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Invitation To Schools To Observe A Minute Of Silent Reflection – Great Famine.

An invitation has been sent out by Irish Green Party politician Mrs Catherine Martin, T.D. [Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport / Media and Chair of the National Famine Commemoration Committee], inviting all schools in Ireland to observe a minute of silent reflection.

Note the above Double Ditch was removed during the month of March.
We now ask the question: Where was the Green Party TD Malcolm Noonan, and Leader Eamon Ryan TD, when we contacted both of them on numerous occasions for assistance, in an attempt to save the Thurles Great Famine Double Ditch?
To date Mr Eamon Ryan TD has never replied. See HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE, etc. etc.

In her invitation Mrs Martin writes:- [Now Read & Weep.]

“In May 2008, the Government decided to inaugurate an annual National Famine Commemoration Day in memory of all those who died and emigrated during the Great Famine. This year’s National Famine Commemoration will take place in Milford, Co. Donegal at 2:00pm on Sunday 21st May, in the presence of the President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins.

There is no other event in our history that can be likened to the Great Famine either for its immediate impact or its legacy. That legacy includes a strong appreciation among Irish people of issues such as food security and a strong commitment to humanitarian aid and relief.
I invite you to arrange for all staff and pupils at your school to observe a minute of silent reflection on Friday, 19th May in memory of all those who suffered loss during the Famine – loss of life, loss of family, loss of home and loss of country. This minute of silence should take place ideally at midday, but can take place at whatever time suits individual schools on the day. I would ask also during this minute of silence that your staff and pupils also remember those who are suffering famine and hunger today, particularly the children and young people living in parts of the world currently afflicted by chronic hunger, poverty and disease.
It will be a very special and dignified tribute to those who died during the Great Famine and I would like to thank you most sincerely for your support in this regard.
If you would like to discuss the matter further, please feel free to contact Ronan Nestor
on 085 800 2899 or at faminecommemoration@tcagsm.gov.ie.
Yours sincerely,
Catherine Martin, T.D.
[Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media
Chair of the National Famine Commemoration Committee.]

Shame on the Green Party and its membership, together with Thurles Municipal District Council officials, and local elected councillors who wasted taxpayers money in order to destroy our local history and a guaranteed Thurles tourist attraction.

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Bee Friendly Flowers For Liberty Square, Thurles.

“The Town Centre First policy aims to create town centres that function as viable, vibrant and attractive locations for people to live, work and visit, while also functioning as the service, social, cultural and recreational hub for the local community.”Quote taken from Tipperary Co. Council’s commitment.

Without warning, they struck early this morning. Up came the long ago deceased ‘Euonymus fortunei ‘Emerald ‘n’ Gold’. Having tossed a coin, left behind was the still barely surviving small group of rather delicate frail and confused, low-maintenance ‘Potentilla Dasiphora fruticosa ‘White Lady‘; the latter well-known for being resistant to attacks by rabbits in rural areas. (Very important to a rural town like Thurles with a large rabbit population).

Yes, I am talking about that large piece of wasteland, (some in their innocence may have called it a flowerbed), located centre on Liberty Square, Thurles, which for well over a year, has replaced some 20 car-parking spaces, thus driving consumers out of the town centre, to surrender their purchasing power to well-known German supermarket chains.

Here at Thurles.Info we decided, (following on in true Tipperary Co. Council fashion), to employ a landscape consultant and I might add not just any English fly-by-night consultancy.
Regardless of expense we sought the services of that long established landscape consultancy firm of ‘Root In The Hole Ltd,’ ©.

In the interests of fair play they decided to invite the local Thurles community, asking them to submit what they would like to see planted on this waste ground and in keeping with Tipperary Co. Council tradition, those who forwarded submissions were ignored on the basis that elected Co. Councillors and their Council Officials know best.

