Pre-deceased by his parents Matty and Bridie, brothers Michael and Martin, brother-in-law Lofty; the passing of Mr Hynes, (1st Armoured Car Squadron Plunkett Barracks, retired), is most deeply regretted by his loving wife Mary (Dwyer), daughters Mandy and Grace, grandchild Alannah-Rose, son-in-law Johnny, brother Patsy and sister-in-law, Eileen (Thurles), sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews, extended relatives, friends and his loyal dog ‘Bear’.
For the many persons who would have liked to have attended the funeral service for Mr Hynes, but due to distance or ill health are unable to do so, same can be viewed online HERE.
[NB: Due to C-19 virus fears; those attending will continue to observe strict adherence to social distancing, face covering, with no hand shaking.]
The extended Hynes family wish to express their appreciation for your understanding at this difficult time and have made arrangements for those wishing to send messages of condolence, to use the link shown HERE.
“A lovely evening among true friends”, was how Thurles journalist/author, Tom Ryan described the launch of his fourth book, “The Cuppa Sugar days – Warm-hearted Tales of a Newspaperman” by Dr. Labhras O’Murchu, (Director General of Comhaltas Ceoltóiri Éireann); at a convivial and charming night of celebration in the Anner Hotel, Thurles, last Saturday.
Tom Ryan (centre) pictured at the launch Of His Fourth Book, “The Cuppa Sugar Days”, in Anner Hotel, Thurles, with Dr. Labhras O’Murchu, (Director General of Comhaltas Ceoltóiri Éireann, who launched the book) and his wife Una, (Director Of The Bru Boru Heritage Centre in Cashel)
Tom’s friends from Roscommon to Rathdowney and from Galway to Waterford and from many parts of County Tipperary, were there to either entertain guests or support the best-selling Thurles newspaperman and author.
The popular poet, the late Geraldine Cummins, Mitchel Street, Thurles, who died in March this year was commemorated by the reading of her poem, “Light”, by multi-awards winning Celbridge poet, short story writer and dramatist, Cathy Conlon, originally from Coolquill, Killenaule, who grew up in The Commons, Thurles. She was accompanied by her husband, Tommy. Unasssuming Cathy, a friend of Tom Ryan, also read from her own works. Geraldine’s sisters, Aideen O’Sullivan and Norma Cummins, represented the Cummins family at the poetic tribute on the night. Also present for the unique tribute to Geraldine were the poet’s dear friends, Paddy Hanafin and Joe O’Connell.
Tom’s fourth book is dedicated to his late wife, Ina, his working partner for 42 years. Tom and Ina’s friends, Dylan Kennedy and Jenny Fennessy of the Red’n Blue Theatre Company, based in Waterford, came from Waterford as a gesture of solidarity with Tom and to pay tribute to Ina who, like Tom, hugely respected the talented and great-hearted thespians of the Deise. Jenny is star of the hit BBC TV series, “Call the Midwife”.
There too, was former “Indians” showband drummer, Chris Mullahy and his charming wife, Kathleen, who now live in Kickham Street, Thurles. The duo enjoyed craic and chat with Eileen Finneran, Galway; Kathleen O’Mahony, Castleiney and Mary Finn, Rathdowney.
The Master of Ceremonies, multi- talented Mick Creagh from Rathdowney, proved himself a top showman by taking on the additional role of entertainer in place of a number of acts unable to be present due to illness. Michael Lowry TD was unavoidably absent having to go abroad at short notice but sent a message congratulating Tom on another “beautiful production”. He commended Tom not only on his literary skills but also his courage and determination in completing such a challenging task.
Independent Councillor Jim Ryan was there and he is of course associated with many entertainment events in Thurles.
Top recording artiste, PJ Corcoran, (Loughmore) and his lovely wife, Sadie, were there. So, too was Hannah Costello, The Ragg, Bouladuff, Thurles, latter sister of former Tipperary Senior hurling goalkeeper of Thurles Sarsfields, Jimmy Duggan; and with Hannah was her sister, Esther Duggan, Holycross. Nurses present included Helena Ryan Athnid and Theresa Bannon, Cassestown, Thurles.
Now retired “Tipperary Star”, newspaper journalist, the amiable John Guiton, was there and barrister, Sean Deegan who entertained the Nenagh contingent with a wealth of fascinating stories. Sean, who supports almost all Thurles cultural functions, is a former Thurles Urban District Councillor, and is now residing in Rochfordbridge, County Westmeath. He is a former “Tipperary Star” Dublin press correspondent and wrote a weekly column about the Dublin / Tipperary people for years.
