Home and Away

Garden of Europe in late February 2025

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Maintenance Work

When I was in the park last week, the coucil outdoor staff were busy clearing fallen and dangerous trees.

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Lixnaw

A man called Alan Young posted this photo and the following text on a Facebook page about disused railway stations.

LIXNAW was a station in County Kerry on the line between Tralee and Listowel. Lixnaw closed in February 1963 when passenger services were withdrawn between Tralee, Listowel, Newcastle West, and Limerick. Goods services were then withdrawn in stages from the route, and the section through Lixnaw was closed to all traffic in January 1977. I took this photograph in April 2008 .

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Pick Yourself Up and Dust Yourself Off

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More from Kilkenny

Jenkinstown House is located in a lovely wood and forest park, popular with local dog walkers. On the Saturday of our visit some of us went for a stroll.

There were historical artefacts like this all around but no explanation nearby to satisfy our curiosity.

Anne and Aoife posed in front of a more modern shelter cun picnic area.

Aoifew having her nails painted in preparation for the birthday party.

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Date for the Diary

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Mattie Lennon on Pat Ingoldsby R.I.P.

By Mattie Lennon.

“In 1893, W. B. Yeats referred to Zozimus as ‘the last of the gleemen’ but he obviously failed to foresee the coming of Pat Ingoldsby- an old fashioned travelling bard to rival the best of them.” ( The words of Bobby Aherne in his book , D’you Remember Yer Man ? A portrait of Dublin’s famous characters.) 

Irish film  director Seamus Murphy made a  documentary film about much-loved Dublin poet Pat Ingoldsby.

Pat has presented children’s TV shows on RTÉ, written plays for the stage and radio, published books of short stories, and been a newspaper columnist but is mostly known for his unconventional and often humorous poetry.

The award-winning Murphy, speaking to RTÉ Entertainment, Murphy said, “Pat is suddenly back in fashion. I talk about him any time I’m doing interviews because I’m trying to raise money for the film but also because I’m trying to build his profile back up again and then there was a poetry festival recently where people were re-enacting his work.”

Writing for the website Just Six Degress, Murphy has said: “I got to know Pat while I was making Home is Another Place, a short film I made for The New Yorker over the summer in Dublin in 2013.

“Pat appeals to our reason through invention and surrealism, in a voice understandable to everyone. He is a rare and sympathetic witness and champion of the underdog – of which there are many in Dublin. Above all he is very funny.

“There is no better company than Pat and his poems to roam with around the streets of Dublin; absorbing its stories and conspiring with the mirth and darkness of the city.”

Murphy says that Ingoldsby, who  has recently passed away , was initially reluctant to appear on screen again.

“He wouldn’t appear because he doesn’t want to appear in front of the public but these performers were performing his poems so there seems to be a bit of a comeback without him doing anything,” the director said.

“His poetry is extraordinary and every year he produces another book, self-published, and he could really have done with a good editor so this film will really try to pick out the best of him.

“He said to me, `you can make the film, I’d love you to make the film but I’m not going to be in it’. I said OK, it was almost like the PJ Harvey thing, but slowly I’d go out to him and I’d recorded him and we got to know each other and slowly he started trusting me and now I’ve got lots of stuff.”

“I’ve almost shot all I need of him, it’s the other stuff I need to do.”

Most of Pat’s poems are about his personal experiences, observations of life in Dublin, or mildly surreal humorous possibilities. 

Topics of personal experiences vary from the death of his father, or the electroconvulsive therapy he received (c. 1988), to his appreciation of the natural world or his pets (mostly cats, but also some fish). 

Observations of Dublin are mostly humorous conversations overheard on the bus, or the characters he sees and talks to while selling his books on the streets. Some observations are not so cheerful as he also sees the drunks and the homeless of Dublin city, and the some aspects of modernisation which he isn’t pleased with. 

His most distinctive style of poetry is his humorist style. A recurring character, Wesley Quench, appears in roles such as the driver of a Flying See-Saw Brigade. Another poem, “Vagina in the Vatican,” depicts a vagina sneaking into the Vatican unstopped because no one knew what it was – except for a few who couldn’t let slip that they did. 

He also occasionally produces stories for children. These are a childish version of his mildly surreal style. 

During the rapid increase in the use of mobile telephones, he offered a “Mobile Phone Euthanasia” service on the streets of Dublin, where he would destroy phones for annoyed owners. 

His cousin Maeve Ingoldsby is a playwright. 

When Pat is selling his books, more often than not, he can be found on Westmoreland Street.

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His poem For Rita With Love was  selected as one of the  Ireland’s 100 favourite poems as voted for by readers of the Irish Times. 

You came home from school

On a special bus

Full of people

Who look like you

And love like you

And you met me

For the first time

And you loved me.

You love everybody

So much that it’s not safe

To let you out alone.

Eleven years of love

And trust and time for you to learn

That you can’t go on loving like this.

Unless you are stopped

You will embrace every person you see.

Normal people don’t do that.

Some Normal people will hurt you

Very badly because you do.

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A Fact

Until 2008 Nelson Mandela was banned from entering the USA and needed a special waiver any time he wanted to visit.

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