#fintona

[hereforthefencing]

Am I the only one that’s obsessed with the new uniforms in Fence Challengers: Long Shot?

They’re so prettyyy, and Ravenswood is now my favorite school for no reason other than the aesthetic of the uniform and the lil’ birdy logo-

[kwockwoc]

I've had this snip just sitting in draft for a while but all I want to say is the Fintona boys need to work on that chant

[sa7abnews]

Cycling through the ‘hidden heartlands’ of this wondrous island…

New Post has been published on https://sa7ab.info/2024/08/06/cycling-through-the-hidden-heartlands-of-this-wondrous-island/

Cycling through the ‘hidden heartlands’ of this wondrous island…

July is the month I take a break from political commentary and go cycling around Ireland. Two years ago – with my friend David Ward – I cycled from Mizen Head in west Cork to Fair Head in north Antrim. In contrast, this year we decided to cycle from north-west to south-east: from Derry city to Rosslare in Wexford. That involved putting the bicycles on the train to Belfast and Derry and back from Rosslare. I have often wondered why we have met so few other cycle tourists in our midsummer perambulations around the island (just one other couple this year). One of the reasons must be the extraordinary lack of provision for bicycles on Irish Rail trains. There was a time when at least on the trains between the three main cities – Dublin, Belfast and Cork – there were guards vans, and therefore plenty of room for bikes. Now every train has precisely two clumsy racks for bikes in one single passenger car. I had booked those racks for our trip back in April, the full allowable three months in advance. I wonder how many disappointed foreign cycle tourists have discovered there was no possibility of bringing their bikes on Irish trains this summer. I have tried in vain to book myself and my two cycling daughters onto trains. It’s a crazy, self-defeating system at a time when sustainable tourism is all the rage. So David and I set off from Derry on 1st July. The first two significant places we passed were a contrast in national and sectarian styles. Newbuildings is a loyalist village: Orange flags and First World War memorials abound, with every small settlement seeming to sport a cricket ground. Strabane is a strongly nationalist town (although it too has a cricket club), with Sinn Fein’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill canvassing in the main street, surrounded by a group of adoring women, and republican hunger strike memorials in the Catholic housing estates. The cricketing theme continued in the tree-lined, former industrial village of Sion Mills, just south of Strabane. Here, in July 1969 – in the last piece of good news before Northern Ireland descended into 30 years of violence – Ireland caused one the biggest upsets in late 20th century cricket by defeating a powerful West Indian side, bowling them out on a soggy pitch for an astonishing 25 runs. We spent the first night in Omagh, watching Orange bands march through the streets as part of the Battle of the Somme commemorations. If you take away the anti-Catholicism, there is great colour and pageantry in these band parades, not to mention musical virtuosity. In a united Ireland we are going to have to find some way of making them acceptable, even enjoyable, to the great majority of people in the present-day republic who are implacably hostile to the Orange Order. The following morning we cycled through Fintona, a classically divided Northern Irish village, with a big, modern gospel hall at one end of the main street, and a splendid GAA complex at the other. In the middle is a pub, The Poet’s Bar: one can only hope that members of the two communities occasionally come together here under the benign eye of John Montague, one of Ireland’s finest late 20th century poets, who was raised in nearby Garvaghey. In Lisnaskea in Fermanagh, we had a tasty lunch in the charming Cherry Tree bakery, one of those remarkable home bakeries for which Northern Ireland deserves to be better known. Isabel Charles and her husband Norman converted a badly rundown building into this bakery and cafe, opening it in June 1970, just as nearly 30 years of darkness descended on the North. These are the kind of unheralded, extremely hardworking people who kept open the lines of civility and prosperity during the worst of times. Then it was across the border into Cavan. Cavan town gives the impression of being an unusually industrious and thriving place. Whether it’s big multinationals like Liberty Insurance, St Gobain or Abbott, or smaller local enterprises in everything from data analytics to cider making, digitisation in construction to homemade chocolates, this unfashionable town is a place of enterprise and entrepreneurship. And it shows in the lines of plutocratic five and six bedroomed houses on many of the roads out of the town. The next stop was Loughcrew in north Meath. This extraordinary passage tomb on a hill is estimated to be 5,200 years old, 2,000 years older than nearby Newgrange and older again than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. As sun and showers swept across the countryside, leaving a brilliant lucidity in the sky, I was able to see the whole central plain of Ireland and the mountains that ring