Back then the [...]]]> It used to be for the photographs. Flicking through every week in the hope of coming across a familiar face smiling out at you. Maybe lining out with a hurling team, posing with classmates or all dressed up for a debs: Big hair, bigger shoulder pads and small little awkward smiles.

Back then the news wasn’t of huge importance to me. The only reason I picked it up was to cast an eye over the locals who were caught on camera. And instantly bestowed with a sparkle of celebrity.

It was my turn once – it must have been almost 30 years ago. But so momentous an occasion that I can still remember every detail of that black and white photograph. Myself and some friends had successfully completed a 10 mile cycle for charity. What charity it was -  I can’t remember. But I can still see exactly what I was wearing; a white t-shirt emblazoned with a large, sequinned tiger’s face and a very big grin.  If memory serves me correctly – they gave me the the wrong name. But what did it matter? I’d made it into the local paper.

Sometimes making it in wasn’t a good thing however. When you were caught doing something you shouldn’t be and all your friends and neighbours got to read about it. And that was what I found myself drawn to a few years later – the court reports.

There can be no greater deterrent than being named and shamed in your local paper. No matter what the crime (most of which seem to be related to cars – the taxing, insuring, parking and driving of them) by Wednesday lunchtime, at the latest, there were very few people who didn’t know what you’d been up to. And there was very little chance you’d ever ‘forget’ to tax your car again.

The time did finally come when I bought my local newspaper to catch up on the local news. To find out what was going on in my little corner of the country. Sometimes it was ‘big’ news, the type of story that would make an impact on a national level. But other times it was a tale of the smaller, lower key variety. The kind of happening that might not even make it across to a neighbouring county.

But that’s my favourite type of local news story. That’s the reason I (and lots of others) still buy the local paper every week. Whether it’s in-depth analysis of an under-14 county final, an account of a small little wallaby who went missing from a local park or an hilarious report on a local man (who doesn’t remotely resemble George Clooney) who won a George Clooney lookalike competition.

And that’s another thing I love about my local paper. It will stop at nothing to dig up a connection between our locality and somebody very, very famous. Mr Clooney, Barack Obama, even Santa Claus -  go back far enough, root down deep enough and pretty soon we’ll have a story, staking a claim on everybody who’s anybody.

In an age when newspapers struggle to keep up with the constant, instant rolling updates on the internet, when the line between news and mean spirited gossip is blurred, when ethics and edicts are overlooked, there’s something old-world and appealing about your local.

Not too much has changed since I first picked it up all those years ago. Yes, it might be available on line, it might have its own facebook page, it might even tweet some of its best headlines but it was and still is the kind of news that’s best read on paper, inky hands and all.

And that’s why I still go out and buy it every week. My daily news – national and international – can be found at the click of a button. I can catch it without even breaking stride. But my local news has to be consumed the old-fashioned, traditional way. Page by page, photograph after photograph and a quick scan of the court reports. It’s a ritual – comforting and familiar. And one that I’ve no intention of breaking.

The evening mass was held to mark the coming together [...]]]> It was a first for me. Standing up on at an altar and addressing the congregation.  I was invited to speak at a celebratory mass in a beautiful little church in the village of Castlewarren – high up in the hills of county Kilkenny.

The evening mass was held to mark the coming together of two rural congregations and I was invited to come along and give a little talk  – on the subject of community. It was as much a social as a spiritual occasion – which was why I said yes in the first place. I wasn’t obliged, or even expected, to pontificate on matters religious. Just say a few words about what community means to me.

It seemed almost appropriate that this was happening in a church; one of the four pillars of the community life in rural Ireland. The pulpit, the pub, the pitch and the playground are where most people find themselves congregating: Going to mass every Sunday, meeting up for pints, supporting the local hurling or football team and bringing their children to the local school. It’s where we meet and make friends, share interests and experiences.

And on that beautiful summer’s evening, as people drifted into the cool and calm of this remote little church, there was a palpable sense of community.

