Entertainment « Thurles Information

St. Patrick’s Day Parade Returns To Thurles Streets This Year, 2023.

The St. Patrick’s Day Parade committee are delighted to announce that this years (2023) the parade will return to the streets of Thurles on Friday, March 17th, after a three year absence caused by the Covid-19 virus pandemic.

The parade event will starts at 2:30pm in the town centre, with the theme this year being “The Past, Present & Future”, leaving the interpretation presented by each of the entrants or organisations wide open e.g. same may reflect a club or other organisations progress, viewed either through its past, its present, its future or all three such stages of its growth and progress, presented in a creative format combined.

Note: If you would like to contact the committee in relation to entries or sponsorships, please call their chairperson on Tel. No: 0851974620 or email hello@thurlestouristoffice.ie.

Prizes

1st Prize for Overall Winner — €1,000 plus Thurles St. Patrick’s Day Parade Trophy.
2nd Prize for Best Large Entry — €500 and a Trophy.
3rd Prize for Best Band Entry — €250 and a trophy.
4th Prize for Best School Entry — €250 and a trophy.

There will also be 12 Prizes and 600 medals, plus vouchers and trophies for further entries.

This year’s parade is currently being sponsored by Tipperary County Council, – Thurles Chamber Of Commerce, – Supermacs Thurles, – Michaels Jewellers,
– Thurles Shopping Centre and Others (Yet expected to confirm).

Don’t Go Near the Water.

Lyrics & Vocals: Late, great American country singer-songwriter Johnny Cash (1932 – 2003)

“Don’t Go Near the Water” was a song which featured on the 47th album recorded by Johnny Cash entitled “Ragged Old Flag”, which was released on his Columbia Records label back in 1974.
The song addresses what was a red hot political issue back then and sadly remains even more of an environment issue, almost 50 years later, in 2023.

Don’t Go Near the Water.

From the fountains in the mountains,
Comes the water running cool and clear and blue,
And it comes down from the hills,
And it goes down to the towns and passes through,
When it gets down to the cities,
Then the water turns into a dirty gray.
It’s poisoned and polluted,
By the people as it goes along its way.

Don’t go near the water children,
See the fish all dead upon the shore.
Don’t go near the water,
The water isn’t water anymore.

“I took my boy fishin’ to my old favorite fishin’ hole.
I had caught many a fish out of that deep clear water
From the time I was a boy like him.
After we’d fished a few minutes, he said, “Did you get a bite yet daddy?”
I said, “I think I got a nibble son”
“Me too”, he said
Then he said, “Daddy if we catch a fish can we eat him”
I said, “Well there was a time son, this water’s bad now and it might not be safe to eat the fish.
But there was a time.”

There was a time the air was clean,
And you could see forever ‘cross the plains.
The wind was sweet as honey,
And no one had ever heard of acid rain.
We’re torturin’ the earth,
And pourin’ every kind of evil in the sea.
We violated nature,
And our children have to pay the penalty.

Don’t go near the water children.
See the fish all dead upon the shore.
Don’t go near the water,
‘Cause the water isn’t water anymore.

Don’t go near the water children.
See the fish all dead upon the shore.
Don’t go near the water,
‘Cause the water isn’t water anymore.

END

‘Banshees Of Inisherin’ Win Three Awards At Golden Globes.

As predicted the most nominated film of the year, namely ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ cleaned up at this year’s Golden Globes.

The rather tragic comedy staged on a remote island off the West coast of Ireland, not surprisingly won ‘Best Actor’ for Colin Farrell’ ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Screenplay’ for writer and director Martin McDonagh.

The film had been nominated for a total for eight awards; in fact the most Golden Globe nominations any movie had received in one year; since 2004.

Thanking the director who had made it all possible and while accepting the award for ‘Best Actor’, Mr Farrell said he had been surprised by the film’s success. Director Martin McDonagh and actor Colin Farrell, had previously worked together on, and won Golden Globes for the hit ‘In Bruges’.

The brilliant character performance portrayed by Thurles born actress Ms Kerry Condon, (as Siobhán Súilleabháin), who had been nominated for best supporting actress, sadly lost out to actress Jamie Lee Curtis in ‘Everything, Everywhere, All at Once’.

Many who saw the film were particularly struck by the superb performance given by Dublin born, Mr Barry Keoghan, (as Dominic Kearney), latter who came to prominence in the 2017 film, ‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer’ and earlier in 2010 in season 4 of ‘Love/Hate; the latter which depicted fictional characters in Dublin’s criminal underworld. This is Barry’s third appearance on film in the company of Colin Farrell.

Sadly, superb performances from both Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan in the film ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’, must wait to be rewarded on another day and at another time.

To date “The Banshees of Inisherin” has grossed some $24.7 million worldwide, and has received nine Oscar nominations.

Anne Feeney, “Performer, Producer, Hellraiser.”

