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Cashel Library Poetry Day Event.

Invitation to participate in Cashel Library Poetry Day Event.

Cashel Library invites All Poets to Video Record themselves reading a Poem.

(It can be your own poem or the work of another poet)

Same is required for the Library’s Social Media Blitz Poetry Collage (28th April 2022).

Theme: “Written in the Stars.”

Send your videos by WhatsApp to 085 1169650.

Nota bene (note well): Entries before Friday 22nd April 2022 please.

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Cashel Library Celebrates 20th Anniversary

Tipperary Librarians Maura Barrett and Ann-Marie Brophy Report.

On Tuesday April 5th 2022, Cashel Library will mark its 20th anniversary, with fun-filled birthday celebrations, and everyone is invited!

It is 20 years since the library moved from ‘The Green’ in Cashel to its current location on Friar Street in the town. In that time the library has been ​central to the community, as a place for groups to gather, connect and to be filled with ideas, information, stories, history, entertainment and culture!

Birthday festivities will commence with a coffee morning at 11:00am, with entertainment provided by children from local schools.

Please do feel free to pop-in for a cuppa and a slice of birthday cake!

Later that evening we are very excited to host a special performance by award winning Irish Tenor, Mr Patrick Hyland.

The evening entertainment will commence at 7:00pm, with a cheese and wine reception first.

Note Please: Book your seat for what promises to be a fabulous night by ringing us at the library on Tel. No. 062 63825.

Booking is ESSENTIAL!!!

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Did Tales Of Ireland Influence Writing Of Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell?

The Atlanta, Georgia US born Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (Pen name, Peggy Mitchell, November 8th,1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American journalist and author who provided us with that great 1939 epic historical romance novel, “Gone With The Wind”; same being one of those golden American pieces of literature that readers and later film goers, worldwide, can truly never forget.

She too had been born into a family with ancestry not unlike that of her novels heroin, namely Scarlet O’Hara.

Philip Fitzgerald, Margaret Mitchell’s maternal great-grandfather, had emigrated from near Fethard, Co. Tipperary, same then a fortified, small walled town, shortly after the 1798 Rebellion.

The family were seen as Catholic refugees attempting to evade oppression. Philip Fitzgerald eventually settled on a slaveholding plantation, near Jonesboro, Georgia, US, where he had one son and seven daughters with his wife, Elenor McGahan, who herself was from an Irish Catholic family.

Margaret Mitchell’s grandparents, Annie Fitzgerald and John Stephens had married in 1863; her parents, father Eugene Muse Mitchell, an Attorney, was descended from Scotch-Irish and French Huguenots, while her mother, Mary Isabel or “Maybelle” Stephens, was of Irish-Catholic ancestry, and were both married at her parents mansion home on November 8th, 1892. For the young Margaret Mitchell, (latter regarded as a ‘Tomboy’); Annie Fitzgerald/Stephens, her grandmother, (latter often regarded as both vulgar and a tyrant), existed a great source of eye-witness information, when it came to stories of the American Civil War.

Published in 1936, her only novel ‘Gone With the Wind’, turned the 4 feet 11 inches tall Margaret Mitchell immediately into an instant celebrity; earning her the Pulitzer Prize in 1937. In the same year Mitchell sold the movie rights to film producer David O. Selznick for $50,000, (Equivalent value today of $838,615 or approx. €747,296), latter being the most ever paid for a film manuscript at that period in time.

The film version, a four-hour epic, starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, both being portrayed as ill-fated lovers Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler came out just three years later; winning a record-breaking nine Academy Awards in 1940.
Today more than 30 million copies of Margaret Mitchell’s Civil War Novel have been sold worldwide and same has been translated into 27 different languages.

We will never know just how much of her novel contained tales about Fethard, here in Co. Tipperary, learned from the knees of her parents and grandparents, for alas, on August 11th, 1949, Margaret Mitchell was struck by a car while crossing a street to attend a theatre engagement and, sadly, died five days later.

So how much ancestral Irish influence came to the fore in the fictional imagery of Peggy Mitchel’s mind, when she wrote “Gone with the Wind” ?

Rhett Butler: Would her grandparents have talked largely about the Butler lands which stretched from Co. Kilkenny across Tipperary to Cashel and Cahir? Would they have spoken of Cahir Castle, Co. Tipperary?
Cahir Castle, winner of the European Film Commissions Network (EUFCN) Location Award in 2021; is one of the largest remaining castles in Ireland. Today, sited a mere 23 minute drive from Fethard, on an island in the river Suir in Co. Tipperary; Cahir Castle had been built in the 13th century, before being granted to James Butler, then newly created Earl of Ormond, for his loyalty to Edward III, in the late 14th century.

Scarlett O’Hara: The name O’Hara has held a distinguished place in Ireland for centuries, mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters, (latter compiled between 1632 and 1636). The current spelling of O’Hara is an anglicized pronunciation of the original Irish ‘Ó hEaghra’, meaning “descended from Eaghra”, latter a 10th century Irish chief.