it: the Cooleys, the Mournes, Slieve Gullion, the Slieve Blooms, Cuilcagh on the Fermanagh-Cavan border and the mountains of Sligo and Leitrim. Here for more than five millenia people have been celebrating their ancestors, their gods and nature. It is a truly humbling experience to stand on its small summit and think about the countless ancestors who have stood here before me and contemplated this celestial view. We crossed Westmeath in bright sunshine. One of my glimpses of heaven on earth (I have others) is to be cycling through the hayfields and meadows of Ireland’s rich agricultural counties under blue skies and scudding clouds with the smell of silage in my nostrils. Then it was along the banks of the Royal Canal, past young canoeists learning the ropes at Longwood and the engineering marvel that is the Boyne Aqueduct, built in 1795 to bring the canal over the Boyne river. From canal to canal: west of Naas is a very picturesque and little-known wooded stretch of the Grand Canal, complete with cafes and coffee kiosks, which lands one conveniently in that town’s main thoroughfare through the short Basin Street. We spent that night in the hospitable company of my astronomer and adventurer friend John Butler, late of Armagh Observatory, who spends much of his time now in his converted farmhouse outside Hollywood, with superb views of the Wicklow Mountains. We skirted those mountains through Baltinglass, Tullow and Bunclody to make Enniscorthy our final overnight stop, breaking for lunch in the Green Lemon café in the pretty village of Rathvilly (home place of Kevin Barry, the 18 year old Irish Volunteer and medical student executed by the British in the War of Independence). I have written before of my wonder at the excellent cafés in so many small places these days, one of the most pleasurable aspects of the arrival of prosperity in Ireland. Two more on this journey were the Limetree coffee shop at Loughcrew and the Sugar and Spice café in Bunclody. As a longtime café lover, I cannot recommend these pleasing establishments highly enough. We ended our six-day journey at Rosslare Strand in County Wexford with a moment of happiness as I posed with my bicycle on the beach for a photo taken by a group of friendly women from Carlow. This was a journey through part of what Tourism Ireland has dubbed the ‘Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands’ (with a bit of ‘Ireland’s Ancient East’ thrown in): effectively the Shannon basin and the midlands, because due to the Northern Ireland Tourist Board’s idiotic reluctance to get involved in Tourism Ireland’s highly regarded international campaigns, it has to stop at the border. The ‘Hidden Heartlands’ campaign has never really taken off, unlike Tourism Ireland’s spectacularly successful ‘Wild Atlantic Way’ along the west coast. As I was cycling our 450 kilometre route through the heart of the island, I was mulling over what one might be able to sell to overseas tourists in the 10 counties we passed through. There are plenty of fine attractions in these relatively unfashionable and unvisited regions, some of which we experienced on this trip. Here is an indicative list: Derry’s walls; Tyrone’s Orange band parades (they do good republican parades too, if that is more your bag); the lakes of Fermanagh; the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ steps up Cuilcagh mountain on the Cavan border; the passage grave at Loughcrew; the 18th century folly that is Belvedere House in Westmeath; the Curragh of Kildare; the Wicklow Mountains; the Borris Festival of Writing and Ideas (with some of the world’s leading novelists, historians and journalists) in Carlow and the marvellous beaches of Wexford. Ireland is a uniquely beautiful and fascinating island, and the often overlooked Irish midlands are part of that fascination. PS (1) One can’t get away from politics completely, even in midsummer. I was struck by the shameless populism of Sinn Fein who – six weeks after their poor performance in the European and local elections (partly attributable to their previously generous stance on housing asylum seekers) – produced a policy paper which basically advocated moving the accommodation of asylum seekers from working class to middle class areas. I live in the middle-class area of Rathmines/Ranelagh in south Dublin, where we have four buildings owned by property developers and a hotel housing several hundred asylum seekers. And there has been no trouble. Praise is due, in particular, for the small group of brilliant people in the area – most of them women – who have single-handedly supported the homeless asylum seekers for whom there is no accommodation, and whom the authorities cruelly keep moving along and erecting high fences to keep them and their tents out of small green areas. One can only imagine the exhaustion, fear and hopelessness of these young men from poor and war-torn countries. PS (2) Congratulations to Armagh on beating Galway to win the All-Ireland football championship. I lived for 14 years in Armagh city when running the Centre for Cross Border Studies, and have a very soft spot for the place. I’m particularly glad for manager Kieran McGeeney, whose determination and refusal to say die during the bad times over the past 10 years are worthy of real admiration.

