Helen Barry & Jerry Brouder, Duck & Swan Committee, with Stephanie & Cillian O’Connor and Julie Moloneu of Athea Playground Committee

Duck & Swan

There was a great night at Batt’s Bar for the monthly Duck & Swan Trad Session on Friday night last. During the night there was a presentation to members of the proposed Athea Playground committee of money raised at a previous session. Along with raising money for other charities, the Duck & Swan nights create finance to feed the ducks on the river. The sessions are on the second Friday of the month at 9pm.

Athea Drama Group  AGM

AGM will take place on Thursday September 19th at Con Colbert Hall at 8pm.

Community Council  Building development

Next meeting Wednesday, Sept 25th at Community Council office on Con Colbert Street.

Coffee Morning

The annual Coffee Morning, in aid of Milford Hospice, will take place at Con Colbert Memorial Hall on Thursday, Sept. 26th, from 9am  Your support for this worthy cause is greatly appreciated.

The Way I See It

By Domhnall de Barra

.As we approach an election we will be promised the sun, moon and stars by candidates looking for our votes. There is also a budget coming up and there is no doubt that a lot of money will be provided to curry favour with the public to maintain the status quo and keep the current coalition in power. This is not unique to ourselves, all democracies do it and, a lot of the time, it pays off. People in general are not overly worried  about things that do not affect them financially. This is very evident in America where almost half the population will vote for Trump, despite the fact that he is a convicted criminal, womaniser, liar and can barely string a proper sentence together. They feel they will be financially better off under his policies. It is hard to expect people to vote for any policy that will end up making them poorer so the promises will be made. There is a lot right with our economy but we are still playing catch-up when it comes to housing, health and infrastructure. We saw lately where a planning application for a data centre was turned down because there wasn’t enough electricity available to power it. This would have brought lots of good jobs and more revenue for the government so the question has to be asked, what is wrong?  There are lots of applications for wind and solar farms sitting in planning offices that will take years to get the green light. It is time to cut through the needless beaurocrasy and red tape. Why are we not using waves that we have in abundance off our coasts to create electricity like they do in Scandinavia?  We could be selling power to the rest of Europe instead of turning away projects that would be great for our economy.  Our roads are better than they used to be but we still have bottlenecks in towns that have not been bypassed. We need more and faster trains but they will also need to be powered by electricity as will all the busses and other public service vehicles. I was in Dublin lately and did a bit of driving in the city. It is a nightmare, barely crawling from lights to lights. Dublin should have had an underground rail system years ago. If I am visiting London or any other major capitol, I would not dream of driving because there are tubes and metros to take me anywhere I want to go in a fraction of the time it would take me to drive. Then we have the problem at Dublin Airport where, because of local planning restrictions, airlines who were going to create new routes will not now do so because of a cap in the number of passengers. This was introduced some years ago because it was feared there would be traffic congestion if the airport was allowed to expand. The roads around the airport have improved and are well able to cater for the extra activity but the prohibition stays in place and it will take a long time to fix it. In the meantime business and tourism will suffer. Our health service is cracking at the seams. There is something drastically wrong with peoples health. In days gone by the doctor was summoned if you were very ill indeed and if the “Croom car” was seen on the road people blessed themselves because it was feared someone was at death’s door. (The “Croom car” was our name for the ambulance then, Croom being the only hospital in the region.)  Now, every  doctor’s surgery is full every day and our hospitals are not able to cater for the numbers that require their services. This is not natural and it begs that question: what has changed?   Is it the processed food we are eating, our lifestyle, or the amount of medicine we are all on. Some people are blaming the vaccines for what is happening but I suppose it is fair to say that many would die if we didn’t have them. The biggest mistake the government made was to get rid of the health boards and create the HSE. The closing of many smaller hospitals to create centres of excellence has backfired and we could really do with their services at the moment. Enough has been said and written about our housing crisis. I know that we are playing catch-up after financial crash and the pandemic but our approach to housing has been all wrong. People do not need mansions of houses, what the need are modest terraced houses that will provide a roof over their heads at an affordable rent or mortgage. I have to laugh when I hear of semi-detached houses at €400,000 being described as “affordable”.  Affordable to who? There should also be an attempt to  move away from Dublin and create  business throughout the country. We are just a small island and with proper infrastructure, living in the country would be very desirable with much lower costs. Whatever party or parties form the next government, they will have their work cut out  for them. There art no magic wands and there may have to be  a little pain before we see improvements. What they must not do is try to please all the people all the time. It simply does not work. It is very easy to govern from the opposition benches but actually getting things done is not so easy when you get the reins. We can look forward to huge photos of smiling hopefuls beaming down on us from every pole along the road in the near future.

Isn’t life exciting!

Connie O’Sullivan and his uncle Patie O’Sullivan enjoying the farewell get-together for Fr. Tony Mullins at Con Colbert Hall last Saturday night

THANK YOU

The Keane family, Upper Athea would like to thank all the people who took part in the last search for Jack Keane a few months ago. Jack is missing 3 years since September 15th 2021. The family would like to thank Garda Denis McCarthy, Superintendant  Gary Thompson and all the Gardaí who took part in the search, also the Abbeyfeale Search & Rescue Team, all the locals from around Athea and the surrounding area. Also to Fr. Tony Mullins who came to the hall in Athea that morning to say prayers.

To the people who provided food and refreshments for the search party, Paul Collins for the sandwiches and drinks, Eamon at Brown Joe’s Bar and Conor McCarthy, The Kitchen, also for sandwiches and Mary McSweeney Ahern who provided beautiful food and cakes. To Sally and Jim Leahy for the use of their premises to serve the food, Mary O’Connor, Anne Scanlon and all the other people who contributed in any way

Thank you to everybody

The Keane Family

Mairead O’Sullivan from Athea who works at Brosnan’s Bar Listowel enjoying a break on Thursday afternoon.
Photo Moss Joe Browne

Athea Community Council

Lucky Numbers Draw 16/09/2024

No’s Drawn: 6,  7,  9,  17.  No Winner

Lucky Dips

Nora O’Connor,                Mrk. Park

Ellie Foley,                         Athea

B & A. Ambrose, Lower Dirreen

Tom Brosnan, c/o White’s Bar

Sellers Prize:  Lal Browne & White’s Bar

Next Draw:  23/09/’24   Venue:  White’s Bar

Jackpot €22,600