Blog Archives - Reading the Signs

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A Few Good Men

31/8/2014

If you are near Mullingar, Ennis or Kilkenny, I strongly recommend a visit to the theatre.

Having read the recommendation on 40 Shades of Life, we took ourselves off to The Everyman last night. We were too late in looking for tickets for Ballyturk. I suspect that there are few in Cork who will attend two plays in one week so expect that there are very many who lost out by missing ‘A Few Good Men’.

The delivery of the actors was deserving of a much larger audience. If we had attended earlier than the closing night in Cork, very many would have been encouraged to attend.

Even though we had both seen the film, the script was compelling. The interval was at 9.15 and came too soon.

The production is by Keegan Theatre Company and it is a large cast.

The standing ovation was so well deserved.

One of the Everyman staff spotted me photographing the poster and asked if I would like it. It awaits a good wall space.

Let Us Spray

30/8/2014

Denis The Menace

I spotted this in the Crawford School of Art when I visited last week as part of the Heritage Open Day.

I hope that the effect of bringing a smile to my face is repeated elsewhere.

Republican Monuments of North Kerry

29/8/2014

My ‘To Do’ List has got longer.

I am a big fan of National Heritage Week. On many days there are so many things on that I have to miss something that I might otherwise attend. That cannot be a bad complaint.

Last Saturday, I managed to visit eight of the buildings on the Heritage Open Day and would have liked to have visited even more – a very enjoyable day.

Last night, I took a spin to Listowel for a great talk by Tom Horgan on Republican Monuments in North Kerry. I did manage to stop and photograph three monuments myself on the way there, outside Kanturk, in Newmarket and in Rockchapel as well as a few other gems.

As you may have noticed from the posts and the pages here, I am interested in things that are on public display in many areas but we tend not to know how many there actually are – this has prompted me to stop and photograph the likes of grottos, roadside death commemorations, postboxes, as well as memorials to War of Independence/Civil War.

Last night reinforced what I said last week that I definitely need to upload and catalogue all of the photographs that I have of the monuments.

Last night educated me as to the locations of very many more monuments and plaques to be photographed and recorded – whenever I can programme in another trip to the Listowel, Ballybunnion, Ballyduff and Tarbert areas of North Kerry.

Tom Horgan’s talk was very well delivered. He selected maybe ten or so or the lesser known monuments and then spoke on the monument and the person commemorated. It really put so much flesh on what is otherwise a carved stone. The amount of research carried out on each individual, their battles and even the people with whom they associated (or fought) must have been so time consuming as the distilled information presented was so extensive.

The presentation and delivery were excellent. I suspect that I was not alone among the audience of fifty to sixty who very much enjoyed the evening.

If you see a talk by Tom Horgan on this or a similar topic, I do recommend.

Thin Line Between Inquisitiveness and Pilgrimage

28/8/2014

The internet provided the initial knowledge and impetus. I had wanted to know what happened on a pattern day. What did happen at a Holy Well on the feast day?

Fundraising by Street Art

27/8/2014

This photograph proves that the camera is sharper than the eye.

I was taking photographs of the new wall art on the Camden Palace but it was only when I saw the image on the screen that I saw the face portrayed.

I am well impressed with the artist(s), a powerful effect.

I thought it a novel and great means of publicising a fundraising campaign for Nan McSweeney-Bailey.

John O'Neill, Brosna, 1838

26/8/2014

I am not alone in being intrigued as to John O’Neill, 1838.

I recently came across this painted stone between Naad and Banteer in North Cork, just before Lacka.

Resorting to the web did reveal a very interesting John O’Neill who died in 1838 and who arrived in America at the age of 18. But maybe that is just co-incidence.

If he was from Brosna, he might have travelled that road to Cork/Cobh. But then again he might not. On first glance, he does not appear to be in the book ‘The Story of Brosna’ but I will read more carefully to confirm.

Maybe it was just painted for fun to puzzle the passer-by like me.

If so, it succeeded.

The International Brigade Remembered

25/8/2014

This is a first for me, here.

I ask that you consider making a donation to the Limerick International Brigade Memorial Trust for the erection of a memorial to those from Limerick who fought for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War.

I have had an interest in the Spanish Civil War for some years. When last week, I learnt of the events planned for the weekend of September 12th – 14th, I was immediately making plans to head to Limerick that weekend.

Donations can be made by Paypal or, as I did, through bank transfer.

Go on, think about it.

Kit Conway

Burncourt, Co. Tipperary

Michael Lehane

Morley’s Bridge

Kilgarvan,

Co. Kerry

Tony Fox, Mick May, Bill McGregor, Paddy McElroy, Joe Monks, and Bill Scott
Emmet Road,
Inchicore, Dublin 8

Four buildings - one town

24/8/2014

These four tiles were all in Dingle.

I do not know of what they refer or why they were applied to the buildings.

I cannot recall seeing the like of any of them before.

I thought I would share them with you dropping by.

Guerilla Days in Ireland

23/8/2014

Daunt Square, Cork

My summer of theatre continued on Thursday with a trip to the Everyman. For someone who hadn’t been at a play for years, five outings in four weeks might well be considered obsessive by some – but it does allow for some comparison.

The negatives first – the sound was not great, and I was only in row J. This was exacerbated by the continuity between the recorded sound and the actor when he started to talk before the audio had finished so he was drowned out.

It came across very much as a transformation of the book rather than dramatic invention. This was fine by me with an interest in that historic period.