Blogger actor, photographer and multi-talented George Willoughby of “Thurles Information” renown, popped in to congratulate Tom.
Equestrian enthusiast, Vern Carroll of Borroway, Thurles was enjoying the scene with Thurles club for Dancing personality, Tom Gleeson and Seamus O’ Driscoll of the Mill Road Garden Centre, brother of the late great poet and friend of Tom, Dennis O’Driscoll.
Tom Healy, one of many people with Coolcroo links, and also well known in the entertainment industry and in athletics circles was there with his charming wife, Aileen.
Pat Ryan (Left), No. 30 Kennedy Park, Thurles pictured with his cousins from Nenagh & Portroe and author Tom Ryan, at the launch “The Cuppa Sugar Days” in the Anner Hotel, Thurles, recently.
From Nenagh came Tom Ryan’s first cousins, Noreen Horrigan, and her son, Martin, an ex-Irish Army soldier who served overseas. Martin was accompanied by his beautiful wife Margaret. There, too, was Nancy McCormack, Cloneybrien, Portroe, and Noreen Horrigan’s sister and a great entertainer also.
Dermot Freeman, whose brother, John died just before publication of Tom’s book, was on stage in the best traditions of sowbiz and won rapturous applause. He and John won admiration some years ago from members of the Kennedy Dynasty when the brothers entertained them in Washington with their “Ballad of Bobby Kennedy”.
The inimitable Aggie Moloney on tin whistle was greatly enjoyed and she was with her friend, the lovely Teresa Grant, a native of Urard, Gortnahoe, Thurles.
From Roskeen, Drombane came charming Mary O’Malley (who enjoyed “Shirley Valentine” at The Source) and Dominic Moore, who was assisting Tom’s brother Pat at the “Box Office”.
A ‘Spurs’ fan, Pat is a former National Hidden Heroes award winner for 40 years of devotion to his brother the late Michael Ryan, No.30 Kennedy Park, Thurles, as was mentioned by Mick Creagh who gave a towering performance in his M.C. role. Mrs Mary Farrell, sister of the late Thurles and Munster Rugby legend, Bobby O’Brien came from Malahide, Dublin, and I met her with noted poet and historian, Una Crowe, Holycross, Thurles.
Thurles author and historian the popular Paddy Loughnane, is always present for Tom’s book launches. The popular Eamonn O’Dwyer was there recording for his “Down Your Way” programme on Tipp FM. Eamonn is currently celebrating 21years of presenting the popular programme which saw him interviewing Tipp folks in all parts of the county. Eamonn has ‘covered’ all Tom’s book launches. He features in the book “Cuppa Sugar Days” also.
Well known singer/musician and recording star, Kenny Ryder, accompanied Mick Creagh singing the hilarious “Pearl from Errill” by Pat Vaughan of County Kilkenny. Tom Ryan travelled all over Ireland for years in the bandwagon with Kenny Ryder and the 7-piece Superband and wrote numerous articles, short stories, poems, and a three-act play, “Showband”, all about life on the bandwagon, always a great show is Kenny who was preparing to celebrate his birthday. [Mol an Oige (Irish – Praise the Young) Kenny!]
Others enjoying the evening included An Post person Deirdre McKenna from Two-Mile-Borris; ex Thurles Bank of Ireland official, genial Maura O’ Connell and friends, Frances Ryan, Knocka, Drom and Anne Ryder, Kenny’s charming wife, who is cousin of Kathleen Mullahy.
There also was Margaret Keogh, Thurles; Dr. Labhras O’Murchu, who was accompanied by his wife, Una, (Director of Bru Boru in Cashel), recalled the organisation dedicated to the tradition of music song and ceili dance in Thurles called Cumann Cheoil agus Rinnce, whose members included his great friend Eamonn De Stafort of the Silvermines and Tom Ryan. Cumann Cheoil agus Rinnce in Thurles used to meet in the old Muintir na Tire Hall in Rossa Street,Thurles and its members in Arran sweaters used to travel to fleadhanna cheoil around the country. Labhras spoke of the importance of community and keeping a sense of community intact and of being aware of place and of tradition and of keeping our songs and music alive in a fast moving world. He noted the contrast between the fireside singing of the early years of Comhaltas and the 750,000 people attending the last All Ireland Fleadh Cheoil in Drogheda. Today there are 1,500 music classes in Comhaltas. Lauding Tom’s four books which captured our past, he suggested that people should get together to discuss the stories of emigration and traditions such as Tom Ryan frequently wrote about in his books to better understand our Irish DNA and identity and roots and also to do this through the schools.
