What a historic visit the Queen has made to Ireland. It is a good rather than a bad event, even if there are factions that think otherwise.  

 

Irish nationalism should equal  pride in our heritage. Even if it is a mix of cultures. I am a descendant of the French Huguenots who fled catholic persecution to take refuge in Ireland. Go figure!

 

Ireland has a checkered history least of which is the reign of Eamon De Valera. The oracle that is Wikipedia documents a life that few Irish people know.   

De Valera was born in New York City in 1882 to an Irish mother; his parents, Catherine Coll (subsequently Mrs Wheelwright), an immigrant from Bruree, County Limerick, and Juan Vivion de Valera, a Cuban settler and sculptor of Spanish descent, were reportedly married on 18 September 1881 at St. Patrick's Church in Jersey City, New Jersey. However, archivists have not located any such marriage certificate or any birth, baptismal, or death certificate information for anyone called Juan Vivion de Valera or de Valeros, an alternative spelling. On De Valera's original birth certificate, his name is given as George De Valero and his father is listed as Vivion De Valero. The first name was changed in 1910 to Edward and the surname corrected to de Valera.

There were a number of occasions when de Valera seriously contemplated the religious life like his half-brother, Fr. Thomas Wheelwright, but ultimately did not pursue a vocation. De Valera was throughout his life portrayed as a deeply religious man, who in death asked to be buried in a religious habit. While his biographer, Tim Pat Coogan, speculated that questions surrounding de Valera's legitimacy may have been a deciding factor in his not entering religious life, being illegitimate would have been a bar to receiving orders only as a secular or diocesan cleric, not as a member of a religious order.

Juan Vivion died in 1885 leaving Catherine Coll and her child in poor circumstances. Éamon was taken to Ireland by his Uncle Ned at the age of two. Even when his mother married a new husband in the mid-1880s, he was not brought back to live with her but reared instead by his grandmother Elizabeth Coll, her son Patrick and her daughter Hannie, in County Limerick. He was educated locally at Bruree National School, County Limerick and Charleville Christian Brothers School, County Cork. Aged sixteen, he won a scholarship to Blackrock College, County Dublin, where he began playing rugby. Later during his tenure at Rockwell College, he joined the school's rugby team where he played fullback on the first team, which reached the final of the Munster Senior Cup. De Valera went on to play for the Munster rugby team in the mid-1900s in the fullback position and remained a lifelong devotee of rugby, attending numerous international matches up to and towards the end of his life despite near blindness. He also developed an intensely close relationship with the Holy Ghost Order and its Blackrock College school from this time.

De Valera chose to keep Ireland neutral during WWII but allowed the German's access to Irish ports. Many of his country men signed up and gave their lives to fight against the Germans and to protect our freedom. As they have always done. The Irish are nothing if not brave and idealistic. That's what sets us apart and yet makes us special. We embrace everyone in the same spirit as they do us.

I am proud to be Irish.  

I am not proud of my countrymen who persist in violence in the name of freedom.

It is time to put bigotry aside and make a future worthy of our ancestors. And that goes for all factions.

BACK TO THE DARK AGES

The husband is in a right tizzy. The electricity has gone off yet again and he has missed half of the Alan Titchmarsh show and says if he misses CSI he is going to go ballistic missile. The odd thing is, when there was an outage during the thunder and lightning storm it only lasted for about an hour and a half. I can’t be sure because I wasn’t clock watching at the time. One can accept that the power lines can be damaged in bad weather. What is confusing is that today there is hardly a breeze. The girl at NIE said the team trying to fix the fault were finding that the fuses kept blowing. She also said the damage may be down to birds flying into the power lines. My neighbour was told the same thing. Apparently geese can smack into electricity wires although they must be blind and stupid. The one’s we see fly way above the poles and as far as I know, no one has found a fried goose anywhere around here.

I have been moaning about our unpredictable electricity supply for years.

Ms Natasha McGee of NIE went to great lengths to explain that there are a number of things that can affect supply. One is an automatic cut off programmed into the system so that it shuts down if it thinks it has experienced a fault. Or should that be potential fault?

Next thing we will be told is that flying saucers caused the lines to come down.

It is no wonder electricity is so expensive. They have all this technology yet the network isn’t fit for purpose.

Thankfully my computer is charged and I can moan away to my heart’s content … that’ll be the day as John Wayne would say.

The husband on the other hand is going mental and now the Rock has started crying. He is a sensitive wee dog and knows when his daddy is scunnered. To be fair he has a point. Playing draughts by candle light only lasts for two games. His heart isn’t in it and I will beat him.  He wants to see CSI. It is 9.05pm. NIE said it would be 9.00pm before power was restored. The husband is growling. He says how the F**k do they know that, when they don’t have a clue what the problem is? He says he is so feckin’ angry his head is going to explode. This is coming from the most laid back, kind and gentle man I know but missing Lesser Spotted Ulster from Kilraughts has pushed him over the edge.