After the area was surveyed by two top gardening experts, employed by ‘Root In The Hole Ltd’©, same forwarded their findings/recommendations in the form of photographic evidence, shown in the video above.
In Root In The Hole’s report, which we won’t be publishing for fear of embarrassing certain individuals. Suffice is to say; sentences containing text like “Worst landscaping ever observed to date”, appear at least 6 times in the report, and a concluding phrase suggests that the ‘Euonymus fortunei ‘Emerald ‘n’ Gold’, at the very least may have been recovered, having been first dumped from a garden centre, on waste ground, before being planted in Liberty Square.

Then again I suppose we could always cement this piece of waste ground over completely and paint a bird on it.

Readers might wonder about the reference to the 18th century weighing scales in our video; same located today in Co. Galway.
This same weighing scales type, which also was used on Liberty Square, sitting on a quadropod, during this same historical period, has now been located and can be made available to Thurles Municipal District Council.
Same could be erected in the centre of this flower bed, to remind us and any lost foreign tourist, of our humble beginnings when, prior to our Liberty Square down-grading, we had a once busy flourishing town centre.

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Another Piece Of Thurles History Removed Without Consultation Or Consent Of Electorate.

Read first, HERE, an extract from Tipperary County Councils Corporate Plan (2020- 2024).
Their unkept promise, to “Continue to enhance and protect the built, heritage in Tipperary and to work in partnership with key stakeholders, to deliver a high quality heritage service that will serve the people of Tipperary and attract visitors to our count.”

The above statement is yet another commitment which Tipperary Co. Council has successfully been allowed to weasel out of and row back on. And no, I am not further raising the issue of the now completely destroyed, historic Great Famine, Double Ditch.
However, local people should be made aware that yet again, another piece of Thurles history has been, eradicated, without any consultation with the people of Thurles.

I refer of course to the 170 year old Victorian Turnstile Gates, [known locally as the Swinging gates], once found positioned beside and south of Lidl supermarket, on Slievenamon road (N62); same leading east on the river Suir pedestrian walk way.

My attention was drawn to its absence on meeting several motorcycles and numerous silent electric scooters travelling at speed on what was supposed to be a pedestrian footway.

Thurles Victorian Turnstile Gate Gone.
Pic. George Willoughby.

On questioning a member of the local districts council’s workforce, I learn that this Victorian Turnstile gate is not, as I had foolishly believed, stored in the Parnell Street, County Council storage shed, but has been simply given away by as yet an unnamed senior official within Tipperary Co. Council, without any consultation whatsoever with local people.

Does this mean that the Turnstile Gate (Swinging Gates), on the junction between Emmet Street and Thomond Road will also be removed?

Matching Thurles Victorian Turnstile Gate at Thomond Road Junction.
Pic. George Willoughby

We now have a situation, where parents walking with young children, need to take great care and control when coming out onto the N62 thoroughfare, as there is nothing to protect either pedestrians or small unsupervised children.

Obviously, ignorance now hopes to “Position Tipperary as a holiday destination for domestic and international markets”, latter yet another promise in Tipperary Co. Council’s Mission Statement which the latter has successfully been allowed to weasel out of and row back on.

It had been hoped that this Victorian Turnstile gate would have been returned to its opening with a robust pedestrian-safe, self-closing, “Ball Fence Swing Gate” at the side, latter to accommodate access for wheelchair users.

Thurles people should note: These gates were unique to Thurles town – find me another image of such gates on the internet. Note, how the capping stones were tied together (See Pic 2) using forged iron staples held in place with lead filling.

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‘Happiest Memories Are Of Easter Time & Easter Parades’ Writes Tom Ryan.

I first fell in love with Easter when I heard Judy Garland sing “I could write a sonnet about your Easter Bonnet With all the frills upon it in the Easter Parade”. Then and for many years later, within the environs of Thurles, was held an ‘Easter Bonnet Parade’. Sadly no more.

In pre-television days as a child it was a treat for me to go out in the early morning, on Easter Sunday, and search under the newly planted cabbage plant leaves to see if the Easter Bunny or Good Fairy of Easter, had brought me a surprise in the dark of night; a reward for being a good boy who had not broken any windows; taking 21 yard frees, playing hurling on the road or had not annoyed the poor unfortunate neighbours with harmless blaggarding.