[apwmagazine]

Matthew Mccallan Missing: Volunteers resume search for missing 15-year-old last seen at country music festival in Fintona

Matthew Mccallan Missing: Volunteers resume search for missing 15-year-old last seen at country music festival in Fintona

  Matthew Mccallan Missing: Volunteers resume search for missing 15-year-old last seen at country music festival in Fintona The search for missing teenager Matthew McCarron has reportedly been called off. The teenager disappeared in the early hours of Sunday morning after leaving a celebration in Fontona, County Tyrone. Matthew was last seen at 1.30am yesterday morning (Sunday 4 December) at…

[ahamiltongarden]

MY DEAR FRIEND ELAINE

My closest friend of thirty years - Elaine Warne - died peacefully in hospital a few days ago after a long battle with cancer. She was the most beautiful person I have ever known. I could write a book about her extraordinary generosity and her fine code of living and giving. E really knew how to be a kind and constant friend and she nurtured each relationship with loving care. Her love of beauty, both natural and man made, is what drew us together initially but we were kindred spirits in many other ways.

We met when we were both teaching at Fintona in Melbourne in the early nineties. We were in Ower House and in turn both became House Mistress, a role we cherished. We adored the Owner girls and made special purple tablecloths for our various feasting activities. The girls liked to use them as purple capes when they went up to receive the sporting cups. E is wearing red in the photo and we were in the tuck shop raising money for social service with the Ower students.

[baulandscape-blog]

#define MAX_OCTAVES 7 uniform vec2 u_resolution; float map(float value,float min1,float max1,float min2,float max2){ return min2+(value-min1)*(max2-min2)/(max1-min1); } float random(in vec2 st){ return fract(sin(dot(st.xy,vec2(12.9898,78.233)))*43758.5453123); } float noise(in vec2 st){ vec2 i=floor(st); vec2 f=fract(st); float a=random(i); float b=random(i+vec2(1.,.0)); float c=random(i+vec2(.0,1.)); float d=random(i+vec2(1.,1.)); vec2 u=f*f*(3.-2.*f); return mix(a,b,u.x)+(c-a)*u.y*(1.-u.x)+(d-b)*u.x*u.y; } float fbm(in vec2 n,in float l){ float v=.0; float lacunarity=2.; float a=.75; n*=l; for(int i=0;i0.;i--){ y=i/(3.0*i)*m*(fbm(.2*m*coords*i,1./(3.0+i))-.75)+i*2./(3.0+i); pct=plot(st,y); color=mix(color,vec3(map(i,.0,3.0,colorA.r,colorB.r),map(i,.0,3.0,colorA.g,colorB.g),map(i,.0,3.0,colorA.b,colorB.b)),pct); } gl_FragColor=vec4(color,1.); }

[balaqlava]

I really hate Drumquin you are brilliant just got lost today near Drumquin

That’s Tyrone for ya, a confusing labyrinth that leaves you wanting to punch yourself in the gut. I hope you got to where you were going okay and you’re not stuck at the side of the road somewhere crying!

[church-history]

Servent of God, Fr. Augustus Tolton - America’s First Black Priest

Augustus Tolton was born in Missouri to Peter Paul Tolton and his wife Martha Jane Chisley, who were enslaved. His mother, who was raised Catholic, named him after an uncle named Augustus. He was baptized Augustine in St. Peter's Catholic Church near Rensselaer, Missouri, a community in northeast Missouri.

How the members of the Tolton family gained their freedom remains a subject of debate. According to accounts, Tolton told friends and parishioners, his father escaped first and joined the Union Army. Tolton's mother then ran away with her children Samuel, Charley, Augustine, and Anne. With the assistance of sympathetic Union soldiers and police, she crossed the Mississippi River, and into the Free State of Illinois. According to descendants of the Elliott family, though, Stephen Elliott freed all his slaves at the outbreak of the American Civil War and allowed them to move North. Augustine's father died of dysentery before the war ended.