NIE need to get their finger out. Or whatever it is they do. Stick their finger in a socket and get a buzz. After the fiasco that was the ice storm and the absence of repair crews around Calhame, Kilraughts, Killyrammer, Loughguile Ballycastle et al one would think they had learned a lesson. It seems not. The husband spent days looking for repair crews.

NIE kept insisting that there were area’s that were difficult to access. Tell that to the people who drove past poles listing to the side on their way to work or to get a shower at the Joey Dunlop Leisure Centre.

What about the people who had no water because the electric pumps didn’t work. The person I spoke to about it said that was Water Service’s problem.

If there is no electricity then Water Service isn’t to blame unless we are connected to a hydroelectric system. Now there’s a thing.

I wrote a piece about our 65 plus hours in the dark. Someone wrote a story for The Chronicle in the same vain as mine so there you go. Thankfully her husband is as handy as mine … albeit not as grumpy.

Loose Women

Andrea McLean, Cilla Black, Carol McGiffin and Denise Welsh, Sherrie Hewson and Jayne McDonald do my heart good. How liberating is it for women with vim and vinegar and differing views to get live telly time? The husband is in love with Denise. I don’t blame him but don’t tell Tim or he will come roon and heed butt Tiger. Well done Tim for taking that Pratt Jason Gardner to task.  

The girls cover all topics’s and are so honest and true to themselves that it is invigorating and the husband is near wetting himself laughing. He says; “Imagine that crowd landing at your door?” He wishes!

Can you picture Carol on the Karaoke machine doing her lounge singer act? Cilla would bring the house down and Denise would drink us out of house and home. I wouldn’t turn them away though. They are like me. Opinionated to the point of feisty … that is no bad thing.

Cilla’s Bobby cooked a leg of pork for their Sunday dinner and she asked him where the stuffing was. Her mum always made stuffing. (I am writing this in Cilla’s Scouse accent by the way). Bobby lifted it and said stuff you and stuff your mother and threw it out the window. Well, well.

Thankfully Tiger doesn’t like stuffing. He loves gallons of gravy though. I spend more time on gravy than the roast. He would never throw food out the window. The Rock and Tiger ate all the pork chops last night. Just as well I am inclined to like spuds and spring greens.

On a slightly darker note … the press complaints commission took a body blow they are going to regret when The Daily Telegraph were sanctioned for exposing Vince Cable. Investigative journalism is in danger of being gagged. Don’t get me wrong. I despise salacious stories. There is a place for the voice of the people and if celebrities and politicians can circumvent and hide behind the law then it is a rocky road to ruin.

It’s okay to print details of court cases and sensationalise murder but it is not permitted to analyse and report the true events and feelings of the public. Sad but true.

Life and fame and fortune are fleeting, so embrace every day and live life to the full. Treat every day as if it is your last. Pay attention to the world around you and cherish the people you love.

And don’t believe everything you read.   

Voting Apathy

The voting turnout is down in most constituencies. The government and the banks they are supposed to oversee have let us down to the point of bankrupting us. I wonder if the politicians are starting to realise that they are not speaking for the people anymore. They bicker among themselves. Try to score points off each other’s failings without recognising or addressing their own shortcomings.

Power corrupts. Not everyone succumbs to the fawning praise of peeps who want them to okay this or deny that. But many do. It is well known that many prominent politicians have milked the system for all it’s worth. That’s our tax money they have been relishing. Not only that. The system is systemically and institutionally corrupt.

If you think that the disclosure of fiddling expenses was bad, think again. There have been monumental wastes of money in the public sector and unless you are in the know you won’t have heard about it. There are computer systems that never saw the light of day. Contractors hired to do jobs for utilities’ that overcharged for their substandard work and employed workers from the Republic of Ireland who got paid by us and disappeared home to sign on the dole every Wednesday. Nice work if you can get it.

When a job went wrong and the public sought recompense those same contractors joined the government departments in litigation.

It is no wonder the majority of the population have decided not to vote. Faced with the same old, same old, they have chosen unanimously not to vote at all. Is anyone paying attention to this?

The latest think tank idea is that we pay for visits to A&E and for 

x-rays and other essential treatments on a sliding scale. Sliding scale … now there’s a thing! In 2006 the House of Commons Health Committee concluded that;

“As Professors Donald Light and Joel Lexchin stated:

Every study we know of done in Europe or North America documents again and again over the past 15 years that co-payments and other charges contradict the goals of a good health care system, harm patients, save little money, and generate little revenue”.

Pity no one was listening then and they certainly aren’t now. Car parking charges have been introduced at Causeway Trust.

This information will give you an idea of how much money is being made from the misery of sick people and their distraught families and it is well out of date now.              

