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If Tomorrow Starts Without Me

“If Tomorrow Starts Without Me.”

^{(Extract from a poem attributed to David Romano.)}

“If tomorrow starts without me, and I’m not there to see,
If the sun should rise and find your eyes all filled with tears for me;
I wish so much you wouldn’t cry the way you did today,
while thinking of the many things we didn’t get to say.
I know how much you care for me, and how much I care for you,
and each time that you think of me I know you’ll miss me too;”

The Christmas Season has almost come to an end. For two millennia, people across the world have been observing the season with traditions and practices. Some practises will have been religious, others cultural and commercial in nature. Those lucky this year succeeded in decorated a Christmas tree; waited for Santa Claus; attending their chosen religious institution; exchanged gifts and shared a meal with kinsfolk and acquaintances.

Yet over this Christmas period, as we pack away our Christmas decorations tomorrow, let’s spare a thought or a fond memory for those who may have lost a loved one, through accident, disease or just old age.

And you have been forgiven and now at last you’re free.
So, won’t you come and take my hand and share my life with me?”
So, if tomorrow starts without me, don’t think we’re far apart,
for every time you think of me, please know I’m in your heart.

Should Thurles Be Roasting Chestnuts On An Open Fire?

Our website, Thurles.Info, first raised the issue of the road surface on the junction of Slievenamon Road and Clongour Road, Thurles, on September 29th, 2017. Now if you think our local elected paid representatives are not reading our site content, then check this out.

Photo: G.Willoughby.

Fianna Fail Councillor Mr John Hogan announced the following good news, yesterday, on his Facebook.

“€654,000 has been granted by Transport Infrastructure Ireland for the upgrade of the road and footpaths on Slievenamon Road Thurles, for 2018. We have all raised this issue over and over again for the past two years and thankfully our voices have finally been heard. This road has been in a desperately dangerous state and at last will be made safe.”

What year Councillor; go on suprise us?

Anyway, ‘Well done Councillor Hogan’; now what is the story regarding Emmett Street, which was just freshly repaired by a Highway Maintenance Crew on Thursday afternoon last, January 4th 2018? Same surface is now actually worse than before this same specific upgrade was undertaken on that aforementioned date? To put it another way, IRA man James Leahy (God Be good to him) would never have escaped on Jack Feehan’s old bike, had the surface of Emmett Street been so rock and gravel strewn back in 1918, exactly 100 years ago this year.

The Rocky Road Through Thurles from George Willoughby on Vimeo.

Since the time period, referred to as “The Season of Good Will to All Men”, remains still within its limitations, we won’t mention Barry’s Bridge, as same could cause major embarrassment.

Then again, on the other hand, perhaps it is time to begin roasting chestnuts on an open fire, if you get my drift.

It Could Be The Final Solution To Doggy Do-Do

Back in January 2014, in an RTE exposé, the Irish columnist, playwright and scriptwriter, Fiona Looney hit the headlines, world-wide by announcing she had located a couple of dog turds on the pavements around Thurles.

Tipperary Municipal District Councillors, would-be future political hopefuls and resident politicians (currently in receipt of €89,965 basic pay; latter part of the Lansdowne Road agreement), please take note ahead of your next Council or Cabinet meeting; here is the perfect project to “get your teeth into”. 😉

The good news is that this ongoing “Doggy Doo problem” haunting the town may now have become short lived, thanks to one man, namely a Mr Brian Harper, a native of Worcestershire, in England.

Mr Harper, is experimenting with a dog turd-powered street gas light, which is currently helping to light the darkness for those descending from dog walks in the Malvern Hills; latter an outstanding area of natural beauty. Worcestershire is also the home of that delicious Lea & Perrins ‘Worcestershire sauce’.

It works like this; dog walkers in this Worcestershire area are provided with free compostable bags and encouraged to deposit their dogs do-do into a hatch which leads to an anaerobic digester positioned beside a street gas light. Dog owners are then encouraged to turn a handle five times, which in turn helps to break down the contents in the digester, thus producing methane to fuel this particular street light.

Ten standard bags of dog turds are deemed sufficient to provide up to two hours of gas light, as dog walkers return from the areas hills at dusk. It remains essential that those contributing to the digester, do not use ordinary plastic bags, but rather compostable bags, since the use of plastic would block it.