After arriving in Quincy, Illinois, Martha, Augustus, and Charley began working at the Herris Tobacco Company, where they made cigars. After Charley's death at a young age, Augustine met Peter MCGirr, an Irish immigrant priest from Fintona, County Tyrone. The latter allowed him to attend St. Peter's parochial school during the winter months when the factory was closed. The priest's decision was controversial in the parish. Although abolitionists were active in the town, many of McGirr's parishioners objected to a black student at their children's school. McGirr held fast and allowed Tolton to study there. Later, Tolton continued studies directly with some priests.

Despite McGirr's support, Tolton was rejected by every American seminary to which he applied. Impressed by his personal qualities, McGirr continued to help him and enabled Tolton's study in Rome. Tolton graduated from St. Francis Solanus College (now Quincy University) and attended the Pontifical Urbaniana University, where he became fluent in Italian as well as studied Latin and Greek.

Tolton was ordained to the priesthood in Rome in 1886 at age 31. His first public Mass was in St. Peter's Basilica on Easter Sunday in 1886. Expecting to serve in an African mission, he studied its regional cultures and languages. Instead, he was directed to return to the United States to serve the black community. Tolton celebrated his first Mass in the United States at St. Benedict the Moor Catholic Church in New York City.

His first Mass in Quincy was at St Boniface. He attempted to organize a parish there, but over the years, met with resistance from both white Catholics (many of whom were ethnic German) and Protestant blacks, who did not want him trying to attract people to Catholicism. He organized St. Joseph Catholic Church and school in Quincy but ran into opposition from the new dean of the parish, who wanted him to turn away white worshipers from his services.

After reassignment to Chicago, Tolton led a mission society, St. Augustine's, which met in the basement of St. Mary's Church. He led the development and administration of the Negro "national parish" of St. Monica's Catholic Church, built at 36th and Dearborn Streets on the South Side. The church nave seated 850 parishioners and was built with money from philanthropists Mrs. Anne O'Neill and (now saint) Katharine Drexel.

St. Monica's Parish grew from 30 parishioners to 600 with the construction of the new church building. Tolton's success at ministering to black Catholics quickly earned him national attention within the Catholic hierarchy. "Good Father Gus," as he was called by many, was known for his "eloquent sermons, his beautiful singing voice, and his talent for playing the accordion."

Several contemporaneous news articles describe his personal qualities and importance. An 1893 article in the Lewiston Daily Sun, written while he worked to establish St. Monica's for African American Catholics in Chicago, said, "Father Tolton ... is a fluent and graceful talker and has a singing voice of exceptional sweetness, which shows to good advantage in the chants of the high mass. It is no unusual thing for many white people to be seen among his congregation."

In 1893 Tolton began to be plagued by "spells of illness", because of them, he was forced to take a temporary leave of absence from his duties at St. Monica's Parish in 1895.

At the age of 43, on July 8, 1897, he collapsed and then died the following day at Mercy Hospital as a result of the heat wave in Chicago in 1897.  After a funeral which included 100 priests, Tolton was buried in the priests' lot in St. Peter's Cemetery in Quincy, which had been his expressed wish.

[alwaysyouinmyheart]

.

[blackkudos]

Augustine Tolton

Augustus Tolton (April 1, 1854 – July 9, 1897), baptized Augustine Tolton, was the first Roman Catholic priest in the United States publicly known to be black when he was ordained in 1886. (James Augustine Healy, ordained in 1854, and Patrick Francis Healy, ordained in 1864, were of mixed-race.) A former slave who was baptized and reared Catholic, Tolton studied formally in Rome.

He was ordained in Rome on Easter Sunday of 1886 at the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran. Assigned to the diocese of Alton (now the Diocese of Springfield), Tolton first ministered to his home parish in Quincy, Illinois. Later assigned to Chicago, Tolton led the development and construction of St. Monica's Catholic Church as a black "national parish church", completed in 1893 at 36th and Dearborn Streets on Chicago's South Side.

Biography

Early life

Augustus Tolton was born in Missouri to Peter Paul Tolton and his wife Martha Jane Chisley, who were enslaved. His mother, who was reared Catholic, named him after an uncle named Augustus. He was baptized Augustine in St. Peter's Catholic Church near Rensselaer, Missouri, a community in northeast Missouri. His master was Stephen Elliott. Savilla Elliot, his master's wife, stood as Tolton's godmother.

