Senior Times Magazine - April/May 2022

Issue 117 May - June 2022

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The magazine for people who don’t act their age

Goodbye Norma Jean Sixty years since Marilyn Monroe’s death To E or not to E

Pros and cons when buying electric cars Zooming up Bray Head

Going Dutch in Utrecht

Remembering the popular seaside ski-lift

Discovering Holland’s fourth largest city

Celebrating a master craftsman The life and work of William Trevor

Our wonderful wild flowers How to find and recognise them

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Issue 117 - May - June 2022

Contents

24

News: 2 Goodbye Norma Jean:

5

Aubrey Malone traces the last extravagant, turbulent years of Marilyn Monroe who died 60 years ago.

45

COPD and how to live with it: 56 Dublin Dossier: 60 Pat Keenan reports on happenings in and around the capital

Wine World: 64

To E or not to E:

10

Conor Faughnan on the pros and cons of buying an electric car

Mairead Robinson features Chilean wines

Bridge: 68 Michael O’Loughlin tutors beginners and intermediates

Canavan’s people: 16 Eamonn Lynskey gets under the skin of the always fascinating world and subjects of Longford-born painter Bernard Canavan.

Waltzing up Bray Head:

Michael Doorley fondly remember the Bray Ski-Lift which was launched 60 years ago in June

20

Going Dutch: 24

Cosmetics -Is Vitamin C good for your skin?:

78

Mairead Robinson delves into the benefits of vitamin enriched skincare.

Stamp of approval: 72

Paul V. Tattersall relates how stamp collecting saved the sanity of many older people during the Covid lockdowns and how many of them have returned to their childhood hobby.

Western ways: 74 George Keegan on happenings along the Western Seaboard

Eileen Casey was impressed with Utrecht, Holland’s fourth largest city

Lily’s Family Favourites:

Portrait of a master craftsman with a penetrating eye: 34

Northern Notes: 88

Recipes from a popular cook book

In her latest profile of celebrated literary figures in these islands, Lorna Hogg relates the life and achievements of William Trevor

Golf: Overcoming the greatest handicap:

Dermot Gilleece relates how Australian golfer Jack Newton’s career was cut short by a tragic accident.

Discovering our wonderful wildflowers:

Zoe Devlin explains where you can find our vast array of wildflowers and how you can recognise them

Publishing Directors: Brian McCabe, Des Duggan Editorial Director: John Low Advertising: Willie Fallon Design & Production: www.cornerhouse.ie Contributors: Lorna Hogg, Dermot Gilleece, Maretta Dillon, Peter Power, Matthew Hughes, Mairead Robinson, Eileen Casey, Debbie Orme, Connie McEvoy, George Keegan, Pat Keenan Michael O’Loughlin and Eamonn Lynskey.

42

45

82

Debbie Orme reports from north of the border

Meeting Place: 90 How to meet individuals and groups

Crossword: 93 Crafts: 95 Senior Times does not necessarily endorse or agree with the views and claims made in articles and advertisements

Published by S& L Promotions Ltd., P.O. Box Number 13215, Rathmines, Dublin 6, Ireland Tel: +353 (01) 4969028.

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News Now Blackrock Clinic launches new device to help combat AF The Blackrock Clinic recently started its new program of electroporation for the treatment of patients with atrial fibrillation.

Conventional catheter ablation for the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias uses tissue heating (radiofrequency current) to cauterize the targeted heart muscle.

Such heating by conventional catheter ablation is a long-established approach, but does carry a small risk of thermal injury outside the heart.

Recently developed electroporation systems achieve controlled cauterization of targeted heart muscle without significant tissue heating. Early results with this alternative energy source indicate there may be a lower associated risk of complications to surrounding organs in addition to a potentially higher acute procedural success rate.

The use of electroporation to effect targeted heart muscle can potentially offer more selective and controlled tissue

Alzheimer’s Mobile Information Service is travelling around Ireland

The Alzheimer’s Society Mobile Information Service travels throughout Ireland and visits towns, villages, and cities to raise awareness about dementia and to provide vital information to people who are affected by Alzheimer's and dementia. Experienced staff and Dementia Advisers will be with the service to provide information and support about memory loss, how a diagnosis is made, managing day to day life with dementia, as well as information about supports and services available in the local area May • • • • June • •

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2 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

effects than thermal ablation.

The mechanism of action of electroporation on heart muscle has been studied in experimental models since the 1990s. The delivery of a high energy single electric shock or a series of shocks in quick succession results in temporary pores in the cell membrane. These nonselective pores permit the entry and exit of compounds into the cell that would not usually be permitted to pass freely into or out of the cell.

UK care homes turn to robot pets

Many care homes around the UK have turned to robotic companion pets, such as those produced by Joy For All, to provided their residents with company over the pandemic.

Research has shown that robotic animals can alleviate loneliness among older people. Researchers have found that this technology can significantly reduce anxiety levels and provide calm and comfort.

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Rethink Ireland €750,000 fund for Munster communities Rethink Ireland has announced the opening of a €750,000 fund to support not-for-profit organisations, including charities and social enterprises, improving health outcomes in the larger Munster region. The one-year Impact Fund will invest in up to 10 innovative projects that are promoting healthy lives and well-being for all across Munster.

Up to five awards will be made to projects and/or organisations that use music, creativity, or the arts to enhance the physical and mental health of their communities.

The Impact Fund for Munster is backed by a number of local donors including the Parkes Family Limerick, The Sunflower Charitable Foundation, Community Foundation for Ireland, and several private donors, with match funding from the Department of Rural and Community Development via the Dormant Accounts Fund.

Eligible projects are invited to apply to the €750,000 Impact Fund before 1 pm on Tuesday, 14 June 2022 at the Rethink Ireland website: https://rethinkireland. ie/current_fund/impact-fund-formunster-2022/

National Wellbeing and Social Inclusion Survey launched

Pictured at the launch of the new survey is Minister O'Gorman T.D. with Aideen Hartney, Director of the National Disability Authority (3rd from right) with members of Glasnevin Village Active Retirement Group (from left) Tom Miley, Laura Heasley, Marie Colgan and Joe Reid Photo credit: Tom Honan

A national online survey focusing on the topics of wellbeing and social inclusion had been launched.). It aims to find out how included people from all sectors of Irish society feel, as well as their thoughts and opinions on social inclusion in Ireland today. The survey is open to everyone living in Ireland over the age of eighteen, is completely anonymous and takes just 10 to 15 minutes to complete.

The survey is now live and available to complete in English, Irish, Irish Sign Language, Polish and, Romanian (www. howsitgoing.ie ). Alternative formats are available on request. The survey will be open for a 6-week period.

Ireland. The aim is to find out if people feel like they belong and feel valued and respected in their communities. It will also determine how people participate in society and how they interact with others in the community.

The survey data will highlight groups that believe they are enjoying high levels of wellbeing and social inclusion and groups that are finding the going tough and are not fully participating in Irish society.

The data will provide evidence that can be used to guide improvements to public services and policies to make Ireland a more inclusive and better place to live. It will be possible to compare results from this survey to future similar surveys.

The survey will provide a benchmark measurement of the wellbeing and social inclusion of different groups in

For further information or to complete the survey today log onto www.howsitgoing.ie

Anything Goes opens at Bord Gais Theatre The Multi Tony Award – winning musical Anything Goes will be playing at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre which is running from 18th to 28th May. Anything Goes has music and lyrics by Cole Porter. This production is directed and choreographed by three-time Tony Award Winner Kathleen Marshall, and Sunday she won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreographer.

The musical stars award winning actor Simon Callow as the iconic Elisha J. Whitney.

Simon Callow is most famous for his role in Four Weddings and a Funeral. He has an impressive film and TV career including some acclaimed and award-winning films, such as Amadeus, A Room With A View (starring alongside Daniel Day-Lewis, Dame Judi Dench & Dame Maggie Smith), Shakespeare in Love, Victoria & Abdul (teaming up once again with Judi Dench). He recently starred in the Disney/Marvel’s hit show Hawkeye.

Simon Callow stars in Anything Goes 4 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Cancer Trials Ireland to Host Public Seminar Marking International Clinical Trials Day on Friday May 20, Cancer Trials Ireland will host a free webinar on clinical trials for members of the public.

The virtual event to promote public understanding of clinical trials is taking place as part of the Just Ask campaign.

This initiative encourages patients to enquire of their doctors if there is a clinical trial suitable for them.

The webinar will feature a presentation from clinical trial expert, Professor Seamus O’Reilly, (consultant medical oncologist and Vice Clinical Lead Cancer Trials Ireland) on how trials work and how to access them, while previous trial participants will share their experiences on what to expect.

The event will take place from 2-3pm on May 20 and will be live streamed online.

To register, email info@cancertrials.ie.

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Its sixty years since Marilyn Monroe’s death. Aubrey Malone plots the last extravagant, turbulent years of a Hollywood legend who continues to fascinate

: n y l i Mar

the final years

Marilyn Monroe will be sixty years dead this August. What more can be said about her other than the fact that she continues to intrigue us even from the grave?

Her last completed film was The Misfits. The screenplay was written by her husband, Arthur Miller, but by the time it was in the can their marriage was on the rocks. She tortured him with cruelty on the set.

Who was to blame? Both of them and neither. Monroe expected too much from him. She knew she was no angel and confessed as much. ‘A lot of people like to think of me as innocent,’ she said, ‘so that’s the way I behave to them but if they saw the real me they’d hate me.’

Marilyn with her co star in The Misfits, Clarke Cable.

Photograph courtesy of Steve Cox

Miller checked in to the Chelsea Hotel in New York. She went back to their 57th Street apartment. She rang him one night.

‘Are you coming home?’ she asked. It was as if they were still a couple. She was needy for him but he refused to see her. The past was wiped out, he said, ‘like a colour photo of violence that had been left too long in the sun.’ He couldn’t share her amnesia. Returning to the old life would have been ‘like trying to die backwards.’

Miller now started dating Inge Morath, a photographer on The Misfits. Monroe wasn’t pleased at her being in his life. She didn’t appreciate the speed with which the relationship progressed.

Had his marriage meant that little that he was able to move on to another woman so quickly? Morath made her feel like ‘a negated sex symbol.’

He’d stayed with her until she began to threaten his hold on sanity. She was like a drowning woman who was trying to bring him down with her. The intensity with which she’d loved him at the beginning had turned inside out.

She started to see Joe DiMaggio again. She’d been married to him once. They were still friends but that was all. Billy Wilder said her marriage to DiMaggio failed when he realised he’d married Marilyn Monroe, that the Miller one failed when he Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie 5

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In 1954 Marilyn married baseball legend Joe Marilyn on the set of The Misfits with director John Huston, left, and her husband DiMaggio. He wasn’t lively enough for her and at the time playwright Arthur Miller, who wrote the screenplay. Photograph her and they fought constantly. courtesy of Steve Cox realised he hadn’t. It’s an interesting point. One man wanted the woman, the other the icon.

DiMaggio became an anchor that she tethered herself to. The things that had once bothered her about him, like his stay-athome personality, suddenly became desirable to her. Anything had to be better than Miller’s coldness.

Her depression deepened. When friends phoned her she often didn’t pick up. Her voice was frequently slurred when she did. She talked a lot about suicide. When her publicist Pat Newcomb took her for a ride on the Staten Island ferry one day, she stared at the water as if she was thinking of jumping into it.

Sitting around her apartment in a state of depression, she drank Bloody Marys. She worried about her face and figure and played Frank Sinatra records. There were times she thought she’d like to have married him. Now they were just friends too. Was this her lot, to end up being friends with former lovers? Or former husbands? She was losing weight. She started to think there might be something wrong with her. Deciding to have herself checked out, she went to the Payne-Whitney clinic in February 1961. She signed herself in under the name Faye Miller, a not very subtle pseudonym. Maybe it didn’t matter. She was one of the most recognizable people in the country. She wasn’t prepared for the curiosity of the staff. Maybe she should have expected this after a lifetime of being preyed on by the paparazzi.

She thought she was going to an ordinary hospital but it turned out to be a psychiatric one. It was nicknamed ‘The rich people’s crazy house.’ Her experience there was Kafkaesque. As soon as she was admitted, her handbag and personal effects were taken from her. She then spent 48 hours in a padded cell. The experience traumatised her.

According to a member of staff she took off all her clothes at one stage and stood naked at a window. Another time she threw a chair through a glass door. Her attitude was, ‘If you’re going to treat me like a nut, I’ll act like one.’ The incident caused her 6 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

to be threatened with a straitjacket. Such prospect brought back a terror of insanity that she’d had all her life. Her grandmother was psychologically unhinged. So was her mother. She believed she had a streak of that in her too.

In the following weeks she became more dependent on medication. At one stage her psychiatrist, Ralph Greenson, got his daughter to deliver Nembutal to her home. By now he’d become starstruck by her. He wanted a relationship with her that was beyond medicine. She became like a daughter to him.

Greenson had her for consultations every other day. Some of them lasted up to five hours. Many were held in his home.

She ate with his family and sometimes stayed overnight. She’d always had a wish to belong to a ‘real’ family because of her orphaned past. He tapped into that need.

She started seeing Frank Sinatra again in the summer. She became like a mascot of Sinatra’s Rat Pack, an honorary member he could drink and have fun with without thinking of any lasting commitment. He enjoyed her company but he didn’t consider her marriage material.

Marilyn didn’t make any films in 1961. She had a lot of medical problems that year. In May she underwent a gynecological operation in Los Angeles. Doctors discovered her fallopian tubes were blocked following poor surgery following an abortion in the past. There were said to have been fourteen of these in all.

She left New York for Hollywood in August. In October she started an affair with Robert Kennedy after meeting him at Peter Lawford’s beach house. She attended a dinner there the following month at which John F. Kennedy was present. She slept with him too.

She was drawn to the Kennedys like a moth to a flame but there was never going to be anything lasting for her with either of them. Even if they weren’t married, the combination of actress and politician didn’t look good on paper. Her affiliation with

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Early modelling days wearing a potato sack Sinatra made such a combination toxic in Robert’s case. As Attorney General he was getting tough on crime. Sinatra’s Mob connections made him anathema to him. Marilyn said she felt like a piece of meat being tossed between the two brothers.

1962 began badly for her. On the first day of the year, she learned of the death of her lawyer friend Jerry Giesler. He’d handled her divorce from DiMaggio. She then heard that Inge Morath was pregnant, that Miller planned to marry her. The news had a devastating effect on her. She sank into a gloom. It was an insult to her to see him moving on with his life as if she’d never existed.

Her depression was compounded by the fact that Frank Sinatra announced his engagement to Juliet Prowse in the second week of January. She hadn’t seen this coming.

News on the career front was bad too. Her fan mail dipped from 8000 letters a day to just 50 a week. Newspapers reported that her fame might be on the skids. A film poll listing the top stars of the day didn’t even have her among the top 25.

Greenson saw her going downhill. He suggested she buy a house. His thinking was that it might act as a substitute to her for not having a husband, or child.

She didn’t think she was beautiful anymore. If her looks went, she thought, what was left? She said to her cook, ‘Nobody’s ever gonna marry me now. I can’t have kids. I’ve been divorced three times. Who would want me?’

The house was situated on Helena Drive, a cul-de-sac off Sunset Boulevard. The fact that it was on a dead end seemed symbolic.

A motto above the door said Cursum Perficio. Translated into English that meant, ‘I’ve finished my race.’ Never was a residence more aptly named. She described it as a ‘fortress where I can feel safe from the world.’

She bought it for $77,500, paying half in cash and taking out a mortgage for the remainder. She should have been well off financially at this stage because of her earnings from Some Like It Hot and The Misfits but high earnings can sometimes 8 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Typical studio glamour pose

be as much of a curse as a blessing - at least as far as the IRS is concerned. She was now in the 90 per cent tax bracket.

A woman called Eunice Murray moved in with her. She was a housekeeper provided by Greenson. To Marilyn she took on the role of friend, at least at first. In time Murray became more a plant of Greenson’s than a confidante. Marilyn’s conversations were reported back to him for dissection.

She signed for another film, Something’s Got to Give, a title that proved to be prophetic. She was absent more often than not and was eventually fired from the film. That tipped her over the edge. It had never happened to her before despite all her tantrums.

Who could pull her out of this fix? Nobody, it seemed. Maybe she was beyond help. ‘Reality is coming too close,’ she said. Pills became her best friends now. On the last night of her life, the most famous actress in the world had nobody to talk to. She phoned a number of people but none of them took her calls.

She overdosed on Nembutal on August 4, 1962. There had been many suicide attempts before where her stomach was pumped.

This time her luck ran out. She died naked with the phone in her hand. Miller wasn’t sure if she meant to kill herself or not.

