Congratulations
To Athea Ladies, Junior County Champions after beating Groody Gaels in the final last Sunday
(see write-up by Damien Ahern on Sports)
Comhaltas Christmas Party
Don’t forget the Christmas get-together in the Hall at 5pm on Sunday Dec. 17th. It will include recitals from the music and singing classes, followed by a session of music with lots to eat and drink. Everybody is invited to come along and join in the fun.
Cheque Oresentation
Mary T. Mulvihill and Fiona Roche presented a cheque for €17, 245.77 to Children’s Health Foundation recently. This money was raised by those who walked in Nerja, Spain in October.. Mary T. wrote:
“Thank you to each and everyone who has walked thousands of steps over the past 25 + years. You all should be so proud of your achievements. Happy Christmas to all of you.”
Fiona Roche and Mary Coghlan with the cheque
The Way I See It
By Domhnall de Barra
The ability to read is probably the greatest talent we can develop in our lifetime. Not that long ago there were only certain members of the community who had the ability to read and write and they were greatly valued but, with the advance in education, everybody now gets the opportunity to learn. Books were a big part of my upbringing. The first one I got was from my mother before I started national school. It was a picture book of animals and I remember being fascinated by the different colours, shapes and sizes. I knew the cow, the pig and the goat because I could see them in the local fields and we always had pigs but I had no clue what a sheep looked like not to mention lions, tigers, giraffes and all the other wild, exotic animals. Mom explained to me they came from far away lands so I assumed these lands were somewhere beyond Sugarhill, because that was as far as I could see and the sky came down behind it. When I went to school I began to learn letters and words and I was fascinated by them. I was lucky to have a really great teacher, Maggie Collins, mother of former TD and Government Minister Gerard Collins, who saw how interested I was and “fast tracked” my learning. She gave me extra work to do and I loved it. Every time I recognised a new word it was like getting a present from Santa. I moved on to books that had both pictures and words and I was quite happy until I saw my aunt Nora reading a book one day and when she laid it down I was surprised to find that there were no pictures but all words, most of which I couldn’t understand. My father used to get the Irish Independent every day and I used to look at the cartoons and strips in it. I got to know Rip Kirby and Curly Wee, a pig dressed in human clothes. They had words as well that I soon got the hang of. Then, of course there were the comics we got every Sunday like The Beano, The Dandy and The Topper. There were also cowboy comics with characters like Roy Rogers, who had a horse called trigger, and The Lone Ranger who, not only had a horse called Silver but an Indian side=kick called Tonto. They really fuelled our imagination and gave us endless entertainment, not only reading them but acting as them in the playgrounds. Some had toy guns but the most of us had bits of tree branches that resembled revolvers. “Cowboys and Indians” was the order of the day and we repeated the words we had read in the comics. We had no Idea what an American accent sounded like so the words came out in our best West Limerick brogue. I remember also getting my first book that didn’t have any pictures. It was called “Gulliver’s Travels” and was a Christmas present from my aunt Nora. It took me a while to get used to it and to find the meaning of some of the bigger words but it fuelled my imagine with the tales of the people in the countries he visited. One place had tiny people and another had giants and I was hooked on books from then on. Books are the best medium for telling a story because they stimulate the mind and fuel the imagination. Today everything comes with all the bells and whistles and there is nothing left to visualise. This is especially true of films where we can see and hear everything. Listening to a play or story on the radio gives us the sounds of voices and we have to make up our own minds about the appearance and bearing of the characters. When reading a book you have to visualise in your own mind the characters, what they look like and what they sound like as well as their surroundings. This really good exercise for our brains and could be instrumental in our mental well being, as they say “use it or lose it”.
Doing crosswords is another great way of keeping the mind active. Readers of this newsletter will know that I am a crossword fanatic and love both setting them and solving them. As I mentioned before, my father bought the Independent every day and he used to do the Simplex crossword when he came home at night. I was in secondary school at this stage and I would be doing my homework, waiting for him to go to bed , for two reasons. Like all the other young fools I had started smoking at the time so when my father went to bed, leaving his coat over the back of a chair, I would go to his pocket and get a cigarette out his packet of Players. Sometimes I would be in hard luck because if there were only a few cigarettes left I could not take the chance that he wouldn’t miss one the following morning. Then I would find the crossword and try to fill in ant clues he hadn’t answered. Sometimes he would have them all done so I would take a look at the cryptic crossword on the same page. At first I could not make hog nor dog of them until one night I spotted a way of solving the clue and that started me off “thinking outside the box” as it were, to find answers. A good setter of cryptic crosswords will try to send you down the wrong path and make use of language in a different way. Things aren’t always what they seem. One of the best cryptic clues I ever saw was “a number of fingers”, five letters. Immediately you would think of eight because we have eight fingers and two thumbs and maybe you got another word that gave you the last letter T but you would be wrong. The answer was “frost” because it would make your fingers numb. I try to do the Irish Times crossword every morning but I very seldom finish it in one sitting. It may be hours later that I find an answer that was eluding me and sometimes I never get it but there is great satisfaction in beating the setter in a game of wits. We need to keep our minds active and , to my mind, there is no better stimulus than reading a good book so, if you are looking for a present for the person who has everything, why not give them a book or a book token. Who knows, you might get them hooked.
Church Notices
Ide Naofe Pastoral Area (Athea, Abbey Feale, Mountcollins, Templeglantine and Tournafulla).
Canon Tony Mullins 087 2600414, Fr. Willie Russell 087 2272825, Fr. Denis Mullane 087 2621911 and Fr Dan Lane 087 2533030 (retired).
Baptism Information: Next baptism date is Sunday December 17th at 12 noon and on the fourth Sunday of the month thereafter. Contact parish administration for details.
Parish Administration: Tues-Fri 11am-1pm. call Siobhan on 087-3331459, outside these hours
text or email [email protected]
Mass Intentions
Sat Dec 16th 11am – Ann O’Keeffe (months mind). Sun Dec 17th 11am – Anniversaries.
John Dalton. Hannah & Ned Quinn. Mike Hayes. Tommy Kelly and his parents Jack & Mary Kelly and his brother Denis. (All masses are streamed live on https://www.churchservices.tv/athea)
Outdoor Advent Wreath at St. Bartholomew’s Church We would like to extend a special welcome to families and children and every member of our community to join us on Sunday evening next, outside the church at 5pm to light the third candle on our advent wreath.
Creamery Reunion
Left:
Reunion of members of the staff of Athea
Creamery.
Patie Sullivan, Anthony Hunt, Nora Barry (Fitzgerald), Rosie Collins (Nolan), Mary Stack (Brouder)
Thady Woulfe and Sean Barrett
Going Strong Party
