Thurles Information

View Thurles Under Water.

According to some town residents, Thurles may be twinning with Venice shortly; same to be announced by Thurles TD’s, within the next few days.

However, those with properties under water claim that drains are not being cleaned and that engineers have questions to answer regarding drainage brought about by the half-finished upgrading of the Liberty Square town centre.

**Cathedral Street, Thurles. October 16th 2022.**

**Fianna Road, Thurles, October 16th 2022.**

**Emmett Street, Thurles, October 16th 2022.**

**Kickham Street, Thurles, October 16th 2022.**

**Thurles Town Park, Thurles, October 16th 2022.**

Garda cars and private cars are being used to halt access into severely flooded streets.

Premises in Friar Street in the town are also severely flooded, with same currently being viewed by two councillors, and Fianna Fáil TD Mr J. Cahill. (You know the latter named; he’s the farmers friend who does not support current notions on “Climate Change” and “Global Warming”).

However, today is only October 16th and one wonders should residents invest in boats, before the real winter season “swings into play”.

No doubt Local Municipal District Councillors and Officials, with red faces, will discuss the issue tomorrow, before washing their hands of the matter; to blame and make demands on Irish Water, who were never involved in any updated installation.
[Time to bring former Town Clerk Mr Michael Ryan out of retirement.]

NOTE: Warning was given in August 2022 HERE with video evidence; again in August 2022 HERE, and in February 2022 HERE, by Thurles.Info.

The Newspaper Man.

The Newspaper Man.

Poem Courtesy of Thurles Author & Poet, Tom Ryan ©

The little bespectacled man,
With the heavy newspaper bundle,
Under his arm,
Carried Indo, Press and Herald,
The news of the time,
To terrace, road and street,
Door to open door,
In all the frost and snow and rain,
All the long year round,
To our small town.
He magically brought
Disasters, Curly Wee and Gussie Goose, Rip Kirby,
Crosswords, Sports, Cartoons-
And a myriad things besides,
To talk about and do.
To pass the easy-going times, as were in it then.
To give us a break from radio.
I hear of laptops from journalism colleagues now,
The technology of distribution-
All in the times, I own,
But Paddy Hickey, flesh and blood,
Newspaperman,
Walked them hard streets for years,
To meet his deadline.

END

Tom Ryan, “Iona”, Rahealty, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.

Irish Fiction Laureate Colm Tóibín Hosts Podcast In Cashel Library.

The Laureate for Irish Fiction, Colm Tóibín, hosts ‘The Art of Reading’ Podcast in Cashel Library.

Maura Barrett, Cashel Library, Reports: –

The ‘Art of Reading’ is a monthly book club hosted by Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet Colm Tóibín, the Laureate for Irish Fiction. It is available to library book clubs across the country and offered as an online event for readers and booklovers everywhere on the last Thursday of every month.

Since February, the Laureate has met a different library book club each month to discuss a novel by an Irish writer, highlighting outstanding Irish writing and celebrating the reader and book clubs.

In November 2022, Colm Tóibín comes to the bookclubs in Cashel Library, where he will record live his podcast that will be aired live on the last Thursday in the month, through the Arts Council website and social media

The selected titles include new work by contemporary Irish writers as well as novels from the past, that the Laureate wishes to bring to a new generation of readers.

Readers, book lovers and book clubs everywhere are invited to join in the Art of Reading with the Laureate, to read these outstanding books and to engage in reading in a deep and focused way.

The Poet Laureate will discuss Elizabeth Bowen’s ‘The Last September’ with noted Cork Novelist and Poet Thomas McCarthy, before opening the discussion out to the Book Clubs.

Note: There are a limited number of spaces available to interested readers for this event and early booking is advised.
Please contact Maura Barrett in Cashel Library on Tel: 062 63825, to secure a place at this event.

Colm Toibin FRSL

Colm Toibin was born in Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford in 1955.
He studied at University College Dublin and lived in Barcelona between 1975 and 1978.
His work has been translated into more than thirty languages. He is a regular contributor to the New York Review of books and a contributing editor at the London Review of Books.
Between 2006 and 2013 he was a member of the Irish Arts Council. He has twice been Visiting Stein Writer at Stanford University and has also been a visiting writing at the University of Texas at Austin.
He taught at Princeton from 2009 to 2011 and was Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Manchester in 2011.
He is currently Mellon Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia and Chancellor of Liverpool University. He is President of Listowel Writers Week and a member of the Board of Druid Theatre.
His second collection of stories ‘The Empty Family’, published in 2010, was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor Prize.
His book of essays on Henry James ‘All a Novelist Needs’, appeared also in 2010.
Also, in 2012, his novel ‘The Testament of Mary’ was published and short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. In April 2013, ‘The Testament of Mary’ opened on Broadway, with Fiona Shaw, and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play. In 2013 it was released as an audiobook with Meryl Streep.
Colm Toibin’s novel ‘Nora Webster’, published in 2014, won the Hawthornden Prize.
His ‘On Elizabeth Bishop’, published in 2015, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.
His ninth novel ‘House of Names’ appeared in 2017.
In May 2017, he co-curated ‘Henry James and American Painting’ at the Morgan Library.

Pheasant’s Tail Grass (Anemanthele lessoniana)

Pheasant’s Tail grass in late September *(Anemanthele lessoniana)*.
*Pic. G. Willoughby*.

Fast-growing, frost hardy, Pheasant’s Tail grass (Anemanthele lessoniana), which enjoys full sun or partial shade, will provide all year-round colour in your garden, while also offering a certain movement and structure.

Pheasant’s Tail grass enjoys moderately fertile, medium to light, well-drained soil and will form a fountain-like clump of slender colourful foliage; its blades emerging first as healthy, green shoots, before quickly changing to irregular yellow, orange, brown and red streaks.

Like so many other plants, during the colder months of the year, these grass blade colours become much more intense; worthy of beholding especially if planted and viewed in an area, to the fore of where the sun either rises or sets.

An added bonus are the sprays of airy grass flower heads, which will emerge in August/September. It does self-seed, but unwanted plants can easily be removed or simply potted up and given to other lovers of gardening. Seed-heads do provide a winter food source for finches and other seed-eating birds.

In spring, as your garden comes back to life, you can easily tease out any deceased foliage by gently and safely running your fingers through its gentle blades.

Poem “My Shadow”

My Shadow

By Scottish Novelist, Essayist, Poet and Travel Writer
Robert Louis Stevenson. (1850 – 1894).

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow,
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow,
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there’s none of him at all.

He hasn’t got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he’s a coward you can see,
I’d think shame to stick to nursie, as that shadow sticks to me.

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup,
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

END