One of the truly unusual aspects of being Irish is that weird habit we have of sometimes saying the exact opposite of what we mean. “I will yeah!” can mean “I absolutely won’t” and “shut up, you. Ya weirdo!” can mean “I love you very, very much”! The last one in particular could be classed as “slagging”. Slagging is a term used to describe a kind of harsher form of teasing.
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In 1987 I passed my final accounting exams and for the next 30 years I worked in finance. I worked in general accountancy with Jim Gilligan and John Walsh at Gilligan & Co., then in international tax with Arthur Andersen, then in aircraft leasing with Sunrock (the Irish subsidiary of the huge Nissho Iwai Japanese sogo shosha) and then as Head of Finance at the Irish Stock Exchange until 2017. I made lifelong friendships. I also had the privilege of working with businesses from the
It’s hard to believe that it’s over 11 years ago since I went with Charlie and James to the Aviva Stadium in Dublin to see the one and only Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta aka Lady Gaga for her Born This Way Ball performance.
IOM TT 2009As a child, I loved sending away for brochures and catalogues; my favourites being holiday brochures. Before the internet was a thing, you had to fill in and cut out a request coupon from the newspaper, send it by post and wait a week or two for the brochure/ catalogue to arrive with the postman. That’s how I first saw pictures of the Isle of Man, that beautiful self-governed British protectorate in the Irish Sea hallway between Ireland and the UK. I learned about the picturesque towns of Douglas (the main town), Peel and Port Erin … the Great Laxey Wheel and Castle
My mam and dad grew up in a time when many rural families had a working donkey or two. Nowadays, not many Irish families have donkeys of the four-legged kind anymore. My parents often told me stories of how stubborn they could be but also how hard they worked.
They also told me the story of the donkey and the well. It goes like this… Now, the above is not an invitation….but the words of one of the most famous songs from the place I went to celebrate my birthday recently – Carlow. Actually, Tullow’s fabulous Mount Wolseley Hotel and Spa to be exact.
My beloved mother Peggy passed away in Feb 2014. It took me a few weeks to gather my courage to go through her “bits and bobs”. In a blanket box behind the bedroom door, I found the bundle of letters tied with a red ribbon. Forty years ago this year, my best friend Catherine and I had
One of my favourite Irish cities is Kilkenny in our neighbouring county. It’s a great pint-sized city to socialise in and many a Friday evening did I want to get off the bus as I passed through the thronged streets on the way home to Carrick from Dublin. It’s known as the marble city as the black Kilkenny marble was used from the 17th to the 19th century.
But for most Irish people over 50 like me, Co. Kilkenny …as well as being famous for hurling……will be forever tied to that well-loved fictional family from the fictional townland of Leestown in County Kilkenny, the Riordans!! Doing Your Family TreeThe wedding photo on our wall at home of Peggy’s grandparents, John Gough and Alice Mulcahy, first got me interested in family trees and genealogy. I wondered what their life had been like in Massachusetts, what had brought them back to Ireland in 1899 and what had become of their family…. especially their daughters born in America who had re-emigrated.
I got a Facebook reminder that this time ten year’s ago I was on holidays at the Riu Nautilus Hotel in Torremolinos. This particular holiday is special to me as it was the last one I took abroad with my Mammy Peggy as she passed away six months later. In 2013, this was a return trip to this hotel for both of us as we had spent a great week there in August of 2008.
Although I’m originally from South Tipperary, I have to admit that I haven’t seen a lot of the county. So, this week I jumped at the chance when I was invited to stay with my lovely cousin Rose near Thurles. We got to see the famous Rock of Cashel, enjoy Afternoon Tea in the Cashel Palace Hotel, be entertained at a great Irish-night at the Brú Ború Cultural Centre, travel down to Coolishal, Kilsheelan (Co. Waterford) where my great grandparents lived for a time before having a snack at the Horse & Jockey Hotel. This week’s blog tells how I got on.
When I was at school, one of my favourite poems was “Per Iter Tenebricosum” by Oliver St. John Gogarty (Along The Dark Way) (see the first photo below). It talks about the inevitability of death and it being “a fate that leads the natural way”. I always thought it odd that even the most practical, organised people went through life acting as if death would never happen to them. A couple of years later when I started working in an accountancy firm, I saw at first hand the upset and trauma
One of my favourite songs is by the late Sandy Denny, “Who Knows Where The Time Goes”. I find that I’m asking myself that very question a lot lately ……. a real sign that “I’m shoving on”. But I was really thinking of this song a lot leading up to last month’s Greenhill Class of ’83 40th Reunion.
Written when the singer was just 19, just a couple of years older than most of us leaving Greenhill, this plaintive song has been covered extensively down through the years. But I love the version here released in 1973. It really pulls at the heartstrings and some regard it as “one of the saddest songs ever written”. For us leaving school in 1983 it was indeed a sad time on the jobs front. John F. Kennedy on his presidential visit to Ireland in June 1963 twenty years earlier had remarked ‘Most countries send 12 Things To See & Do in Co. WaterfordSo, from my Facebook page you will see that I’ve spent the last two week’s catching up with family and friends in my hometown of Carrick-on-Suir in South Tipperary. It was a great opportunity to explore the neighbouring county, Co. Waterford – the home county of both my parents, my parents’ parents and even THEIR parents’ parents. So, you see why I have a real affinity for County Waterford!
County Waterford (Irish: Contae Phort Láirge) is in the province of Munster. The population of the county at large, including the city of Waterford, was 127,085 according to the 2022 census. The county is based on the historic Gaelic territory of the Déise, hence my blog title. 😊 Over the two weeks visiting Co. Waterford, I’ve seen some great places and met some great people. This week’s blog is therefore on “My Déise Dozen - 12 Things to See & Do in Co. Waterford”. There are a few places I visited which I have omitted from this post that I actually think are “Must Sees” in my opinion e.g., the Waterford Greenway, the Nire Valley, Melleray Abbey and Mount Congreve. But I reckon that they are so popular that you may have heard of or seen them already. So, my Déise Dozen are the less well-known sights. Enjoy! (And apologies to those who’ve seen my Facebook posts over the last two weeks! 😊) Books 73 to 80 So, in my Bucket List quest to read at least 80 books, this is my 10th (and final) list of 8 books that I've held onto. As explained in my blogs previously, my lists are an eclectic mix of book types. Hopefully you'll see something that you might read on your summer holidays. (See Blog 16 , Blog 22, Blog 32, Blog 38, Blog 48, Blog 65, Blog 76, Blog 86 and Blog 96 for my previous book-related blogs). Enjoy! ❤️
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AuthorMy name is Mary and this is my bucket list blog ...having survived a near-death experience. I hope it encourages you to "live your best life". See how I'm completing my own bucket list items. And let me know how you're getting on with yours! Archives
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