We originally produced this video, hereunder, in 2014 – nearly four years ago – did anything change or get updated in Thurles?

Where is Our Civic Pride? from George Willoughby on Vimeo.

The English idea for this gas light was borrowed from conceptual artist Matthew Mazzotta who is using dog faeces to power lampposts in a park in Cambridge, Massachusetts state in New England.

The English street gas lamp began receiving doggy doo from passing walkers back in mid-November 2017 and its presence had already resulted in a reduction of dog faeces in the area.

So what happens the left-over faeces when all the methane is depleted, I hear you ask?
This digester product can be turned into harmless garden fertiliser, to which even Fiona Looney would have no objection.

So, all you Tipperary developers, inventors, young scientists and entrepreneur; I am handing you a goldmine here, so get to work you ungrateful lot, or do I really have to do everything myself.

P.S. In particular the €4.5 Million Euro National Bio-economy Centre starting up at Lisheen Mines should take note; you know the place to which I refer, some 400 jobs were triumphantly replaced by 40 in the recent past.

Health, Happiness & Prosperity For 2018

The poem “Auld Lang Syne” meaning “Old Times Sake” or “Days Gone By” sung hereunder by Scottish singer, songwriter and composer Dougie MacLean O.B.E., was sent, first in 1788, to the Scots Musical Museum by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. He informed the museum that he understood it to be an ancient song and disclaimed all rights to having composed the song himself; rather stating he had recorded it on paper, possibly for the first time, after an elderly acquaintance had dictated the words to him.

The song is usually performed on New Year’s Eve and encourages every person to remember those who mean most to them in their everyday lives and not fail, but to remember good friends from the past, as we move forward into yet another uncertain New Year.

Since the song is about preserving old friendships and looking back over the events of the past year, we here at Thurles.Info would like to thank our many readers, those who took the time to comment or to email us, together with friends and supporters of the site.

So, to all of you:-
Thank You, and it is our fervent wish that the year 2018, and future years, will bring Good Health, Happiness and Prosperity into your homes, wherever in the world you reside.

“Athbhliain faoi shéan is faoi mhaise daoibh”. (Translated from Irish “A Prosperous New Year to you all.”)

Arch Bar, Liberty Square, Thurles, Humming Last Christmas Eve

The Arch Bar in Liberty Square, Thurles, was humming on Christmas Eve. Present were teachers, civil servants, personnel from local shops and quite a few down from Dublin and from further afield; all returned briefly to celebrate Christmas with family and to restore past camaraderie with their once close friends.

Down in one corner of the pub were a noisy bunch of chess players, all bragging about charity games they had played earlier that week; “Very festive, Chess nuts boasting in an open foyer”, Mikey Ryan later jokingly remarked.

I myself had set a personal record this Christmas, by getting my bits of shopping completed three weeks ahead of the deadline of December 25th. With all my purchases back in the house; I was over the halfway mark in the gift wrapping stakes, when I realised my major error. Hadn’t I purchased the wrong wrapping paper from Thurles Shopping Centre, so there was no one I could blame. The paper I had purchased said, ‘Happy Birthday’. Not wanting to waste it; I decided to just write ‘Jesus’ in a few required areas in heavy indelible red marker, on the back and front. Problem solved.

Christmas here in Thurles seemed to go reasonably well for most of our residents; well that’s if the people I consulted are to be believed. On the other hand, when asked how things were going back home since his return to “the little woman”; Mikey Ryan refused to discuss same in detail, other than to inform me that, quote, “Marriage is a bit like a deck of cards. In the beginning it’s all about two hearts and a diamond, and by the end you wish you owned a club and a spade.”

Mikey did have one small misunderstanding; the details of which he related to me on Christmas Eve night. From what I could gather, it seems that he went into Thurles Post Office, before Christmas, on the instructions of his wife, to buy stamps for Christmas cards.
“May I have 50 stamps”? said he to the busy female Post Office clerk.
The Post Office clerk stared, before asking, “What denominations would Sir like”?
“God help us”, said Mikey, “Didn’t I just know that when Fine Gael got into power in this country, that it would eventually come to this; give me 22 Catholic, 12 Protestant, 10 Jewish and 6 Muslim”.

So, that’s it, I have no further news; but from the Arch Bar, Mikey Ryan and myself; have a truly Happy and Prosperous New Year.