Members of Athea Golf Society who held their AGM in the Library on Monday night .
Best of luck to incoming Captain Aiden Keogh (Centre front)

Athea Golf Society

The A.G.M of Athea Golf Society was held at The Library on Monday night last. There was a very good attendance on the night and everyone is looking forward to  good year’s golf. Nine outings have been fixed commencing with a trip to Adare on Feb. 25th.

Officers elected were:

Chairman:          Aiden Keogh

Sec:                    John Redmond

Joint Treasurers: Roger Ryan and T.J. Reidy.

PRO/Handicap Secretary: Domhnall de Barra.

New members very welcome.

Athea Drama Group

Athea Drama Group take to the boards with this year’s production “The Anniversary” on February 9th, 11th, 12th, 16th, 18th  & 19th of February.

Booking lines open.  087 6926746

Preferably by Text or Whats App.

The Countdown is on! Only 1 week to go! Get booking those tickets!

Text or What app 087 6926746

Athea Church Notices

Mass Intentions next weekend Sun Feb 5^th at 11am  Ned O’Keeffe. Michael Enright & Thomas Kennelly. Sr. Kit Scanlon (late of Dublin and formally of Lower Dirreen).

Ministers of the Word:  Mike Hayes & Margaret Cotter.

Ministers of the Eucharist:  Margaret Ahern & Eilish Geoghegan

Weekday Masses this week

Wednesday Morning (St. Brigid’s Day) at 9.30am followed by Eucharistic Adoration and the Devine Mercy Chaplet  and Friday evening (Feast Of Saint Blaise) at 7pm – Mass Intention – Nora Ita Hunt.                                                                   

All masses are streamed live on https://www,churchservices.tv/athea

Baptisms on the 4^th Sunday of the month at 12noon. Next baptism course on Tues Feb 14^th.

Parish Office: Mon-Fri 11am-1pm. Call 087-3331459 or email [email protected]

The Way I See It

By Domhnall de Barra

Times are changing at an alarming rate and, as each year passes, the changes become more noticeable. It is only a relatively short time since we started the Community Council weekly Lotto back at the start of the ‘nineties but, back then we had eleven pubs in the village and six shops, some with petrol pumps. Today we have three pubs, one shop and no petrol pumps. The farther back you go the more outlets and services there were  and I’m afraid that, going forward, we will see a time when Athea village will just be a place to live without any facilities. Even the Church is feeling the pinch. When I was going to school there was only one family that I knew of who did not go to Mass on Sundays and there were also two Protestant families who went elsewhere for Sunday devotions. It was a way of life and a very important event with people dressing up in their “Sunday best” to attend one of the many Masses, do a bit of shopping afterwards while the men had a pint and met the neighbours to hear the latest news. Only necessary work was done on the Sabbath and I believe we are all the worse for the change in tradition. Families were big in those days due to the lack of contraception even though many lived in small houses. I am the eldest of eight myself, born in a cottage that had one kitchen/utility room, two bedrooms and an attic which we called “the loft”. By today’s standards it was crowded and not very well heated but it was the norm at the time and we  didn’t know or want any better. Being the eldest of the family had it’s advantages and disadvantages. Unlike the ones that came after you, you didn’t have to wear “hand-me-downs” although I used to get clothes from my grandmother’s sister who lived in Mountrath. She had no family of her own but she adopted three boys and every so often a parcel arrived with clothes for me to wear. They weren’t new but they were new to me and nobody else around had anything like them. Being the eldest meant I was the first to do “jobs” around the house. Every day I had to go to the well for water with a gallon and a white enamel bucket. The well was down at the end of the field behind the house and it was necessary to brush the insects off the top of the water with the bottom of the gallon before filling the water into the bucket. That was a great spring and the water was as cool as ice and most refreshing. I am lucky to have the water from that well pumped into the house today. Another job was bringing in the turf. This was done with an empty meal bag known as a “half-sack”. It was easy to fill it up with turf in the turf shed, throw it over the shoulder and bring it in to the scullery. A scullery, for those of you of a younger vintage, was a little room, about twice the size of a phone box, off the kitchen where the water, turf and other essentials were stored. As I said, filling the turf was easy, or should have been but I had a very bad experience with it when I was about fifteen or sixteen. I filled the sack as usual but when I went to throw it over my shoulder I got a stabbing pain in the middle of my back. I had to drop the bag and crawl into the house to get a couple of aspirins. I got the tablets but I couldn’t reach down to the bucket of water to fill the cup so I had to eat them dry, not a pleasant experience. Eventually my parents arrived home and called Dr. McCarthy who sent me off to hospital where I spent nine days doing tests. I came out ok but every so often, ever since, the slightest exertion can trigger a back pain that will cripple me for a couple of days. It may not happen for a year but it could be twice a month so I don’t look back on the sack of turf with any great affection. Other jobs included feeding the hens and other fowl that were in every back yard at the time or feeding the pigs. My father always fattened six pigs for the market. Two jobs I hated were connected to the hens. Discovering the nest of a hen that was laying out and cleaning the hen house. The hens normally laid their eggs in the henhouse and it was easy to collect them on a daily basis but sometimes a hen would not lay in the house but would find a secret hide-out. The job of finding that nest was not easy. You had to watch the hen all the time but she knew you were watching her and would not go to her secret nest until you were gone to the toilet or distracted in some other way. The path to success was to not reveal to the hen that you were watching her and catch her in the act. This could take some time. The hen house had to be cleaned every so often. The hens droppings rested on the sop on the floor of the house and when this was disturbed a fine dust would rise that would suffocate you, not to mention the smell. It was also full of lice and other life forms. It was a great stimulant to growth as I found out later when the  hen house was gone. We had a garden of potatoes and when the stalks grew there was one patch where they were twice as high as anywhere else. That was the spot where the hen house had stood and of course the ground had been enriched by the droppings for years.  One job I did like was going to the neighbours houses, after we killed a pig, with puddings and pork steak. You would always get a few pence in each house at a time when money was scarce. I still think the taste of fresh puddings and pork steak is second to none but, I’m afraid we are not allowed to kill pigs anymore.

The Countdown is on! Only 1 week to go! Get booking those tickets!
Text or What app 087 6926746 
Feb 9th, 11th,  12th,  16th, 18th, 19th
at Con Colbert Hall Athea