Church Street Lower

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US Book published in 1985

Edited by Kathleen Jo Ryan and Bernard Share

Extract from John B. keane’s essay on The Quality of Neighbourliness.

The Ballybunion Buds

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A Shared Pain…Story in photographs

The lighter penguin is an elderly female whose partner died this year. The darker one is a younger male who lost his partner two years ago. Biologists have followed them as they meet every night to comfort each other. They stand for hours together watching the lights. 

[Photographer Tobias Baumgaertner captured this image of two widowed fairy penguins looking over the Melbourne skyline. It has won an award in Oceanographic magazine’s Ocean Photography Awards. Via: MeliMels99 on Twitter]

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Have you a Product to Sell?

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My Final Thoughts on Nurses

Based on what I have read in this book.

The overriding impression among the Irish nurses who had trained in Britain that Ethel interviewed for the book was that nurse training in Ireland was a closed shop to many. The following quote from Mary McCarthy from Limerick seems to me to sum it up.

“I had not applied to nurse in Ireland. It was whom you knew and what you knew there to get into nursing. Your education meant a lot, for instance if you went to a private school or boarding school, also if your father was a doctor, dentist or solicitor.”

As well as this snobbery, would be nurses in Ireland had to fight for places against nursing nuns whose jobs were guaranteed.

English trained Irish nurses were often from farming backgrounds. There was great camaraderie and support in the nurses’ homes which were usually on site with the hospital. Homesickness was often the biggest problem. Most seemed to have an ambition to return and work in Ireland. Many did.

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Deo Gratias

I am delighted to report that they have painted the pillar box at the end of Church Street. It looks smashing. They haven’t done the ones in the walls yet.

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A Fact

More people get heart attacks and more cars break down on Mondays than any other day of the week.

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