Labhras learned that night that the ‘fear an ti’ (Irish – Man of the House or MC), Michael Creagh, is grandnephew of the legendary historian/ musician Andy Dowling of Errill whom he recalled playing the hammer dulcimer on the streets at fleadhanna cheoil, accompanied by his great friend the renowned fiddle player Ned Looby, Templetuohy, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.
Mr Byrne sadly passed away following a brief illness.
Pre-deceased by his parents Kitty and Michael, brother Patrick and sister Mary, the passing of Mr Byrne is most deeply regretted by his sisters, brother, nephews, nieces, brothers-in-law, extended relatives, neighbours and friends.
Requiescat in Pace.
Funeral Arrangements.
Following the wishes of Mr Byrne, his remains will repose at Hugh Ryan’s Funeral Home, Slievenamon Road, Thurles, on Thursday evening next, May 26th, from 6:00pm to 7:00pm. Interment will take place in St. Patrick’s cemetery, Moyne Road, Thurles, on Friday May 27th at 12:00 noon.
[NB: Due to C-19 virus fears; those attending will continue to observe strict adherence to social distancing, face covering, with no hand shaking.]
The extended Byrne family wish to express their appreciation for your understanding at this difficult time and have made arrangements for those wishing to send messages of condolence, to use the link shown HERE.
The Minister for Health, Mr Stephen Donnelly, has confirmed that the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) * vaccine is to be made available free to all women under the age of 25; in an effort to reduce cervical cancer rates.
Mr Donnelly has now communicated with the HSE, informing them to outline a vaccination programme for women and a catch-up programme for girls and boys in secondary schools, latter who may have missed out during the Covid-19 pandemic or initially refused to accept the vaccine.
The advice received from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) seeks to prioritise women under 25 and current second-level students for the vaccine. This advice from NIAC also recommends catch-up vaccination for unvaccinated people under 25 years of age.
The HPV vaccine, which is expensive to obtain privately, will also be offered to those young women who refused or were advised to not take it at the time of offering. Thus the HSE school vaccination teams have already been working with schools to ensure anyone who missed their initial shot, while in first year, are now offered second opportunity to participate.
Some 400 women and men are diagnosed with HPV-caused cancers every year, here in the Irish Republic. It is therefore essential that nobody misses out on the protection against cancer which this HPV vaccine guarantees, thus eliminating HPV cancers.
The Irish Cancer Society urges every eligible person to get the vaccine once the expected new programme is put in place.
* Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is a family of very common viruses that are passed on during skin-to-skin contact, particularly sexual activity, including oral sex. There are over 170 types of HPV and most do not cause any problems. However, certain types are considered high risk and increase the risk of cancer. Nearly all cervical cancer is due to HPV and two strains; HPV16 and HPV18, account for 70% of all cases.
“Science should and does serve society” – Quote John Desmond Bernal.
John Desmond Bernal, (1901-I971), one of the most important Irish-born scientists of the last century, was born at Brookwatson, Nenagh, here in North Co. Tipperary.
John’s father was Samuel George Bernal (1864-1919) latter a moderately prosperous Tipperary dairy farmer who had, at the age of 20, run away to Australia from his native home, then in Co. Limerick before returning home following his father’s death.
John’s mother was the American journalist Elizabeth (Bessie) Bernal (nee Miller)(1869-1951 ), the daughter of a Co. Antrim born Presbyterian minister Revd. William Young Miller, then living in Illinois, a state in the Midwestern United States of America.
Both parents had met while on a visit to a seaside resort in Belgium. Bessie is described as being tall, beautiful, energetic, well educated (one of the first students to attend at Stanford University, one of the world’s leading research and teaching institutions), and a much-travelled woman who spoke fluent French. They became engaged within one month of meeting and for convenience, would convert to Roman Catholicism, prior to their marriage on Tuesday, January 9th, 1900.
John was born on Friday, May 10th, 1901, the eldest of 3 brothers and two sisters, who attending first the local Convent school, and later the Church of Ireland national school at Barrack Street, Nenagh, Co. Tipperary. In 1910, their parents decided to send their two eldest sons, John and Kevin, to a Jesuit-run public school in Lancashire, England.
John won a scholarship to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1919 to eventually read physics and it was here that John developed a strong interest in the developing the science of X-ray crystallography. It was here also that he became an active Marxist, becoming a committed Communist for the rest of his life.