Plantation Tara : Tara is the name of the fictional plantation in the state of Georgia, in this historical novel “Gone with the Wind.”
There is little doubt that Mitchell modelled the fictional Tara Plantation after local plantations and establishments existing before the US Civil War, particularly the Clayton County plantation on which her maternal grandmother, Annie Fitzgerald Stephens (1844–1934), daughter of the Irish immigrant Philip Fitzgerald (1798–1880) and his American wife, Eleanor Avaline “Ellen” McGhan (1818–1893), was born and raised.
Tara is also an anglicization of the Irish name ‘Teamhair’. The Old Irish form is ‘Temair’. It is believed this comes from common Celtic, ‘Temris’ and means a ‘sanctuary’ or ‘sacred space’ cut off for only ceremony.
‘Tara’ was once also the capital of the inauguration place and seat of the High Kings of Ireland. The name also appears in Irish mythology. According to the aforementioned Annals of the Four Masters, five ancient roads or ‘slighe’ (Ways) meet at Tara, linking it with all the four provinces of Ireland.

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Death Of “The Irish R.M.” Star Peter Bowles.

Actor Peter Bowles in the role of
Major Sinclair Yeates
, in “The Irish R.M.” [1983–1985]

Star of “The Irish R.M.”, and author Mr Peter Bowles has sadly died from cancer, yesterday March 16th, at the age of 85 years.
The actor whose career began with RADA at the Old Vic is survived by wife of some 60 years Sue, together with his three children Guy, Adam and Sasha.

The well-known and much loved charismatic actor of stage and screen will possibly be best remembered, playing the character of ‘Mr Richard DeVere’, starring opposite Penelope Keith as ‘Ms Margo Leadbetter’, in the smash-hit sitcom, “To The Manor Born”, which saw audiences of some 20 million viewers during its twenty-one episodes.

Starting his career at the Old Vic Theatre in 1956, he starred in 45 theatrical productions retiring at the age of 81 in “The Exorcist” at the Phoenix Theatre, having worked consistently on stage and screen, as the typical English gent, wearing a trademark moustache, in the British sitcoms including, “Only When I Laugh”, “The Bounder” and the TV drama “Lytton’s Diary”, which he devised himself.

From 1958 – 2021, Mr Bowles starred in some 42 films and well over 100 Television series, as well as receiving awards & honours including: – RADA Scholarship (1954); Madge Kendal Prize (1955); ITV Personality of the Year (1983); Male Comedy Star Award (1983); The Golden Gate Award (San Francisco International Film Festival, 1993) and an Hon. Doctor of Letters (Nottingham Trent University, 2002).

His book titles include the autobiography: “Ask Me if I’m Happy” and “Behind the Curtain: The Job of Acting”.

In ár gcroíthe go deo.

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Cashel Library To Celebrate International Women’s Day On March 8th

Ms Maura Barrett, (Branch Librarian at Cashel Library) Reports On International Women’s Day.

Cashel Library, here in Co. Tipperary, will celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8th next, beginning sharp at 7:00pm, with a free celebration of Ceol, Craic, Coffee and Cake.

This free event embracing the International Women’s Day campaign theme: #BreakTheBias showcases songs, story and music from the best talent in the region. Featuring the noted Journalist, Lecturer and champion for gender equality Tom Clonan, latter who has spent a lifetime fighting for Gender Equality, Disability Rights and the most vulnerable in Irish Society.

Tom Clonan

Ms Maura Barrett, (Branch Librarian in Cashel Library) and co-ordinator of this event, says it kick starts a number of #BreakTheBias themed events that the library will host in 2022 with schools, community groups and patrons.
“I am very excited about this celebration” says Maura, “It is so wonderful to be able to celebrate women’s achievements and very fitting that libraries play their part in actively breaking the bias that women continue to experience. We were mid-way through Mná Month back in 2020 when the Covid Pandemic scuppered things. It is very fitting that we can now pick up the baton again in 2022, in a renewed way, beginning with a celebration.”

This promises to be a jolly event with poetry and singing, jesting and joviality and there will be coffee and tea and some cake too.

The event is delighted to feature Singer/Songwriter Eileen Condon; Poet Orla Hennessy; Writers Eileen Hennigan and Bernie Coniry; Actors Will Condon and Sheila Lannigan; Mythical Tales/Stroyteller and Druid Eimear O’Brien and many others, adding to what will be a most entertaining night.

Do Please Note: Places are limited for this free event, so do ‘Repondez, s’il vous plaît’ (RSVP) to Tel: 062 63825 quickly, to avoid disappointment.

* International Women’s Day is a global holiday celebrated annually on March 8th to commemorate the cultural, political, and socio-economic achievements of women.
The day also marks a call for action for accelerating women’s equality.

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