He didn’t go to her funeral. What would have been the point?

‘She won’t be there.’

Her reputation continued to rise after her death. Like James Dean seven years before, she became almost beatified for many. She was seen as a fawn in the jungle of film-making, a candle in the wind of bureaucracy. When the dust settled, some perspective was achieved. She was beautiful but flawed, adorable but of limited talent, heavenly on screen but impossible to live with. Was it fame or pills that killed her?

One, of course, led to the other.

Images from Something’s Got To Give where she swam naked in a swimming pool were sold to Hugh Hefner for $25,000.

Global sales brought the overall price to $150,000. The man who photographed her for Playboy in 1949 got $200. Monroe made just $50 for that centerfold.

Many authors tried to divine the enigma of Marilyn in successive decades. Never one to miss an opportunity to do her down, Billy Wilder quipped, ‘There have been more books on Marilyn Monroe than on World War II – and there’s a great similarity between them.’

Mafia, the CIA, the Kennedys, even Greenson. Paper doesn’t refuse ink. Some of these theories are still being pedaled today in various iterations to sell magazines.

DiMaggio sent six red roses to her crypt three times a week until he died. She once said the camera was her only true lover. If that was true, he ran it a close second.

Norman Mailer was more profound.

‘Marilyn was every man’s love affair with America,’ he wrote, ‘She was blonde and beautiful and she had a sweet little rinkydink of a voice and all the cleanliness of the American backyards. The sugar of sex came up from her like a resonance of sound in the clearest grain of a violin.’

executive chairs.’

People love conspiracy theories and there were many of these in the years following. She was said to have been murdered by the

Aubrey Malone's book The Misfits - The Film that Ended a Marriage will be published later this year by Bear Manor Media.

Everyone had a theory on why she died but Henry Hathaway’s was the simplest and truest. He contended, ‘You don’t have to hold an inquest to find out who killed Marilyn. It was those bastards in the big

Marilyn – the backstory

The iconic photograph of Marilyn posing above an air vent during the filming of Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch.

Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jean Mortenson in Los Angeles in 1926. She was the daughter of a film cutter, Gladys Monroe Mortenson, and a father she never knew. She spent most of her youth in foster homes after her mother developed psychological problems and wasn’t able to look after her.

Her desire to be an actress came from her childhood suffering.

‘I didn’t like the world around me,’ she sighed, ‘because it was kind of grim.’

She married a neighbour, James Dougherty, when she was just 20. It was mainly a marriage of convenience, an attempt to gain some independence away from her institutional roots.

She divorced him four years later. By now she’d become a successful model. She appeared on an incredible number of magazine covers, often without much clothes on her. ‘Marilyn made it to the top, ‘a commentator wrote, ‘because her dresses didn’t.’

When she dyed her mousey brown hair a platinum blonde (to match her idol Jean Harlow) the transition from Norma Jean to Marilyn was complete. She appeared in a number of minor roles with Twentieth Century Fox before coming to prominence in a small but important part in the 1950 Bette Davis vehicle All About Eve. It was followed by Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire, all of them made in 1953, her breakthrough year. In 1954 she married baseball legend Joe DiMaggio but – like Dougherty - he wasn’t lively enough for her. They fought constantly. He was upset about the fact that she seemed to throw herself at men. When she posed above an air vent during the filming of Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch and her dress billowed above her thighs, it was the last straw for him.

She was next smitten by the playwright Arthur Miller. They married in 1956. He said he would do his best to get her away from the ‘bubblehead’ roles she was mainly associated with but he still encouraged her to appear in another one of them, the film that became her best known of all, Some Like It Hot. Tony

She appeared in a number of minor roles with Twentieth Century Fox before coming to prominence in a small but important part in the 1950 Bette Davis vehicle All About Eve. Here she is seen with the film’s co-star George Sanders

Curtis impregnated her on the set despite saying that kissing her was like kissing Hitler. The baby, like so many others she carried inside her over the years, was aborted.

By 1959 the marriage to Miller had also crumbled. Their tensions were played out in full view of the cast and crew of The Misfits in 1961. He wrote the screenplay to give her, at last, an ‘adult’ role, but she felt he exploited their relationship to write it. Her last year was spent in a miasma of pills and booze as she tried to come to terms with the fading of the sex symbol tag she once reviled. By 1962 she became again the lost soul of her childhood years, fighting loneliness and depression in the Hollywood jungle. When she died in the August of that year she was broken both in body and mind.

Marilyn was dead but a legend was born.

Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie 9

Electric cars

To E or not to E? Conor Faughnan recently found himself answering the question.

I did something for the first time last year that most people would have thought I’d have done long ago. At 52 years old, I bought my first car.

I spent my whole career in company cars but when I finished with AA, I found myself needing to buy a set of wheels. Do I go new and snazzy, do I go old and practical, or do I get with the future and go electric? Not only will this give me impeccable green credentials, thinks I, it will also give me a shiny new gadget to play with that comes with loads of technical goodies.

So first, up, here is the positive case. Electric cars are fantastic.

The driving experience is smoother, calmer, and more powerful and if it’s your sort of thing then faster as well.

I have driven a few of them though not as many as I’d like.

Twelve years ago, I had a Mitsubishi iMiev for two months as a trial with ESB. Twelve years is a long time in E-car technology.

So long, in fact, that when they installed an electric charge point in my garage wall they actually used a three-pin socket; the modern standard version didn’t exist. The charging network barely existed either and all of my juice came from home for the trial.

I loved it but. I will come to the buts in a minute. It was a wonderfully comfortable small car and drove beautifully like a conventional automatic. I’ll also confess that it did indeed have the capacity to take off like a rocket from the lights, leaving any conventional car that fancied itself embarrassed in the smokefree wake.

The other thing you will know about electric cars is how quiet they are. The first time I drove one it was almost spooky; it literally made no noise at all. Pootling through the city I would regularly see pedestrians catch me out of the corner of their eye and jump in fright. We have all been brought up listening out for cars as well as looking for them (I bet you do remember the Safe Cross Code).

This is serious enough for European law makers to consider compelling manufacturers to put in fake engine noise, which seems daft but the problem is real.

The fuel saving is real as well. It was less than quarter of what petrol would have cost. But battery life was poor. It melted on motorways and I had a couple of dodgy moments nursing my 10 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Pioneering E-Car: Twelve years ago, I had a Mitsubishi iMiev for two months as a trial with ESB way desperately along the M50 trying to squeak as far as my exit. It convinced me that e-cars were the future but also that it hadn’t quite arrived. Twelve years on is it here now?

New models The new models of electric car available in 2022 would make you think so. The technology is improving as least as fast as it is with smartphones. Gone are most of the problems with that early version Mitsubishi. Instead, we have plentiful offerings from all the main car makers in most if not all of the most popular categories of car.

SUV, sports car, saloon, nippy city-car. They are all there. They all share the basic characteristics of an EV. The fuel cost savings are even better now. Servicing is about €100, which is as little as a fifth of the cost of a conventional car service. There are no oils, clutch, timing belt, head gasket, or similar 20th century nasty bits to check. Road tax is for most is €125.

Best of all they are fantastic to drive and so smooth and responsive as to make all but the highest end combustion engines feel like the clumsy old technology that they are.

The enthusiasts certainly seem to adore them. They will tell you so themselves; when you get them going its hard to stop them.

What's not to like?

Which brings us to the buts. First of those is the price. Electric cars are expensive. Across the board, they are just a bit pricier than conventional cars. Not just a bit: they are a lot pricier. The Irish Government charges less purchase tax on them, made up in the form of various grants, but what matters to the consumer

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Electric cars

Opel Corsa-e SC €27,322 is final price paid and for EVs that’s still too high in my view.

People may also be a bit put off by re-sale. You don’t really want to spend a lot of money on something that is going to be obsolete in a few years. Actually, there is a re-sale market for EVs and in my view, it will become a healthy one, but for now, it might be a factor holding you back.

The other big worry that people talk about time and again is ‘range anxiety’. I put it in quotes because the aforementioned enthusiasts will jump on me. It has been an issue with EVs from the start but to be fair it is much less of an issue now.

Ranges available on a standard EV like for example the VW ID3 (the electric equivalent of a Golf) are up to 450 kilometres.

If you are treating yourself to something like a Tesla Model S Long Range, you can get up to 650 kilometres. You quickly realise that real-world driving and long motorway runs will eat into that mileage.

WhatCar in the UK have done excellent real-world testing of EV ranges. As a rule of thumb you can knock 25 per cent per cent off the claimed range for starters and then another 25 per cent for winter driving conditions typical in Ireland. Ten per cent more again if you’re being heavy on the electrics for heaters, air-con or demisters. That may seem disappointing compared to the brochure but it was the same with the ‘miles per gallon’ claims of years gone by. It still leaves ranges that are very satisfactory.

It is certainly enough for all but one or two journeys most of us will do in a year. They can be managed with a bit of planning and use of the charging network. When EV drivers talk about that it seems that it can be a bit of an adventure.

For me this time that was probably what swung it. I do make one regular drive down to Enniscrone in Co. Sligo, a 500 kilometre round trip with no charger at the far end. That was the deal breaker. I am afraid I got very boring. I took an old fleet car with me from the AA; a 2 litre Skoda Superb diesel 12 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

estate. It was second-hand and cheap, it carries the kitchen sink and refuelling will only ever be a financial adventure. It’ll do for now.

My next car will be an EV but in the spirit of St Augustine, not yet.

There is a middle ground if you are wavering. Plug-in hybrids are exactly what they sound like. Its an EV most of the time especially in cities and will potter around silently with the rest of them but it also has a small conventional engine and fuel tank that can both charge the battery and kick in when its needed. No range anxiety here.

But only half the green points, in the eyes of enthusiasts. It still uses fossil fuels and it still emits carbon, and it may even delay the full roll out of proper EVs. My decision was a personal one as I weighed up what I need from a car. Others will do the same. Maybe you are the type of person who must have the latest iPhone, or maybe your idea of a phone is something that will do calls, texts and Whatsapp and who cares after that.

Peugeot e-208 50kwh: €29,105 Societal effects Each to his or her own, but all of our individual actions add up to our societal effect and that is what Government has to think about when it is designing policy. The Irish government is hoping to have 935,000 EVs on the road by 2030.

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2022-04-26 12:16

Electric cars

Some Sample Electric Car Prices In Ireland (in ascending order)

BMW i3 €39,695 I won’t knock them for ambition but they are going to miss that target by a country mile. At the moment pure electric and plug-in hybrid account for less than 10 per cent of sales between them. That share is rapidly growing but not fast enough for those numbers. The Government will have to think hard about what else it can do to push things along if they are serious.

We know that as a world we have to wean ourselves off oil. There is no point pretending that we have a choice. It took the planet 300 million years to create the global supply of oil. Humanity has been using it for less than 200 years and half of it is gone. That half has been burned releasing many millions of years of stored carbon into the atmosphere with disastrous consequences. Anyone who still doubts this should firstly kick themselves in the backside and stop claiming the world is flat, and then secondly realise that international treaties we’ve signed will punish us financially if we do not do enough.

We have to move to electric cars running on plentiful, clean electricity and we have to do it fast. That is the scale of the government challenge.

The car industry may help them because with every year, indeed with every month, more and more advanced EVs are being announced.

Tesla’s rise has been phenomenal and has made the rest of the industry wake up and smell the emission-free future. Volkswagen for example announced in 2020 that it would invest €73 billion in digital and EV technologies over 5 years.

Pretty soon, every car on the road will be electric because it will be all you can buy. There are problems that they won’t solve, like congestion.

We will also need to make a lot more clean electricity as a turf powered Tesla doesn’t do us much good in the long run. But they hold out the prospect of cheap, clean and completely non-polluting personal transport. They are not just the future, they are here now.

• • • • • • • • • • • • •

Opel Corsa-e SC Renault Zoe Ze50 Play 56kwh Nissan Leaf XE 40 Peugeot e-208 50kwh: Hyundai Kona 67kwh Mini Cooper SE Volkswagen Id 3 Life Kia Soul BMW i3 Volkswagen Id 4 Tesla Model 3 Audi Etron 50 Tesla Model S

€27,322 €27,750 €28,145 €29,105 €30,995 €31,715 €32,966 €37,513 €39,695 €45,110 €51,574 €74,990 €117,000

Prices from late 2021 AND they include €5,000 SEAI grant for private customers and any Government VRT relief. SOME OF THESE PRICES MAY HAVE CHANGED SO CHECK WITH DEALERS

Driving Life Podcast Conor Faughnan’s podcast series Driving Life is on Seniortimes.ie. You’ll find chats with some wellknown voices like Shane Ross, Teresa Mannion, Brian O’Donovan, Ivan Yates, Nuala Carey, George Hook and others. Get under the bonnet to find out a little bit about their driving memories and their takes on life.

Running Costs So how big are the savings? Conor spoke to Tim O’Brien, Irish Times journalist and electric car enthusiast, on his real-world experience comparing his MG ZS electric car to the other car in the household, a large and handsome conventionally powered Audi Q3.

‘The EV gets cheaper tolls as well as the fuel savings.’

Says Tim ‘We went to Crissakiel, Kells at the weekend in the Q3. €2 to cross the M50 bridge €1.50 to cross each toll on the M3 and the same to get home. That's €10. And €30 - €40 in diesel.’ ‘The ZS EV would do that for €5 in tolls and about €17 max in fuel. The Q3 cost €30,000 in Dublin when it was about 14 months old. The MG cost Stg £18,500 (then €21,500) in Leeds UK when it was nine months old. No import costs at that time.

‘Servicing is the EV is about €100, which is as little as a fifth of the cost of a conventional car service. Road tax is €125. The electrics in the MG far outweigh the Q3 with lane assist, cruise control and MG pilot which allows you to follow the car in front, braking when it does, accelerating when it does. It really is a no brainer.’

Tesla Model 3 €51,574 14 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Catch the full chat with Tim O’Brien on the Driving Life with Conor Faughnan podcast on seniortimes.ie.

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e l p o e p s i h d n a n a v a n a C

Art

The pub is crowded. A group of men are at the bar, pints of stout in hand.

These men, pictured in one of Bernard Canavan’s paintings, are Murphy’s Men, men in the employ of the construction company named on the jacket of the one whose back is to us. We cannot hear their animated conversation but their accents are surely Irish, rural Irish, full of the strong vowels of the western counties, with one or two men from the other provinces. In the painting’s foreground a woman, not-too-young, not-too-old, sits deep in thought, glass and cigarette in hand, a small island of quiet in the noisy barroom. These are Canavan’s people, the men and women who emigrated to England in the period after the Irish State struggled into existence in the 1920s. The men and women who continued to leave its shores for many years afterwards to find work.

Another painting, Holyhead Euston, documents the end of a wearisome boattrain journey undertaken at a time when scheduled air travel was virtually nonexistent or, if available, very expensive. A man has just boarded the crowded train and has found a compartment with just one vacant seat left. Gratefully he pushes his suitcase onto the overhead rack while others look in from the corridor to see if there are any more spaces. Their expressions show their disappointment at the prospect of having to make do with sitting on their suitcases for the journey to Euston. In the compartment everyone looks tired, tired and sunk in their own thoughts. An elderly man, glad to have secured a seat, drowsily looks out at us with the air of someone who has done this journey often and will continue to do it until he can do it no longer.

The women have left their suitcases at their feet and keep their handbags close. No one talks.

Eamonn Lynskey considers the paintings of Bernard Canavan

Murphy’s Men

This experience, together with his first-hand knowledge of the tradition of emigration in which he grew up in 1950s Ireland, informs his representation of that era and its hardships. His style is a type of social realism, depicting in close detail the life of the people who had to leave their country to find work elsewhere, particularly in England, after the failure of their new Irish state to break its long history of emigration.

It is often argued that the newlyindependent Irish State, coming into existence as it did during a world-wide depression, could not have been expected to find employment for these men and women. And it is true that its economy and infrastructure were in ruins after a war of independence and a subsequent civil war. The new State had many other problems as well, including its refusal to pay monies to Britain (the ‘annuities’ agreed under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921) for loans received prior to independence. This led to a retaliatory Bernard Canavan was trade war of 1932born in 1944 and grew 1938 between the up in Edgeworthstown, two countries which The Train Co Longford. Illness held caused severe damage to back his school attendance, but he read the Irish Economy. And in contrast with and drew pictures at home. He emigrated the northern part of the island, which to England in 1959 with his father to remained within the United Kingdom, work on construction sites, the only type the new State had a predominantly of employment – along with factory rural economy and virtually no strong work or ‘down the mines’ – open to the industrial base, and therefore was unable unskilled. to provide employment on a mass scale.

