Gurtinard Wood in Winter 2017
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A Modern Christmas Poem
Xmas by Wes Magee
Not a twig stirs.
The frost bitten garden
Huddles under a
heaped duvet of snow.
Pond, tree, sky
and street are granite with cold.
In the house
electronic games warble;
Holly awaits the
advent of balloons
And the TV set
glows tipsy with joy.
This is a great
poem about the secularization of Christmas. Christ is taken out and the Xbox
takes his place centre stage.
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It’s That Time of Year
North Kerry Harriers met in the grounds of Glin castle on December 3 2017. Local Limerick photographers, Liam Downes and Estelle O’Donoghue, took some photos to record the occasion.
Estelle O’Donoghue took this fabulous photo.
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A Relic left behind from our Youth
Call it brainwashing if you like, but I and my school fellows had the answers to the questions set out in this green book so dinned into us in school that most of us could, to this day, with just a little prompting, reel off all those answers.
This copy turned up among the National Treasures collected recently. I’m sure the very sight of it will send shivers down a few spines.
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Some More People at BOI Enterprise Town Evening
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Christmas Long Ago
Christmas for us
Small Lads by Eamon Kelly
Christmas for us
small lads growing up in the 1920s was a pool of light in the inky darkness of
the winter. A soft amber pool of light which came from three sources- the big
log and turf fire, the oil lamp with the hairpin straddling the glass chimney
and the stately white candles, one in every window, spreading their light out
into the yard and road and showing the way, the old people told us, to Mary and
Joseph should they be passing in search of shelter on Christmas night.
Although my father used to say that if they happened to be passing our house
the blessed pair would have strayed a tiny step on the road to Bethlehem.
In the month of
December there was no road darker than the road outside our house, for we were
living in the depths of the country, and as yet the ESB poles had not come
marching down the valley bringing a brighter but a harsher light. And it cuts
me to the quick today when I hear that instead of the old tallow candle there
is a new garish electric imitation lighting in many of the windows I looked on
as a lad.
(Continued tomorrow)
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Ballylongford at Christmas 2017
They switched on their Christmas tree lights in Bally on Saturday December 9 2017 and Ballylongford Snaps took lots of great photos. Here are a few and there are lots more HERE
