IRELAND'S LITTLE PEOPLE

Going through some of unpublished photo’s that I took at the Woodfield Market last month. I came across one of them which gave me confirmation of what I have always thought and could never prove.‘The Little People’[Fairies] always wear the costumes of the present time and because they do so, they are rarely seen today.

Can you spot him ?

Look to where the arrow is pointing

I have been spending a lot of time in recent days studying media reports, from various sources, on what is happening with our nearest neighbours, those on the island that lies between Ireland and Europe.

10 reasons to be cheerful - Not

© The Times 2017

It seems to me that there is an antithesis in the association of Mrs May and the DUP because the accepted social rights of individuals within England, Wales and Scotland differ greatly from those of the DUP.

The D.U.P.

Led by Arlene Foster.

About the DUP

With a third of its members drawn from the late Rev Ian Paisley’s staunchly Protestant Free Presbyterian church, it is unsurprising that recent research found more than half of the Democratic Unionist party “would mind a lot” if a close relative married someone from a different christian sect.

THE LEADER OF DUP is Arlene Foster and their membership includes:

Ian Paisley Jr. who in 2005 described gay marriage as “immoral, offensive and obnoxious.”

Gregory Campbell, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Nigel Dodds, Paul Girvan and

Emma Little-Pengelly. 

Little-Pengelly, the 38-year old MP for South Belfast, was endorsed last month by an organisation linked to the Ulster Defence Association, a loyalist paramilitary group. 

David Simpson, MP for Upper Bann since 2005, is strongly opposed to abortion. He has described pro-choice supporters as “anti-democratic, anti-libertarian and anti-human rights”.

Gavin Robinson, Jim Shannon, Gregory Campbell and 

Sammy Wilson, MP for East Antrim, a former lord mayor of Belfast who has said he thinks climate change is a con.

For more information https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/11/dup-whos-who-party-members-prop-up-tories-theresa-may

Personally I would be very loathe to even have a cup of tea with any of them and I do wonder if Mrs May has any understanding of what these people are like.

ROADSIDE ODDITIES

A quare blog post to make you smile!

THE BOG MAN of PULLAGH, Co. OFFALY  carved out of Bog Oak.

Looking at the map and also at the road signs it would be easy to believe that there are two places with similar names next to each other, for just over Plunkett Bridge which strides the Grand Canal is POLLAGH and the reasoning for this is something for which I know absolutely nothing about. Last night I read a survey compiled by Offaly County Council hoping to find an answer - unfortunately they described it all as being PULLAGH !

The carpark at Ballinahown, Co. Westmeath.

with a Bog Oak structure which was once a fountain.

The reflection looks better with a root stock emerging from

a stony pond and somehow more meaningful ?

These miniature iconic models or perhaps garden decorations

caught my eye.

I think that this fellow is supposed to be a

Unicorn!

My birthday Jan 9th

A birthday cake

January 9th is my birthday. I was going to write up something about me and then, well we all know what occurred in Paris on that day. 
So I gave over my day and published something quite different to what I had planned. A reasonable amount of time has now passed and so I shall rekindle my thoughts.


On this birthday I became 72 years of age, although to be quite honest I am not convinced, of whether I am 27 or 72 because I actually feel like 35 and sometimes a bit younger. 


When I look in the mirror, which is not very often as I gave up shaving long ago, I wonder to which of my ancestors do I resemble. There is no answer and no photographs of either my father or his father at seventy-two for both died in their mid fifties. 
Their age of passing influenced me greatly, leading me to decide  in my early forties, to plan a life style change which would remove stress and give me the experience of total freedom. I chose this path in case I too had an early demise and so I retired early, in my forty-eighth year.


Life always throws up challenges and ironically within a few weeks of moving to my rural retreat, along came a entrepreneur who asked me to design an a piece of equipment for him - I stuck to my plan however and denied him, as did others and to my knowledge his idea never came to fruition. 


I did though make a return to employment - though not as a design engineer as I was previously, this time it was in Development Education as a Facilitator, a position that I greatly enjoyed and brought me into contact with some very interesting people. Folk who actually care and work towards improving the social and living conditions of people in our impoverished and mutilated world.


The above paragraph above brings me back as to why I published a comment from a former editor Philippe Val of Charlie Hebdo and why from time to time this blog highlights issues that disturb me greatly.

Please view

http://www.developmenteducation.ie

SILENCE

• 
  

  Ex-editor: 'Silence is the threat'

  Posted at 00:30

  Charlie Hebdo's former editor Philippe Val: "Do you know what threatens democracy the most? Silence. To reduce ourselves to silence means that we will lose all we have gained of liberty, freedom for women, for homosexuals, the freedom to come and go as we please, moral freedom.

  "But we must not believe that the Muslims who are today outraged by what has happened cannot understand it. They can understand it. They can understand that today, their religion needs to reform. So that it does not in the heart of the democracy where they have chosen to live, create terrorists, terrorism, which is of course opposed by most Muslims, who are victims of it."

Wecome Visitors

You never know what lies around the corner nor who will call at your door, not even what sight you may see on the road.

I am not related to these gentlemen, both though, know me as a friend. The white haired man is a tinsmith / craftsman and you can see one of his copper buckets towards the rear of the cart.

The other gentleman, his cousin, is a builder of carts and a wheelwright, together they keep the old ways secure and alive even though times are a changing.

They live the life and walk the talk.

When I first got to know them they lived and still live in traditional wagons, known as Barrel Tops, on a grass verge of a country road, colloquially known as 'the long acre' a place of free grazing & camping. They were there for years and always kept the site tidy.

On the opposite side of the road to them plots of land were sold and large, detached, salubrious bungalows were gradually built until there became a small colony of wealthy persons, some of who adopted an air of snobbishness and made complaints to the authorities about the Travellers.

I believe that I am right in saying that it is EU policy to 'encourage' the removal of the traditional families from the roadside, by either encouraging them to live in council houses or to move to large permanent camps provided by municipal authorities.

The authoritative wheels turned and official was action was taken against my friends. They moved however not into a municipal camp or even into local authority housing but merely 80 metres up the road on the same side, into a two storey detached house. On its extensive grounds they parked their barrel tops.

The house had been left to them in a will some years ago by a generous friend who had died.

I would just loved to have been a fly on the wall, to have seen & heard what the snotty neighbours had to say.

Long Live the Travelling People !

For information on the Irish Travellers visit www.paveepoint.ie

Murals

This posting is in response to a request from Tex who asked to see the murals,on my cottage walls. Alas the numbers have been reduced to just two, both of them by the muralist Kit Wray and a few cartoons that I produced.

You might ask why I painted them in the first place: it was an indulgence that I gave to my inner child, the one who remembers being told off for drawing on his mother's wall paper! The other reason is that they represented the freedom to do whatever I wished in regard to decorating my new home by quietly saying fiddle sticks to convention !

For a few years I gave others the freedom to freely express themselves on the walls of my home, one young fraulien painted a pink elephant and a fire breathing dragon on the entrance walls to one of the driveways. Tex did a painting of a buxom wench spinning wool, a former partner did a nude self portrait and lots of folk expressed themselves their own style.

Wear, tear and redecorating accidents succeeded in reducing the numbers down to those displayed here. Enjoy !

Psss'st you will have to scroll down to the bottom to see them all as gremlins are at work and I was unable to place them exactly !

The faces I found in the relief of the walls