16 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Bernard Canavan was born in Edgeworthstown, Co Longford

Things were as they were, and the hope that the lot of the common labourer would improve with the establishment of the new State proved to be a hope misplaced.

While there is no doubt that the new Republic faced difficulties, the perception that in the years up to, and after, the1950s it was too poverty-stricken to provide for its less-advantaged citizens is a perception not universally shared.

A different view of those years was put forward by Bernard Canavan at a conference held in the Irish Centre in London in 2017: ‘Eight-hundred thousand people sending back £5 a week [from England] is a lot of money and that kept the Irish economy going. It made it possible for Mr de Valera and all of the rest of them to live in a kind of comfort there, talking about how awful England was, and what a terrible place it was, when they were living off the remittances being sent back.’ And a photograph published in April 1954 in The Independent newspaper provides some incidental evidence that things might not have been as bad as is sometimes made

Art out. The photograph is accompanied by the description ‘Five thousand private cars packed with racegoers, more than fifty buses as well as innumerable cyclists and people on foot contributed yesterday to the life and movement generally associated with Punchestown [Races] on opening day.’ This would seem to suggest that there was indeed plenty of money to spend for those who had it and therefore did not face the difficulties of an emigrant life. Those who, in the common phrase, ‘were doing alright for themselves’.

Any amelioration of the emigrants’ lot would have to await the administrations of Seán Lemass as Taoiseach (19591966) when the focus was shifted from the cherished vision of his predecessors for an Irish-speaking Roman Catholic State to one more shaped to deal with the twentieth century. Welcome as they were, Lemass’s modernising policies came too late for the post-independence generations of Irish emigrants. Bernard Canavan again: ‘When [my father and I] disembarked at Holyhead, with neither skills or educational qualification of any kind, we took whatever employment we could find in factories, scrap yards and building sites, living in cheap lodging houses and trailer parks in the same way [as] hundreds of thousands of others from Ireland’s new Catholic Republic, and sending home remittances to save, or delay, other family members from our fate’.

But back to the paintings. Camden Rooming House pictures a man (surely our boat-train traveller?) arriving at his ‘digs’ after the wearisome journey from Holyhead. If the fellow-lodger who has just passed him on the stairs has asked if he wants to go out ‘for a few’, his answer must have been ‘no, thanks’. His journey has taken its toll. Perhaps also he feels the effects of that traditional ‘last night’ in Dublin when he met up with some emigrant friends and drank a ‘few’ more than he should have done. He inserts his key in the lock. Upstairs a door opens and floods the darkness with light. A female figure calls down his name.

The Bed-sit displays his room, starkly furnished with table, wooden chair and a bed. It also contains a cooker and a sink.

A window looks out on a brick wall and shows a tiny patch of sky. There is also the once-ubiquitous self-standing bedsitwardrobe, the one with the mirror on its single middle door. Besides his work, this room, the pub and the weekly smoky dancehall will be his life until he journeys back home again for a week or two in Ireland. He is pictured sitting on the bed, a man no longer young but not yet

despite its accounts of hardship, is yet replete with the good humour of a people determined to make the best of a bad situation. However, most of Mac Amhlaigh’s fellow emigrants would not have read his book since it was written in their lost native Irish language; a language which the forced-feeding methods of Irish language teaching in the new State educational system (‘aided’ by corporal punishment) had done little to revive.

The Crown

old, with his back to us, and we catch a glimpse of his rather downcast face in the wardrobe’s mirror. Perhaps of late he has begun to wonder about his future?

Morning sees him making his way through the crowds in Camden High Street. Cigarette in hand, he pushes through the throng, anxious not to be late, perhaps because he has already had a number of warnings. Black clouds fill the sky. In The World Above we see him digging in a roadside trench, working bare-backed, swinging the pickaxe in rhythm with the man behind him, who shovels out the broken soil and heaves it upward. The other world of pedestrians passes above, going about its business and no one takes any notice of the men working in the trench below except the overseer (pictured in the painting Subbie), anxious to get the most work out of them that can be had.

The Nurses’ Home

Canavan’s people lived and worked in an era now largely obscured in the Irish psyche by the industrialisation of 1960s Ireland and the high adventures and ignominious downfalls of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ years which came to such an abrupt end in the late 2000s. The people portrayed in his paintings are those who lived through pre- and post-World War II period as guests of the ‘perfidious Albion’ they had been taught to abhor during their Irish state schooling. There they had learned to read and write but had acquired little that might have prepared them for the life of the emigrant, the life pictured by Bernard Canavan and described by Dónall Mac Amhlaigh in his Dialann Deoraí (An Emigrant’s Diary), published in 1960; a book which,

Canavan did not forget to represent the families left behind. Although many eventually joined their emigrant spouses and set up households in London or in the back-to-back housing of the coalmining industrial north, many did not. One of the most poignant of Canavan’s canvases is Reading the Letter.

We see the family at their front door avidly reading, even before the postman has cycled away. As with all his other canvases in this chronicling of emigration there is no maudlin sentimentality, just a clear depiction of the joy of receiving news from a loved one, coupled with the ever-present heartache of absence. It is a painting which records the devastating tragedy of family separation.

While working in unskilled labouring jobs in London in the 1960s, Bernard Canavan began to draw for many of the radical London Underground publications such as OZ and Cyclops.

He then returned to work in Dublin as a graphic artist in an advertising agency.

He finally settled in London where he won the Lowes-Dickenson medal and a travelling scholarship to Europe in 1965.

This was followed by a State Mature Scholarship to Ruskin College, Oxford in 1971 where he read for a Diploma in Social Studies. He then studied for a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Worcester College, Oxford.

He has exhibited in London and other cities in the UK and in Ireland. He received the Irish Presidential Award from President Michael D Higgins in 2017 during an exhibition of his paintings entitled ‘The Forgotten Irish’.

The following year he was invited to have an exhibition in the English House of Commons.

Canavan’s work covers a wide field but it is his depictions of the experience of mass emigration by the Irish underclass during the 1940s to the 1960s, and the hardships they suffered, that strikes a chord in anyone touched by that experience.

(A selection of Bernard Canavan’s work may be viewed online at Bernard Canavan Artworks | Saatchi Art)

Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie 17

Travel

Put a whole new world at your feet, explore The Isle of Man

If you’re wanting to getaway and slow down, disconnect from the noise and reconnect with incredible natural beauty, your adventure is only a hop, skip and ferry ride away.

A relaxing sail along the Irish sea with the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company gives you chance to take in the calming waters beneath you as you stretch out your legs along the ferry deck. Or take a seat and unwind with a drink and a bite to eat from the onboard café and bar. As the island slowly begins to appear on the horizon, you’ll anticipate experiencing our ‘great outdoors’ for yourself.

You’ll be spoilt for choice of adventures in the Isle of Man. If you’re seeking a challenge, at over 95 miles long, the Raad Ny Foillan (Manx Gaelic for Way of the Gull) coastal footpath gives you the opportunity to walk around an entire nation. If you’re looking for a change of scenery, every day you can experience a different side to the island, including quiet sandy beaches, wooded glens and flourishing farmland.

Whether you want to spend time unwinding with that book you’ve been looking forward to reading, getting your adrenaline pumping with water activities, taking leisurely sunset walks down the coast or filling up on some delicious island fare, the beach is the place to be.

Head to Port Erin Beach to the southwest of the island where you can try your hand at paddle boarding, sea kayaking, gorge scrambling and coasteering. Or head north to Peel Beach where you’ll be greeted by the impressive ancient fortress – Peel Castle. Here, you have a great choice of cafes, pubs and restaurants with menus featuring fresh local produce and delicious seafood, notably the famous ‘Queenies’ (queen scallops).

The island is a treasure trove of historic sites. Climb the steps of ancient castles, including Castle Rushen – one of the best-preserved medieval castles in the world. Visit the Manx Museum or the House of Manannan to learn about the Island’s 10,000-year history. Or for a truly unique spot, stop by the Great Laxey Wheel – the world’s largest working water wheel.

excited for new adventures. Plus, going on holiday shouldn’t feel difficult or stressful, and travelling by ferry helps to make getting there much smoother.

For example, you don’t have to worry about luggage fees. Even better, you can bring your car and pack everything you need, like your bikes or your fourlegged friends. On arrival, you can simply drive straight off the ferry and begin your adventure. It couldn’t be easier.

A holiday to the Isle of Man puts a whole new world at your feet. It gives you the chance to experience new natural wonders, make new memories, and get

Go online at www.steam-packet.com now & plan the getaway you’ve been longing for. Ferries sail regularly from Belfast and Dublin.

18 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Isle of Man

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Nostalgia

Waltzing up Bray Head Michael Doorley remembers the celebrated Bray Stairlift, which opened 60 years ago in June, and the boost it gave to the town In both economic and social terms, the ‘Swinging Sixties’ was an energetic upbeat period in Ireland and ushered in an era of enormous change. Key factors included new Taoiseach Sean Lemass’s successful economic iniatives and the launch of RTE television in 1962. The seaside town of Bray reflected much of this optimistic period, particularly along the seafront/ esplanade, so popular with international tourists and day- trippers.

It was then known as the ‘Brighton of Ireland’ with its bandstand, carnivals, amusement arcades, slot machines, bumper cars, Punch and Judy shows and chip shops.

Oliver (Ollie) Mahony- a local lad in his early twenties was engrossed with pretty much everything that was happening all around him at the time. As a fifteen year old, he had various part

Using the chairlift to deliver Coca Cola to the Eagle’s Nest restaurant on Bray Head in 1963 time jobs- including working on Pat Mooney’s seafront putting green earning 1s/6d per week hiring out deckchairs. A few years later, he got a ‘plum’ job working the chairlift, for which his wages escalated to a whopping £1 per week.

The chair lift was originally set up in the 1940s by Eamonn Quin (father of Superquin boss Fergal Quinn) and was in itself a unique tourist attraction. It was supported by seven metal yellow pylons going up to Bray Head and open from April to October. Buses would travel weekly from Red Island in Skerrieswhich was also run by the Quinns. It could convey up to 350 people per hour, with the upward journey costing 1s/6d.

The upper terminus was at the popular ‘Eagle’s Nest’ ballroom and restaurant from which there were amazing views across the Irish Sea from Dublin Bay to Wales.

The wide scale popularity of ballroom dancing in the early Sixties cannot be underestimated. Huge numbers would attend venues such as the Arcadia in Bray, where some of Ireland’s top showbands (such as the Miami and The Drifters) would regularly perform.

Bray promenade. It was then known as the ‘Brighton of Ireland’ with its bandstand, carnivals, amusement arcades, slot machines, bumper cars, Punch and Judy shows and chip shops.

There was a unique culture around it all and whilst no alcohol was served at the dances this did not necessarily mean that all the patrons were sober. The archaic social format was

20 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

that a dance set comprised three songs or tunes. Girls stood patiently in a row on one side waiting for the fellas to ask them onto the dancefloor and they could accept or decline. The music was usually so loud that communication was more of a shouting match than an intimate conversation. After the early tunes, the tempo slowed to a waltz/slow dance version. If the lady had agreed to stay on for the slow set, it was a good indication for potential romance or alternatively, the promise to retain ‘the last dance’ for the suitor was equally hopeful.

The end of The Arcadia Ballroom, the go-to venue in the Sixties For Ollie, sport was another important aspect of life, particularly football and he and a group of his friends comprised a lively ‘up and coming’ young team calling themselves ‘Bray Celtic F.C’. But they needed to join the Dublin League in order to establish properly and there were financial and other requirements if they were to achieve that status.

Taoiseach Sean Lemass’s successful economic initiatives mirrored the optimism of The Sixties which was reflected in the town And so it was exactly sixty years ago that Ollie came up with a plan to

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us po decline. The music was er the early tunes, the tem intimate conversation. Aft for the on shouting match than an stay to ed agre had ce version. If the lady slowed to a waltz/slow dan e or alternatively, the cation for potential romanc indi d goo a was it slow set, ally hopeful. equ was dance’ for the suitor promise to retain ‘the last l and he life, particularly footbal ther important aspect of team ng For Ollie, sport was ano you ing’ com and ed a lively ‘upwine and although bygue organise aand dance for that purpose. and large it was a prisHe a group of his friends com ded to join the Dublin Lea F.C’. But they nee Celtic had loads call of ing experience of ay both working peaceful and happy musical night, the if ents themselves ‘Br l and other requirem y and there were financia blish properl to esta and dancing aterthe popular Arcadia inevitable skirmish kicked off towards in ord achieve that status. they wer Ballroom and thee toInternational Hotel the end when the band were playing

Nostalgia

(where he was destined to meet Judith ‘The Loco-Motion’. Basher Murphy was – the Love of his life and his future the main offender but wife) and he was the scrap was short enthusictally lived as Ollie and his supported in pals diplomatically this by six of intervened. They his football pals were then assured namely: David that ‘the row will O’Brien, Mick be finished off Power, Paddy back down on the McLoughlin, Jack Seafront’ and so it Tobin and brothers came to pass.

Sean and Liam Wheeler. The dance When the dance was venue chosen was the Eagle’s Nest and over at 1am and the tidy-up anise complete org to e came up with a plan sixty years ago that Olli and so it was exactly king And wor the local band contracted to play were Ollie and the lads were delighted with both of erience pose. He had loads of exp he ce for that pur– a dan l Hotel (where iona rnat Inte the known as ‘The Wingbeats’ a most everything, especially the whopping and m adia Ballroo and he e) wif dancing at the popular Arc re futu his and life of £35 on the night. This led to his of e Lov the apt name considering the altitude they profit – ith Jud t David was destined to mee his football pals namely: by six ofanother in this supported would be performing Unless you were concern. tally nandchair-lift had Seathe sAs was enthusicat. ther bro and in Tob Jack McLoughlin, Paddy way er, only O’Brien, Mick Pow a nocturnal mountaineer, the shut down, it was half an hour down via up to a dance there was via the chairthe 135 steps in the dark to the Seafront lift, which was included in the cost of with this vast sum. So, Ollie asked the ticket of 2s/6d. What there was no his good pal Mick Power to act as his mention of was the absence of a return bodyguard and together they made their option after the chair lift had closed way down (cautiously but safely) back at 11.00. Hence, it was christened the home with the night’s takings intact and ‘Cinderella Ballroom’ by a few of the ready to be banked the next day. regulars.

The ironic aspect of all that is despite having raised the But there were other necessary funds, their factors. In Bray then (as in application to the Dublin any town) there were a few League was supressed ‘rowdies/gurriers’- who by the Wicklow League looked upon such events and not authorised. The as an ideal venue for a lads chose to ‘throw in good fistfight, particularly the towel’, so six months up in that remote location later they all decided to with no Garda presence. purchase seven Prize The tickets sold out Bonds at a fiver apiece. instantaneously, although there were some people From then on, Oliver Iconic landmark: Frank who said they would focussed on his chosen Doyle butchers. If you glance ’cough up’ the price at career- that of Master the door on the night but above it you will see the Barber in his father’s barber’s pole pitched like an failed to do so. salon- where he had angular lighthouse over the started when it was Main Street.

In any event, the dance established in 1957. The took place on Friday 29th June 1962 Hygienic Barber Shop (a most apt title on a beautiful moonlight night. By the in the current health environment) is time the Wingbeats took stage it was a prominent landmark building on the virtually a full house. The music was Main Street with Dempsey Bros. (now delightful and the fun and banter was Frank Doyle’s) butcher’s shop downstairs. palpable. Over 400 people attended the The business had prospered under the dance which would have included a expertise of Oliver’s’ Dad who passed few ‘gate-crashers’. The only technical away in 1967. Over the subsequent years, problem was when the PA system broke Oliver further developed great customer down, so it was Ollie who had to clamber loyalty and strong local personal and onstage as MC after the end of each set. business connections such as Ardmore There was a local ‘honcho’ selling cheap Studios. The latter had their own 22 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Now in his early eighties, barbe (Ollie) Mahony is surely the r Oliver only person in Bray who has happily continued in the same business for a ful l sixty-five years. hairdressers but strictly for the actors, so for Ollie it yielded film producers and directorssuch as screen writer Alistair McLean.

He particularly enjoyed the custom of legendary poet Seamus Heaney over the years.

Today it is truly a unique historic venue and the haircutting process in itself is an experience of delightful chat and banter.

If you glance up over Frank Doyle’s butcher shop, you will see the beacon that is medieval barber’s pole pitched like an angular lighthouse over the Main Street. Now in his early eighties, he is surely the only person in Bray who has happily continued in the same business for a full sixty-five years.

Before the infamous massacre, The Miami Showband regularly appeared at The Arcadia Ballroom The Wingbeats band in later years evolved into ‘The Mexicans’ with Greystones singer Tina as their lead. The Sixties era eventually fizzled out with two key factors leading to a steep decline in Bray’s tourist industry- namely cheap flights to Spain and other destinations and the outbreak of the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland.