Freedom

How the members of the Tolton family gained their freedom remains a subject of debate. According to accounts Tolton told friends and parishioners, his father escaped first and joined the Union Army. Tolton's mother then ran away with her children Samuel, Charley, Augustine, and Anne. With the assistance of sympathetic Union soldiers and police, she crossed the Mississippi River and into the Free State of Illinois. According to descendants of the Elliott family, though, Stephen Elliott freed all his slaves at the outbreak of the American Civil War and allowed them to move North. Augustine's father died of dysentery before the war ended.

Vocation

After arriving in Quincy, Illinois, Martha, Augustus, and Charley began working at the Herris Tobacco Company where they made cigars. After Charley's death at a young age, Augustine met Peter McGirr, an Irish immigrant priest from Fintona, County Tyrone, who gave him the opportunity to attend St. Peter's parochial school during the winter months, when the factory was closed. The priest's decision was controversial in the parish. Although abolitionists were active in the town, many of McGirr's parishioners objected to a black student at their children's school. McGirr held fast and allowed Tolton to study there. Later, Tolton continued studies directly with some priests.

Despite McGirr's support, Tolton was rejected by every American seminary to which he applied. Impressed by his personal qualities, McGirr continued to help him and enabled Tolton's study in Rome. Tolton graduated from St. Francis Solanus College (now Quincy University) and attended the Pontifical Urbaniana University, where he became fluent in Italian language as well as studying Latin and Greek.

Priesthood

Tolton was ordained to the priesthood in Rome in 1886 at age 31. His first public Mass was in St. Peter's Basilica on Easter Sunday in 1886. Expecting to serve in an African mission, he had been studying its regional cultures and languages. Instead, he was directed to return to the United States to serve the black community.

Tolton celebrated his first Mass in the United States at St. Boniface church in Quincy. He attempted to organize a parish there, but over the years met with resistance from both white Catholics (many of whom were ethnic German) and Protestant blacks, who did not want him trying to attract people to another denomination. He organized St. Joseph Catholic Church and school in Quincy, but ran into opposition from the new dean of the parish, who wanted him to turn away white worshipers from his services.

After reassignment to Chicago, Tolton led a mission society, St. Augustine's, which met in the basement of St. Mary's Church. He led the development and administration of the Negro "national parish" of St. Monica's Catholic Church, built at 36th and Dearborn Streets on the South Side, Chicago. The church nave seated 850 parishioners and was built with money from philanthropists Mrs. Anne O'Neill and Katharine Drexel.

St. Monica's Parish grew from 30 parishioners to 600 with the construction of the new church building. Tolton's success at ministering to black Catholics quickly earned him national attention within the Catholic hierarchy. "Good Father Gus", as he was called by many, was known for his "eloquent sermons, his beautiful singing voice, and his talent for playing the accordion."

Several contemporaneous news articles describe his personal qualities and importance. An 1893 article in the Lewiston Daily Sun, written while he worked to establish St. Monica's for African American Catholics in Chicago, said, "Father Tolton ... is a fluent and graceful talker and has a singing voice of exceptional sweetness, which shows to good advantage in the chants of the high mass. It is no unusual thing for many white people to be seen among his congregation." The True Witness and Catholic Chronicle in 1894 described him as "indefatigable" in his efforts to establish the new parish. Daniel Rudd, who organized the initial National Black Catholic Conference which was held in 1889, was quoted in the November 8, 1888, edition of The Irish Canadian as commenting about the Congress by saying, "For a long time the idea prevailed that the negro was not wanted beyond the altar rail, and for that reason, no doubt, hundreds of young colored men who would otherwise be officiating at the altar rail today have entered other walks. Now that this mistaken idea has been dispelled by the advent of one full-blooded negro priest, the Rev. Augustus Tolton, many more have entered the seminaries in this country and Europe". Another indication of the prominence given Tolton by parts of the American Catholic hierarchy was his participation, a few months later, on the altar at an international celebration of the centenary of the establishment of the first U.S. Catholic diocese in Baltimore. Writing about it in the New York Times edition of November 11, 1889, the correspondent noted that "As Cardinal Gibbons retired to his dais [on the altar at the Mass], the reporters in the improvised press gallery noticed for the first time, not six feet away from him in the sanctuary among the abbots and other special dignitaries, the black face of Father Tolton of Chicago, the first colored Catholic priest ordained in America."