Hospital parking spaces and income:

Total Parking Spaces Income from Staff Parking (£) Income from

Visitor Parking (£)

378,720 15,130,961 62,755,934

Figures provided on a voluntary basis. 80% of NHS hospital trusts responded.

Source: Estates Return Information Collection 2004/05.

My mum has Alzheimer’s. Because of the widespread use of generic medication from the cheapest source she is confused that her pills come in all shapes, sizes and colours. My own meds are currently from Spain but they come from all over. Everywhere except Britain that is. We can’t be certain we are taking medication that is actually what it says on the prescription anymore. But the powers that be are concerned that we are living longer and putting an increasing burden on the state. There wouldn’t be a state if not for the blood, sweat and tears of generations of hardworking, dedicated and patriotic people who paved the way for us. I am often ashamed that they sacrificed so much for a future that is driven by greed. Shame on us!    

MAD MANDY AND MOTORBIKE FEVER

The motor cycle racing season is well and truly up and vrooming.

Our spiritual wean, James “Wee Man” McCann is off to Bishop’s Court and like any spiritual mammy and daddy we wish we were able to go and cheer him on. I would go but Tiger will never leave the Rock. I think he loves that dog more than me. In fact he has as much as admitted it.

James new leathers are fabulous … so much so that I had to have my picture taken wearing them. OK! So they don’t fit tubby and I had to wrap them round me, but wear them I did.

James thinks I am nuts. He can talk. Racing at speeds in excess of 200mph is not for the faint hearted and you have to be a wee bit mad to want to.

I would love to go pillion. There is nothing to match the shear exhilaration of being out on a hog and getting a smack in the visor by insects. A huge bee nearly knocked me off my KE100 trail bike back in the day when I could fit into TT leathers.

I dropped the bike outside Wolfie Connors on the corner of New Market Street because I was afraid the guy in the car speeding on Long Commons didn’t clock me. I was so busy watching him I lost speed and fell over. He tooted on his way past.

First time I took the bike down Portstewart prom a motorist coming out of the harbour car park looked right at me. Or so I thought. He pulled out in front of me and I was so afraid I pulled the front brake and nearly went over the handle bars. He hadn’t looked at me, he looked through me.  

Still have my lid after all these years but sadly the bike is long gone.

Tiger and I worked in the Seasplash Hotel in Portstewart in the late 70’s early 80’s and the craic was mighty. Dave and Shirley Henderson owned it and all the best bikers stayed there.

Roger Marshall doing a damned good impression of Rod Stewart singing Maggie May and dropping his trolleys to show us Scotland raised the roof.

I wonder if Steve Parrish remembers me. Two guys had told me they were him to get into the disco and when Steve wanted in I told him to p**s off. He did make an impression on everyone by going round Ballyreagh golf course with one club and whipped everyone. He is a talented guy in more ways than one.

I miss the late great Norry White of Motorcycle News. His pal Ewart Toms misses him too. Many wonderful, full of life friends are no longer with us. Tom Herron, Joey and Robert Dunlop and many more. Gone but not forgotten heroes.

Kevin Stowe came off and was lucky to survive. After a long time in hospital Raymond Gillespie and us nuts took him and his girlfriend Michelle to Donegal to the Talk of the Town. We stayed in The National and Tiger and my bed fell off its frame and we had to put it back together. There was no jiggy jiggy by the way. We were wrecked so put those naughty thoughts out of your heeds!

Shelley and Robert were tucking into a big breakfast when I appeared. I stuck my knife into my egg and heaved. Had to go back to bed!

Wayne Gardner (who wasn’t in Donegal) was shorter than me and I am four foot eleven and a half.

How he got his leg over that bike is a mystery to me. I bought a bike I can’t ride because it is too high for me. Tiger brought it out to the field and I was able to get on with him weighing it down. He started squealing like a wee girl that I was going too fast. I was in second gear! I got off and told him to park the bike. He parked it in the ditch but forgot to get off. Said the grass was wet. It was bone dry.

His sister is a Biker Babe who rides an 1100cc BMW Boxer cup and a 955I Sprint Triumph called Tweety Orr. It is as yellow as a dandelion. It is a powerful machine and fibrates. It is like nothing else. That is why bikers love it. The bike resonates within us.

Tiger picked Paul Gregg (York Hotel, Portstewart) up one day on the way home from walking the Rock. Paul had to get in the back as Rocky likes the front passenger seat. Paul couldn’t help commenting that Rocky leaned into the corners. Tiger said, “That’s nothing. You want to see him on the back of the bike”.     

