Blog Posts - Reading the Signs

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Location, Location, Location……..

31/7/2022

Real estate matters - even in burial

I have spotted a couple of signs at cemeteries, recently, giving notice of upcoming Mass for the Dead. My recollection is that elsewhere these were held in October/November close to All Souls Day.

I have blogged before as to Cillíní throughout the country being recognised.

The Radio Kerry Saturday Supplement from last year visited the Cillín at Derrymore and it was said that there is an annual mass for those buried in the Cillín (05:20 minutes in) but this is the only reference that I have seen so far to such remembrances, the majority of Cillín are not recognised, let alone commemorated with a mass………. So far.

P.S.

The number of Cillíní on my To Visit list is increasing:

Annaghdown, Co. Galway

Clontallagh, Co. Donegal

Coomnakilla, Co. Kerry

Dumhnach na Leanbh, Co. Galway

Lackan, Co. Wicklow

Lislevane, Co. Cork

Lisselton, Co. Kerry

Loch Con Aontha, Co. Galway

Oileán na Marbh, Co. Donegal

Quilty, Co. Clare

Would be delighted to hear of any more Cillín - marked or unmarked - please do contact

Protestant Eyebrows – Anyone????

30/7/2022

A few weeks back, a friend spotted these houses in Blennerville and took the photographs of the plaster mouldings or pelmets over the windows. The belief was that it was I who told her that these were called ‘Protestant Eyebrows’.

Unfortunately, not – as that was the first time that I had heard the expression.

I can understand the name with these additions to the façade being suitable only for larger houses.

I have seen many examples on my travels during the week but am still clueless as to the origin of the expression or even if widely used

Ceramic Religious Tiles

29/7/2022

I did a talk a few months back on the IHS tiles that are on buildings around the country. A friend suggested that the practice may be Mediterranean in origin and I did find a couple on tiles on streetview in Capranica.

Seven years ago, I blogged about ceramic tiles on The Brown Pub in Kealkil – but since then, very little similar.

A few weeks back, Kanturk provided two mosaics – one to Our Lady of Fatima, the other well beyond my Spanish, or maybe Portuguese, knowledge.

If anyone knows of any more, would be delighted to learn of them.

First Time For Everything

28/7/2022

I was this age old when I first saw marketing for a wedding celebrant

Maybe it is a factor of my age and upbringing with weddings generally celebrated by priests, I never saw competition between priests for the next gig.

I am not the target audience for the branding – luckily for the Celebrant as unsure if it sits well.

Maybe there is no such thing as bad publicity

Agnes Mallin – “My darling wife, pulse of my heart, this is the end of all things earthly…”

28/7/2022

Once again, a headstone’s simple carved message does not tell the full story

Last Sunday afternoon, I declined the option of a few hours in Blanchardstown Shopping Centre and exited the car at St Mary’s Church in Clonsilla. My intention was to look for the seven graves that had a request for a photograph on the FindAGrave website.

I did manage to find six of the seven. It was only when uploading the photograph of the headstone of Agnes (Hickey) Mallin that I spotted her family tree and her much more well-known husband.

Two days prior, we had a great tour of Kilmainham Gaol – highly recommended.

It was only with time pressing at the end of our walk around the museum that I cam upon the Last Words exhibit – letters from those executed in Kilmainham in 1926 to their family and loved ones. I did stop at the section to Muriel McDonagh but did not really read any of the others.

If our visit to Kilmainham was two days after the cemetery visit, maybe I might have clicked and stopped to read of Agnes, rather than reverting to the interweb.

‘Sitting on the Dashboard Of My Car’

27/7/2022

‘I don't care if the night is scary
As long as I got the Virgin Mary
Sittin' on the dashboard of my car.
She don't slip and she don't slide
Cuz her butt is magnetized
Sittin' on the dashboard of my car.’
Plastic Jesus

‘I don't care if it bumps or jostles
Long as I got the Twelve Apostles
Bolted to the dashboard of my car
Don't I have a pious mess
Such a crowd of holiness
Strung across the dashboard of my car’
Plastic Jesus

Winner Alright!

Not quite the twelve apostles – one short

Not often you see Elvis hanging out with Jesus, Buddha and Mr. Bean.

This is definitely the most I have seen on any dashboard

A celebration that almost warrants a song

No Virgin Mary – maybe Hell is calling

Another Oré – Hidden in Plain Sight

26/7/2022

Last week had me in Capel Street in Dublin which has an eclectic mix and is much changed from my college days.

And there I spotted another art installation by Oré.

It was a few years ago that I learnt of the artist but it has taken those years for me to spot another.

Baby, Catríona Kiely, d. 2008.03.08

3/7/2022

Sometimes entering or walking through a cemetery, I will notice a headstone from a distance and be immediately drawn to it.

In Abington Cemetery, near Murroe in County Limerick, at six o’clocklast Wednesday morning, the beautifully carved memorial to Catríona Kiely was the magnet that immediately drew me.

If a headstone is erected to ensure that the name of the deceased is spoken and remembered, this unique piece of craftsmanship worked.