The movie, “Easter Parade”, with Judy Garland and Fred Astaire, might be showing in the local cinema, to which we went in the afternoon, funded by our Easter egg money, with comics to swap for little chocolate Easter eggs or what remained of a large sized Easter Egg; had we been really lucky enough earlier that morning.

At Easter Sunday Mass it was essential that we brought home bottles of Easter Water, with the stern warning to be sure to not spill it along the way home.

Easter was always one of the most joyful times of the year for us children despite being asked to write essays (compositions, or aisti we called them) on Eiri na Casca and An Chaisc, at the local Christian Brothers School. Easter Sunday was such an uplifting experience after all the solemnity and serious ceremonies of Good Friday, when shops had to be closed before the Stations of the Cross on that day, and when Thurles Cathedral would be packed with genuinely religious folks.
The tradition of the closing of shop shutters on Good Friday, again is longer observed.

As kids we always wore our very best clothes for Mass on Easter Sunday, which was followed by the Easter Commemorations; featuring male members of the Old IRA and Cumann na mBan (“The Women’s Council”) both of whom who had fought in the Irish War of Independence from 1919 to 1921, between the Irish Republican Army and British forces.
Some of those gathered wore Easter Lily badges in their lapels. Here on this day in Liberty Square, Thurles, the Irish Proclamation of Independence would be read aloud and the Irish National Anthem played, as townsfolk stood, like Kevin Barry, who according to the song ‘Kevin Barry’ “proudly held his head on high”, in honour of all who had died during that same War of Independence, begun over 100 years ago, in Soloheadbeg in County Tipperary, on the day the first Dáil Eireann met on January 21st, 1919. As the years have rolled by, the number of those old soldiers who marched in the Easter Sunday Commemorations Parade, sadly are no longer with us.

At the cuardaiocht evenings, on Easter Sunday night, in Thurles in earlier days, it was mandatory to sing “Tipperary So Far Away” a song about legendary Sean Treacy of the Third Tipperary Brigade Old IRA, who was held in the highest esteem in the homesteads of Tipperary. The exploits of Treacy and those of the Third Tipperary Brigade of the Old IRA were related in almost reverential tones by older folks.

The late Mrs Kathleen Allis Cleary, a first cousin once removed of Sean Treacy, lived here in Thurles and possessed the violin which Sean Treacy played at other Cuardaiocht evenings, long ago in possibly more convivial and reverential times in Co. Tipperary.

Easter is still, for me, an uplifting time, offering sparkling hope for the future and not a little nostalgia for a more innocent past.
Happy Easter to all and well wear on your bonnets, ladies! Hats the way!

Tom Ryan, ”Iona” Rahealty, Thurles, County Tipperary.

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Centenary Commemoration For Captain Jerry Kiely, 4th Battalion, 3rd Tipperary Brigade IRA.

Captain Jerry Kiely armed with Thompson submachine gun.
Memorial erected by his father Michael, in Lisvernane Village, Co. Tipperary.
Picture courtesy G. Willoughby.

The Centenary Commemoration for Captain Jerry Kiely, 4th Battalion, 3rd Tipperary Brigade IRA, will take place today, Saturday April 1st, at 3:30pm, in Lisvernane Village, Glen of Aherlow, Co. Tipperary.

The Commemoration is being held in conjunction with the Third Tipperary Brigade Old IRA Commemoration Committee.

Capt. Jerry Kiely 4th Battalion 3rd Tipperary Brigade IRA.

In a statement witnessed by Dan Breen (Quartermaster, 3rd. Tipperary Bde., I.R.A) and recorded in the Bureau Of Military History, 1913-21 Document No. W.S. 1,763. Page 161 we learn:-

Following the meeting of the Army Executive in the Nire Valley, it had become known to the Irish Free State authorities that the civil and military leaders of the Republic were present in the area and elaborate arrangements were made, accordingly, to encircle the mountains of South Tipperary and North and West Waterford, with the object of bringing off the most sensational coup of the civil war.