Sixty years on, Ollie and a few of the friends, still have the hard earned £5 Prize Bonds and optimistically await their win from these. Good Luck with that, Lads!

8 DAYS · HALF BOARD

8 DAYS · HALF BOARD

Lake Garda, Venice & Wine Tasting Escorted Tour

Westendorf, Salzburg, Krimml Waterfalls & Grossglockner Escorted Tour

Hotel Splendid Palace    

Hotel Jakobwirt    

Limone, Lake Garda, Italy

Westendorf, Austria

WHAT'S INCLUDED

WHAT’S INCLUDED



Return flights with 20kg baggage allowance



Return flights with 20kg baggage allowance



All transfers



All transfers



7 nights at the 4 star Hotel Splendid Palace, half board



7 nights at the 4 star Hotel Jakobwirt, half board



Full day Lake Garda tour by coach and boat



Full Day excursion to Grossglockner, Austria’s Highest Mountain



Full day excursion to the floating city of Venice



Full Day excursion to Salzburg



Half day wine tasting excursion in Lake Garda



Half Day excursion to the Krimml Waterfalls



Topflight resort management service



Guided Walk of Westendorf



Topflight resort management service

Dates of Departure & Price

Dates of Departure & Price

11th Jun 2022

16th Jul 2022

30th Jul 2022

27th Aug 2022

17th Sept 2022

12th Jun 2022

3rd Jul 2022

from €1063pps

from €1301pps

from €1371pps

from €1188pps

from €1139pps

from €1115pps

from €1115pps

Price based on 2 persons sharing & departing from Dublin.

Price based on 2 persons sharing & departing from Dublin.

Find out more about our range of escorted tours in Italy & Austria at Topflight.ie/tours • Call our holiday experts on 01 240 1700 Or visit your local travel agent and ask for Topflight

ALL HOLIDAYS ARE BONDED AND PROTECTED . LICENCED BY THE COMMISSION FOR AVIATION REGULATION TO 074 & TA 055

Travel

De Haar Castle

h c t u D g n Goi

One of the many vintage trains at the Utrecht Railway Museum

Eileen Casey was impressed with Utrecht, Holland’s fourth largest city My first trip abroad since Covid-19 struck, destination Utrecht, The Netherlands. April 7th scheduled for flying out, back on 13th. A short trip but a satisfying one. On day of departure, I arrived at Dublin airport at 11.30 am, leaving myself plenty of time for a 3.30 pm flight. Documented long queues forced me into this timeframe…ah well, might as well sit in the airport as at home. As it turned out, I was checked in, through security and wandering around duty-free..just as the clock struck 12 noon. There were indeed long queues at other check-ins etc. but as far as Ryanair were concerned, I sailed through. On the converse side when,, I finally clunked shut my seat belt on the plane, there was an hour or so delay on the runway, for refuelling, There’s a motto; a journey is best measured in friends rather than by miles (Tim Cahill). Definitely I can concur.

Before boarding, I met up with some of the group who were to accompany me to Utrecht to undergo a five-day

training with International TeacherArtist Partnership (I-TAP-PD) PD (Professional Development). We quickly became friends.

International Teacher-Artist Partnership is a project (devised and administered by The Education Centre, Tralee) enabling teachers and artists to enhance and develop ‘their understanding, expertise and creativity in ‘arts in education’ work with children and young people in education, community and arts settings.’ Going to Europe to develop the model there adds Erasmus to the tagline. Countries visited so far with I-TAP training are: Serbia, Greece, The Netherlands. I can honestly say that the training programme works extremely well, mainly due to gathering together people of like mind, intent on creative development. Good to see there were no egos waiting to ambush and overall, though some of the training was challenging, it took me, for one, out of my comfort zone. That is always to be lauded. Especially after

24 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

harsh restrictions. It felt empowering to ‘socialise’ with intelligent creatives, who didn’t hold back when it came to offering support and inspiration in every way possible. Artists from every field were there: dramaturgues, puppeteers, visual artists, writers, composers, in company with teachers representing schools from all over the country.

Aside from the training (hosted

by Stichting Kopa), there was time to explore Utrecht (indeed, one of our training modules took us on a walking tour which gave us a fair all round view of the city). First observations were of a very clean, very respectful community.

People were always polite, standing back on train platforms or wherever patience was required. And everyone spoke English, in varying degrees of excellence but always enough to understand and respond to queries. Those I personally encountered couldn’t have been nicer.

For me, hopeless with direction, it was impossible to get lost. Just follow the canal became my mantra. It led away

It can be a frightening time when you, or a loved one’s sight, starts to fail.

National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) provides support and services to almost 55,000 people with a vision impairment nationwide. Serving people since 1931, our experience helps people to live independently and to make the very best of their remaining vision. We provide reassurance, guidance, technology and the skills needed. Public support is vital to ensure these services continue to grow into the future.

You can help by remembering NCBI in your Will.

By making a gift, big or small, in your will to NCBI, you leave a legacy of hope for so many people.

For further information phone (01) 882 1972 or visit www.ncbi.ie/personal-giving/ Email: foundation@ncbi.ie Registered Charity CHY 12673

Travel

Some of the attractions of the Museum Speelklok which specialises in organs and organ music

from my hotel and back to it again. The canal was my ‘string’, used as Theseus did when entering the maze. ‘The Gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands’ (Sir Richard Burton). I totally concur. I had never been to Holland (although I’d visited Denmark so I had a fair idea of the prettiness of the buildings). My view from The Moxy hotel, Utrecht, gave me a snapshot of an early morning city coming to life. Bicycle lanes abound.

When I pulled back my curtain that first morning, I was amused to see tandem bicycles and bicycles with little baskets ferrying children to school or pre-school.

What really astonished me about the Moxy hotel, is that there wasn’t a ‘mig’ (a saying of my mother’s) to be heard.

Not one sound. I felt as if cocooned and one of my worst fears regarding travel (a noisy environment) was allayed. For the whole time I stayed in that room I

could hear a pin drop it was that quiet.

Irish hotels take note. The room was more than adequate, basic but spotless.

Breakfast was a buffet affair but lots on offer. I don’t really have a continental palate and so, I never travel without my own supply of coffee, tea bags and a few home comforts. However, sweet snacks etc. were delicious. I’m not adventurous when it comes to food. But I have to say, The Spice Monkey (Oosterkade 30, Utrecht) serving Indonesian and traditional Thai food was among the most superb I’ve EVER had in my entire life (maybe a little over the top but it gives a fair idea!). What a pity there isn’t one near me here in Dublin, I’d quite happily dine there all the time.

‘Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change

26 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind,’ (Anthony Bourdain). The training centre where we met each day (9.30 am – 3.00pm) on Gansstraat 164, 3582 EP Utrecht, used to be a prison where prisoners of war were celled and where some were executed in the prison yard. It was an emotional moment when we entered one such cell, struck by the smallness of it and its chilling lack of any colour. The yard outside is equally bleak. Although I heard birds in most places around the city, the prison yard was bereft of song. As it happened, there was a vibrant art exhibition on show in some of the administration rooms on the ground level. The building spaces are now being used for artistic purpose, which is quite heartening to note.

Ryanair flies into Schipol (Amsterdam) which is roughly 30 minutes from Utrecht, the fourth largest city in the Netherlands. We arrived on the first day as it was growing dark

Travel and glad to see the Moxy hotel, a funky property with a vintage theme. We wore our masks in airports, on the plane and also on trains. It was advised in the airport but not compulsory anywhere else we went. We took an antigen test before we left Ireland and again, on the fifth day of our stay. Thankfully, we were all negative. Had we not been, our insurance with Ryanair covered us for any isolation period. Always advisable when taking a trip. Utrecht had a population of 345,080 in 2017 and is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation. It has a lovely medieval feel to it and remains the main religious centre in the country. Until the Dutch Golden Age, Utrecht was the most important city but then it was surpassed

by Amsterdam as the Netherland’s cultural centre and most populous city.

It boasts the largest university in the Netherlands and has a very good rail system (the station is just across the road from the Moxy hotel). Utrecht has often been referred to as in the top 10 of the world’s unsung places.

‘The world is a book and those who do not travel, only read one page’ (Saint Augustus). How very true. It’s enlightening to see how other cultures work, travel, relax and generally go from day to day. Netherlands people are generally laid back. One thing I noticed was the lack of pharmacies. Yes, I came across a building or two titled Apotheek but not on every corner in most towns as here. When I asked about this I was told that medicines are not dispensed over the counter (medicines containing codeine for example) and that patients can only access these medicines via their doctor. A more holistic lifestyle is always recommended. I didn’t see many obese or even overweight folk either – must be all that cycling?! Seriously though, not a bad precinct to copy. There are many sightseeing treats to visit in Utrecht but I have to mention some in particular. The Dom Tower, for one thing.

This tower is Utrecht’s pride and joy, it’s a welcoming landmark, a church tower over 600 years old. It has 465 steps so again, it encourages fitness, its length is 112 metres. Its beauty lies in its ability to give impressive views over the city and all the way to Rotterdam, weather conditions permitting. There’s a Railway Museum and De Haar Castle but I think the absolute highlight of my

The spectacular Dom Tower

trip to Utrecht (training schedule aside) was my visit to Museum Speelklok, a fantasia of organ music, thanks to Diederich Nicolaus Winkel finding a way to mechanise randomness. Two centuries ago, Winkel built the ‘Componium’, a machine capable of producing endless variations on a melody. Incidentally, this technology was later put to use in the very first gambling machines. He was way ahead of his times and it wasn’t until the end of the 20th century that computer generated algorithms could do the same. This Componium was held by the Musical Instruments Museum (MIM) in Brussels since 1879 and has been released on loan for the first time to Museum Speelklok for the exhibition ‘Choice or Chance?’ This exhibition brings together all of Winkel’s surviving instruments. The Componium exists to set to thinking about who – or what – is really in control. How much can we influence reality and do chance and randomness really exist? Fascinating stuff but for me, uneducated in musical theory, it’s the sight of the absolutely sumptuous organs that took my breath away. Hand carved with painted figures, these mechanisms were originally hand wound (exhausting for sure) yet made the most miraculous sounds. Indeed, when our tour guide played some of the music for us, the whole building practically shook with the volume and joy of joy…people began dancing, it couldn’t be helped, vibrations launched through the room and pierced our very souls. In those moments I couldn’t help remembering a favourite scene from Coronation Street when Roy Cropper brought his wife Hayley to the ballroom in Blackpool (her dream) and the organ was played to which they danced.

Wonderful!

‘Travel is never a matter of money, but of courage’ (Paulo Coelho). How true.

On the Sunday, our training finished a little earlier than other days. So, I decided to go solo and visit Amsterdam.

I knew I would have to rely on myself but really, it was easy enough. Trains to Amsterdam ran frequently and cost just under €18 for a return ticket. It meant catching the train at Utrecht, then one change at Utrecht Central before a straight run through to the capital. Being Sunday, I thought that there would be few around but the reverse happened.

The city was swarming with sightseers, sweethearts walking hand in hand, after a busy workweek winding down and just generally overflowing with people from all corners of the world. In one of the public squares an event was progressing in support of Ukraine refugees. This was my first glimpse of a world I’d left behind as I’d deliberately shied away from television and news stories. I wore my mask but there weren’t that many masks in evidence. Because of time constraints I remained in the city but had I time, I could have queued for Madam Tussaud’s or Ripley’s Believe It or Not museums.

Perhaps I’d been adventurous enough! I settled for a delicious lunch at a sidewalk café, content to let the world go by. Tulip bulbs were everywhere and if I have any regrets about my trip to Holland it’s that I didn’t buy some and bring them home to plant later in the year. But no doubt some of those bulbs will make their way to Ireland anyway and as we say here in Ireland, ‘what’s for you won’t go by you’. I’m saving Amsterdam in depth for another trip, this time with my husband.

One thing I can declare is that I would go back to Holland in a heartbeat. If you are thinking of going to Utrecht, then I can thoroughly recommend The Moxy Hotel for lovers of absolute peace and quiet.

Happy travelling and remember, ‘Life begins at the end of your comfort zone’ (Neale Donald Walsch.

Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie 27

Health

Safe Summer Socialising

As the world slowly starts to reopen, many of us are looking forward to socialising again this summer. After being isolated and stuck inside for two years, with the only certainty being uncertainty, this summer brings a nostalgic excitement. Once again, we can see friends and family, take part in activities, and have fun. We can visit restaurants, theatres and attend sporting events. We can all make the most out of this summer by keeping it fun and safe.

Covid impacted us all in a variety of ways, including our drinking habits. People in the 65+ age cohort saw a 9% increase in weekly drinking in 2021 in comparison to 2020*. But people over the age of 65 have an opportunity to lead the way in binge drinking less. The Drinkaware 2021 Barometer found that binge drinking amongst the 65+ year cohort was at 12% in 2021, the lowest across all age groups*. Binge drinking is defined as having 6 or more standard drinks in one sitting. This is equal to having 3 or more pints.

Socialising does not have to include alcohol, but there is no denying that alcohol can be seen as a cultural norm in Ireland.

Pubs are a common place for us to meet and socialise. But seniors have shown the potential to break cultural norms by binge drinking significantly less than the national average. You can keep it safe and fun this summer by following Drinkaware’s top tips and be the leading force of safe summer socialising in Ireland.

Keep it fun, keep it safe: Stay out of rounds: As pubs reopen their doors, remember to stay out of rounds. It can be easy to lose track of what you are drinking (and spending!) when taking part in rounds. You can use Drinkaware’s free Drinks Calculator to see how much you could save by keeping out of rounds.

Alternate with water: Drink a glass of water after every alcoholic drink. Not only will this keep you hydrated but will help you keep track of how many drinks you have had. Make sure to follow the low-risk weekly alcohol guidelines as set out by the HSE. 28 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Downsize your drink: Instead of ordering a pint, why not order a half-pint or a bottle? Remember, one standard drink is half a pint. This can help you keep track of how many standard drinks you have had.

Swap to alcohol-free: Cutting down or out alcohol doesn’t mean you have to miss out on your favourite tastes. There are more alcohol-free alternatives now than ever before. From lager to wine, there is something for everyone.

This summer means so much more than usual. Previous restrictions were severe for seniors, with many isolated in their homes without family or friends. This is the first time in two years where we may feel a sense of normality, community, and belonging. Seniors have the opportunity this summer to reconnect with friends and family while providing a positive example of what socialising can look like. Seniors are leading the way, let’s keep it that way!

The reopening of society is a positive step for many, but it may increase worry and stress for some. After months of being directed to limit social interactions, some might find it difficult to be social again. Drinkaware provides public health resources, covering mental health and coping strategies, measuring cups and information and advice on how to cut down/out alcohol.

All are available on the website, drinkaware.ie and can be delivered straight to your front door, free of charge. If you are concerned about how your relationship with alcohol changed during the pandemic or are worried about the reopening of society, there are supports here for you, you are not alone. Visit drinkaware.ie to find out more. *The Drinkaware Barometer is a national population-based survey of 1,000 adults aged 18+ conducted by Behaviour and Attitudes in May 2021 and included a series of internationally recognised modules relating to alcohol consumption and mental health. For more information on research projects and publications visit: drinkaware.ie/research/

WELCOME TO THE HARDIMAN

LUXURY ACCO M M O DAT I O N

WEDDINGS

The Hardiman is an iconic landmark, perfectly positioned overlooking Eyre Square, in the heart of Galway City. A hotel steeped in history and romance, with a warmth of character that’s woven into its very walls, this Grand Old Lady is the epitome of effortless charm and timeless elegance.

All of our 103 guest rooms, including 19 luxury suites, combine authentic, immersive historical character with exceptional modern comfort.

For over a century and a half, this Grand Old Lady has played host to so many special occasions. It’s a spectacular setting for an unforgettable day.

Our rooms in the Main House boast charming traditional décorative touches, reflecting our rich history and heritage.

The design takes full advantage of the high Victorian ceilings and impossibly tall windows. Rooms in our newer wing are decorated in restful, natural colours and textures.

Your dream wedding may be an intimate, candle-lit dinner with close family, or an opulent ball, surrounded by everyone you know and love. Perhaps it might be something in between. Whatever you are planning, it would be our great privilege to help you bring that dream to life.

Part of the fabric of Galway since 1852, The Hardiman has played host to many notable guests and countless special occasions, offering generous hospitality with a familiar, easy charm that makes our guests feel right at home.

We know that every moment is precious.

We’re here to make sure that each one is as perfect. Every member of our team is devoted to ensuring that you and your guests have the best day imaginable.