That’s what appeals to me most about my occasional visits to my local church. I’m what I’d call an irregular mass goer – I sometimes go when my daughter is serving (at her own insistence – signing up for duties in the local church seems to be a rite of passage in most rural communities – and this 10 year old is determined not to miss out)

Other times I go when I’m organised enough to get out the door in time or simply when I feel the need or desire to. And every time I make it to mass in my local church – I’m really glad that I did it. And usually think to myself, why don’t I do this more often.

Because what I get most out of Sunday morning mass isn’t something spiritual but a strong feeling of being part of a community. Meeting my meighbours and friends, saying hello to people you don’t usually see from one end of the week to the other. Nodding and smiling at familiar faces, noticing how quickly children are growing up, getting whispered dispatches from the farming front or simply sitting together quietly and peacefully.

And then there are the rituals – making room for the same families in the same pews week after week, noticing how many people still take their place on the men’s and women’s sides of the church and shoving a coin into a sweaty little palm after mass, so a bag of ‘tenpenny’ sweets can be bought at the small counter in the front room of the local pub.

Just last week I brought my baby boy to his first Sunday mass. It was a bit of an ordeal between car seats, nappy changes and long overdue naps. But he behaved himself – thankfully – because this was his introduction to one of the communities that will play a part in his life.

And on the way out his head was patted and his pudgy cheek squeezed as he was admired and entertained by dozens of people before we even reached the church gates. There was something very simple, moving and almost symbolic about it – all of these people who hadn’t yet met the little boy were coming up and saying hello. Welcoming the newest member into a very long standing community.

This little member might not pop along to say hello very often, particularly if he’s depending on me to bring him. And, at some stage, he might  even decide he doesn’t want to be there anymore. But for the time being at least – he’s part of something. Not necessarily the church or the religious institution that’s housed there. But the group of people who turn up once a week to come together and be part of something. Part of a community.

And that’s exactly what it was – complete, unmitigated carelessness. A new baby came into the house on the first day of spring this year.  In [...]]]>

Swarm in the 3 acres

To fiddle with that famous line from Oscar Wilde  – “To lose one queen may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose two seems like carelessness.”

And that’s exactly what it was – complete, unmitigated carelessness. A new baby came into the house on the first day of spring this year.  In and around  the same time that the two beehives at the bottom of the garden sprang back into life. But rather than spending time caring for all those little bee babies, I found myself caring full time for the bigger and more demanding one that had taken over the house. When I should have been checking on my queens and their brood, I found myself feeding, cleaning and cooing at a beautiful baby boy.

And boy did I end up paying for it! Last Sunday, the day after we christened the little lad, we dumped him on an unsuspecting godmother -  suited up, lit the smoker and headed down for our first visit of the year. But it turns out some of my bees weren’t at home.

Just after we opened hive number one for an inspection, we spotted a dark, oval shaped buzzing ball dangling from the trunk of a nearby tree. We had our first ever swarm. Honeybees swarm – or leave their hive en masse – when their home becomes seriously overcrowded. A dedicated beekeeper does their best to prevent that happening – by giving their bees more room (adding new supers or boxes to the top of the hive) and preventing a new queen bee taking over the throne (by regularly checking for the presence of queen cells  - or eggs – and destroying them).

Busy Bees

A dedicated beekeeper does that from mid to late Spring on. A beekeeper with a new baby, not so much…. So a new queen arrived in the hive, the old queen packed her bags and left.  And unfortunately half the bloody hive left with her.

Now you can’t put a swarm back where they came from. All you can do is try your best to catch it, box it and give it a new home. And we managed to do that, with the help of a neighbour more experienced in these matters. It involved shaking, pushing, lifting and even using a kind of catapulting motion to move the bees from the trunk into a little box. It was surprisingly easy, as a swarm of bees are remarkably docile.

The key to successfully catching a swarm is catching the queen, who was nestled safely in the middle of this ball of bees. If you manage to get that lady into your box, the bees will swiftly follow. Because it’s their job to protect her. And it looked like we got the queen.

Feeling more than a little chuffed with ourselves, we decided it would be nice to have a cup of tea and slice of christening cake to celebrate. But before the kettle was even boiled, we spotted swarm number two. These bees were determined to make me pay for my negligence.  I suspect both swarms came from the one hive – which is unusual but can happen. The poor creatures were so packed in there that they went a bit crazy making themselves some new queens.

