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Another Lightning Strike

13/12/2022

Last Sunday, once again, I received the lesson that one is very unlikely to record all of a particular thing – there always is the rick that one exists somewhere I just have not been before. This time is was the E.S.B. Lightning logo.

Castle Avenue in Monkstown was the road not travelled before. And there it was.

It has prompted me to put a webpage together of those that I have encountered and recorded - HERE

The Steady Hand To Victory

12/12/2022

Our conversational Irish walk was a bit puzzled yesterday.

Our monthly siúlóid took us through Monkstown Demense. As we we exiting the estate before heading back down Glen Road to the village, we tried, and failed to figure out the meaning of the words carved into the archways on either side of the road.

LÁMH FOIS TENACHABÚ

The archways facing the road read Monkstown Demense so it was not a translation.

Lámh Fois Tenachabú had us stumped – not too difficult for my level of Gaeilge but it had all of us beaten. Jerry did think it may have something to do with the motto for the estate – top marks.

Learning can be difficult enough – even relearning. But it definitely does not helped when the mason or letter carver sets out not to make things easy. The number of stones in the arch mean that these two options would have been equally easy to cut:

LÁMH FOIS TENACHABÚ

LÁMH FOIST- ENACH ABÚ

The latter option may well have been read as Lámh Foistenach Abú which translates as The Steady Hand To Victory. If there was an O’Sullivan among the group, we may have had greater success in interpreting as it is the motto of the O’Sullivan’s.

LÁMH FOISTENACH ABÚ

Monkstown Demense

A Headstone Jigsaw

9/12/2022

Written In Stone ≠ Forever

Last Sunday, a trip to west Clare, brought me face to face with a phenomenon new to me.

In the Church of Ireland cemetery in Kilrush, many of the headstones appear to be of local Liscannor stone, a lovely, dark and grooved stone. I am familiar with its use for hearths and paving. My graveyard rambles have not extended often to County Clare so I cannot recall seeing many headstones using this stone. Its proximity and availability most probably accounts for the number encountered last Sunday.

The main purpose of my visit was to view the Famine Memorial and shortly after, I stopped.

Initially it looked like pieces of stone were dumped on top of a flat headstone. More investigation suggested that a layer of the stone had delaminated. In doing so, the thin layer had broken into many pieces.

I really enjoyed Jean Sprackland’s book a few years ago. My copy has many hand-written notes – marginalia of sorts, being located in the blank end pages. One of these notes refer to the quoted piece which seriously impacted when I read it.

Jigsaws were me growing up. They allowed escape from participation and conversation.

I would so love the time and permission to assemble the stones – to ensure that the headstone is read, even for just one more time.

‘The surface of this headstone is breaking up into large, thin flakes, peeling away and exposing the softer layer beneath. In the damp fissure between the two, black mould has found lodging. The texture of the spalling stone is so unusual that I can’t resist reaching out and touching it lightly with my fingertips, and to my horror the phrase Loving Memory falls off in one piece onto the grass.

Sandstone is particularly prone to this kind of weathering, where moisture seeps between the layers; either rising, wicked up, from the earth beneath like drink through a straw, or hurled at the face of the stone as rain, freighted with windborne salt or acid. Sometimes the entire surface is sloughed in a single sheet, the stone underneath still bearing the shape of the letters and images carved through from above. A bad case of spalling can erase the inscription, like an attack of total amnesia.’

Jean Sprackland – These Silent Mansions: A Life in Graveyards

‘There are three deaths. The first when the body ceases to function. The second when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time’

David Eagleman - Sum: Forty Tales From The Afterlives

I read this quote first on a tweet by Louvain Rees . The book has been purchased and well thumbed. The quote more than once used in cards of sympathy. It also made it into the Examiner for my mother’s anniversary message. The quote definitely hit a home here….

If The Hat Fits …………. Stick It On A Picture Frame

28/11/2022

It is a long time since I even thought of the headwear of the Catholic clergy.

I do recall the Canon in the local parish church regularly wearing a hat that the other priests did not wear – a black Biretta if memory has not faded too much. The Eucharistic Procession would also show that the bishop wore a mitre.

What I did not realise until a couple of weeks ago is that there were/are quite a number of different types – and I did not see real hats, paintings or photographs to realise this, just picture frames.

