a middle-aged married man with a respectable job. What in the name of God have we come to? This is not an isolated incident. The internet has given paedophiles a golden opportunity to prey on innocent young people who haven’t a clue who they are dealing with. There should be some way of monitoring their online behaviour and putting a stop to them before they destroy young lives forever. The internet is a wonderful medium and I don’t know how we could live without it anymore. Through it I can talk to my family in Denmark and America while looking at them on the screen. I can manage all my financial affairs online and do my shopping for electrical goods etc.  If I don’t know something or am in doubt, all I have to do is “Google” it and the answer is there. Likewise with my music. I can get the notation and lyrics of almost any song at the touch of a screen and all this is free. That is the good side. There are those out there who are busy working out ways to scam us out of our money on the internet. Every so often I get an e-mail telling me I have been randomly chosen  to receive a substantial prize. Of course, to claim this prize, they want my bank details. I might as well send them a cheque!   Buying on line is also a bit of a lottery. If something looks too good to be true, it usually is. I recently bought a tablet on line at a very good price from a company called digitals.ie. It had a very good site and looked the real deal. After a few weeks with no goods arriving I began to do a little checking to find out that although they looked like an Irish company with the .ie they are in fact based in Hong Kong and keep putting off buyers with excuses of goods not being in stock. Because I paid with the proper credit card I was able to recover my money. Had I used the direct debit card my money was gone. So it is a “buyer beware” game. Those of you who have young teenagers, keep an eye on what they are watching if you can. They may think they know everything and we know nothing but we were all like that one time.