Jerry Brouder & Ned Mahony celebrating Tom Mahony’s Birthday recently Vaccination at O’Riordan’s Pharmacy
O’Riordan’s Pharmacy are delighted to announce that we will be vaccinating people against the Covid 19 virus, hopefully by the end of this week (18 June) or early next week depending on delivery. We are only allowed vaccinate ANYONE OVER 50 WHO HAS NOT RECEIVED ANOTHER COVID VACCINE at present. This will probably change as the vaccination roll out progresses. The vaccine we are getting is the Janssen or Johnson & Johnson one shot vaccine which does not require a booster. Please phone the shop to book an appointment 068 42418. We will need your PPS number, Eircode and date of birth.
Community Council Lottery to Resume
The weekly “Lucky Numbers” Lottery, which finances the operations of Athea Community Council including the local CE scheme, is set to resume after a lapse of over 12 months. As this is our only means of creating income we are appealing to people who might be away from home or who don’t visit the village regularly to support our efforts by investing in a yearly or six monthly ticket. Just pick four numbers between 1 and 32 from the form below and send to Athea Community Council Ltd, Athea, Co. Limerick.
Your support will ensure the continuation of the work that has made Athea such a great place .
Glórach Strikes Back
Glórach Theatre, Abbeyfeale hosted a most enjoyable Drive-In Bingo at the GAA Car Park, Abbeyfeale on Sunday, 13th at 2pm.
People remained in their vehicles throughout other than to access the Club House toilet facilities.
Glórach will continue to host a Sunday Drive-In Bingo at the GAA Car Park throughout the Summer months, when a minimum of €3,100 is paid out to our lucky winners every Sunday.
Why not join us and try your luck – IT COULD BE YOU!
NOONAN’S CHRISTMAS LIGHTS
Tony Noonan was in touch with the great news that despite Covid and the lockdown Noonan’s Lights still raised €9,872. 00 for charity in 2020. Tony, Hannah and Siobhán would especially like to thank all the National schools for their welcome and their contributions. They’re planning to be back bigger and better than ever in 2021.
St. Bartholomew’s Church, Athea
Mass Intentions next weekend
Fri June 18th 7.30pm Ann & Martin Denihan and Joe Brouder.
Sat June 19th 7.30pm: Patsy & Margaret Broderick and their daughter Eileen.
Sun June 20th 10.30am: Michael Haslam –First Anniversary.
Margaret (Maggie) Cummins – Month’s Mind.
All masses and funeral masses are live streamed on the Church Services TV network via the following link https://churchservices.tv/athea
The Church is open daily for private prayer. If you wish to book an anniversary mass, a wedding or get a mass card signed please contact Fr. Brendan on 087-0562674 or Siobhán on 087-2237858.
Prayers for the deceased
Your prayers are requested for the following.
Catherine Forde (nee Hayes), native of Glenagragra Glin & Dirreen Athea – niece of the late Buddy Furey and daughter to the late John & Josephine Hayes of Dirreen, Athea.
Virtual Pilgrimage to Lourdes 2021
For the second year, due to the restrictions in place, we cannot have the usual pilgrimage to Lourdes this month. Lourdes holds such a special place in our hearts and this year Fr Frank and his committee have created a virtual pilgrimage for us. Each pilgrimage session will be broadcast on our Diocesan Facebook page through our Diocesan website.
If you would like your petitions to be included at Masses during our virtual pilgrimage please email them using this email address: [email protected]
Baptismal Information:
Any parent wishing to baptise their child must have the baptismal course completed – for further details please contact Theresa on 087 1513565.
Course Dates: Tues 13th July/ Tues 10th August.