I was deliberately early for a meeting which allowed me to stop in Maynooth and look for the Seamus Murphy statue of St Patrick. The directions I received were spot on and there he was inside the main door of the enclosed quad – once again a piece calling out to be touched.

It was only when I had touched and photographed St Patrick did I realise the paintings along the corridor. Then I spotted the hats incorporated into the top of the frame. And then, that not all of the hats were the same.

The corridor gallery brought me back to the Capuchin Cemetery in Rochestown, Co. Cork where I went looking for the Celtic Cross headstones made by Seamus Murphy for Fr. Albert and Fr. Dominic whose bodies were repatriated in 1958 – 23 years after the death of Fr Dominic who was chaplain to both Cork Lord Mayors who died in 1920, Tomás MacCurtin and Terence MacSwiney. But there was no sign of a Celtic Cross.

The graves of Fr Dominic and Fr Albert were marked with a cross – a simple cross just like all of the others in the cemetery. A friend did ask a member of the Capuchin community in Rochestown who recalled that some years ago, a Provincial decided that all priests and brothers were equal and should be recognised as equal. The location of the Celtic Crosses removed to make way for the uniform simple cross memorials remains unknown.

The principle of all being equal in death did not extend to the African Missions Cemetery in Wilton in Cork. It appears to have been introduced in Maynooth but not retrospectively – the newer paintings appearing to have no adornment on the picture frame.

I foresee that I will be in a rabbit hole in the future trying to understand the different hat syles and meanings……

Traffic was Cat

27/11/2022

One of the side effects of the policy of Ann Doherty and the team at Cork City Council to create near traffic standstill on MacCurtain Street is that one gets plenty of time to look at the buildings and also the cars in adjacent lanes.

In previous years, I probably would not have seen these cats – reminded me of Dingle.

Does 164, 165 & 166 get into Top 100?

27/11/2022

Yesterday I spotted that Siobhán Doyle was a guest on Donal Fallon’s podcast Three Castles Burning and it sent my memory recall in all different directions.

On a nice May evening, in 2018, we stopped with friends at O’Connell’s bar in Skryne in Co. Meath. As I was on driving duty, I explored the nearby cemetery, as one does, and the surrounds with the younger generation.

The numbering on the seating in an outside shed did have us puzzled for a while – this is the place where one remembers to turn the lights out, not on.

Returning to the counter, the barman did confirm that these timber planks, with their numbers, did, as we guessed, come from Croke Park – the old one that was demolished.

Christmas advertising is nearly a month old this year already but I do not think that I have yet seen this year the advert showing snow at a closed O’Connell’s.

I have to travel to a meeting on Monday and the Three Castles Burning podcast will be my choice of listening.

It will be a bit longer before I find out if the Smoking Room in Skryne made it into the Top 100 in Siobhán book – this being a Santa’s letter of sorts.

Josephine McCoy

27/11/2022

Yesterday, driving on the Back Douglas Road, I spotted the name of an as yet unfinished development. A U-turn was executed and I returned to what will be Josephine McCoy Mews. This had me intrigued.

Buildings, roads or structures named after females are not that common. If the sub-grouping of female saints is excluded, the number would be very very small.

I remember mentally screaming at the car radio about ten years ago when there was a, what proved to be successful, campaign to name the suspension bridge over the Dublin to Belfast M1 after former President Mary McAleese. Someone on the radio was saying that it would be the first structure named after a women, ignorant of the Cork footbridge erected in 1985 and named after Nano Nagle.

Mary Elmes Bridge, Rosie Hackett Bridge and others have followed since then – but the numbers are still so small that I did return and photograph what will be Josephine McCoy Mews. Heading onwards towards the Nursing Home, I did think as to who Josephine McCoy was and whether I had read of her previously.

As it transpired, I had actually stopped at the grave she shares with her (second) husband. John Borgonovo’s piece on RTE Brainstorm gave the answers – well worth a read.

“ – Aren’t Cork people funny all the same, I said. I mean like see that footbridge there, there are two footbridges along this stretch of the river. This one here was opened by Gerald Goldberg, Cork’s Jewish Lord Mayor, it leads from Goldberg’s office in the heart of the city to the Synagogue on South Terrace and on into the Jew Town of Albert Road; but the funny thing is that bridge is known locally as the Pass-Over. Then we have the other footbridge up by the Quay Co-op. It’s called the By-Pass, ya see Joe McHugh was the City Manager at de time dey were building it, and sur poor aul Joe had to go under the knife with his heart… de By-Pass, gas or wat?”

