Xmas, North Kerry Harriers, The Catechism, more Enterprise photos and Christmas in Ballylongford

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