The Way I See It
By Domhnall de Barra
There was a touch of “egg on your face” in political circles at home last week. A Fianna Fáil member accused Sinn Fein of using volunteers and students to go from door to door, pretending to be from a polling company that did not exist, asking householders to fill out sample ballot papers. Sinn Féin admitted that it had been the practice but that it had stopped some years ago. Of course the media got on to it straight away and made a big deal out of it but, low and behold, the other two big parties suddenly put their hands up and confessed that they too had used the same method of polling in the past. The media kept the story alive trying to make a difference between those who pretended to be from a polling company and those who did not. It was all a storm in a tea cup. The reality is that all political parties take polls before elections. The ones with money use professional companies that don’t come cheap so it is no wonder that volunteers or low cost students were used in days when the coffers weren’t so healthy. There was much made of the “deception” tactics of those with the fake companies but what difference did it make? The person at the door was asked to fill out a sample ballot paper. It was up to them if they wanted to or not. The data provided would have been useless to anyone except political parties and it didn’t make one bit of difference what company or any the pollsters represented. It is the summer time and we can look forward to more stories like this as we enter the silly season. There was no need for such actions long ago as everybody knew what political party everybody else belonged to. I once had the privilege of listening to two party activists discussing a particular area before a general election. The conversation went like this. “He’s alright, he’s one of ours”. “What about the Casey’s”?(fictional name). “they are the other crowd always but Mick is back from England and he is a bit of a rebel and might be worth talking to”. Tom Donoghue would be ours but, blast him, he mightn’t go to vote.” “Make sure a car is sent for him so”. There was no need for pollsters at that time but I suppose things were a little more black and white in those days with the civil war parties commanding 90% of the votes in most rural areas. There were no big posters on every available pole either and the main means of communication was the after Mass speech. This would take place outside the church gate as people emerged from Mass. It was a good means of addressing the voters as 99% of the population attended the Masses on Sundays. Candidates for election and political dignitaries would shout through megaphones extolling the virtues of the party and promising all sorts of goodies if they won the election. Roughly half the crowd would be from the opposing party so a lot of bantering and heckling went on. To be honest, it was great entertainment and a bit of fun for us youngsters. I remember one time watching a group get ready outside the church in Abbeyfeale. Everything was set to go and as the church doors opened, a visiting TD took the mike and began to orate. One of the local members pulled him by the coat and said “take your time, that is only the Communion crowd”, referring to practice of some of the men who stood at the back of the church to leave as soon as the priest started to give out Communion. On another occasion a speaker who had trouble pronouncing Ps was responding to a jibe from someone in the crowd that he had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth and didn’t understand ordinary people’s problems. He said “I am not a rich man, as a matter of fact I am a peasant and all my people were peasants” (which sounded like “pheasants”). A wag in the audience shouted back at him; “come down out of that and don’t be making game of yourself”. Getting the people to come out and vote was another problem so cars were dispatched all over the area to bring voters to the poling stations. Some people, who wanted to remain unlabelled as it were, did not like to be seen in a particular party’s car but others took great pride in it. One man, who lived near me would go to the school, which was the polling station, in a Fianna Fáil car and then vote Fine Gael!. It took them years to find out they were being hoodwinked.
Today there will be a demonstration, outside where the Dáil is meeting in Dublin by people from Donegal and Mayo whose homes are falling apart due to the use of blocks affected by Pyrite and Mica. There is a scheme offering 90% of the cost of rebuilding but they want 100%. I have every sympathy with those who are affected by this problem but I have difficulty seeing how it is the government’s fault. If contaminated material was used, surely it is the companies who built the homes that are culpable. I have the same feeling about other redress schemes. How can the government of today, who weren’t in power at the time and had nothing to do with what happened decades ago, be held responsible and expected to pay out millions of Euros in compensation? People think government money is free but it is not. It is your money and mine that has been raised in taxes and there has been a huge drain on finances in recent times with the bank collapse and the pandemic payment which. Incidentally, we have to borrow to facilitate. There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow to pay for every ill in the state. We are , as they say, where we are so maybe it would be the best thing if we paid for the Pyrite and Mica problem and compensate those victims of the mother and baby homes and industrial schools and then draw a line under the whole process. We simply cannot afford it and it would not be fair if future generations were saddled with the bill for some misdemeanours committed today that will later be uncovered.
Delighted to see that Diarmuid O’Riordan’s Pharmacy will be administrating the vaccination for Covid beginning next week. It is a great opportunity for those over 50 who still haven’t got the jab to do so and avoid having to travel to Limerick, or even further afield if there is racing on. The more people that are vaccinated, the nearer we are to a return to normal life.