Death

Tolton began to be plagued by "spells of illness" in 1893. Because of them, he was forced to take a temporary leave of absence from his duties at St. Monica's Parish in 1895.

At the age of 43, on July 8, 1897, he collapsed and died the following day at Mercy Hospital as a result of the heat wave in Chicago in 1897. After a funeral which included 100 priests, Tolton was buried in the priests' lot in St. Peter's Cemetery in Quincy, which had been his expressed wish.

After Tolton's death, St. Monica's was made a mission of St. Elizabeth's Church. In 1924 it was closed as a national parish, as black Catholics chose to attend parish churches in their own neighborhoods.

Legacy and honors

Tolton is the subject of the 1973 biography From Slave to Priest by Sister Caroline Hemesath. The book was reissued by Ignatius Press in 2006.

In 1990, Sister Jamie T. Phelps, O.P., an Adrian Dominican Sister and then-faculty member of the Theology Department at Catholic Theological Union, initiated the Augustus Tolton Pastoral Ministry Program in consultation with Don Senior, President of CTU, the theology faculty, and representatives of the Archdiocese of Chicago, to prepare, educate, and form black Catholic laity for ministerial leadership in the Archdiocese of Chicago.

The Father Tolton Regional Catholic High School opened in Columbia, Missouri, in 2011.

Augustus Tolton Catholic Academy opened in the fall of 2015 in Chicago, Illinois. Tolton Academy is the first STREAM school in the Archdiocese of Chicago. A focus on science, technology, religion, engineering, arts, and math sets it apart as a premier elementary school in Chicago. Tolton Academy is located at St. Columbanus Church.

Cause for canonization

On March 2, 2010, Francis George of Chicago announced that he was beginning an official investigation into Tolton's life and virtues with a view to opening the cause for his canonization. This cause for sainthood is also being advanced by the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, where Tolton first served as priest, as well as the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri, where his family was enslaved.

On February 24, 2011, the Roman Catholic Church officially began the formal introduction of the cause for Tolton's sainthood, which must take place in a public session. He is now designated Servant of God Fr. Augustus Tolton. Also at this time there was the establishment of historical and theological commissions, which will investigate the life of Tolton, and the Father Tolton Guild, which is responsible for the promotion of his cause through spiritual and financial endeavors. George assigned Joseph Perry, Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago, to be the Diocesan Postulator for the cause of Tolton's canonization.

On September 29, 2014, George formally closed the investigation into the life and virtues of Tolton. The dossier of research into Tolton's life went to the Vatican, where the documents collected to support his cause will be analyzed, bound into a book called a "positio" or official position paper, and evaluated by theologians, and then, supporters hope, passed on to the pope, who can declare Tolton "venerable" if he determines Tolton led a life of heroic virtue.

On December 10, 2016, Tolton's remains were exhumed and verified as part of the canonization process. Following procedures laid out in canon law, a forensic pathologist verified that the remains (which included a skull, femurs, ribs, vertebrae, pelvis, and portions of arm bones) belong to Tolton. Also found were the corpus from a crucifix, part of a Roman collar, the corpus from Tolton's rosary, and glass shards indicating his coffin had a glass top. After verification, the remains were dressed in a new chasuble and reburied.

On March 8, 2018, historians that consult the Congregation for the Causes of Saints unanimously issued their assent to Tolton's cause after having received and favourably reviewed the positio that was presented to them. On February 5, 2019, the nine-member theological commission unanimously voted to approve the cause. It must now go to the cardinal and bishop members of the Congregation for approval before it is passed to the pope for his final confirmation.

On June 12, 2019, Pope Francis authorized the promulgation of a "Decree of Heroic Virtue", advancing the cause of Servant of God Augustine Tolton. With the promulgation of the decree of heroic virtue, Tolton was granted the title “Venerable”. If the case progresses, the next stage would be beatification, followed by canonization.