At €25, it was dearer than all the other plays except the Frank O’Connor play and so in terms of value for money would have been in the relegation zone.

I need to check either my hearing or the book as I thought I heard that civilians were killed in the burning of Cork whereas I had thought that only one person died on that night.

However, overall I did enjoy.

The play with the references to the various ambush sites – the first by the Flying Column at Toureen; Kilmichael (which I have yet to photograph); and Crossbarry – and the volunteers named was yet another reminder of the many commemorative plaques that I have photographed but have yet to catalogue and upload.

This morning I was reading Ian’s blog and it got me wondering what if Tom Barry had died fighting for the British Army; what if he did not fall off the car and so would have been captured like his colleagues; what if Percival had recognised him at the roadblock.

The memorials and commemorative plaques of West Cork would definitely not be the same….

Michael Collins - d. 22 August, 1922

22/8/2014

Last week, I was passing through Beal na Blath and stopped to photograph the monument.

Noting that the anniversary of his death was not too far away did cause me to consider all of the different commemorative plaques that I have photographed so far – there are so many more than I have uploaded to the website so far (a project for the winter months) – and whether I have recorded an event for nearly every day of the year.

To misquote Oliver Hardy, that is another possible time-consuming mess that I have created for myself.

Vision at Knock

21/8/2014

Knock Shrine

Today, the twenty first of August, is Gerry Murphy Day.

I am very far from an expert in poetry. Even in schooldays, I would not have learnt more than a few poems by rote for the exams. I suppose that observation above could support the contention of Gerrymandering.

“A Small Fat Boy Walking Backwards” was published in 1985. Before then I would have first heard the poem “Vision at Knock” – the image, if not the exact words did take up residence in my teenage brain, occasionally waking up to say hello.

In the summer of my Leaving Certificate, I went Interrailing through Europe with my cousin. One of the first stops was Lourdes – to purchase a gift for our Grandad – over thirty years later and I can still remember the gift.

An even stronger memory of that visit is the commercialism, the number of shops selling souvenirs – so many which were so plastic, so tatty and so off-putting. Back then I had already given up on Catholicism, was agnostic, but would have been somewhat anti-Catholic – a position from which I have mellowed slightly.

A few years after Lourdes, I visited Knock for the first time – on a busy Sunday morning and again was taken aback by the plastic commercialism and the sense of the many following blindly, or what I perceived as blindly.

Recently I have read ‘The Sign of the Cross’ by Colm Tóibín and Stephen Walsh’s ‘Faithful Departures’. Both similar in visiting sites of Catholic pilgrimage, in being written by one raised in the Catholic faith and in bringing me back to those experiences in Lourdes and Knock.

Last weekend I read a newspaper article about the Knock Novena.

“Upwards of 150,000 pilgrims — some of them from overseas — will descend on the small village to celebrate the annual Knock Novena. Annually, the shrine welcomes more than 1m visitors. It’s a curious thing about Knock that even those who don’t attend Mass regularly find something there.”

Irish Examiner

21st August, 1879

I can vouch for the truth of that statement of finding something there. Last month, I travelled north of Claremorris upon the death of a friend’s mother. After the removal, I went for a spin and decided to see how Knock compared to my memory -the holy water taps are still there.

I spent a short while at the Shrine. There were not many there that Sunday night. I did have some down-time, some time for reflection and thought.

But sitting there Gerry Murphy woke from his slumber in the back alleys of my brain and the thought and image of the statue of Stalin laughing formed part of that me-time.

Professional Lunatic

20/8/2014

Johnny Massacre Doran

High St., Galway

This plaque did intrigue.

It succeeded in stopping this passer-by to pause and think of Johnny Massacre, someone I had not heard of prior to seeing the plaque.

Standing there in Galway, I did wonder as to the use of the title ‘Professional Lunatic’. Having watched the two clips, it is both appropriate and honourable.

Run In Paradise

19/8/2014

I really prefer the thought of ‘running in paradise’ to ‘resting in peace’.

‘Rest’ gives the impression of non-movement and so a sense of finality. ‘Running in Paradise’ definitely conveys an afterlife that is enjoyable and carefree.

I ought probably be classified as a ‘hostile commentator’. It is a term that I recently came across in The Holy Wells of Ireland by Patrick Logan applied to non-Catholic or non-believing observers of the traditions and patterns – but their commentaries were considered more independent and so in some ways more reliable. As an agnostic, I probably qualify as hostile.

But sometimes even this hostile commentator wonders if it would be better to hope to be a butterfly flying free or of running in paradise.

N25 by Glounthaune

Time Stands Still

18/8/2014

13 August 2014

On the first day of August, after my breakfast coffee and on my way to work, I looked up and saw that Shandon steeple was telling the (nearly) correct time.

It had been stopped for quite a while and there was a bit of public outrage about it.

Maybe the repairs were investigative and temporary; maybe they were just badly done; or maybe there is a brake at five part twelve, as last week at about 09:30, Shandon was stuck close to midday where it had been stuck previously.

Regardless of the why, it does not reflect well on the city that one of its major tourist attractions remains unrepaired.

1 August, 2014

A Vein of Gold

17/8/2014

Taking a walk in a cemetery may not be regularly done by many but I definitely recommend. The messages on many headstones do prompt considered thought as well as a good few daily comments here.

Last week at St. John the Baptist Church in Midleton, I thought this was such a nice thing to be said of the deceased. I did wonder whether we Irish are any good at communicating this while the person is alive…..

“Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold, which the owner knows not of.”

―Jonathan Swift