T H E T R E AT M E N T RO O MS This beautiful, intimate space comprises a superb outdoor Canadian hot tub, indoor jacuzzi, plus a sauna and steam room.

It’s the perfect place to relax, unwind and re-energise, while stimulating the senses from top to toe.

Our team of qualified beauty therapists can assess your wellbeing needs and help you choose the perfect treatment from a menu, including mud or seaweed body wraps & baths, indulgent massages and a range of facials. The Fitness Centre at The Hardiman is available to residents and guests, with exercise machines, interactive training programmes and motivational activities.

+353 (0)91 564 041 info@thehardiman.ie thehardiman.ie

091 564 041 info@thehardiman.ie thehardiman.ie

Where to Begin With WellBeing?

Home Plus has partnered with Fitvision, to bring you the BOlder Fitness & Wellbeing Programme, to help you stay active and healthy throughout your life. We are delighted to launch this programme to help make every one fit, no matter their age. We believe “Retirement is for living” and trust that keeping your mind and body active helps you stay at home longer, making this programme a perfect place to start.

The programme is available for free on Home Plus’ website (www.plus.ie/bolder) and through the Senior Times website. We have developed a series of workouts, which can be done daily: It's a mix of four mini videos each month, for those who just want to exercise one body part each day, and a complete exercise class for those who want a full body exercise. We know that everyone has different levels of mobility, therefore our programme caters to all abilities, meaning that videos and exercise classes can be done either standing or sitting in a chair. We hope you can join us on this journey.

As this is our first article, we want to give you some helpful tips and exercises to get started on your wellbeing journey.

We want this programme to encourage people to not ‘just be Older but BOlder’.

First, let's tackle the question: What is wellbeing?

Wellbeing is an evolving process of change and growth that moves beyond fitness and nutrition. It is a state of emotional, mental, physical and social wellbeing. The Home Plus BOlder programme has been developed to prepare you to understand that wellness is multidimensional. It is important to pay attention to all aspects of wellness for the betterment of our health and wellbeing and to not neglect it.

LET'S GET FIT: Recent studies have found exercise and physical activity to be the number one contributor to living longer —even if you only start exercising in your senior years. So, it’s never too late to start!

But getting active is not just about adding years to your life, it’s about adding life to your years. Getting moving helps to boost your energy, maintain your independence, and keep your heart healthy. Some simple tips to get you started:

Tip 1 Getting started is always the most difficult part. But you don’t need to exercise for hours until your body aches and you're drenched in sweat to have a positive benefit on your health. Think about activities that you enjoy and how you can incorporate them into an exercise routine. The likes of walking your dog, gardening and even cleaning around the house are forms of physical activity.

Tip 2 Being consistent can be difficult at first, but once you set a routine and follow, it gets easier and doing it with someone else makes it more enjoyable and time goes by more quickly So, if you can, commit to exercise with a friend, neighbour, or family member, as it makes you more likely to do it because you have made that plan with your exercise buddy.

Tip 3 If you have been inactive for a while, build up your exercise program little by little. Try spacing workouts in ten-minute increments twice a day or try one exercise class each week. If you are concerned about falling or have an ongoing heart problem, start with easy chair exercises to slowly increase your fitness and confidence. Just to be safe, we recommend you consult a doctor before starting any exercise programme.

NOW FOR THE FUN Let us have a look at two exercises that you can do today from the comfort of your home: LEG EXTENSIONS (SEATED OR STANDING): Step 1: Stand or be seated in a comfortable position, feet flat in front of you, palms down (grasping chair edge at sides or front, if seated). Make sure to keep your chest proud and back straight.

Step 2: EXHALE: Keeping left foot planted and upper body still, extend the right leg (bending from the knee) until it is parallel with the floor. Hold there for a count of 2 seconds.

Step 3: INHALE: Bend knee to lower right leg back to floor to complete one rep. Complete all reps on one side and switch to your opposite leg.

Perform this exercise slowly and under control. Concentrate on flexing the leg muscles as you extend.

Start with three to five reps each side and repeat up to three sets.

SHOULDER PRESS (SEATED OR STANDING): Step 1: Stand or be seated in a comfortable chair that supports the back. Hold your hands up with palms facing out and elbows at 90 degrees, palms at shoulder level.

Step 2: EXHALE: Push hands overhead until arms are straight and in line with shoulders. Don't lock elbows completely.

Step 3: INHALE: Return hands to starting position to complete one rep.

To reduce strain on your shoulders, have palms facing in towards the body. Don't arch your back as you perform. Start with three to five reps each side and repeat up to three sets.

HEALTHY INSIDE AND OUT:

As we age it becomes difficult to ensure we are getting all the vitamins and minerals our body needs on a regular basis. This can be because we have a smaller appetite, or we no longer are cooking for the family, or we have fallen into the habit of eating small snacks throughout the day. Whatever it maybe we need to shift our focus back to what we are eating and why we need it. Here are a few tips to get you started eating healthier.

Tip 1 Make sure you have enough Protein: Protein is critical in forming muscle. Given that age-related muscle loss speeds up after 60, not getting enough protein can have a massively detrimental health impact. It is recommended that as we age, we should double the amount of protein, in order to counteract this muscle loss. But remember it is important to vary your sources of protein instead of relying on just red meat by including more fish, beans, peas, eggs, nuts, and seeds in your diet.

Tip 2 Looking after our Bones: We need to look after our bones just as much as when we grow older as we do when we are younger. Getting enough calcium and vitamin D helps to protect your bones and keep them strong. Foods like milk, cheese, kale, spinach, and broccoli are great sources of calcium. Vitamin D helps your body to use the calcium you get from food. This vitamin is formed in our bodies when we expose our skin to the sunlight. We can get it from Egg yolks, cod liver oil, herring and salmon.

Tip 3 Keeping our Gut Healthy: When it comes to keeping our gut healthy, fibre is the way to go, but many of us don’t eat enough. We should eat plenty of foods rich in starch and fibre. Starchy foods such as bread, rice, potatoes and pasta are a good source of energy, fibre and B vitamins PS: Remember you can splurge every so often on a piece of cake or donut!

About The Author:

Home Plus made sure to find the best partner to help older people.

So, why we chose Fitvision?

At Home Plus we believe “Retirement is for living” and is best spent at your home. It is important to keep our mind and body active to help us stay in our homes longer. Keeping this in mind, we choose to collaborate with Fitvision to spread the message of staying fit and healthy throughout our life. Mark O’Reilly, Founder & Director of Coaching and Programme Development, is a key factor for us partnering with Fitvision. Holding a Masters in Mental Health and Skills from The University of Limerick, Mark completed his thesis in Physical Activity as a treatment for late-life Depression. His thesis focused on the benefits of exercise in reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, diabetes along with decreasing Senior Times l March - April 2022 l www.seniortimes.ie 31 the risk of falls and fall-related injuries.

Make Time for Russborough A Stunning Setting Filled with masterpieces from the Renaissance to the twentieth century, Russborough is Ireland’s most beautiful Georgian house and boasts a fabulous setting to match. Set in 200 acres of rolling parkland, with plenty of walks and gardens to explore, Russborough enjoys a wonderful vista across Blessington Lakes to the Wicklow Mountains beyond.

A tour of the house with one of our expert local guides is an excellent way to discover the fine art, architecture and lavish interiors. Visitors will uncover Russborough's fascinating history from the 1740s onwards and how the house and collections merge beautifully as a rare survivor of exquisite taste and grandeur.

A different retail experience at Russborough is new for 2022. Stop and enjoy a delicious menu at our bright new Russborough Café opening out on to the terraced courtyard. Featuring the freshest ingredients, our dishes always reflect the pick of the seasons. The new Shop at Russborough sits on two floors, filled with lush textiles and soft furnishings inspired by Russborough's interiors.

Along with beauty and wellbeing,

jewellery, and a range of home products you will not find anywhere else, our new shop is a unique browsing experience all of its own.

Opening hours, pricing and all details can be found at www.russborough. ie. Use the code SENIOR15 for a 15% DISCOUNT when booking a house tour either online or at our ticket desk on arrival.

What Every Woman Needs to Know About Her Gut A Go-To-Guide for Women Living with IBS written by The Gut Experts Consultant Gastroenterologist and Trinity College, Dublin, Clinical Professor of Gastroenterology, Professor Barbara Ryan and her colleague at The Gut Experts, Clinical Dietitian, Elaine McGowan, are the authors of the recently published What Every Woman Needs to Know About Her Gut (Sheldon Press).

It is the go-to-guide for women living with bloating, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and other digestive problems who want step-by-step medical, dietary and lifestyle solutions.

Digestive problems, bloating, diarrhoea, constipation, pain, wind.

Do you identify with these symptoms? Does your digestive system feel like your enemy? Is your unpredictable gut a source of embarrassment or fear, or is it holding you back?

If you're a woman who's answered 'yes' to any of the above, you're not alone. Approximately 10% of the world’s adult population has symptoms of IBS, and 65-75% of those are women.* That means that approximately 1 in 6 women have IBS. What Every Woman Needs to Know About Her Gut gives you: - Clear, accessible information about and insight into what female hormones can do to gut health - Stepped, manageable strategies to take control of your troublesome gut - A diet plan that focuses on your specific requirements, which is flexible, achievable and sustainable - Easy-to-follow recipes that are gut-friendly, delicious and restore your digestive health 32 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Professor Barbara Ryan and Elaine McGowan, RD, are The Gut Experts (@thegutexperts and www.thegutexperts.com ). They are bringing their expertise and insights to you in this easy-to-digest book.

What Every Woman Needs to Know About Her Gut also introduces The FLAT Gut Diet, a holistic diet and lifestyle plan developed by The Gut Experts that provides significant relief from IBS, bloating and other uncomfortable digestive symptoms.

Professor Barbara Ryan and Elaine McGowan, RD, are The Gut Experts (@thegutexperts and www.thegutexperts.com ). They have more than 50 years of combined clinical experience and have treated over 60,000 patients with every kind of digestive condition and nutritional requirement. They are bringing their expertise and insights to you in this easy-to-digest book.

What Every Woman Needs to Know About Her Gut (Sheldon Press) is available now.

master your mind

PLATINUM

BEST FOR MENTAL HEALTH/ WELLBEING

Mastermind has been specifically formulated to deliver key nutrients to support mental performance and brain function.

­ ­

Literature

Portrait of a master craftsman with a penetrating eye

It has been remarked that Trevor’s style, in both short stories and novels, can be compared to both Chekov and James Joyce.

In her latest profile of celebrated literary figures in these islands, Lorna Hogg relates the life and achievements of William Trevor

William Trevor is one of Ireland’s best regarded Irish writers, amongst those who have received wide ranging international critical acclaim. A hardworking author of some eighteen novels and over twenty short stories, he will however, continue to be remembered for one story in particular. The Ballroom of Romance ‘touched an international chord helped by an excellent TV version.

A period view of Main Street, Mitchelstown, Co Cork where William Trevor was born in 1928 Trevor was born on 24th May 1928, in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork, into an Anglo-Irish Protestant family. His father was a bank official, and the family moved home regularly. Whether or not this played a part, Trevor and his sister and brother seem to have been in agreement that their parents’ marriage was not a particularly happy one. The young boy was sent to the prestigious St. Colomba’s College in Dublin, and went on to obtain a history degree at Trinity College. Whilst still at school, he also discovered an interest in wood carving, at which he was talented, and would later become recognized.

The main event in Trevor’s college years was possibly the meeting with his future wife, Jane. They married shortly after Trevor took his degree. His early working life would soon 34 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

William Trevor was educated at St Columbus College, Dublin and Trinity College supply him with material for creative ideas – as a new teacher, he entered what he called an ‘Evelyn Waugh style’ school in Northern Ireland. He and Jane left Ireland in 1954, for the English Midlands – although Trevor retained his national

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Literature identity with pride. He taught art at various schools, and worked for a time in a London advertising agency, before moving his family, which now included two sons, to Devon.

Still following his interests and aptitudes, he wrote his first novel, A Standard of Behavior’ (1956) – which, however, he later disowned.

Next came The Old Boys (1958) a black comedy about a group of elderly men, who had all attended the same school, and as ‘mature’ adults find themselves on a committee to celebrate its anniversary. Slowly but surely, old dislikes, patterns of bullying, plus resentments, come out in their attitudes and behavior making the point that the child may indeed be the father of the man. After winning the Hawthornden Prize for the book, he felt encouraged enough to start writing professionally.

It has been remarked that Trevor’s style, in both short stories and novels, can be compared to both Chekov and James Joyce. He focuses mainly on the marginalised in society – the elderly, single and alone, and also the unhappily married. It has been observed that there are no villains in his work – only ` deserving and undeserving victims’. Some of them cannot accept the reality of their worlds. Some remain innocently optimistic – and the storyline often deals with the dawning of the reality of their lives. His characters are not the beautiful, wealthy or privileged. He writes of the impoverished Catholic tenants, as well as Anglo Irish landlords. He tells of priests, the humble and hopeless, the abandoned or challenged, whether by background, birth circumstances or family needs. One American reviewer remarked that he had learned to read any Trevor work ‘braced for the worst’. But of course, it was not always a cause for doom and depression – Trevor also utilised wry black humour and irony.

His Family Sins and Other Stories collection fits that bill.

Honeymoon in Tramore is the story of an innocent, orphaned romantic youth, who marries the girl of his dreams - only to deal with her pregnancy by another man, and her drunken vomiting on their wedding night. Kathleen’s Field introduces a young Irish girl, sent to for a sexually predatory merchant, so that her father can buy a field he covets – with a loan from the merchant. In A Husband’s Return, a newly-wed has to deal with her husband running off with her family- favourite sister, and is blamed for introducing the man into the family, when the sister dies during pregnancy.

Film adaptions His work has also inspired film makers, and Trevor won an award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1999 for Felicia’s Story.

The thriller tells the story of a young pregnant and deceived innocent girl, trying to contact the father of her child – and her encounter with a psychopath, who attempts to kill her before he commits suicide. The author also became a member of the Irish Academy of Letters. He was nominated for a wide range of prestigious prizes, including the `Booker,’ and won the Hawthornden Prize on three occasions. Trevor was awarded an Honorary CBE in 1977, (as a non-UK national) and in 2002, an Honorary KBE in recognition of his services to literature.

His style was particularly suited to short stories, in which every word counts, and has to convey much. It inspired director Pat O’Connor, who worked with Trevor on the superb 1982 BAFTA award winning TV film of his work– The Ballroom of Romance.

36 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Brenda Fricker and John Kavanagh in the film adaption of The Ballroom of Romance Trevor paints a somewhat gloomy picture of the rural social circumstances of mid- twentieth century Ireland, and the corrugated iron buildings on town outskirts which became regular social hubs as ballrooms. However, the 1972 short story also revived happy youthful memories for many. There was a renewal of interest in the part that these ballrooms played in country social life at a time when bands such as `Dickie Rock and the Miami’ and Joe Dolan and the Drifters were household names.

The story centres on Biddy, (superbly portrayed on screen by Brenda Fricker) who in her 30s, is forced to face her life during one evening. Looking at the popular younger girls present, she realises that she is now too old, not just for her red dress, but for `courting’ and indeed, attending such ballroom dances.

Responsible for her family farm from her mother’s early death, she is now also carer to her elderly father. Biddy realises that she will shortly be too old to run the family farm alone, and has to marry. Her available choices are depressing, as a generation of men had to consider emigration to England for work.

Due to her family circumstances, she lost the man she really loved, who had to emigrate to England for work. Council worker/amateur drummer Dano Ryan and alcoholic neighbour Bowser Eagan, (superbly portrayed respectively by Michael Lally and John Kavanagh), are now her only options. She has to face the fact that apparently her preferred choice, Dano has been captured by his landlady. Bowser, however, is keen – as displayed by his unforgettable seduction line, ‘Would you like to come into the field, Biddy?’ and the story ends with Biddy cycling into her inescapable future.

Trevor, who died on 20th November 2016, would doubtless appreciate the irony that many of to-day’s 30-something Irish women in Biddy’s position could not even understand her dilemma. Life has changed so much that they would view themselves as in their prime, with choices ranging through partners to Irish/EU -run farm management courses, plus care options. If they chose to marry, they would keep their own money. If they did not, they might opt to create their own families. Trevor’s skill was such that he could capture a memorable snapshot of an era and its social mores – it is our loss is that he cannot capture our own.

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Specsavers turn up the volume on hearing health with Marty Whelan

Specsavers is delighted to have teamed up with radio and television personality Marty Whelan to encourage the local community to take care of their hearing and address any concerns or changes they notice.

