Members of the Athea Gun Club, who released 60 ducks into the River Gale on Saturday, June 26th. with Helen Barry, Batt’s Bar who has agreed to feed the ducks.
New Residents in Athea
There was great excitement on Saturday morning last when the Athea Gun Club arrived in Athea with sixty new seven week old ducks for the River Gale. Some locals were at hand to help and encourage the ducks to enter their new home. Many thanks to Athea Gun Club for gifting these ducks to the village. And no, further to queries raised, the ducks are not for shooting! Helen @ Batts Bar has agreed once again to feed the ducks, with help from our FÁS workers. We are appealing to residents not to feed the ducks bread as this is an unsuitable feed for them. It is hoped to have small bags of suitable food for sale in local outlets in the coming weeks.
Enjoying a drink after lockdown at Batt’s Turf Shed Pub, Athea.
Jackie Hanrahan, Kilbaha, Johnnie Hanrahan, Athea,
Mary Hanrahan Fox, Tipperary & Teresa Hanrahan, Kilbaha
St. Bartholomew’s Church, Athea
Mass Intentions next weekend
Fri July 9th 7.30pm: Patsy O’Sullivan (Toureendonnell). Mary Dalton and her parents Margaret & Patrick J. Dalton (Knocknagorna).
Sat July 10th 7.30pm: Jack & Josie (1st Anniversary) Liston and their daughter Mary Ryan
(nee Liston) and their son-in-law
Michael Quinn. Jeremiah Carmody.
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.
Baptismal Information Any parent who wishes 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
If you are making assumptions be prepared to be wrong, otherwise they wouldn’t be assumptions; they would be certainties. A person who is not well dressed and doing what may be termed a menial job may be assumed to be unsuccessful and not too bright but that person may be highly intelligent and values a simple life over material things. On the flip side a person driving a flash car, living in a big house with all the trappings of wealth may seem successful but in fact may have a very complicated life and crave an existence that is not so demanding and time consuming. A person clothed in religious costume may be assumed to be saintly and holy but we know that some are far from what they are expected to be. I could go on and on but I remember one really good example from a film recorded many years ago. It was one of the famous “Pink Panther” movies starring the great Peter Sellers as the bumbling French detective, inspector Jacques Clouseau who spoke English with an appalling French accent. In one scene he was booking into a hotel, somewhere in France. Manning the desk was a very old man with white hair and glasses who was busy writing in a ledger. On the floor by the desk was a little dog who looked harmless enough. “Does your dog bite Monsieur” inquired Clouseau. Without looking up the receptionist replied; “no”. Clouseau bent down to pat the dog who snapped at him and bit his finger. Angrily he confronted the old man shouting in a loud voice “I thought you said your dog does not bite”. “No Monsieur, he does not” came the reply. “But he just bit me” at which point the receptionist looked over the counter and said “that Monsieur is not my dog”. I thought it was hilarious at the time and I still find it amusing today. Life though can be stranger than fiction. I like to walk most days and once or twice a week I come down Church Road and in the Glin road as part of my route. At the cross I am sometimes joined by a little brown dog who follows me to the village. I have never given him any encouragement, in fact I ignore him completely but he still follows me. When I say follows, he actually runs a bit in front of me but unfortunately he has the habit of crossing over the road and back again. On one occasion he did this in front of a car that had to brake suddenly to avoid hitting him. The driver, a lady, stopped the car, got out and proceeded to give out to me for not having my dog on a lead. She pointed out that it was not only irresponsible but illegal and that she had a good mind to call the Gardai there and then and report me. I explained to her that the dog was not in fact mine and eventually she calmed down and drove off though I don’t think she fully believed me. I can, however, see where she is coming from and I fear for the welfare of that little dog so I appeal to whoever owns that dog to make sure he is not free to roam the roads, putting his own life and the lives of others in danger. If anything does happen, the owners will be responsible.
Continuing my walking experiences, I took a stroll on the new greenway in Abbeyfeale on Monday. It is now reopened from Abbeyfeale to Rathkeale and they are working on the line to Listowel at the other side of the station. They have made a fantastic job of tarmacing and landscaping the whole line with proper safety gates for farm crossings. It is a pleasure to walk on a surface that is like the top of a snooker table and no doubt will be well used by those needing a bit of exercise. The only complaint I have is that it may be too good! Up to now it was just a gravel surface that was fine for walking and suitable for ordinary and mountain bikes. It was great to see families out cycling together at a leisurely pace. Now it is ideal for the faster more sporty types of bike that are capable of very high speeds. I was passed by a few on Monday. All I heard was a “wooosh” sound that was so close I would not have had time to get out of the way. I fear for the safety of young children who have a habit of wandering out onto the track and may not be aware of a bike approaching from behind at high speed. I don’t want to stop cyclists from using this great facility but I hope they will be advised to use their warning devices regularly to alert others that they are about to overtake them. We need to be careful on all roads. Anyway, the track is there to be enjoyed and I intend to take advantage of it.