[aroundtheworldin18years]

IT'S ALWAYS COFFEE O'CLOCK AT JACK'S

IT’S ALWAYS COFFEE O’CLOCK AT JACK’S

I don’t know about you, but in the Callaghan household, Daddy (speaking about myself as the third person) doesn’t really come alive until he has had his coffee fix in the morning.  As long as it’s coffee, Daddy is happy!  I’m probably at my happiest with Americano, filtered, espresso, cappuccino….basically, any kind of coffee with caffeine; as long as it’s not flavoured with any kind of syrup,…

[l-mc-h-wsd-blog]

Lisa McHugh Late April Dates:

Tonight Sunday (23) The Times Hotel Tipperary  http://bit.ly/2moINCU 

Next Friday (28) Westlodge Hotel Bantry Cork  http://westlodgehotel.ie

Next Saturday (29) Jamboree In The Park #Fintona  http://bit.ly/2lEJp8L

Next Sunday (30) Wild West Kilconly Festival #Galway  http://bit.ly/2oTZvwn

[ahamiltongarden]

THE TREE PEONIES ARE OUT

Our tree peonies are starting to unfold from big tight buds. They are so very fleeting, and as I am afraid that the rain we are about to have will spoil the blooms, I have cut some flowers for inside. The traditional Chinese peony cloisonné vases were given to me by Pei-Wen, a wonderful former art student of mine when I was teaching at Fintona, an independent girls’ school in Balwyn, Melbourne. The coral coloured flower is ‘Gauguin’ but I am unsure of the dark flowered ones. They could be ‘Kronos’.

[systemtek]

WeLeakInfo.com is shutdown and 21 arrests made in UK nationwide cyber crackdown

WeLeakInfo.com is shutdown and 21 arrests made in UK nationwide cyber crackdown

The FBI has seized the domain for WeLeakInfo.com, a site that sold breached data records, after a multinational effort by law enforcement. Authorities have arrested two 22-year-old men alleged to have operated the site. Based in Fintona, Northern Ireland, and Arnhem in the Netherlands, they are believed to have made over £200,000 (about $260,000) between them from the site. 21 people have been…

[scaffoldersnearme]

Scaffolding Erectors in Fintona #Installing #and #Removing #Scaffold #Fintona https://t.co/YObWalquHR

Scaffolding Erectors in Fintona #Installing #and #Removing #Scaffold #Fintona https://t.co/YObWalquHR

— Scaffolders Near Me (@scaffoldersuk) September 25, 2020

[bbcbreakingnews]

IRA bomber living in Boston is deported to Belfast

An IRA bomber who was living in Boston after entering the US illegally multiple times between 2000 and 2007 has been deported to Belfast. 

Darcey McMenamin, 44, was deported on Monday after trying to plead his case in court in Massachusetts. 

He was 18 when he took part in the 1993 mortar attack on police in Fintona, northern Ireland, on behalf of the Irish Republican Army. 

He was arrested in Boston last year for trying to hire a car under fraudulent means, and was turned over to ICE shortly afterwards. 

The British Army and police combine to secure the site around the devastated shop in the Shankill Road area of Belfast, Oct. 24, 1993, after it was hit by an IRA bomb attack on Oct. 23. There are no confirmed photos of McMenamin

It was then determined that he’d entered the US illegally on the visa waiver program multiple times between 2000 and 2007 by not declaring that he was a criminal.  

During his time in custody, McMenamin asked to be released citing fears of COVID-19. 

The judge denied that request and kept him in an ICE facility. It’s unclear when he will be sent back to Ireland. 

He made no secret of who he was despite being in the country illegally and even spoke of his Irish background at a Rhode Island Irish history event in 2016.

The attack that McMenamin was involved in ended the 1993 Christmas Truce 

‘He talked about growing up in Ireland and how hard it was as a kid,’ one person who attended the event but who wished to remain anonymous told Irish Central after his arrest last year. 

The 1993 attack in Fintona brought an end to the Christmas Truce that year.

No one was inside the police station when McMenamin and Dominic Pearse Darcy, who was 21 at the time, bombed it. 

Two innocent by-standers were injured in the attack. 

McMenamin was sentenced to eight years in prison but he was given compassionate release as part of the Good Friday Agreement. 

It’s unclear how long he actually spent before bars before coming to the US, where he’d retained contacts in Boston.

He entered for the last time in 2007 after being given ‘port authorized parole’ for the birth of a child. 

He never left, according to The Boston Herald.

The post IRA bomber living in Boston is deported to Belfast appeared first on BBC BREAKING NEWS.

from WordPress https://bbcbreakingnews.com/ira-bomber-living-in-boston-is-deported-to-belfast/