In the second year of Specsavers’ Healthy Hearing campaign, Marty joined the audiology experts at Specsavers to turn up the volume on hearing health, and raise awareness of the PRSI hearing aid benefits available.

Marty says: ‘Working in radio and television, I’ve come to understand how important hearing is in both my career and my personal life. I love listening to music and talking to people, having that connection is really important to me. As I get older, naturally hearing loss can become more prevalent so it’s important to stay on top of it and to incorporate a hearing test into my overall health check at least once a year.

‘We need to normalise the conversation around hearing loss, intervention is key and it is so important to seek expert advice and care.

Following changes to the PRSI scheme last year, those eligible for the benefit can now avail of a pair of hearing aids up to the value of €1,000 or put their PRSI contribution towards the cost of a more expensive pair of hearing aids at Specsavers. Even with a Medical Card, 38 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Gary Cooke from the SeniorTimes Podcast series sat down with Marty to talk about his life and career. To listen to the episode go to www.seniortimes.ie

many will also have PRSI entitlements which would make them eligible for a free pair of hearing aids. Marking the change in benefits, the popular opticians and audiologists pledged to test and screen a quarter of a million people over a two-year period and so far, is halfway to reaching the target.

Getting a hearing aid is all about finding what’s right for you, understanding your hearing needs, your lifestyle and your budget. Specsavers offer a wide range of hearing aids, including its own Specsavers Advance range. Advance hearing aids feature some of the latest technology, at Specsavers prices. Features can include background noise reduction, mobile audio streaming from a device such as a phone, wireless connectivity, app connectivity, and rechargeability.

At Specsavers, customers are always guaranteed expert eye care and hearing services, exceptional choice and outstanding value for money.

For more information or to make an appointment with one of the team, visit https://www.specsavers.ie/hearing

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Home Instead launch the annual Essential Guide to Ageing Well 2022 Home Instead is emphasising the value of empowering older people to take control of how they want to live their life, with the launch of the latest edition of its annual Essential Guide to Ageing Well.

The Guidebook has been developed through Home Instead’s years of experience in the home care sector in Ireland and around the world and is undoubtedly the most comprehensive ageing resource in Ireland.

It offers practical information on topics such as care options, entitlements, finance, health, law, and nutrition to unique insights and useful tips on how to age successfully, all of which aim to help older people, their families and carers understand the value of planning for every aspect of ageing.

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by Total Health Pharmacy and Haven Pharmacy, the guidebook is available for free to anyone interested in ageing well.

The Guidebook includes expert tips and information on: • Allowances and Entitlements, including what allowances are available and how to apply for them; • Care Options, including identifying and choosing the most appropriate care; • Community Services, including how to apply for the HSE’s Consumer Directed Home Support; • Lifestyle Information, including technology, travel and socialising; • Home and Nutrition tips, including home security, mobility, and healthy eating information; • Health and Wellbeing information, including medication, vaccinations and care for people living with dementia; • Financial and Legal information.

• Comprehensive Directory of contacts and services for older people.

• And Much More Launching the Guidebook, Paul Fritz, CEO, Home Instead Ireland, said: “Our Guidebook is undoubtedly the most comprehensive ageing resource in Ireland.

“By sharing the experience and expertise that we have accumulated through 17 years of operation in Ireland, we strive to make it easier for older people, their family members and healthcare professionals to learn more 40 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

about ageing in Ireland.

“It is our hope that this free Guidebook empowers you and your loved ones to live a happy, healthy and independent life at home, for as long as possible.’’

Shane Jennings, COO, Home Instead Ireland, added: “Our Essential Guide to Ageing Well has become an integral asset to those within the home care sector, and anyone with an interest in ageing well. Through this annual free Guidebook, we aim to share our wealth of knowledge to enable older people to thrive in the comfort of their own homes.

“Everyone should have the opportunity to live independently and this year’s Essential Guide to Ageing Well provides information on the opportunities, amenities, and resources available in our communities, which unfortunately many people may not be aware of.

“We at Home Instead hope that this year’s Guidebook will have a positive impact on ageing in Ireland, the home care sector and the wider Irish health care sector.’’

The Ageing Well Guidebook is being distributed in cities, towns, and villages all over Ireland, through Home Instead’s national network of 25 local offices, and is also available at Total Health and Haven Pharmacies nationwide. You can also download your free copy of the Guide at HomeInstead.ie/Guidebook2022

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Golf

Dermot Gilleece remembers Australian golfer Jack Newton who died recently

Overcoming the greatest handicap There is something especially tragic about a gifted golfer losing an arm. As it happened, Australia’s Jack Newton, who was 72 when he died last month (in April), was only 33 when he accidentally walked into the propeller of a chartered plane in 1983.

Born in Sydney on January 30th 1950, he grew to become an extravagantly gifted sportsman, representing Australia in rugby and cricket as a schoolboy, before a rugby injury prompted him to concentrate on golf.

Prior to meeting him for the first time in Waterville in September 1975, I had been warned that he was a man of few words. And so it transpired.

We happened to be staying in the same hotel and he accepted a lift from me to the golf course during the Kerrygold Classic.

Apart from ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye’, the number of words he proffered on the 20-minute journey could have been counted on the fingers of one hand.

Taciturn he clearly was, but a sportsman's build, shaggy blond hair, a warm smile and an ability to enjoy himself, made him extremely popular with both sexes. And he had a golf game to match this appeal.

As geography has ordained for Australians, he found himself obliged to become an international player. And between his professional debut in 1971 and the middle of 1975, Newton had six tournament victories, the Dutch Open, Benson and Hedges Festival and City of Auckland Open in 1972; the Nigerian Open and Benson and Hedges Match-play in 1974 and the Sumrie Better-Ball with Ireland's John O'Leary in May 1975. By then, he was married to his English wife, Jackie.

Jack Newton's remarkable acceptance of his fate became one of the most noble of sporting stories. As he remarked philosophically: ‘I had two young kids and a great wife, a great family and the golfing world really got behind me.

42

He returned to golf, playing one-handed to a high standard and got involved in golf-course architecture, quite apart from extensive broadcasting activities and a role as chairman of the Jack Newton Junior Golf Foundation.

He went to the Open Championship at Carnoustie that year with an irresistible putting stroke, courtesy of the game's greatest player. ‘I picked up something watching Jack Nicklaus in a practice round,’ he explained. Having won some money from Tom Weiskopf in an exhibition match in Australia, Newton challenged the so-called Towering Inferno to get it back. ‘Bring a good partner,’ he teased. So Weiskopf brought Nicklaus while Newton renewed his triumphant Sumrie partnership with Dubliner O'Leary.

After two early birdies, the young Aussie ribbed Weiskopf: ‘We're going to kick your butt, Tom. Better go back to the clubhouse and get a new partner.’ He later suspected the

Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

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Golf

Jack Newton in his prime, competing in the 1975 Open

Jack Newton had an expensive lesson challenging Jack Nicklaus

remark was overheard by Nicklaus. In the event, Weiskopf shot 64 while the Bear had a 65 and though Newton far from disgraced himself with a 67, he lost $300.

He claimed to have overheard Nicklaus saying to Weiskopf: ‘Let's teach this young bastard a thing or two.’ Yet afterwards, obviously conscious that the perceived upstart could ill-afford such a loss, Nicklaus, with typical sportsmanship, settled for a sandwich and a drink. ‘I always felt that if I came into a Major with some good form, I could be dangerous,’ Newton said of his various challenges at the highest level of the professional game. ‘That’s the way I played golf. Once I got my tail up I wasn’t afraid of anybody.’ As it happened, he came close, losing a play-off to Tom Watson at Carnoustie and being tied second, four strokes adrift of Seve Ballesteros, in the 1980 Masters at Augusta National. His loss to Watson was especially unfortunate. At one of the game’s most demanding tests, Newton set a course-record 65 in the third round, despite an ongoing ankle injury which was so painful going into the championship that he needed pain-killing injections.

In the final round, he led during the critical back-nine but dropped shots on three of the last four holes. Tied after 72 holes, he and Watson contested an 18-hole play-off the following day. Recalling an epic struggle, Watson said: ‘When we both bogeyed 16, we eventually came to the 18th hole tied once again. I hit first and got it on the green and he hit his shot into the bunker and I thought 'Well, let's see what happens from here.'

‘He played a good bunker shot out to about 12 feet from the hole. I knocked my approach putt about three feet by and to put the pressure on him, I decided to finish, knocking it right into the hole. And he slides his by. And I've won.’

Newton recalled: ‘Two things that day turned out to be the opposite of what the US press had been writing. They'd been saying that Watson was a choker and that he was a suspect putter. But he never looked like missing a putt the whole damn day.’ On Sunday, July 17th 1983, Watson won the Open for a fifth time at Royal Birkdale. It would be his last of eight major triumphs. Exactly a week later on the other side of the world, Newton had attended an Australian Rules match with three friends and was about to board a light aircraft at Sydney Airport for the short flight back to his hometown of Newcastle. It was raining. As the engines idled, the propeller blades whirred, preparatory to take-off. Newton was caught by a propeller. Though the pilot slammed the engines into reverse, 44 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Jack Newton successfully partnered with Dubliner John O’Leary, here with Padraig Harrington.

it was too late. He lost his right eye, right arm, half his liver and serious quantities of blood. Indeed, but for the skill of a medical team from the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney, he might have died. ‘The injuries to his arm and eye were minor, compared to his stomach,’ his wife Jackie recalled. ‘There were the various grieving stages he had to go through for his lost limb, but Jack's attitude was extremely good. Quite an easy patient under the circumstances.’

Newton's remarkable acceptance of his fate became one of the most noble of sporting stories. As he remarked philosophically: ‘I had two young kids and a great wife, a great family and the golfing world really got behind me. So I don't believe I had any choice. I mean I had two choices: I could go and sit in a corner for the rest of my life, or I could get on with it.’ Yet there was almost a palpable sadness in his admission: ‘I'd be a liar if I said I wouldn't mind sticking my arm back on and getting out there amongst it, because I'm a competitive bloke. But I had 14 great years on the tour, had some terrific experiences [including victory in the 1979 Australian Open], and did some things in golf that not too many other people have done.’

He went on: ‘Some people might accuse me of having a warped sense of humour but there was one thing I noticed above all else while I was in rehabilitation for nearly a year, in and out of hospital for various operations. It was that among people in there with brain damage and arms and legs off and all kinds of problems, there was a common thread in that they all maintained a great sense of humour.‘That's a pretty good lesson for everyone. We all seem to take ourselves a bit too seriously, whereas if you can have a laugh and a joke, the world becomes a better place. I actually think it wouldn't be a bad experience for 18-year-olds to spend a day in a rehabilitation place and just see another side of life.’ He returned to golf, playing one-handed to a high standard and got involved in golfcourse architecture, quite apart from extensive broadcasting activities and a role as chairman of the Jack Newton Junior Golf Foundation. Then there is the written word _ ‘bloody difficult, too, with a cigarette and a glass in your only hand.’ In 2007, he was awarded an Order of Australia for services to golf.

When the Open returned to Carnoustie in 1999, Watson and Newton met again close by the 18th green where fate had dealt them sharply contrasting hands 24 years previously. One imagined them sharing some private moments about 1975 and the different roads their lives had taken since then. But both of them insisted that there were no regrets.

Discovering our wonderful wildflowers..

Nature

Zoe Devlin explains where you can find our vast array of wildflowers and how you can recognise them

Thrift

As spring begins to make its gentle transformation into summer, June is the very best time to look out for some of those treasures of the hedgerows and roadsides – the wildflowers. Once you get into the habit of looking out for these gems, there can be an enormous amount of pleasure to be gained by observing and identifying them. No fancy equipment is needed other than a good pair of walking shoes and, if you find yourself being drawn in to this absorbing hobby, a small hand lens is a most useful tool for examining the delicate features of the flowers and leaves; and of course, a little field guide to Irish wildflowers might come in handy too.

Ireland is a nature-lover’s paradise with many different habitats from woodland to coastal, bogland to meadows, limestone and heath, each with its own particular assortment of plant species.

In early summer, a walk in a deciduous woodland can be most rewarding, the fresh, newly-emerged leaves creating a bright green canopy, high above the forest floor. At the woodland margins, curving, thorny branches of the native Dog-rose bear pink and white blossoms in small groups, the five petals of each flower surrounding a cluster of yellow stamens and a conical tuft of stigmas that, later on in the autumn will lead to the production of bright scarlet ‘hips’.

Honeysuckle

Dog Rose Honeysuckle (AKA Woodbine) begins to twine itself over other vegetation, helping diverse parts of nature as it grows. Its flowers help to feed the bees with sweet, sugary nectar and when they have finished blooming the plants will produce red berries that are devoured by visiting robins, song thrushes, blackbirds and bullfinches. The flowers also have a pleasant aroma that attracts night-flying moths in search of nectar.

Tall, graceful Foxgloves, pictures of elegance, bear spikes with an abundance

of pinky-purple bell-shaped flowers in both deciduous and coniferous woodland; this species is also known, in some parts, as Fairy Thimbles. Also on the borders of the woodland, a little beauty with small, deep-blue flowers demands to be examined more closely.

This is Germander Speedwell, just one of a number of speedwells that are native to Ireland. Each flower in the speedwell family has four petals – a matching pair on either side and a large upper petal with a smaller one below. Dark blue lines run into the centre of each flower, helping to guide tiny insects towards the nectar. Wandering through some of our old woodlands, it is quite common to come across the remains of old walls and abandoned dwellings with ferns and mosses growing over them in profusion.

These relics of the past also offer tiny footholds for another native – Navelwort (AKA Pennywort). It has erect spikes of greenish-white tubular flowers but it is the leaves that help to identify the plant.

Each has a small dimple at the centre – a little like a tummy-button, hence its

Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie 45

Nature

Navel Wort

Sea Bindweed

common name. Perhaps the best known and best loved woodland species is the native Bluebell, each with between four and fifteen, drooping, tubular, bluepurple flowers on the inner side of a gracefully curving stem. Each flower is narrow, with six backward curving lobes and cream anthers and these features help to differentiate it from the non-native bluebells often found in public parks and gardens. Those plants tend to be erect with the flowers sprouting from all sides of the upright stem and each flower shows blue anthers within a far wider and more open flower than the native Bluebell.

leaves that curl around the bottom of the flower stems. In saltmarshes and on cliffs, a member of the daisy family that closely resembles the garden plant, Michaelmas Daisy, exhibits violet-blue flowers with deep yellow centres. This is Sea Aster and it seems to thrive in the most demanding conditions of its habitat, whether with its feet wet twice daily by the tide at the edge of the marsh or with scarcely a foothold on a cliffside. One of my own seaside favourites is the Sand Pansy, a small yellow and white cousin of garden pansies. It loves to grow – as its name might suggest – on sand dunes.

Damp, boggy areas are home to a group of plant species that is known as ‘carnivorous’. Because the soil is extremely poor in nutrients in bogland, these plants have had to find another way to get their food. Over millennia they have modified their leaves and these leaves bear hairs, each tipped with a little drop of sticky ‘dew’. When a tiny insect lands on a leaf, he or she gets stuck fast and the leaf rolls over, trapping them completely before going on to digest them. Not much is left – just a husk to blow away in the wind. Among these carnivorous plants is the particularly beautiful Large-flowered Butterwort. Found mainly close to the lakes of West Cork or in the mountain valleys of Kerry, in June it is a stunning sight that really demands close scrutiny.

Each deep purple flower has a white throat adorned with black lines and white fluffy threads. The flowers are held high enough to ensure that they won’t get stuck to the leaves. In order to search out some of the bogland beauties, could I suggest that the shoes be exchanged for wellies and a couple of trek poles can be a useful means of support on quaky ground. Heathers are commonly found in bogland and one of these – Cross-leaved Heath – grows on quite wet, waterlogged ground where it raises round drooping, pink to magenta bell-shaped flowers on wiry stems right through to October.

Narrow, needle-like leaves growing in whorls of four along the thin stems help with the identification. Some of the most magnificent jewels of

Large Flowed Butterwort

Heath Spotted Orchid

Coastal plants have one thing in common – their fleshy leaves. Modified over time so that the harsh sea winds and sand don’t destroy them, seaside plants are quite different to those found in woodland. A typical coastal species, Sea Bindweed grows really low to the ground, creeping along shingle and sand on long, underground runners. It has pink, trumpet-shaped flowers with a white 5-pointed star-shape emerging and spreading outward from the centre.

Its shiny, thick leaves are kidney-shaped.