“When there was a death in a small village, everyone knew about it. But with mass migration to the city, the old assumptions didn’t hold true. In a city, there were deaths every day. Here, a person could live unknown and die unnoticed, even by neighbours in the same district. In response to this bewildering new reality the memorial became more important and, for those who could afford it, more elaborate. It announced and recorded the loss; it was a way of keeping the memory alive, of fixing it in a place which would otherwise all too quickly forget. It was a statement of belonging, and an affirmation of individual significance. The city was always restless, shifting, reinventing itself, and a stone represented stillness and permanence. To publish a person’s name and dates there was a bid for posterity. The life might be extinguished, but the firmness of stone, and the work of the mason’s chisel, would testify forever that they had lived.”

These Silent Mansions: A Life In Graveyards
Jean Sprackland, 2020

Kildare County Council more powerful than King Canute

2/7/2022

In the twelfth century, King Canute ordered the tide, or his tide if you prefer, to stop rising. If failed to comply with his order.

Kildare County Council do appear to be more successful as their order for there to be strong currents in the river appeared to be complied with on the evening of our visit.

I have seen signs banning swimming due to strong currents but this is the first where strong currents have been ordered by a Local Authority.

Where Ball Playing Is Not A Game

1/7/2022

As I waited for my takeaway in Leixlip a few months back, this sign had me thinking as to when might Ball Playing not be a Game

Where Is Molly Ryan? Is someone missing?

30/6/2022

Is it a simple error?

Molly Ryan listed third from bottom of right headstone over Plot A

Molly Ryan listed second from top of left headstone of Plot B

In St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Ballyphehane (The Botanics), there are six headstones over four separate graves to The Ladies of St Mary’s Good Shepherd Convent in Sundays Well, from 1875 to 1981. 211 names are listed on these headstones.

Molly Ryan died on 14th November 1939 but she is listed on two separate headstones over two different grave plots.

It could be a simple administrative error and there ought to be 210 names. However, the benefit of any doubt has drifted away from Mother and Baby Homes such as the Good Shepherd.

If there are 211 bodies, one lady is now forgotten in death – even more so than she was in life.

Here Lies All That Could Die

29/6/2022

I cannot recall ever seeing a message like this carved on a headstone. It definitely resonated with this reader.

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

David Eagleman from Sum: Forty tales from the afterlife

‘As if my mother
stepped from the shuffling throng
On South Main Street
and stood before me:
“Dead? Who told you I was dead?’

Nothing Is Lost
Gerry Murphy
My Life as a Stalinist

A tweet from Louvain Rees first introduced me to David Eagleman and his story, Metamorphosis. The book was quickly published and regularly takes residence in my inside jacket pocket.

A few months back, I used that quote in the Memoriam message for my mother in the Irish Examiner. Proof, if needed, that the concept has well taken root in these quarters. Gerry Murphy’s poem conveys a similar message, only different. The two were calling out to be put together.

The recent Three Castles Burning podcast on the Stolpersteine installed at Danore Avenue in Dublin notes the message in The Talmud that a person is only forgotten when their name is forgotten

This morning, at early o’clock, in Abington Cemetery, near Murroe, I read that Winifred Frances Barrington experienced the first of the three deaths in May 1921.

Irish Water's Contribution To The Public Realm

13/3/2022

Is this really gold-standard communication – I think not….

In the last few months, I have spotted these white plaques having been fixed to buildings. As you can see from the photographs, many buildings have multiple plaques identifying the diameter and distance of water pipes– one building on Devonshire Street has nine new white plaques to go with the one yellow Fire Hydrant locator.

With current technology, are these multiple messages absolutely necessary or are they an assault on our senses, a disregard for the public realm, a novel form graffiti? I think the latter.

Wellington Road - Cork

Fundraising in a Time of War

13/3/2022

I write this at early o’clock, just after returning home from dropping our fifteen-year-old at a swimming pool. As part of a fund-raising drive, the club members are swimming the distance from Cork to Dublin and back – all within the confines of a 25m pool.

The group that entered the pool at 04:30 are scheduled to complete the return to Cork at 07:00 but if stuck at the toll plaza at Watergrasshill, it may go on a bit longer.

Printing off the sponsorship card earlier this week, and also in conversations with others, I did wonder as to whether, at this time, it is appropriate to be fundraising for anything but Ukraine ………………………….

Recognising The Craft

14/11/2021

At the start of our conversational Irish walk this morning, there was a brief discussion of the Irish word for Blacksmith (Gabha) and the name Smith (MacGabhann). On our way back, we passed Smithgrove Terrace.

This brought to might a recent tweet from Christy Cunniffe about a headstone at Gallen, Ferbane, Co. Offaly with carvings of blacksmith’s tools.

This reminded me of a similar carving at Kilgobbin, Camp, Co. Kerry. References to Blacksmiths and Forges have long received nods of appreciation and respect when spotted by my eyes.

These co-incidences are enough to remember Thimothy Riordan who ceased being a craftsman in 1825.