THE ROYAL WEDDING

The husband got an invitation to the royal wedding … or so we thought until he read the small print. It was an invitation to buy tat to commemorate the occasion but it sure looked the part. We showed it to some mates and they were gobsmacked until we told them it was an elaborate attempt to get us to buy a coin (no doubt made in China to boot). What a bummer! I was ready to go and spend his arm and leg buying outfits. Oh well, what the hell! Who would want to go to Westminster Abbey and hob nob with the “great and the good”? I just wouldn’t fit in and would be barred from the reception for drinking all the champagne and singing Town Without Pity whilst standing on the wedding cake table.  

It is going to be a great occasion though. A commoner marrying a prince is a fairy tale come true. OK! So Kate Middleton is no Cinderella. She is a rather wealthy young lady. And lady she is.

Kate is beautiful and friendly and the perfect person to be the next Queen of Great Britain and the Commonwealth.

She has not been groomed to live an insular existence far removed from the rest of us peeps. She is one of us peeps. How wonderful.

And you know what? In these dark days of austerity it is time for optimism and love and gathering together to celebrate.

It is awful and crazy that some extremists want to hijack the occasion to make a point. Why do they not accept that we have a monarchy and there are two young people in love who deserve the best wishes of us all?

Who would want to disrupt such a joyous day? Sad peeps that can’t see the wood for the trees that’s who!

Marriage is a bond in anyone’s language or religion. It should be sacred, not exploited.    

It only took Tiger 32 years to say “I Will” and I had to wrench his arm up his back. Wreck the house Ruby was dismantling the CD player and for some strange reason I had tears in my eyes. Tiger nearly went too but I guess that was due to the pain in his elbow and wrist. They call the wife the ball and chain. I had to use a ball and chain to drag mine to the registrar’s office.

With hindsight I don’t know what I was thinking off. Tiger and the Rock take up the entire king size bed and I have had to sleep in Rocky’s little bed at times. They tell me I snore! I am going to record them some night and then they will realise what real snoring sounds like.

Back to the Royal Wedding.

Kate and Will have been living together so they already know each other’s foibles and they are going to tie the knot anyway. Or perhaps they are getting hitched because they like those wee idiosyncrasies that make a relationship more interesting and precious. For all my santering life is never dull with Tiger. I hope Kate and Will enjoy a long and exciting life together.       

If anyone in Ballymoney is thinking of having a street party on the BIG DAY count me in. I love to cook and have big pots. It is an opportunity to have a great day in each other’s company. How bad can that be? I can’t sing sadly but do anyway, but I can dance if that is OK peeps. And my stew is pretty good even if I say so myself.

We need a band on hand. I can feel a PARTY coming on.

All the very best to the happy couple. Cheers m’ dears.   

Sent Off

OK. You all know I am a sandwich short of a picnic. Well … I did the ultimate bad girl thing by picking up a ball that bounced right in front of me at one of the rugby matches on Saturday and ran up the pitch into the scrum. The lads could not have been nicer. They gave me another oval ball (weird things but lovely to hold) and let me throw it in. The assistant referee sent me off and he didn’t even give me a red card. Perhaps they don’t have those in Rugby. It is a real contact sport and I love it. I should have been a boy and then I would have played all my life. Unfortunately the knees are knackered and I am past my prime but I still crave the weave and tackle. And the scrum yum which is my own fantasy world.

What they didn’t know is that I broke my right big toe at Christmas and I am still feeling the pain. Who cares? Not me! Rugby players get all sorts of injuries and they take it without a grumble or moan and I am made from the same mould and proud to be so. 

They are an awful good crowd; great craic and all taller than me.

Right! So I am four foot eleven inches and a half. Everyone apart from the kids is taller than me. There are peeps over six feet tall for goodness sake. I came home with a creak in my neck from looking up at them.

Apparently some of the guys thought I was going to streak. I must hoke out that old Ray Stevens song for next time. “Ethel … you get your clothes on”.  

Game as they are I did tell them that gravity has taken its toll and things have gone south. They don’t mind. That’s why they are my honeys. They take us as they find us and all in good spirit.

I had such a great day. I wouldn’t have been standing where the ball landed except that Tickles … her with the baby grow … had to go for a smoke.

As a reformed puffer myself I am always giving off to her. May as well talk to the dog and ask him to stop lying with his crown jewels on the pillow.

Spring has sprung and I have a new lease of life. Oh dear! That ain’t necessarily a good thing because I do get carried away. The husband lives in hope that I do get carried away. I wonder why that is?

Even though I ran on for all of a minute I am feeling the burn today. That Rugby playing takes some stamina. I saw a lad with a black eye. Guess what? He didn’t lie down and cry like the babies who play football. He got up and played on as if it never happened.

To say I admire them is an understatement. Tiger used to play prop forward back in the day. I like to tackle him when he least expects it. He is a tall guy too. I only reach up to his armpit. I may be wee but I am wicked.

I am getting my own kit and will stand on the side-lines ready to make a conversion. One can dream.