Macra na Feirme 1968, a new Social Service at Listowel FRC and Full Museum Status for The Seanchaí

 Littor earlier in summer 2018 photographed by Elizabeth Brosnan

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Macra Dance 1968

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A New Service at Listowel Family resource Centre

This new service is for anyone who is feeling lonely. It will help everyone but most especially people who might feel a bit at a loose end and in need of company.

This service is called "social prescribing" and the social prescriber will help put you in touch with local groups and activities that will help you integrate into the community.

Your GP might refer you for this programme or you can refer yourself. Just call the Listowel FRC 06823584 and ask for MayEllen or drop her an email maryellenfrc@gmail.com

Mary Ellen will organise a chat with you and if you need company going to one of her recommended activities she will come with you and support you every step of the way.

Some of the groups you might like to join are

Man's Shed

Park Run

Active Retirement

Tidy Towns

Knitting group

etc.etc.

Mary Ellen has set up a new walking group which meets on Mondays at 7.00 p.m. at the  Convent Primary School. That's a good place to start, some gentle exercise and chat and absolutely no pressure.

If you are feeling a bit lonely or stressed just now this service might be just the thing for you. If you know someone who could benefit from a chat with Mary Ellen do encourage them to make the call. She is lovely, really approachable and understanding. I felt better for talking to her.

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Sunset in Ballybunion: Summer 2018

It's just like the good old days with crowds on the strand at 10.30 p.m.

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Finding Shelter

Dogs are good at finding a shady spot. A man who appeared to know told me that fish are good at finding shade too.  The fish in the Feale will be sitting out the drought in deep holes.

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Exciting Times at The Seanchaí

Cara Trant and members of the board of The Seanchaí travelled to Kilkenny recently to receive the award of full museum status for Listowel's Writers' Centre which is going from strength to strength.

This week is a big week in The Seanchaí with the festival to celebrate what would have been the 90th birthday of John B. Keane.

Here is the programme;

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Say (Swiss) Cheese!

Holidaying in Listowel with her dad, Cliff Gore, is Helen Mitchell and her family. I met them on Courthouse Road just after they arrived.

May Eve

"Up the airy mountain and down the rushy glen
We dare not go a hunting for fear of little men."

Today was a kind of red letter day in old Ireland. It was believed that the fairies became very active around this time. Almost anything could happen between sunset on May Eve and sunrise on May morning. Witches and piseogs were at work and dairy produce was particularly vulnerable. Any stranger seen about one's property on May Eve or May morning was thought to be working piseogs.

Piseogs were a kind of pagan charm or curse that caused your hens not to lay, your crops to fail or your butter not to keep.

One of the commonest tales from these times is the story of Kitty the Hare. The story goes that a farmer saw a hare sucking the milk from his cow on May morning. The farmer chased the hare away and injured him with a stone. The bleeding hare led the farmer to the cottage of an old crone who lived nearby. The farmer found her on the floor of her house, bleeding. She had assumed the form of a hare to steal the farmer's milk.
In my youth "A Kitty the Hare story" was a byword for any tale that was far fetched and incredible.

 There used to be a series in Ireland's Own called Kitty the Hare. I don't know if the stories are still going strong. Ireland's Own is still with us anyway.

Another piseog was worked by laying a spancel across a cow's back. That cow would abort her calf and the person who set the piseog would have healthy twin calves. Eggs or meat were sometimes hidden in the neighbour's field or barn and this scared the bejasus out of the poor farmer who found this on a May morning because it meant that his crops would fail.
Spooky times indeed!

"March will search, April will try
And May will tell whether you live or die"
May was a critical time for sick people and any injury acquired on May Eve of May Day was particularly difficult to cure.

So watch out!

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Now for something completely different.

I snapped Cliff Gore on Charles Street. He was out and about with his lovely daughter, Helen, home with her family for a short visit.

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Patsy O'Sullivan shared this photo with us. I hope you'll be able to read the names of the boys in his class in Clounmacon School.

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I have to mention our little heroine at the U.N.

Picture: AP

Joanne, with hair dyed red to show her support for her beloved Cork wowed them all at the U.N. Here's hoping she gets her robot.

"Joanne, 16, is one of only seven people in the world with Total Amelia, a congenital birth condition causing the absence of all four limbs.

She told the gathered delegates: "I have always been breaking down barriers and overcoming obstacles. I do not look at the word ‘impossible’ and see it as ‘impossible’. I look at that word and my life and say ‘I’m possible!’"