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Switching On Of Thurles Christmas Lights.

Thurles Christmas lights will be officially switched on at 6:00pm sharp, on Friday evening next, December 6th 2024.
The lighting ceremony will take place in the centre of Liberty Square, with staged live music; same starting at 5:30pm, and continuing until 7:00pm.

Santa will be also in Thurles on Friday December 6th, in Thurles Tourist office (on Slievenamon Road).

We hear also that a Santa Grotto will be open at the above stated Tourist Office in the town, beginning each Saturday; starting from December 7th, and operating between the hours of 2:00pm and 4:00pm.
(Kids, don’t you worry about the lack of parking on Liberty Square, in Thurles; Santa always parks on the roof.)

Parents Do Note: A small appearance fee (€3.00) will be charged for this Santa Grotto service, to all children attending, (obviously to cover the cost of feeding carrots to Santa’s reindeer).

Q. Can you guess what Mrs. Santa Claus said to Santa when she looked up at the sky last Christmas Eve?
A. “Looks like rain dear”.

Q. What do you call Santa when he’s wearing his ear muffs?
A. You can call him anything you like; sure he can’t hear you.

Q. And while we are on the topic, how is Christmas like a day at the office?
A. You do all the work, and that fat guy, in the suit, gets all the credit.

Q: What goes “oH oH oH” at Christmas?
A: Santa walking backwards.

Waitin’ Around.

Waitin’ Around.

Poet & Author Tom Ryan Recollects.©

In this racing age in which we now live, one of the most pleasurable of activities seems earmarked for total oblivion. I refer, of course, to that once-popular activity of just ‘waitin’ around’.


In almost all situations in life there are moments when the world comes temporarily to a standstill for the partner and I. Such as when the number 8 bus to Dalkey whizzes past us on an evening we had planned a convivial evening with the in-laws before dashing to the theatre. On occasions such as this, one can easily distinguish between those who have read ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’ and those given to kicking pavements, climbing the pole of the bus stop, grinding dentures, practising side-line hurling pucks with the brolly and roaring at junior to quit mouthing about his being late for ““Frozen” or “Paw Patrol” on the telly.

About the only people I know who enjoy waiting around are young courting couples who, like the partner and self, take advantage of the standstill in time to communicate with a touch of hands or a plain old giggle-giggle. People in general, though, have little inclination to just wait around any-more.
As for the partner and self, we enjoy nothing better, except, of course when partner has an appointment at the hairstylist.
A little waiting around is (and the Jesuits may correct me), damn good for the soul. It is like a little retreat as beneficial as any (with respect) at our Retreat Houses. Mind you, people will insist (particularly possessive wives) that such waiting around periods are fraught with peril for the soul. And indeed there are men who, while waiting around, see nothing but romance in every female on the street.
Hardly the stuff “retreats” are made of, though I will not act the hypocrite and deny I am like the rest of men, (partner, forgive me!).

Still, marginally, mind you, there is more to the great world than ladies hurrying home from office, shop or factory. One could, for instance, eavesdrop on the private lives that often become very public at a railway station or a bus stop, when detainees and ‘in a hurry folk’ moan about the vicissitudes of life such as their working day presents them with. Times you know when a station waiting room or a bus stop can be a public confession box.
Waitin’ around is good for my business. Once I was forced to wait for an hour for the partner outside a Tipperary Hotel and wondered, irascibly, when she would arrive.
In the course of that hour I met the secretaries of umpteen societies and groups who were leaving the hotel after their respective meetings, all cheery and talkative of course, after leaving the hotel lounge-bar.( Mind you, after the introduction of the smoking ban, there are more people just waiting around than ever before).

Eh, begad, I was given press releases, secretaries’ reports and off-the-record statements I should never have acquired under more sober circumstances, had I not been waiting around. Maybe more journalists should hang around hotel exteriors after closing time!

There are some people who live in a small town all their lives and never really know it. Not me. From waitin’ around for the partner I know the colour of every shop front, the registration number of every car, the habits of every courting couple in town. I am better than a Garda and I am likely to know at what precise time the town drunks are about to render a few bars of “Show Me The Way To Go Home” or “The Red Flag”.

At Thurles Railway Station, while waiting around I have welcomed home emigrants, congratulated young boys and girls off to their first job in the Civil Service or to College; consoled hurlers coming back from Dublin trophy-less and (before I was wed), asked to dinner bright young things from New York and Paris arriving to ‘au pair’ in Tipperary.

Really, I almost envy the professionals at the ‘waiting around game’. Corner boys, people on strike, reserves on teams, gentlemen of the road, all good people who serve right well, though they only stand and wait.
Which reminds me, partner has been waiting around for me to drive her to the Post Office.
“On my way, dear. On my way”.

END

Tom Ryan, “Iona”, Rahealty, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.

Eat No Raw Onions If Kissing Is Your Intended Aspiration.

Having had only limited experience myself, I base the above headline on the advice handed out by Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer poet and Anglican cleric, the late Dean Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), who once wrote:-. 