On Sunday, April 1st 1923, the 3rd Tipperary Brigade lost a fine soldier, a brave officer and a noble character by the death, in action, of Captain Jerry Kiely, of the 4th Battalion.

Jerry Kiely was staying with Dan Breen in the house of Stephen MacDonough (father of the late Vice-Comdt., Paddy MacDonagh), at Lisvernane, in the Glen of Aherlow, when a party of Free State troops, under Captain O’Dea, from Galbally, attacked the house.
The men inside were taken by surprise, but held their fire until the raiders burst in, before opening fire. The Free State commander was mortally wounded by the first shot fired from the kitchen, while one of the soldiers were wounded by the second shot.

On receiving the fatal wound Captain O’Dea rushed from the house through the front door, by which he had entered, and running round to the back collapsed on a dung-hill where he expired.

Meanwhile, Sergeant English had attempted to open fire on Captain Kiely, but his gun jammed and in leaping back under the cover of the porch, he tripped and fell.

Springing over the sergeant’s prostrate body, Capt. Kiely rushed onto the road. Having already emptied his revolver, the latter now attempted to use a Thompson submachine gun which he carried. Unfortunately for himself, it jammed after the first shot and Capt. Jerry Kiely fell dead on the roadside, shot through the lung.

It had been arranged between Dan Breen and Jerry Kiely that they should retreat through the back door, using their grenades to get clear of the enemy, but when Jerry Kiely observed that the ‘Free State’ sergeant had tripped and fallen at the door, he saw an opportunity of escaping through the front door entrance and seized upon it.

J. Kiely grave, St. Michael’s Cemetery, Tipperary Town. (Right of K section, edge of path, walking up the hill).
Picture courtesy G. Willoughby.

Dan Breen meantime had gotten clear through the back door, making his
escape into the woods with the help of a hand grenade.

Captain Jerry Kiely was one of the great personalities of the Third Tipperary Brigade, a man of immense courage, highly intelligent and with a great sense of humour. He was loved by children and old people wherever he stayed.

Ernest Bernard O’Malley [Latter Irish: Earnán Ó Máille; (26th May 1897 – 25th March 1957) an Irish republican and author], writing of Jerry Kiely, stated “His face was brown under thick black hair, which he carefully combed. He held his head to one side. He spoke rapidly, he was good company around a fireside. I could often hear his songs at night-time”. Kiely was a man of vision and a deep thinker, who sought military action.
He was not prepared to be a pen and pencil soldier during the War of Independence. He was known and respected by most of the leading IRA officers in Munster. Few is any of his comrade in the Third Tipperary Brigade were involved in as many engagements as Jerry, against enemy forces”.

It was later reported in the Press that Dan Breen had been wounded in the head during the fight. This report was unfounded. “I was not wounded on that night,” said Breen
many years later, “but I was badly wounded in the heart at the loss of Jerry Kiely. What a man he was: – one of the finest soldiers I have ever met, and a loving comrade”.

Despite creating a perception of a happy carefree fellow, Jerry Kiely was a man with a prepared agenda, with a knowledge of what he wished to achieve as a soldier and in private life. When the ‘Truce’ was called, he made his way to America, to further his livelihood prospects. It was the tragic Civil War that brought him back to Ireland.

Thus he was to lose his life in his beloved Aherlow glen at Lisvernane, Co. Tipperary in a shoot-out with Pro-Treaty troops.
As brave and able a soldier and as noble a patriot as County Tipperary ever produced, fell in battle on Sunday April 1st 1923, for his nation, while in the bloom of his youth.

Sadly, to the shame of the organisers and indeed Fianna Fáil; (latter founded as a Republican party on May 16th 1926, by Éamon de Valera and his supporters), I must report that 100 years on, neither the Kiely memorial plaque in Lisvernane, nor the Kiely grave site in St. Michael’s cemetery, Tipperary town, have been cleaned for this Centenary Commemoration being held today.
It is to this end I am reminded of the lines in the song “And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.” – [Lyrics Eric Bogle].

“And the band plays Waltzing Matilda,
And the old men still answer the call,
But as year follows year, more old men disappear,
Someday no one will march there at all.”

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