Photo of the Week

James Joyce Murphy was winner of the best costume made from recycled materials at the Burren Explore Halloween trail.

Rural Rhymes

Pen and Ink

We elderly folk feel like fools

When we see our kin use hi tech tools

An e-mail sent, while we blink

While I resort to pen and ink

Snail mail they call the handwritten letter

It did the job when we had no better

The speed of e-mail just makes me think

While here I’m stuck to pen and ink

We had pencils, chalk and biros too

When deep in thought the tops we’d chew

Markers too in black and pink

While I make my mark with pen and ink

Computers now will keep our accounts

They always show correct amounts

Old book keepers used their brains to think

They kept their ledgers in pen and ink

We’ve laptops, iPods, and simulators

Mobile phones with pocket calculators

Robots now are generated to think

While I do my sums in pen and ink

Facebook and cyber just baffle me

An address for email, dot com, dot ie

Those high-tech gadget drive me over the brink

While I write this poem in pen and ink.

– submitted by Paddy Egan in “snail mail”

Home management with Katherine O’Leary

Get help from the family

Halloween mid-term break is time to enlist the children’s help. When you are finding housework never-ending and realising you have no time to sit down in the evenings, talk to the family. Explain that your health will be at risk without some help from your family. Put up a roster for setting the table, clearing off the table, filling the dishwasher, emptying the dishwasher and wiping down the kitchen units. That alone is a good foundation. Imagine not having to do those jobs all week! It is important to put up the roster because it shifts the responsibility from you to the children. You will find that they will police each other. Before you start the roster, show them how you want the job done. If you really want to make the change stick, you could tie it to pocket money.

Tweet of the Week

Instagram Inspiration

We saw some great news on Instagram recently, that @epicmuseumchq, the Irish Emigration Museum has been voted as Europe’s Leading Tourist Attraction at the World Travel Awards for the third year running. Located on the Dublin Docklands, the museum is a celebration of what it truly means to be Irish, going beyond stereotypes to celebrate the impact of Irish emigrants over 1,500 years, and the influence they have had on the world. From politics, to poetry, to science, fashion and even infamy, Irish culture is popular all around the world because of these people. Worth a visit.

Number of the Week

1929 - The year Nuala Hickey’s grandfather John first won an award for his barmbrack.

Quote of the Week

Cormac Troy on family heirlooms:

Everything else is immaterial or should I say material? We can’t take these things with us. We are born into the world naked and we extinguish as dust. Arguably the greatest family heirlooms are traits that can be instilled into us from an early age and passed down through generations.