Passion Play – Cónal Creedon (1999)

Grey is the new Green…

9/10/2022

St. Luke's Cross - 2022.10.09

St. Luke's Cross - 2013.04.27

40 Shades of Green

Taking my morning coffee and croissant earlier today, I wondered as to the post box across the road at St Luke’s Cross.

It was definitely not the normal shade of green for postboxes – Emerald Green. This evening, I returned to photograph and suspect that the brighter green is an undercoat as the demarcation between the green and black is far from sharp.

‘In keeping with this, a circular was issued by the Chief Clerk, J. J. Coonan, on the 22nd February 1922 informing postmasters that
The Postmaster General of the Irish Free State has decided that in future all Letter Boxes are to be painted emerald green instead of P.O. red as at present. The words “An Post” in Gaelic characters should be inserted in yellow over the doors of the Letter Boxes. Black paint should be used for the bases of Pillar Boxes.’

The Irish Post Box – Silent Servant And Symbol Of The State - Stephen Ferguson

I suspect that same excuse does not apply to the wall box at Mitchel St in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary. The box is still open for use but is painted camouflage grey – possibly to fool the tourists…..

Julia M. Crowley – 1932

9/10/2022

R532 - Buttevant to Kildorrery, Co. Cork

This morning, I started filing away some of my photographs, a long overdue task. I got as far back as late July and this roadside Calvary cross on the Buttevant to Kildorrery road (R532). The filing of the photographs stopped as the vague recollections stirred.

Calvary Cross locations marked in blue

I was correct in thinking that I had another in the Grotto folder named Wallstown. Only when comparing the two did other coincidences come forth:

The majority of roadside grottos or religious statues are to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Calvary crosses are not nearly as common. When I eventually get around to populating the full database, I will be able to give the percentage but suspect it will be in low single digits.

1954 was a Marian Year as is regularly noted on the roadside shrines. 1932 is not as common – another for the database recording.

When plotting the crosses on the map, they are not very far apart.

They both mention Julia M. Crowley and 1932. She erected, or caused erected, the Calvary Cross on the N73. She died on 27th September and the Calvary Cross on the R532 was erected in her memory – interestingly, this one has statues of three others praying and remembering, whereas the earlier one does not.

Julia M. Crowley of Wallstown Castle has gone onto the To Find Out More list……

An Ríordáinigh & Me

22/9/2022

Earlier I was reading a blog post on The River-side about banned books and particularly, The Tailor and Ansty.

In it, the UCC Library included a photograph of what was Seán Ó Ríordáin’s copy of the book, which made me smile. Many years ago, I decided that my books were mine and it was ok to make notes and underline passages.

Not alone did Seán Ó Ríordáín do likewise – but we both made notes as to Ring- A-Dora.

Saint John Paul II

21/9/2022

I did stop when I spotted one of the side altar dedicated to Pope John Paul II.

Taking chill out and chill time in the Basilica of San Miguel while the dedicated shoppers did their thing, I was surprised that the first side altar on the right contained a statue to the former pope. I did remember that the canonisation of John Paul II was some years ago, subsequently checked to be 2014.

But my very limited religious participation has contributed to, since then my not hearing the words Pope John Paul II – hence the surprise.

Titanic

20/9/2022

This lifebuoy provided a source of discussion when awaiting our meal when on holidays a few weeks back.

Use It …………………………..Or…………………..Lose It

10/9/2022

A few weeks back, I learnt from Eoin’s tweet that his uncle’s butchers stall in The English Market was to close. I spotted the closed stall today and it confirmed once again that not all progress is good.

Stealing some me-time on our holidays, which started with lovely steaks from McCarthy’s of Kanturk, I did receive the task to get some chops for the dinner. I walked the main shopping streets in Tralee but could I see a butchers – not one. This is not surprising as in Cork, outside of the English market, there is only one butchers shop trading in the city centre.

Calling to the workplace of a friend, I received directions to a small butchers shop on the North Circular Road – Waddings. The only regret with the chops purchased was that I didn’t buy enough.

