Lily's Blog

Birdhill is a small village in County Tipperary, on the N7,

19km from Limerick.

Yet this small rural village with a population of just a few hundred, two pubs, a restaurant and a public park, has succeeded in winning the Ireland’s tidiest village for the last three years in a row.

If a picture can paint 1,000 words, then the following …

give you some idea,

of the beauty,

of this village.

All achieved through the hard work of a small community.

The local now dis-used co-op has been decorated,

with murals showing a very bygone time.

The 2009 results are just about to be announced.

Fingers crossed for …

My father died in 2002 at the age of almost 93. Had he lived, he would have been 100 on the 15th of this month. The other day, I heard on the radio that 22nd August was the anniversary of Michael Collins’s shooting at Béal na mBláth in 1922.

In 1996, Michael Collins became the subject of a film of the same name directed by Neil Jordan, with Liam Neeson playing the title role. My brother was an extra in the film, borrowing my father’s old heavy overcoat, a requirement for extras.

Later he brought my father to see it. My father, aged 85 at the time and who never went to films, very much enjoyed this outing. Having lived through the events of that time, he was very interested in the film.

As I said, my father was born 100 years ago. If one assumes a generation is approximately 30 years, then his grandfather was born just after famine Ireland. His great-grandfather probably lived through the famine. It’s strange how few generations we have to go back, to reach the famine.

I always think Irish hospitality is rooted in famine Ireland. We are just very generous around food. I feel it has become rooted in our genes, embedded in our DNA.

It was hearing of the anniversary of Collins’s death, that has got me thinking all this.

Now back to 2009 …

I am a blow-in to Limerick. When giving directions to our house, I tell people to turn left off the N7 into Annacotty village, take a left at the top of the village, at the statue, …

I know nothing of this statue other than it being of a hurler named Jackie Power and being an intelligent girl, (modest too!), this being Limerick and hurling heartland, I assume a Limerick hurler.

I find the same when travelling on all the newly constructed motorways. I’d love to know more about the various pieces of artwork on the road-sides. I recently emailed the NRA (National Roads Authority) to see if I could get some information, the NRA being the organisation with overall responsibility for national roads. The polite answer was no, contact the individual county councils! I feel a guide to road-side art would be great.

Anyway back to this post, I set off to search for some information on Jackie Power.

It appears this life-size bronze statue was erected in 1998 to this hurler, a native of Annacotty.

I learned that Jackie Power was born in 1916 and showed early promise in both athletics and gaelic games, going on to concentrate on the latter. Playing for the local Ahane club, he won his first senior county hurling medal at the age of seventeen. In total he won fifteen senior county championship hurling medals and five football with Ahane. Some record.

It appears Limerick hurling was going through a lean period at that time. Power only won two All-Ireland hurling medals. He did win various other awards; League, Railway Cup and Provincial awards during this time.

He then moved to live in Kerry and became involved in Kerry GAA. He later became a coach for the Limerick hurling team, winning the All-Ireland in 1973.

His son Ger Power has won eight All-Ireland medals for Kerry and his grandson Stephen McNamara has won an All-Ireland hurling medal for Clare.

In 1991 his reputation as one of the all time greats was recognised when he was presented with a GAA All-Time All-Star Award.

He died in 1994 at the age of seventy seven. Four years later this bronze statue was erected in his memory.

Limerick seems to be going through a similar lean period in hurling. They were very recently annihilated by Tipperary, much to Denis’s pleasure, he being a Tipp supporter. A joke doing the rounds at the moment is that an English company was brought in to re-sod Croke Park after the recent U2 concerts. Following Limerick’s defeat, the IRA released a statement commending Limerick for refusing to play on it!

I’ll be able to look at this statue now with a little more understanding.

I think we are to be good citizens and do as the government says …

Just not as they do.

The government ‘talks the talk but does not walk the walk’.

When it seemed all Southerners were going up North to shop, to avail of lower prices, we were told by at least one government minister that we should ‘do the patriotic thing’ and shop down south. There are many examples of the government and its agencies going outside the state for services, though these services are available within the state. One example is Fianna Fail bringing in a US consultant to develop their new website!

Again in the recent past, members of the government encouraged us to ’shop around’ to get the best price. Seems John O’Donoghue could have done the same and saved us tax payers money. Jennifer Bray in the Sunday Tribune recently gave examples – O’Donoghue racked up a massive €8,439 on car hire on a plush trip to Cannes, but local car-rental firm Avis verified that a Mercedes E Class could have been hired for no more than €1,055 for these four nights. We, the tax-payer paid €990 per night for his hotel when rooms were available in the exact same hotel at €280 per night.

O’Donoghue’s latest example of over-spending was his limousine ride between terminals at Heathrow airport costing approx €450, when the rest of us can avail of free airport transportation, which takes only a few minutes. The excuse trotted out is that ‘officials booked it’!

Another example is The Equal Status Acts 2000 to 2004 which prohibits discrimination on nine grounds: gender, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race, member of the Traveller community. This act applies in employment. This act applies in education. This act applies in your local pub. The broadest general exemption to the Act is for anything mandated by an Act of the Oireachtas or EU law. Thus whilst ordinary people have to uphold the act, the government has automatic exemption.

Sauce for the goose does not equal sauce for the gander.

Today middle mouse left for college.

I know he is following his dream.
I want him to go.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t miss him.

It was exactly the same when eldest mouse left. I was very sad after he leaving too. I’m looking forward to him (eldest mouse) coming home for a visit very soon.

I cannot contemplate how people left years ago, maybe never to return. I console myself with the fact that middle mouse will be home again (for a day) in a months time. I console myself with the fact that he will be home for a month at Christmas.