Once more dangling from the trunk of nearby tree, we had no choice but to get another box and go honeybee hunting. Our expert assistant had gone home so we did this one alone. As the swarm was positioned higher up this tree we held a box directly underneath and, gloved hands positioned above it, with one downard motion we simply pushed them all inside. Quckly slapped on a lid and crossed our fingers we had the queen.

Both sealed boxed were left alone for the night, one in the polytunnel and the second on the patio, and we rang around looking for their new home. We already have two hives on our 3 acres and don’t want or need any more. So these ladies were up for grabs.

Swarm in a 'nuc' box

And it didn’t take long for someone to claim them. By 3 o’clock the following day a local gardener with two empty hives had the boxes safely ensconsed in the boot of his car. Ready to transport them to their new site. We waved goobye with a heavy heart, these bees were meant to be buzzing around the 3 acres, foraging, pollinating and making plenty of delcious honey for us. Instead, they got fed up waiting for me to take care of them and simply ran away from home. I’ll have to work a bit harder to make sure it doesn’t happen again – just as soon as I’ve changed this nappy!

There were fears that the cull would be widespread. That changes to [...]]]> It wasn’t as bad as we expected. It might be just a reprieve – a temporary stay of execution -  but a lot of  our small, rural primary schools have escaped the chop and are hanging on to all of their teachers.

There were fears that the cull would be widespread. That changes to the pupil/teacher ratios would see teachers being lost, pupils leaving and, eventually, many small primary schools closing. But, following a surprisingly sympathetic appeals process, just 39 of our rural schools are losing teachers. It’s not much consolation to those 39 schools, but the situation could have been a whole lot worse.

Maybe it was a change of heart by the Minister for Education, maybe the gravity of the situation was being exaggerated by others for political gain or it could simply have been one of those by-now familiar u-turns peformed in the face of growing public pressure. I witnessed that pressure first hand at a recent small schools protest meeting in Kilkenny, where I was invited to speak – as a concerned parent.

My 10 year old daughter is in 4th class in Johnswell NS – a small school situated around 5 miles outside Kilkenny City.  With 3 teachers and 54 pupils, we were one of those schools being targeted by these rolling budget cuts. This year our numbers are healthy enough, but what about next year? Will we have enough names on the roll? Will the rules change? Will it still be there when the time comes for my infant son to put on his school uniform?

I grew up in Kilkenny city and went to school there so my only experience of rural schooling is as a mother. And it’s a completely different animal. For one thing teachers have to deal with 2, 3 or even 4 different classes. Seamlessly moving from one group to the other, juggling different curricula, levels of ability and attention spans. But the pros far outweigh the cons. There is a familiarity, warmth and sense of community in that small building that I’ve never experienced before. I know my daughter is extremely lucky to be attending this school, lucky but not privileged because she has every right to go there. It’s her local school, she lives just one mile away from it. And it’s where she belongs.

But if pupil/teacher ratios continue to be cut, if small schools stay under the spotlight and their long term feasibility is called into question, then that sense of belonging will very quicky evaporate. If our children are taken from their schools – where they are blossoming – and transplanted into larger institutions they have no connection with, how can they be expected to thrive?

What happens to them and, just as importantly, what happens to our rural communities if these schools are no longer deemed financially viable? If the right to go to your local school is seen as a costly luxury we can no longer afford?

But how easy is to to put a cost on educating our children, to figure out whether we’re getting good value for money? How do you quantify that? For example there’s no real value for money in teaching Irish (unless you get a job with TG4) so why have it on the curriculum? There’s no monetary value in learning a Yeats poem, so why bother teaching it? It costs too much to let thousands of children all over the country go to schools within their community, so why not take that right away from them? But how much money would that really save? Closing down brand new schools like ours and leaving them to rot? Bussing pupils to the nearest big towns and cities? And expanding already overcrowded urban schools to accommodate an influx of new rural pupils?