That morning, I got chatting with the two butchers on duty and explained that I did not want a prepacked meat. I wanted meat that was recently carved and open to view on all sides. I learned that, similar to Cork, the number of butchers shops had significantly reduced – trade lost to the supermarkets.

The Butcher's apostrophe

Waddings, Tralee

A few years back, walking on the slopes of Baurtegaum on the Dingle peninsula and meeting a sheep farmer, he told of times past when his family would have had animals ready for killing, a message was sent to the butcher who would collect the animal, cut and sell in their shop. Regulation has done away with many of the butcher/abattoirs but that morning I learned that Waddings believed that they were the only butchers shop in Tralee still buying full beef carcass and doing the butchery themselves – many others buying the joints and cutting them in the shop.

Local shops and newsagents have significantly reduced from when I was younger. I don’t think there is a tobacconist in Cork and only a couple of cobblers. Post Offices are closing. Recently, a chat with a few friends revealed that the many different insurance and life assurance brokers that we all used had all been taken over and subsumed into larger entities and contact is now with a call-centre-type set-up; personal contact and connection is gone.

Last year, an article in the Irish Times reported that ‘ It is one of Ireland’s great culinary treasures to have such a wealth of independent meat shops. And apparently it is a treasure that a new generation of shoppers is rediscovering.’ I do hope that the article spoke the truth. We do enjoy the fare from O’Mahony’s of the English Market but I do fear the future of mass produced sameness and blandness driven by the supermarkets, the mass producers and the regulators.

I do hope we take a turn on the road to the Brave New World………………

One of Cork's last Victuallers

P.S. Bresnan’s is likely to be the end of reference in Cork to Victualler???

Is Tinsmith just a memory?

9/9/2022

Coolcower, Macroom, Co. Cork - March 2015

Trawling through Twitter this morning, I spotted a tweet from Survivors Unite at Last in which she included a copy of her mothers’s birth certificate. This cert records the profession of her maternal grandfather as a Tinsmith.

Very many trades are dwindling in numbers or disappearing completely. Tinsmith is definitely in that category. Automation and machinery has had its impact, so too has plastic.

Tweet from @UniteAt

We busked around the market towns
And picked fruit down in Kent
And we could tinker lamps and pots
And knives wherever we went
And I said that we might settle down
Get a few acres dug
Fire burning in the hearth
And babies on the rug
She said "Oh man, you foolish man
It surely sounds like hell
You might be lord of half the world
You'll not own me as well"

Beeswing - Richard Thompson

The tweet reminded me of my journey west in early July. Just over Two-Mile Bridge on the Macroom side at Coolcower, the civil engineering works were well advanced for the construction of the Macroom- bypass.

But just as one cannot make an omelette without cracking eggs, serious muck-shifting cannot be done without some disturbance.

I stopped early that morning to record that another reference to Tinsmith had been cast aside to the memory banks.

Many, but not all, memorials (and grottos) have been relocated and repositioned after roadworks. Only time will tell if the memorial to Tinsmith Danny Hourigan is to be reinstated.

UPDATE 2022.03.08

Last Saturday, March 4th, saw me on the road to Baile Mhuirne. It was my first time travelling on the Macroom by-pass, the bit that is open at least.

Was good to see that the memorial to Danny Hourigan has been reinstated

Mark of the English at Collins Barracks

4/8/2022

A few months back, I attended a very enjoyable talk at Collins Barracks in Cork by Prof. Tim Hoyt as part of The Irish Civil War National Conference held by U.C.C. .

Collins Barracks was known as Victoria Barracks at the time of the handover, one hundred years ago. It was subsequently named after Michael Collins and retains that name to today. Gerry White’s talk at the conference on the handover is available online, 48:20 minutes in.

I learnt during the conference that when the British Army handed over the barracks, one of the last things that they did was to cut down the flagpole – seemingly this is always done when a stronghold is being vacated, ‘a long British Army tradition’.
Leaving the Officers’ Mess after the talk, I smiled that not all signs of things English had been removed. Looking down, I noted that the manhole cover was manufactured by Ham, Baker & Co of Westminster.

It remains, most probably ignored by the majority who pass by, on the southern side of the Main Square.

p.s.
I have previously blogged on the War Department, Board of Ordnance markers, which also remain.