By Peg Prendeville

We older people sometimes think of the youth of today in a less than complimentary manner but we  do them a disservice. The world is safe in their hands. I’ll tell you of my experience. Since Jim got his stroke he obviously cannot do all the maintenance jobs he did in the house and garden and I haven’t the strength to do all of it either. So I was delighted to see that a young man from Glin, Cian Hogan, was advertising “property maintenance”. I was more than delighted when I realised that Cian is a grandson to Mikey O’Connor from Glenagragra. So I contacted him to enquire if he did hedge cutting, gutter cleaning and power-washing. He does. So last Saturday morning at 7.30 Cian and Lee and Danny and Colm, all young men 18/19 years old landed into the yard with all the equipment that was needed. By the end of the day the yard and lawns and hedges and gutters were shiny clean. They worked all day long without causing any disturbance to anyone. It did my heart good to watch their energy and enthusiasm for work. They are a credit to their parents and grandparents. So you know where to go if any of you want such work done. Call Cian on 083-0034409.

We are into the middle of May already. The 17^th May always stands out in my mind. The Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 17 May 1974 were a series of co-ordinated bombings in counties Dublin and Monaghan. Three bombs exploded in Dublin during the evening rush hour and a fourth exploded in Monaghan almost ninety minutes later. They killed 33 civilians and injured almost 300.  There is a personal story behind this for my family. My sister Helen and I were working in Dublin at that time; it was a Friday evening we were coming home for the weekend by train and my father was expecting us. We were just getting onto the train in Heuston station when word came through that there was a bomb in the city centre. Meanwhile at home Dad heard about in on the news and was hoping we were not caught up on it. No mobile phones that time! No phones at all. Dad had been working on the Kerryline with the Co. Council that day as they were tarring the road back around Glasha I think. Around 7 pm there was a knock on Dad’s door and when he opened it two guards were standing there. My younger sisters, who were at home with him, said they never saw anybody to go so white and Dad barely got the words out “They’re gone, are they?” thinking that my sister and I had been killed in the bombs. The poor man nearly died but all the guards came to tell him was that some of the lamps on the road that had been left there after the tarring weren’t lighting or some such trivial problem! It was the only time the guards ever came to our door in all the years! I still feel sorry for my father getting such a fright. Anyway we landed safely home later. It turned out also that that my working colleague Jim, now my husband, had just passed by the place in Parnell St. where one of the bombs blew up. He had a narrow escape. So the 17th May is a topic of conversation every year!

Ballyhahill Rambling house this Wednesday is a better reason to remember the 17^th May.