“There is in every cook’s opinion, 
No savoury dish without an onion; 
But less you’re kissing should be spoiled,
The onion must be thoroughly boiled.”
 

A recipe for boiled onions gathered from the era of Dean Jonathan Swift.
These onions should be cooked ‘country style’, as they were when large ovens where kept on the go all day and night.  Same are very good when eaten with chops or steaks or with potato oaten cakes; known in the Irish countryside as  ‘pratie oaten’.  

Method.

One large onion per person with a little water. Place the onions in a baking tin, unpeeled, with about 1 inch of water, no more. Bake in a slow to moderate oven to 250° f. – 275° f. Electric;  gas regulo 1 – 2 for 1 and 1⁄2 to 2 hours or until they are soft when squeezed. 

To eat, the brown skin is then pulled back and cut off as the root and the onion is eaten with pepper, salt and a pat of butter. Latter cooking method is one of the most delicious ways of serving onions.

Pratie Oaten.

2 cups warm mashed potatoes. 1 cup fine oatmeal½ cup melted butter. Salt.

Work enough fine oatmeal, butter and a little salt into the mashed potato to form a dough until fairly soft.  Scatter plenty of oatmeal on a board and roll out the dough substance. Cut into small shapes and either cook on both sides on a hot greased griddle in the oven, or fry in a little bacon fat, on top of the stove. Serve hot. 

These are very good for breakfast, with bacon, eggs and sausages. The above completed shapes should serve approximately 12 persons.

Kissing.

As for this kissing lark, passionate kisses have known health benefits; releasing calming brain chemicals (neurotransmitters) that reduce stress levels and soothe the mind. Exposure to germs that inhabit your partner’s mouth helps strengthens your immune system, so just get on with it.

Death Of Oscar-Winning Character Actress Dame Maggie Smith.

Oscar-winning character actress Dame Ms Maggie Margaret Natalie Smith (Maggie Smith) [Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) and Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE)] (Dec. 28th 1934 − Sept. 27th 2024), has sadly passed away while in the care of staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, 369 Fulham Road, London, aged 89.

The talented British actress; best known for her outstanding roles in ‘Harry Potter’ (portraying the wise and formidable head of Gryffindor House) and ‘Downton Abbey’ (portraying the Dowager Countess of Grantham, Violet Crawley, together with her Academy Award-winning performance in ‘The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie’, and her Best Supporting Actress role in ‘California Suite’, passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning.

Moments that made Maggie Smith in ‘Downton Abbey’.

The intensely private lady, passed away surrounded by close friends and family, leaving behind two sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens and five loving grandchildren all devastated by the loss of their extraordinary talented mother and grandmother.

Born in Ilford, Essex, on December 28, 1934, Ms Smith began her career in the early 1950s with notable performances in theatre. She gained recognition in ‘The Royal Family’ and won her first Oliver Award, in 1971, for her performance in ‘The Private Ear/The Public Eye’. Her film debut began in 1958 in the crime film ‘Nowhere to Go’.

She was also Oscar-nominated for ‘Othello’ (1965), ‘Travels with My Aunt’ (1972), ‘A Room with a View’ (1985), and ‘Gosford Park’ (2001).

Ms Smith received an early BAFTA award for Promising Newcomer in 1959 for ‘Nowhere To Go’. This was followed by BAFTA nominations for ‘Young Cassidy’ in 1966, ‘Death On The Nile’ in 1979, ‘California Suite’ in 1980, ‘Quartet’ in 1982, ‘The Secret Garden‘ in 1994, ‘Tea With Mussolini’ in 2000, ‘Gosford Park’ in 2002 and ‘The Lady In The Van’ in 2016.

She also won Best Actress Awards for ‘The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie’, ‘A Private Function’ and ‘The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne’.

One of her final roles included ‘The Miracle Club’, which follows a group of women from Dublin, Ireland, who go on a pilgrimage to the French town of Lourdes.

Ms Smith married actor Robert Stephens on June 29th 1967. They had two sons, Chris (b. 1967) and Toby (b. 1969), and they were divorced on April 6th 1975. Ms Smith married playwright Alan Beverly Cross on June 23rd 1975, at the Guildford Register Office. They remained married until his death on March 20th 1998.
Once, when asked in 2013 if she was lonely, she replied, “It seems a bit pointless, going on, on one’s own, and not having someone to share it with”.

Anyone In Charge?

Anyone In Charge?

Author: Mr Alan Joseph Shatter [Irish lawyer, author and former politician who served as Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence, (March 2011 – 7 May 2014) ].

Anyone In Charge?

Helter skelter.
Bicycle shelter.
Construction complete.
A real belter!


Security Hut.
Door kept shut.
Architecturally sound.
No short cuts.


Cost irrelevant.
OPW white elephants.
Government shocked.
Cos it can’t blame an emigrant!


Person in charge.
Still at large.
Nowhere to be found.
Gone to ground.


Taoiseach bemused.
Tanaiste taken aback.
No one responsible.
Sure governings great crack!


END