One pretty, very tough little seaside plant is Thrift, a species that readers of my vintage may remember adorned one face of the twelve-sided threepenny piece of our neighbouring island. Thrift shows its head of pink, papery flowers from the end of April, it is hardy and stays in bloom right through July. It grows in clumps with long, skinny, grey-green

46 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

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Nature bogland are the orchids. These are not the easiest to identify and they also hybridise occasionally which doesn’t really help, but don’t let that put you off examining them, even if only for their beauty. The two most common from May to July are the Spotted-orchids. The extremely variable Heath Spotted-orchid likes to grow in peaty or acid soil where it displays small, elaborately decorated flowers in varying shades from pale lilac through to purple.

These are borne in erect spikes on stems that are sheathed by narrow, lanceolate, dark-spotted leaves, while its lower leaves are larger and broader. Common Spottedorchid prefers fens, marshes and neutral or calcareous soil, roadsides and damp meadows. Superficially quite similar to the Heath Spotted-orchid, the simplest way of telling them apart is to examine the lower lips of the flowers. In Heath Spotted-orchid, it is wide, frilly and has a small central lobe whereas in Common Spotted-orchid, the lower lip has three lobes with the central lobe jutting out prominently. Finding either is always a thrill.

Meadows are hard to beat, especially on a bright summer day when there is a slight breeze and the flowers seem to be dancing in the sunlight. Aptly named Meadow Buttercup holds its head high, tossing its stems of shiny yellow flowers and feathery leaves in the gentle summer air. Oxeye Daisies (AKA Dog Daisies) are larger versions of the little daisies that grow on garden lawns with a large circle of white ‘petals’ (botanically known as ‘ray florets’) around a spherical clump of tiny yellow ‘disc florets’. At the base of the flower stem, dark green, spoonshaped leaves form a rosette and there are more ornate leaves further up. The word ‘daisy’ comes from Old English ‘day’s eye’ because the flowers open up as the sun rises.

But it’s not always necessary to travel far around Ireland in order to come across wildflowers. One of my own preferred habitats for finding new treasures is, believe it or not, on waste ground. Scarlet Pimpernel, Field Forget-me-not, Common Field-speedwell, Garlic Mustard and many other flowering plants pop up when the soil has been disturbed and it is always worth a glance as you pass by. Even the cracks in the pavement can bring surprises; all it needs is to keep an eye out

Scarlet Pimpernel

Common Field Speedwell

and you may be delighted by some find – new to you if not to plant science!

For help with identification, may I

suggest ‘The Wildflowers of Ireland – A Field Guide (Second edition)’ available from all good bookshops.

Three copies of The Wildflowers of Ireland – A Field Guide To be won!

Senior Times, in association with the publishers, Gill Books, are offering three copies of Zoe Devlin’s magnificent book in this competition.

To enter, simply answer this question: What is the other name for Honeysuckle?

Send your entries to Wild Flower Competition, Senior Times, PO Box 13215, Rathmines, Dublin 6. Or email: john@slp.ie

48 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

The first three correct entries drawn are the winners.

Deadline for receipt of entires is 28th June 2022.

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PPS

Why Leave A Legacy to the Irish Red Cross?

The Irish Red Cross is a proud member of the international network of Red Cross Societies which coordinate over 14 million volunteers worldwide working to provide assistance to those in need in 192 countries throughout the world.

In the context of the crisis in Ukraine, this inter-connectivity enables the Irish Red Cross to provide direct support to their partners within the Ukraine Red Cross as well as national Red Cross Societies in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova and Romania.

Since the start of the conflict on February 24, Red Cross volunteers have reached hundreds of thousands of people throughout Ukraine and the surrounding region with lifesaving aid.

“Many of our staff and volunteers are also experiencing the conflict first-hand. They are worried about their families and their safety, and yet they continue to put on the Red Cross vest to deliver critical aid to neighbours and strangers alike. This is the true spirit of the principle of volunteerism upon which the Red Cross is based.” - Maksym Dotsenko, Director General at Ukrainian Red Cross.

Since the conflict started, 6,000 new volunteers, among them teachers and medical professionals, have joined the Ukrainian Red Cross. In Ireland, Irish Red Cross volunteers are providing a welcome, assistance and coordination to those arriving in the country at our ports and airports.

In addition, the Irish Red Cross maintains 80 branches throughout the country that are providing local support for 50 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

immediate necessities such as clothes and hygiene items. The Irish Red Cross has also played a key role in the coordination of temporary accommodation for Ukrainians through its appeal to the Irish public to share their homes and properties.

Why leave a legacy to the Irish Red Cross?

As a humanitarian organization that act as first-responders in times of crisis, it is so important that the Irish Red Cross are able to mobilise their volunteers to provide life-saving aid to people in their most vulnerable moments, as and when it is needed. Legacy gifts are a special kind of support as they allow us to respond quickly, with urgency and in the most efficient and appropriate manner. Ultimately, it provides the ability to have the greatest possible impact to some of the most vulnerable people in Ireland and around the world.

Please consider leaving a gift in your will to the Irish Red Cross so that they can remain prepared to respond with humanitarian aid in times of terrible conflict and disaster.

Hear from Edwin, an Irish Red Cross supporter who decided to leave us a legacy gift.

“I have always been lucky. I earned enough money to live a comfortable life. I travelled, both for work and for leisure.

Generally, I went to places that reinforced my sense of my selfworth. I felt I deserved my good fortune. But, as time went by, I could no longer fool myself.

It is obvious that we live in an unequal world. What I take for granted: education, work opportunities, a place to live, time for enjoyment, even the shirt on my back, are unimaginable luxuries to those for whom fate has decreed that they be born in a very different world. In the 21st century, with the advance of technology, it should be possible to share

resources across the planet. Maybe that will happen in time.

Future generations, wiser than mine, may grasp the nettle and cut through the political barriers.

Until then, it may seem impossible for any individual to make a difference to the inequity around us.

Fortunately, however, some people are already tackling the problem. The Irish Red Cross, with its associate organisations, has, for many years, been present in areas of conflict, disease and natural catastrophe, lending comfort, medical assistance and funds to whoever needs it most. I seem always to have been aware of the Red Cross, with its distinctive logo. If I can help their efforts, I am proud to do so.

My own contribution is probably miniscule, compared to the overall need, but I do believe that every effort should be made. Above all, I trust the Irish Red Cross to use my contribution effectively and efficiently.

Legacy gifts are a remarkable choice and the Irish Red Cross is grateful to anyone who leaves a gift, large or small. Human tragedies occur. We know that we are far from a world with no conflict or disasters, natural or man-made. In Ireland, growing social isolation amongst vulnerable groups mean more people are likely to need our help. And the Irish Red Cross will always be there. That responsibility has been with us for over 70 years and it will be with us in the years to come.

Call or email the Irish Red Cross to avail of a Free will-making service For more information on leaving a gift in your will to the Irish Red Cross, call legacy lead Frank on 01 642 4645 for a confidential conversation, or email at fphelan@redcross.ie.

Charity number: CHY3950

Registered charity number: 20005184

Sunway travel promotion

Escorted tours for all tastes and interests

Malta and Gozo is one of the popular destinations

Experience travel in an incredible way with Sunway’s New Escorted Tour program in conjunction with Mackin Tours.

Sunway has newly launched 10 tours that allow you not only to visit a country but immerse yourself in it with people who know it well and can share their insights and experience.

Sunway can really take you inside the country and step into the highlights. Learn about history and the culture of Europe’s finest ancient cities.

Maybe visit a farmhouse restaurant in Transylvania where the farmer makes his own wine and brandy. Visit a monastery in the Fruska Gora National Park – Serbia’s oldest national park where grapes were first planted in AD 3 by the Romans. If you enjoyed The Sound of Music, you will love to visit the church near Salzburg where the wedding took place. You will be fascinated by Plovdiv, Europe’s oldest continuously inhabited city, even older than Rome.

The majority of the tours are all led personally by the experienced and knowledgeable Frank Mackin. The hardest part of these tours is choosing which one to go on. Hotels, transport and some meals are included so you don’t have to think about it. Our expert guides will show you the highlights and immersive excursions with authentic experiences that highlight the local history and culture. Enjoy Europe’s iconic attractions with VIP passes, hotels, and transportation taken care of plus get under-the-radar insights, not typically available to independent travellers. Whether you’re traveling solo, with a partner or a group of friends our new escorted tours offer a range of fascinating and unique experiences that really bring each destination to life.

Here is an example of what we can offer: Malta & Gozo Tour – From €1199pp Departs 06th June – 9 Nights / 10 Days Bonnie Scotland & Lake District Tours – From €599pp Departure Date 25th August – 4 Nights / 5 Days Donegal, Belfast & Antrim Coast Tours – From €399pp Departure Dates 18th July & 04th October – 3 Nights / 4 Days Serbia, Hungary & Croatia Tour – From €899pp Departs 07th September – 9 Nights / 10 Days Austria Alpine Splendour Tour – From €1199pp Departs 21st September – 7 nights / 8 Days Croatia, Dubrovnik, Split & Medjugorje - From €899 Departs 5th October – 7 nights / 8 Days Andalucia, Gibraltar, Ronda Granada from €899 17th October – 9 Nights / 10 Days Halloween in Transylvania from €699 28th October – 5 nights / 6 Days Remember Sunway look after you before, during and after your holiday.

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52 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

ESCORTED TOURS WHY TOUR WITH SUNWAY? Sunway does all the work so you can enjoy all the great sights, food and company. Just book and relax.

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Street Furniture

Are you sitting comfortably?

Or perhaps not. Maeve Edwards bemoans the lack of public seating in Ireland compared to countries like Norway.

Bergen..where it’s easy to take the weight of your feet..

These days, I remind myself of my mother. Well, if truth be told, I remind myself of my mother all the time! What is it Oscar Wilde said: ‘All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy.

No man does, and that is his!’

Unlike Ireland, there are seats everywhere in Norway: In shopping areas, along pavements, on street corners, under trees..

When my mother was in her earlyseventies, she began to need a rest if she was standing or walking too long. If we were out and about on one of our shopping expeditions in Dublin, she’d say: ‘Oh, I need to sit down and take the weight off my feet!’ With the youthful arrogance of the 40 year old daughter, I’d reply: ‘You’re grand. We’ll go and have a cup of tea in Arnotts’.

There was never anywhere to sit in Henry Street, so we’d have to detour into a shop and ask for a chair. This was in the days when she wouldn’t be seen dead using a walking frame, and long before I started bringing a wheelchair with us everywhere we went.

Chemists were always the best bet.

Indeed, to this day they still provide a chair for their customers to sit on while they wait for their prescription to be filled.

54 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

If we were in Clery’s in O’Connell Street, a helpful shop assistant would always oblige, even if it was only to give us a small step ladder or stool. Better still, if we were anywhere near the furniture section, we’d settle ourselves down on the easy chairs and couches until my mother felt able to get going again. But there were never any seats provided for customers, other than those in the restaurant or café, where you had to pay for the privilege of sitting down.

And in that thirty year span, nothing has changed! There are still no seats to be had in Dublin’s main outdoor shopping areas. Shopping Centres, it must be said, are more enlightened and do provide good, if minimal, seating.

All this came into sharp focus on my recent (post Covid) visit to Bergen in Norway to visit my grandchildren.

Between my last visit and this one, I needed to sit down more than I had before. I found myself mimicking my mother’s actions all those years ago and looking around me for a seat when we were out and about.

But, unlike Ireland, there are seats everywhere in Norway. In shopping

areas, along pavements, on street corners, under trees. And all of them are in use, not just by people of my age, but by all ages, particularly young parents with babies in buggies. There are, believe it or not, picnic benches outside office and civic buildings where workers gather at their breaks. There are colourful seats squeezed between buildings. Every spare piece of ground seems to have a seat, sometimes surrounded by flowers.

There is a wonderful south facing tiered seating area in Oslo overlooking the waterfront. It is favoured by the young where they gather at weekends to soak in the sunshine in the company of their friends.

I did a little research into outdoor seating in my native Dublin city, and what I learnt in a nutshell was: if there are no financial benefits to providing seating in an outdoor retail setting, then there won’t be any. Yes, there are plenty of seats in St. Stephen’s Green, but there are none at all in Grafton Street. If my mother was still with us today and she and I were journeying from Grafton Street down to

Henry Street, we’d have to detour into the Seamus Heaney exhibition in the Bank of Ireland to find a place to sit.

One would have to be a moral philosopher or an economist to discover why the Norwegians thinking on this is so different to ours.

It seems the powers that be in Ireland are only interested in consumers. They are not interested in the father or mother who wants to feed their one year old baby in a quiet place on a street bench.

Similarly, they don’t want older people clogging up their shopping streets, sitting on seats and chatting with their friends.

Retail outlets don’t want you sitting down. They want you on your feet spending. And if you must sit down, they don’t want you on a park bench or happy under a tree with your packed lunch.

anti-social behaviour’. We Dubliners might say the same about the River Liffey boardwalk.

But the difference is this: The Norwegians, to counter this problem, provided more seats, not less. They don’t take them all away if there’s a problem.

They put more of them in place, so that everyone has a place to sit.

Now, there’s a novel way of thinking.

Would that our Dublin City Council could be so enlightened?

No, they want you in sandwich bars and coffee shops, buying their products.

My local football park, unbelievably, removed all its seats ten years ago and never replaced them. When I asked why, they said because it ‘encouraged Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie 55

Health

What is the COPD Adviceline?

By Barry Elliot, Senior Physiotherapist, COPD Adviceline

FREEPHONE 1800 83 21 46 Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a common, treatable lung condition; there are an estimated 500,000 people living with COPD in Ireland, but only half are formally diagnosed. COPD is an umbrella term for emphysema and chronic bronchitis and is mainly due to exposure to harmful particles or gases that are inhaled, causing abnormalities to the airways and within the lungs. Tobacco smoking is the greatest cause of COPD. This means that the disease could be prevented by never smoking and/or by avoiding long term exposure to harmful fumes, dust or gases in the environment or workplace.

A person living with COPD will have persistent symptoms (for example cough and phlegm) and difficulty in breathing. COPD is a chronic disease so it will never go away but there are actions you can take to manage your COPD that will give you the best possible quality of life.

COPD Support Ireland work with the Asthma Society of Ireland to provide the HSE funded COPD Adviceline; a free call-back service with a respiratory specialist nurse or physiotherapist, designed to provide people living with COPD with self-management skills to improve their COPD symptoms.

WHAT IS SELF MANAGEMENT? When living with COPD, there is a lot you can do to minimise your symptoms and improve your quality of life. Knowledge of good inhaler technique, exercise, diet, medication, managing flare ups and breathlessness management techniques are all part of a disease management strategy called selfmanagement.

Self-management allows people with COPD to be empowered, providing them with disease specific knowledge and support. As a result, people with COPD can make lifestyle changes that improve many aspects of their life. The COPD Adviceline gives people living with COPD and their carers the knowledge to better understand and manage their day-today COPD symptoms, identify when then they are worsening and, when and how to get the right help and treatment.

HOW CAN THE COPD ADVICELINE HELP? Often people call with a specific question about how to support themselves or their loved one living with COPD. This is our starting point - addressing the most pressing need. From there, we build the relationship to

support and advise across the wide range of COPD self-management strategies that can be helpful in improving life with COPD. The advice delivered is specific to each caller and is always delivered in a supportive, friendly and open way.

recent COPD Adviceline callers have said about our service:

Many callers have received a recent diagnosis.

They want to discuss the implications of this and what can be done to minimise the impact of COPD on their lives. Others have had COPD for many years and need advice on how best to manage a change in their symptoms. Many people with COPD have not yet been diagnosed - these callers are sometimes becoming aware that their symptoms may mean they have COPD – we support them as they engage with their GP and other healthcare services on this diagnostic journey.

“Regular monthly advice and nurse discussions during COVID were really helpful to me since the pandemic started.”

We discuss the signs of flare up / infection, medications usage, and when a face-to-face assessment is required. We also advise on inhaler technique, development of a home exercise programme or airway clearance routine. We provide links to local COPD Support Ireland groups and resources.

COPD often impacts on a person’s mental wellness and they may experience anxiety or depression. This can be discussed openly with understanding and support where needed.

Callers value this prompt and easy access to a respiratory specialist healthcare professional and the individually tailored support that includes follow-up contact. This is what some

56 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

“If anyone is worried anxious or scared it’s good to have a reassuring voice at the end of the phone”

“It’s good to know that there is a nurse available” “Support system is amazing” “I couldn't ask for more, any staff I've dealt with … have been so helpful.”

“Good to know you are there if I need you.”

“Best service I have ever used! Found your service was better than my doctor! Couldn’t ask for more.”

The COPD Adviceline is delivered on a freephone number and is available to anybody living with COPD, those caring for somebody with COPD and those who wish to learn more about the disease and explore potential diagnosis.