Committed to non-possessive sexual liberation; John married his wife Eileen two days after his graduation, before later maintaining three households with his wife, and two other women, Margot Heinemann and Margaret Gardiner and their four children. In this respect the 4 women knew each other and got on well together. Bernal had two children (Mike, 1926–2016 and Egan, b.1930), with his wife Agnes Eileen Sprague, a secretary, and referred to as Eileen. They had married on Wednesday, June 21st, 1922, the day after John had been awarded his BA degree. Eileen is also mentioned as his widow in 1990. In the early 1930’s, he had a brief intimate relationship with chemist Dorothy Hodgkin. He had a long-term relationship with the artists’ patron Margaret Gardiner. Their son Martin Bernal (1937–2013) was a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University and the author of the controversial Afrocentric work “Black Athena”. * Margaret referred to herself as “Mrs. Bernal”, though she and John never married. He also had a daughter Jane, born in 1953, with Margot Heinemann, latter British Marxist writer, drama scholar and leading member of the British Communist Party.
*Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, in three volumes were published in 1987, 1991, and 2006. Same is a controversial and pseudo-historic book published by Martin Bernal, proposing an alternative hypothesis on the origins of ancient Greece and classical civilisation.
John’s encyclopaedic knowledge soon earned him the nickname “Sage”, while at Cambridge University and in 1927, he became the first lecturer in ‘Structural Crystallography’ * and was appointed assistant director of the Cavendish Laboratory at the same University in 1934. In 1937, John became Professor of Physics at Birkbeck College, a public research university, located in Bloomsbury London, as head of their newly established department of crystallography.
*Crystallography is the experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in crystalline solids.
His range of friends included Kruschev, Chairman Mao, Lord Mountbatten, Artists Barbara Hepworth and Pablo Picasso. Indeed, it was following a cancelled Soviet-sponsored World Peace Congress in Sheffield, that Picasso and other peace activist friends returned to Bernal’s flat at the top of No. 22 Torrington Square, London for a party. It was here also that Picasso created his only mural drawn in Britain, executed on Bernal’s wall. In 2007, it became part of the Wellcome Trust’s collection for £250,000. [The 7ft by 4ft ‘Bernal Picasso’ remains on show in the Birkbeck Clore Management Centre, 27 Torrington Square, London, United Kingdom]
Prior to the outbreak of World War II in 1939; with the likelihood of war against Hitler’s Germany; Bernal, together with Solomon “Solly” Zuckerman, (latter British public servant, zoologist, medic and operational research pioneer, later remembered as a scientific advisor to the Allies on bombing strategy in World War II), felt compelled to voice their protest at the lack of preparation for mounting any form of response against an initial attack and together were effective in challenging the official lines of the then British establishment.
In line with later US President Lyndon Johnson’s infamous remark “What’s the difference between a cactus and a caucus? The cactus has all the pricks on the outside”; in April 1942 a member of Chamberlain’s cabinet, Sir John Anderson, invited Bernal to become his scientific advisor. The post was accepted by Bernal who suspended his academic activities, before becoming Scientific Adviser to Combined Operations, under Lord Louis Mountbatten,* in spite of his then MI5 dossier. Indeed, prior to Sir John Anderson’s initial invitation; the latter is quoted as saying “even if he is as red as the flames in hell, I want him”.
*Mountbatten would later be assassinated by a bomb planted aboard his fishing boat in Mullaghmore, Co. Sligo, Ireland; by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, on Monday, August 27th, 1979.
John Bernal would devise plans that contributed to the success of the D-Day landings, including co-inventing the “Mulberry temporary portable floating harbour”,* used during the Normandy Invasion (June 6th,1944), to facilitate the rapid offloading of supplies and personnel along the coast of Normandy, France. He established the physical condition of the beach the allies would land on and instigated aerial photography to create accurate models of the French coastline.
*“Mulberry“ was the codename for all the various different structures that would create the artificial harbours. These were the “Gooseberries”which metamorphosed into fully fledged harbours, allowed the unloading of, in total, over 2.5 million troops, 500,000 vehicles and 4 million tons of wartime supplies.
Following the war he returned to his Chair of Physics at Birkbeck College and in 1946 receive the Council of the Royal Societies award of a Royal Medal for that year, for his work on the structure of proteins and other substances by X-ray methods.
Awards
Bernal was awarded the Royal Medal in 1945; the Guthrie lecture in 1947; the Stalin Peace Prize in 1953; the Grotius Gold Medal in 1959 and the Bakerian Lecture in 1962.
In his later years, John Bernal took on the role of a senior statesman of science, travelling the world spreading scientific and social ideas, as a prominent intellectual in political life. Following a number of strokes; his first on an aircraft as he returned from one of his many trips abroad; he passed away on Wednesday, September 15th, 1971.
Today, the John Desmond Bernal Prize is an award given annually by the Society for Social Studies of Science to scholars, judged to have made a distinguished contribution to the field of Science and Technology Studies; first launched in 1981.
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