by Peg Prendeville

It is almost three years since Jim got his stroke. Imagine three years of not being able to engage in a conversation! Both of us have since been postponing a Respite Break. But the time has come. It is another milestone in our life story so this week we took the plunge and now Jim is away for two weeks. We will see how it goes.

Don’t forget that there is a Craft Fair in Ballyhahill Hall this coming Sunday November 26 at 1pm. It has been a few years due to Covid since there has been a fair so it should be a great day for meeting up with people and seeing their produce.

At last week’s Rambling House in Ballyhahill Tom Moore asked me if I could write a poem on the decline of rural villages and so I took up the challenge as follows:

Village Decline

The sound of the anvil as one entered the village

The rattle of milk tanks on the cobbled street

The hum of the chatter from farmers around

The women in shawls, big boots on their feet.

These are the scenes from an age long ago

When our local villages were so full of life

Alas those days we’ll not see anymore

As our villages now are lonesome and quiet.

There once was a time when each door was open

Trading in groceries, hardware and more

Dressmakers and tailors and butchers were thriving

Each door was wide open, each building a store.

There were no big supermarkets but one lacked for nothing

As each little shop had all one would need

Thimbles and knitting needles or brown bags of sugar

Shoe polish or wellingtons or some turnip seed.

The arrival of motorcars soon brought some changes

As people got excited and travelled to towns

Where the shops were much bigger and seemed to be brighter

And more of a choice and a flavour were found.

Soon along came the buses who gathered all peoples

Picked them up at their doors and drove on for miles

Sure it looked like great progress as they chatted and bantered

But their local shopkeepers were left without smiles.

Now our shops are all closed down and our villages sleepy

And gone too is the banter and buzz of it all

Never more will we hear the sound of the anvil

Or the chop of the cleaver at the butcher’s stall.

There’s no-one about now to tell or hear a new story

Walking the street can be dreary and cold

With no doors wide open for someone to talk to.

Our progress has backfired! My story is told.

Peg Prendeville