Anne Feeney (July 1951 – February 2021) was an American folk musician, singer-songwriter, political activist and an attorney. [Her grandfather was William Patrick Feeney of Irish parents that arrived to the United States at the age of fourteen, during the last quarter of the 19th century, and later became State Representative in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, between the years 1910 -1912.]

Granddaughter Anne enrolled in college at the University of Pittsburgh and joined “Thinking Students for Peace”, latter a group that protested the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa.
In 1972 Anne attended the annual Conference on “Women and the Law” and inspired by the group that founded “Women Organized Against Rape” in Philadelphia, she began a campaign for a rape crisis centre in Pittsburgh and successfully co-founded Pittsburgh’s first rape crisis centre.

It was in that same year, while an undergraduate, she was arrested in Miami at the Republican National Convention, where she was protesting Richard Nixon’s re-nomination for President of the United States.
Anne graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, going on to earn a Juris Doctor (JD) degree in 1978, seeking to effect social change through the legal system.
She worked as a lawyer for 12 years but ultimately decided to engage her pursuance of activism, through her music, blending Irish music with American folk and bluegrass, as well as her political message, through her regular attendance at protest rallies.

Carrying a business card that read “Performer, Producer, Hellraiser”, regrettably Anne passed away at a hospital in Pittsburgh, on February 3rd 2021, at the age of 69; a victim of Covid-19.

The song hereunder evokes history and celebrates events people can be proud of in the context of the elimination of child labour, slavery and the extending of the vote to women, noting that these changes could not have occurred without changes within the law and the acts of people who were willing to take a stand that involved going to jail for their ideals of natural justice.

Have You Been to Jail for Justice?

Lyrics: Anne Feeney
Vocals: Peter, Paul & Mary.

Was it Cesar Chavez? or Rosa Parks that day.
Some say Dr King or Gandhi that set them on their way.
No matter who your mentors are it’s been plain to see,
That, if you’ve been to jail for justice, you’re in good company.

Have you been to jail for justice? I want to shake your hand,
Cause sitting in and lyin’ down are ways to take a stand.
Have you sung a song for freedom? or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice? Then you’re a friend of mine.

Hey, you law abiding citizens, come listen to this song.
Laws were made by people, and people can be wrong,
Once unions were against the law, but slavery was fine.
Women were denied the vote, while children worked the mine.
Yea, the more you study history the less you can deny it,
A rotten law stays on the books til folks like us defy it.

Have you been to jail for justice? I want to shake your hand,
Cause sitting in and lyin’ down are ways to take a stand.
Have you sung a song for freedom? or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice? Then you’re a friend of mine.

Well the law’s supposed to serve us, and so are the police,
But when the system fails us, it’s up to us to speak our piece.
We must be ever vigilance, for justice to prevail,
So get courage from your convictions, let them haul you off to jail!

Have you been to jail for justice? I want to shake your hand,
Cause sitting in and lyin’ down are ways to take a stand.
Have you sung a song for freedom? or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice? Then you’re a friend of mine.

Have you been to jail for justice? Have you been to jail for justice?
Have you been to jail for justice? Then you’re a friend of mine.

END.

Aghadoe

Author of “Aghadoe”, John Todhunter (December 1839 – October 1916) was an Irish poet, playwright, and medical physician.

It’s a ballad about the Irish 1798 Rebellion, supposedly narrated by a bereaved female, about her rebel lover, who was betrayed and executed. It is not known if the event described in the lyrics were based on any real-life story.

Lyrics: John Todhunter MD, (December 1839 – October 1916).
Vocals: Liam Clancy (September 1935 – December 2009).
Music: Liam Clancy with The Irish Philharmonic Orchestra.

Dr Todhunter was educated at a Quaker school in Mountmellick, Co. Laois, and later at Bootham, in the city of York, in England; before being apprenticed at the age of 16 years, to the Dublin Quaker firms of Bewley’s and Pim, Dublin, both tea-and-sugar importers. (Thomas Pim, one of the original members of Pim Brothers & Co; born in 1771, grew up also in the Mountmellick area of Co. Laois).

Todhunter entered Trinity College, Dublin in 1861, to study medicine, winning numerous college prizes for his prose and poetry.

His poem “Aghadoe” was set to music by the late Tipperary folk-singer Liam Clancy.

Aghadoe.

There’s a glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe.
There’s a deep and secret glen in Aghadoe.
Where we met my love and I, love’s fair planet in the sky,
In that deep and silent glen in Aghadoe.

There’s a glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe.
There’s a deep and secret glade in Aghadoe.
Where I hid in, from the eyes of the redcoats and their spies,
That year the trouble came to Aghadoe.

But they tracked me to that glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe,
When the price was on his head in Aghadoe,
O’er the mountain through the wood as I stole to him with food,
But the bullets found his heart in Aghadoe.

I walked from Mallow town to Aghadoe, Aghadoe.
I took his head from the jail gate to Aghadoe.
There I covered him with fern and I piled on him the cairn*.
Like an Irish king, he sleeps in Aghadoe.

END