By Marian Harnett

PROLOGUE: EVERYBODY, SOMEBODY, ANYBODY, NOBODY.  This is a story about people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.  There was an important job to be done and Everybody thought Somebody would do it.  Anybody could have done it but Nobody did it.  Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it but Nobody realised that Everybody would not do it.  It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

LOCAL AUTHOR LAUNCHES NEW BOOK:  A new collection of short stories by Pat McLoughlin has just been released. The title of the book is ‘Just One More Thing’. Multi award winning writer, Donal Ryan, described the stories as “humane, empathetic and blessedly sincere; adding that the collection was a joy to read. The bod ok is available at ‘An Siopa Milslean’ (Mary Flynn’s), Abbeyfeale or online at www.limerickwriterscentre.com.  Like Pat’s previous three books all proceeds will be donated to local charities.

COFFEE MORNING:  Thursday, September 30 from 11-4pm at Mary McArthurs house on the road from Dillane’s shop to Mountcollins V94 ND17 in aid of Recovery Haven.

DOG SHOW AT THE PARK:  Sunday, October 3 at 2pm in the Town Park.  12 classes – 12 winners all competing for Best in Show.  Raffle, coffee and goodies from Busy Bean.  Enquiries to 087 27463999.  This is a fundraiser for the Town Park.

COVID-19: In Abbeyfeale we can accommodate up to 500 people for Mass. For marriage ceremonies the number of people allowed to attend is 100. In order to maintain safety, we suggest that no more
than 6 people sit in any one seat. People living in the same household may sit together. Stewards will continue to direct people to seating and we ask you to follow the
guidance of the church stewards, so that we don’t have a situation where people are all gathered together in one section of the church and other areas of the building are
empty. Those attending Mass are still required to wear face masks as we are in an enclosed area and all visitors to the church should continue to sanitize their hands.
Windows will remain open for ventilation purposes. As the autumn approaches and the temperatures drop, parishioners are urged to wrap up well.

Some seats will remain
closed off to help maintain some distance between people attending Mass. Any person with COVID-19 symptoms should not attend Mass. You should self-isolate and contact your doctor for advice. Now that we have additional capacity we encourage more parishioners to attend Mass in the church.

MICHEAL HARTNETT POET:   Thank you to James Harnett Undertaker for this very informative piece;  “ On September 18^th 2021 we celebrated what would have been the 80^th birthday of our late, great poet Michael Hartnett.   Michael Hartnett(1941-1999) is an award winning poet from County Limerick.  Although his parents’ name was Harnett, he was registered in error as Hartnett on his birth certificate. In later life he declined to change this as his legal name was closer to the Irish Ó hAirtnéide.  Michael grew up in a poverty stricken street in Newcastle West Co. Limerick. The eldest of a large family, he has one sister Mary and four brothers William, Denis, Gerard and John.(Two siblings also died as infants). Times were difficult for the Hartnett family, they did however receive some fortune when they moved into a house, in the newly built local authority development Assumpta Park in the 1950s.  Michael spent a part of his childhood living with his native Irish speaking Grandmother Bridget Halpin in the Newcastle West townland of Camas.(She is the subject of Michael’s Poem “Death of an Irish Woman”. Bridget Halpin was originally from Cahirlane, Abbeyfeale and her family name was Roche. Members of the Roche family still live in Cahirlane. The house in Camas is now owned by Joe Dore, a first cousin of the late poet. Joe was traffic warden in Abbeyfeale for many years.

Bridget also was the first person to tell Michael that he had a poetic vocation. He was educated in the local national and secondary schools in Newcastle West. Hartnett emigrated to England the day after he finished his secondary education and went to work as a tea boy on a building site in London.  Hartnett had started writing by this time and his work came to the attention of the poet John Jordan, who was professor of English at University College Dublin. Jordan invited Hartnett to attend the university for a year. While back in Dublin, he co-edited the literary magazine Arena with James Liddy. He also worked as curator of Joyce’s tower at Sandycove for a time. He returned briefly to London, where he met Rosemary Grantley on 16 May 1965, and they were married on 4 April 1966. His first book, Anatomy of a Cliché, was published by Poetry Ireland in 1968 to critical acclaim and he returned permanently to Ireland that same year.

Back in Dublin, he worked as a night telephonist at the telephone exchange on Exchequer Street. He now entered a productive relationship with New Writers Press, run by Michael Smith and Trevor Joyce. They published his next three books. The first of these was a translation from the Irish, The Old Hag of Beare (1969), followed by Selected Poems (1970) and Tao (1972). This last book was a version of the Chinese Tao Te Ching. His Gypsy Ballads, a version of the Romancero Gitano of Federico Garcia Lorca (1973) was published by the Goldsmith Press.

In 1974 decided to leave Dublin to return to his rural roots and his relationship with the Irish language. He went to live in Templeglantine, just five miles from Newcastle West and worked for a time as a lecturer in creative writing at Thomond College of Education, Limerick.

In his 1975 book A Farewell to English he declared his intention to write only in Irish in the future, describing English as ‘the perfect language to sell pigs in’. A number of volumes in Irish followed: Adharca Broic (1978), An Phurgóid (1983) and Do Nuala: Foighne Chrainn (1984).”