Education should be about a lot more than cost or value for money. It should even about a lot more than learning and academic achievement. A good education system helps children grow into the best adults they can be. And instills in them a sense of pride in where they come from, both nationally and locally.

My daughter, in fact, my family, have a sense of pride in where we come from, in the small little village we chose to settle in. And the main reason for this is because of the local school. It’s the meeting point for everyone in the community. The school room and school yard is where she gets her sense of belonging and her sense of place. The school gate is where I finally felt like I belonged, like I was part of the community. Until my daughter started in the local school, I honestly didn’t feel like I fully belonged the area.

 This is because our schools are at the centre or our rural communities. In some cases, they are all that’s left. They’ve been educating local children for generations and are a strong source of pride. Families go there not  because of  state of the art facilites, results, league tables, social mix or even just the fickle notion of what makes a ‘good’ school. They send their children to the local school simply because it is the local school.

One of the best descriptions of the importance of small rural schools comes from broadcaster Olivia O’Leary, a past pupil of a  rural primary school in Co Carlow.  I heard it on one of her recent radio columns on RTE Radio One’s Drivetime. She put it beautifully when she said “one of the most precious things you can give a child is a sense of place. Civic pride, responsible citizenship, community involvement are all nurtured by the fact that you have a stake in a place and no matter where you go, its map is imprinted on your heart”.  Let’s hope, for our children’s sake, that nobody takes that map away from them.

Take, for example, my hunt for Irish [...]]]> Sometimes it takes quite a bit of  effort to buy Irish. Not the kind of effort that entails convincing yourself of its merits or finding the extra cash sometimes required for local products – just the simple act of finding these local products in the first place.

Take, for example, my hunt for Irish apples. I didn’t really mind what variety they were, once they were grown here. Forgetting that the best variety (the free kind) were still available in my mother’s back garden, I headed into the shops. Plural. Because I had to visit quite a few before I tracked them down.

Finally, I found one supermarket – the one that’s always best for stocking Irish – that was selling a bag of lovely, shiny red ones that came from somewhere in the Republic. I also came across a very tasty, very reasonably priced and very local bag in a small fruit and veg shop. These ones were grown just down the road in Piltown. So, I got there (twice) but it did take a bit of effort.

And there are times when most of us simply don’t have the time or wherewithal to make that extra effort. Which is why I was quite taken with a couple of interesting suggestions I came across over the past few days.

The first came from a local trader I regularly buy from. He told me about a small but very clever little idea he had – and was keen to spread the word. It’s a card that would fit into your wallet. An information card designed to help Irish consumers wade their way through the at-times confusing process of buying something Irish.

So many products on supermarket shelves carry tricolours, shamrocks, and logos telling us to “Buy Irish”, “Love Irish Food” or go for the one that’s “Truly Irish”. But what do all these different logos mean? And how Irish are they really? Well this local retailer is convinced a dinky little card could translate, in very simple terms, what each logo and label meant. And would go a long way towards making your shopping trip that little bit more straightforward.

The second idea also came from the business sector and also, coincidentally, involves a little card. IBEC are calling for a new ‘smart card’ to  be given to every person claiming child benefit. The idea is that this piece of plastic, a kind of debit card, will hold all of the money paid to mothers (how much that will actually be after the budget remains to be seen).

The catch is that they could only be used in Irish-owned shops. Swiped by homegrown traders whenever parents decide to spend their benefit. This means all of the money paid out by the State will stay in the state and could even go towards creating up to 3,600 jobs.

This is a good idea (although possibly an unworkable one) for a number of reasons. Firstly it encourages, even forces, people to shop local and support homegrown businesses and secondly, it means a lot of people might actually spend the money (all €2.2 billion of it) rather than squirrelling it straight into a savings account.

This state payment was designed to be spent, to help families provide the basics for their children. Not to save up for a holiday, a car or even a third level education.

A child benefit smart card, or even a wallet-sized information slip on buying Irish, wouldn’t have made my hunt for local fruit any easier. You can only buy what’s on offer in the shops. But any move, not matter how small, that makes supporting our home grown economy easier has to be welcomed. Something that makes the act of buying Irish seem like not so much of an effort in the first place.