It’s spilling rain outside as I write, good – it matches my mood today.

As youngest mouse often says, normal service will resume.

Optimism will return!

Tomorrow.

On Thursday I had a general anaesthetic. There’s a lot to be said for taking a few breaths from a mask and escaping a potentially painful experience. I’d wager a bet that sales of a gas, which would allow people to blissfully sleep through the current Irish recession, would be fairly guaranteed. Recession gas. Imagine waking back up to 8% year-on-year growth!

Recently I read of a strange natural disaster in Africa. When one thinks of natural disasters, one thinks of earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, hurricanes, etc. One wouldn’t think of mass hypoxia as happened in Cameroon in 1986. There, 2,000 people went to bed and didn’t waken up the following morning, having been covered in an invisible blanket of carbon dioxide.

Lake Nyos sits on a geological feature called a maar, a low-relief crater in the earth’s surface. Underneath the lake, there is a zone of seismic activity which generates carbon dioxide. Occasionally a surge of gas escapes and cascades down the slopes which surround the maar. This is exactly what happened that fateful night. An invisible blanket, a few feet thick, enveloped the people and their livestock while they were sleeping. Because carbon dioxide is heavier than air, had the people stood up, it would probably have saved them. Much like doing the opposite to avoid smoke in a fire. The Cameroon government now bans people from living near the lake.

Last Wednesday was declared World Humaritarian Day by the UN ‘to contribute to increasing public awareness about humanitarian assistance activities worldwide and the importance of international cooperation in this regard, as well as to honour all humanitarian and United Nations and associated personnel who have worked in the promotion of the humanitarian cause and those who have lost their lives in the cause of duty …’

World Humanitarian Day brings attention back to the fact that Sharon Commins from Dublin and her Ugandan colleague, both Goal workers, who were captured in Sudan in early July, still have not been released. In a report on The Irish Times website on Thursday, it was stated that ‘Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has pledged to do everything possible to secure the release of two Goal aid workers missing for almost seven weeks.’

Years ago I visited Bangaladesh for two weeks while my sister was working as a volunteer with Concern. One can’t but be struck by the work done by volunteers world-wide.

Here in the western world we worry about recessions. In developing countries they worry about life’s basics; food, clothing and shelter.

Sometimes we just need to see the bigger picture.

Today I had to go to a small hospital near Ennis to have a colonoscopy done. I wasn’t really worried about having this procedure because I was very hopeful nothing would show up. It was part of a range of investigative tests being done.

The time on the standard letter said be there by 8am this morning. I rang yesterday and asked what time do I really have to be there and was told be there at 9.15. Yesterday afternoon/last night I had to take two litres of awful tasting colourless liquid. It was like lemon soap flavoured syrup. Two litres was hard-going. Very.

Anyway this morning feeling very slim (after all that fluid doing its work), but not brim full of energy, I arrived at the hospital. There I was checked in and a doctor did an ultrasound scan. He was quite entertaining and took me on a tour of my innards. Given I hadn’t been there before, it was very interesting. His comments were like, ‘that’s a fine right kidney’. I never really thought of variations in the look of internal organs.

After that I was shown to a bed in a three bedded room. I had no idea what time I would go down to theatre, but knew that the consultant met all patients after she was finished for the day, so felt it didn’t matter since no one would be leaving early. As it happened I was way down the list. I settled into bed and duly fell asleep. No ‘Sleepless in Ennis’ here.

Later I woke, listened to the radio, read my book and thought this really is a pleasant way to pass the morning.

At about 1, my bed and I were wheeled down to theatre and a mask was placed over my face. I woke later back in the room, but quickly went back to the land of nod. After an hour I was offered tea and toast, I asked any chance of coffee, ‘no problem’ was the answer. I really enjoyed that ‘meal’.

A short time later, I met with the consultant and she confirmed, colonoscopy was fine.

Went home and yet another sleep.

Now it’s eight o’clock, still a bit tired but sure I’m not going anywhere tonight!

All in all a rather pleasant relaxing day, though would only repeat it if I could do it minus the lemon soap!

One day recently on Grafton Street.

On the way up the street

A short time later coming back down

I was just waiting for him to bark!

An elderly woman who worked with us years ago, remarked to me one day, “Patrick (a two-year-old at the time) seems very bright’. She quickly added ‘well what would you expect, sure wasn’t Denis’s mother a teacher’.

So it seems it’s in the genes …

On the father’s side.

Yesterday I got an email at work from somebody congratulating John and jokingly asking me for the secret. I retold the ‘old wives tale’.

He quickly emailed me back to say, he was so relieved …

His children were safe, HIS mother was a teacher.

So to all you teachers out there, whilst your pay may not be assured, even your jobs may not be safe, it appears, your grandchildren are.

A chronic condition is challenging.

Challenging because it is just that – chronic.

Having a chronic condition has meant that since birth almost, youngest mouse has been attending medical professionals. Last week he and I were in the US for a review at the hospital where he had surgery five years ago. This was our second visit back since then.

There’s something about being away, which makes one take stock, so to speak.

Over the years, we have gotten to know a fair few medical professionals. Both sides of the pond.

Neither the health system in Ireland nor America is perfect. Both health systems are flawed, flawed in different ways. Obama has a challenge ahead of him as he tries to tackle the US health system.

Flawed health systems don’t stop some amazing professionals doing amazing work.

We have been fortunate, over the years, to come across some amazing professionals. Heroes in the health system.

So having time to take stock,

To those heroes, we have met, both sides of the pond,

A big thank you.

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