If you have COPD or care for someone with COPD, you may benefit from talking to our COPD specialist nurse or physiotherapist to learn more about how to live the life you wish to live, while living with COPD.

© UNICEF/UNI350358/Dejongh

for every child, a future.

Unicef

Founded in 1946 after World War II to provide emergency relief for children in post war times, UNICEF has worked relentlessly since then, reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children around the world.

In terms of vaccines alone, UNICEF delivers over 2 billion vaccines doses each year, reaching 45% of the world’s children under five.

But who will be there for children in the future?

There is a special way for you to help UNICEF so we can be there for every child.

If you choose to leave a gift in your Will to UNICEF Ireland, you will need the following details.

Our Charity Number: 20008727 Registered Office: 33, Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin.

You can also contact us directly to arrange a consultation with Pauline Murphy - our Gifts in Wills Manager and receive your Gifts in Wills guide.

Tel. 01 878 3000 or Email: pauline@unicef.ie © UNICEF/UNI371081/Párraga

UNICEF is the world’s largest children’s organisation and works to create a better future for every child.

You can include a gift in your Will to UNICEF and give children the start in life they need.

Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie 57

Inside UNICEF’s emergency response to support children of Ukraine

A journey into the unknown

support and protection. Sited at strategic points along migrant routes, including border entry/exit points in Moldova, Poland, Romania and Belarus, each hub has the capacity to support 3,000 to 5,000 people per day with a range of essential services.

Iryna’s story UNICEF/Ukraine/2022/Moldovan

UNICEF/Ukraine/2022/Holerga

his team were expecting to receive seven trucks from Turkey with warm clothes, and another eight from Copenhagen with critical supplies. “In the next week or two it’s going to be mad busy. And that’s a good thing. We’ve got to get the stuff in, receive it... get it dispatched... so that’s the main thing – get it to the people who need it,” he said.

In total, over five people, children of Ukraine Inside UNICEF’s emergency response tomillion support mostly women and children, left their

in just a few shorttwo-thirds weeks to seek In just the first two months of the horrificcountry war in Ukraine, nearly of all Ukrainian children refuge in neighbouring countries, or in have been forced to flee their homes. countries across the EU, like Ireland.

Manyhome travelled on foot in freezing winter That equates to almost one child leaving their every single second… conditions with the little they could

and children Iryna their left everything They have had to leave everything behind:carry.

TheirWomen possessions, their crossed schools, and often, family behind when she the border exhausted from the journey. fled Ukraine with her two daughters members.

© UNICEF/UN0608248/Moskaliuk © UNICEF/UN0607224/Moskaliuk

UNICEF/Ukraine/2022/Moskaliuk

Fergal helps supply hope for children © UNICEF/UN0607241/Moskaliuk and families in Ukraine

A place to play and recover UNICEF/Ukraine/2022/Holerga

© UNICEF/UN0608249/Moskaliuk

UNICEF/Ukraine/2022/Holerga

In just the first two months of the Many were traumatised by what they had in March 2022. “I left for my children,” horrific war in Ukraine, nearly twoexperienced now find in themselves Fergal helps supply hope for children andand families Ukraine Iryna says. “I wouldn’t have gone, if it thirds of all Ukrainian children have torn away from their homes, husbands, wasn’t for my daughters.” been forced to flee their homes. fathers and vulnerable family members Arriving at one of the UNICEFAfter the war started, UNICEF was one of the first organisations to get supplies across the That equates to almost one child leaving who have been unable to travel. supported Blue Dot Hubs on the border to support children and families. These trucks deliver critical supplies including their home every single second…

Romanian border, all Iryna and her They have had leave everything daughters couldECD, carry were a colorful medicines andtomedical equipment; winter clothes for children; and hygiene, education, behind; their possessions, their schools, school bag (full of books), some food, and recreational kits. and often, their family members. medicines and a few items of clothing.

After the war started, UNICEF was one The primary concern of UNICEF’s of the first organisations to get supplies humanitarian staff in these facilities is across the border to support children Blue Dot Hub – A safe haven for the health and well-being of children. and families. UNICEF trucks deliver children Many children who have crossed the critical supplies including medicines Keeping children and women safe as border display symptoms of severe and medical equipment; winter clothes they make these perilous and difficult trauma Together with the life-saving supplies, UNICEF also surged logistics specialists intoand thepsychological stress through for children; and hygiene, education, journeys has been one of UNICEF’s the sudden departure from their homes country. of these Fergal When Crum.they finally ECD andOne recreational kits.specialists Together was Irishman highest priorities. and communities and having witnessed with the life-saving supplies, UNICEF reach the bordering countries, they need the violence and destruction of war.

Fergal normally works in theinto world’s largest humanitarian warehouse Supply also surged logistics specialists the practical and psychosocial support, in UNICEF’s For children, Blue Dot Hubs provide a Division Copenhagen, Denmark.

As he arrived Lviv to inspecialist the westservices. of Ukraine, heard his country. in One of these specialists was together withinaccess safe, he welcoming space to rest, play and Irishman Fergal Crum.

Fergal normally That is why UNICEF, and its partner simply be a child, team were expecting to receive seven trucks from Turkey with warm clothes, and anotherat a time when their works in the world’s largest humanitarian UNHCR, has set up a series of Blue Dot world has been abruptly turned upside eight from in Copenhagen withDivision critical supplies.

“In the or two beand mad warehouse UNICEF’s Supply Hubs together withnext localweek authorities andit’s going down intofear panic, and they are busy.

And that’sDenmark. a good As thing.

We’ve got to getThese the hubs stuffare in designed receive as it,aand get it dispatched in Copenhagen, he arrived partners. facing the trauma of leaving family, Lviv inthe the west Ukraine, he heard port who of call,need offering critical friends and all that is familiar. sointhat’s mainofthing – get it to the first people it,”refugees he said.

For more information on ways to help support UNICEF, contact Pauline, Legacy Gifts Manager 01 878 3000 or www.unicef.ie.

58 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

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‘WRITE YOUR WILL FOR FREE WITH THE RNLI’ Cornelia Lyne, Volunteer Crew Member, Valentia Lifeboat Station

As a charity, the RNLI relies on kind donations from people like you to keep volunteers like Cornelia safe. A gift in your Will, no matter the size, will provide the vital kit and world-class training that protects our crew when they brave the roughest seas and wildest weather to rescue a stranger.

Six in 10 lifeboat launches are only possible thanks to gifts in Wills. If you do leave a gift in your Will, your generosity will always be remembered – as we will proudly display your name on the side of a lifeboat. You’ll be by the crew’s side on every launch, for years to come.

Find out how to leave a gift in your Will. Call 01 511 9870 or scan this code Search RNLI Wills Ireland for more information The RNLI is the charity that saves lives at sea The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), registered charity number (CHY 2678 and 20003326) in the Republic of Ireland. Registered as a charity in England and Wales (209603), Scotland (SC037736) and the Bailiwick of Jersey (14), the Isle of Man (1308 and 006329F), the Bailiwick of Guernsey and Alderney, of West Quay Road, Poole, Dorset, BH15 1HZ

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Photos: RNLI/Nigel Millard

Dublin Dossier Pat Keenan reports on happenings in and around the capital

Russians see red at Orwell Road protest

Resisting the Reds on Orwell Road Orwell Road is long, extends almost 2miles (3km) from Rathgar to Milltown/Churchtown and involves two local authorities, Dublin City Council to the north and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown on the south. The road has been in the headlines lately because on the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown end it contains the large embassy of Vladimir Putin's Russian Federation. The embassy on a 5.5-acre site next to Milltown Golf Course has become the focus of continued daily protests ever since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February.

Barriers had to be erected across the embassy entrance after a truck-driving demonstrator smashed down the gates.

Temporarily Garda squad cars were used to block the exposed opening. Ironically, by squad cars in their usual blue and yellow livery, matching the Ukraine national flag.

Why the Russians need such a large embassy also came under scrutiny on RTE's Prime Time programme. ‘Russia has the second-largest number of embassy staff in Ireland’ they told us ‘with 30 Russians accredited to the diplomatic mission.’ In contrast we had four Irish diplomats at the Irish Embassy in Moscow. These figures have altered by minus two in recent tit for tat expulsions over the war.

It seems that alarms here raised when the Russians applied to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council for planning permission to enlarge the embassy to four times its existing size, adding two new accommodation blocks, an underground car park, water storage tanks, a new ESB substation and a large extension to the existing embassy. The three-storey development was of particular concern to our security officials. On Prime Time Cathal Berry TD, a former Irish Army Ranger explained that they planned a major, underground subterranean complex, comprising, he added, twenty storage rooms, ten power plant rooms and four rooms with no description, which they called 'voids'.

60 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Some thought the Orwell Road name was so appropriate, given that George Orwell was a staunch critic of Stalinist Communist Russia and Hitler’s Nazi Germany in his famous Nineteen Eighty-Four novel which centres on totalitarian repressive regimes.

The plans also included the provision of 13 toilets in the basement, which is considered unusual for a storage area.

Mr.Barry considered that all this might pose a threat to ourselves, Britain next-door, the EU and to US companies operating here. He concluded: ‘You could have the GRU, which is the Russian military intelligence, or the SVR, which is their foreign intelligence service, operating underground’. Potentially Irish security experts suggest that the expanded areas might contain an array of computer servers for what are called 'influence operations', 'data mining’ and 'troll farming' - all techniques used in modern spying. The Russian ambassador to Ireland, Yury Anatoliyevich Filatov, rejected the premise that the new embassy expansion poses any threat to Ireland.

Some thought the road name was so appropriate, given that George Orwell was a staunch critic of Stalinist Communist

Fr. Aengus Finucane.

The Irish Catholic looks at a rich and varied life lived in the service of others and of God.

F

r. Finucane was ordained as a Holy Ghost Priest in 1958. In his first assignment in Uli, Nigeria, Fr. Finucane found himself involved in the bitter civil war between Nigeria and Biafra.

Following Biafra’s attempt to secede, this widespread conflict had displaced millions. What’s more, there was a blockade of food, medicine and basic necessities by the Nigerian authorities.

At the height of the crisis in the summer of 1968, it was estimated 6,000 children died every week.

An Irish effort In response to the Biafrans’ terrible plight, Concern Worldwide – originally called Africa Concern – was founded and began raising awareness and funds to help those suffering.

On 6th September 1968, the 600 tonne, Columcille set sail for Sao Tome – a Portuguese island close to West Africa. The cost of chartering the ship and its vital cargo of powdered food and medicines was all paid for with donations from the people of Ireland.

To circumvent the blockade, the supplies were then flown from Sao Tome to Biafra overnight. The following day in Uli, Fr. Finucane was among the Holy Ghost priests who would help distribute the life saving supplies.

With his commitment and that of the Irish public and priests, this operation grew into one flight a day for 11 months.

Fr. Finucane was deeply committed to helping the poorest of the poor. So after leaving Biafra, in 1972 he became Concern’s Field Director in Bangladesh after its war of independence from Pakistan – the war had left

millions in desperate need of food.

The period after Fr. Finucane’s time in Bangladesh was particularly testing. In Thailand’s Kampuchea refugee camps he saw the desperation of Cambodians who had fled the Khmer Rouge’s genocide.

And in Uganda the horror of HIV in Kampala, where even in the best hospitals one third of the children born were HIV positive.

Fr. Fincane worked tirelessly to alleviate suffering, and recognised his responsibility to help the poor and underprivileged.

Concern appointed Fr. Finucane as its Chief Executive in 1981.

During his 16 years as the head of the charity he was ‘on the ground’ during many of the world’s worst disasters. These included the 1983-1985 famine in Ethiopia and the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

Relinquishing his post in 1997, Fr. Finucane became Honorary President of Concern Worldwide US. He held this post until his death on 6th October 2009.

Fr. Finucane′s legacy Fr. Finucane is the cornerstone behind much of what Concern has become today. It was he who expanded its aid work into 11 countries and dramatically increased its fundraising.

Tom Arnold - Concern’s CEO from 2001 to 2013 - says: “There can be few Irish people of his generation, or of any other generation, who have contributed as much to improving the lives of so much of humanity.

“He inspired a whole generation of Concern overseas volunteers.”

Fr. Finucane continues to inspire as his legacy still influence’s Concern 12 years after

Do as much as you can, as well as you can, for as many as you can, for as long as you can.”

– Fr. Aengus Finucane

Photo: Jason Kennedy / Concern Worldwide.

“I would really love to meet everyone that is behind this support so I could thank them in person.” – Yona Lambiki away. There was nothing for his family to eat, let alone any to sell.

Help for now and the future

But thanks to Concern’s generous donors and Yona’s hard work he is now able to look after his family again.

Yona immediately received a vital cash transfer from Concern.

With this he bought food and other basic necessities his family needed to be safe and free from hunger.

Will Fr. Finucane inspire you too?

There’s a way you, just like Fr. Finucane, can leave the world a better place. And help improve the lives of families like Yona’s both now and for future generations.

How? By leaving Concern a gift in your Will.

When you leave a gift, your legacy lives on – helping for years to come.

“I know that this is a very personal decision. But I assure you, gifts in Wills have had a phenomenal impact in reducing

The devastation of climate change Today one of the primary causes of acute food insecurity are weather extremes.

Climate change is increasing hunger levels and pushing even more people to the brink of famine. With multiple famines predicted, there are currently 41 million people teetering on the edge of starvation.

Extreme weather caused by climate change is having a devastating effect on the most vulnerable people in the world’s poorest countries.

And these calamitous weather conditions are now more frequent and varied. No sooner has one disaster struck than another arrives. People don’t have enough food for months, sometimes years on end.

In Malawi droughts, floods and strong weather patterns are a regular occurrence – placing huge stress on land and crop production resulting in food shortages and hunger.

These weather extremes affect an already vulnerable population where 80% source their livelihoods from the land, 71% live below the poverty line and an estimated 20% are living in extreme poverty.

People like Yona Lambiki and his family.

Yona, a farmer, lives in Nkhambaza village with his wife and five children. He was always able to support his family with the crops and food he grew providing them with a healthy balanced diet.

Any excess was sold, with some of the money used to pay for his children’s schooling. But two years ago everything changed ...

In March 2019 Cyclone Idai caused devastating floods and loss of life in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The floods completely destroyed crops just weeks away from harvest – food people were relying on for survival.

Although his house wasn’t affected, like thousands of others, the crops Yona was about to harvest were completely washed

Crops destroyed by Cyclone Idai.

Yona received seeds including maize, tomatoes, beans, three bundles of sweet potato vines and other vegetables to grow so he could, once again, support his family. He also received, fertilizer and a hoe to help him grow his crops. As well as five goats for milk and manure.

Like other families in his community, Yona planted the seeds he received in his home garden. What they harvest is used to feed their families, any excess is sold to improve their livelihoods.

But Concern do far more than simply give communities plants, seeds and tools. They provide training in Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) to ensure long term, inter-generational support.

This helps better protect farmers from the ravages of extreme weather like Cyclone Idai. And provides communities with the skills they need to get higher yields from their crops.

Farmers like Yona are taught the three principles of a CSA technique called Conservation Agriculture: crop rotation, minimum tillage and the use of mulching and soil cover.

In the medium to long term, these techniques increase soil fertility and structure. What’s more, they reduce evaporation, suppress weeds, promote

Photo: Kieran McConville / Concern Worldwide.

Photo: Concern Worldwide.

his death.

In 2020 Concern worked in 23 countries, responding to 78 different emergencies, helping 36.9 million of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.

Concern’s vision, mission and work continues to strive to end extreme poverty, whatever it takes. The charity believes that no-one should live in fear of not having enough food.

Photo: Jason Kennedy / Concern Worldwide.

“A legacy of incredible humanitarian significance”

diversification, decrease labour and farming costs too.

Moreover, the skills learned can be taught to the next generation and the gardens transferred to them, providing support for years – possibly decades – to come.

On speaking about the people who support Concern and make our work possible, he said, “I’m so very happy with the support I have received from Concern. My life and family’s life is healthy and can afford everything we could not afford before. I’m so happy and thankful to Concern”.

extreme poverty, hunger and suffering around the world.

Today, as the catastrophic combination of conflict, climate change and COVID-19 have plunged so many people into the grip of crisis, your gift will help us to be there in their time of need.”

– Dominic MacSorley, CEO, Concern Worldwide Gifts in Wills are a vital source of funding for Concern.

Your legacy will help families like Yona’s reverse the many struggles caused by Climate Change … … will provide the tools and knowledge they need to not just survive but help themselves – a gift from you they can pass down for generations.

To find out more about how a legacy gives a safe, secure future, please request your complimentary copy of ‘A World Without Hunger’ – Concern’s legacy booklet.

You’ll learn of others who desperately needed help, and how legacies from people just like you have done so much.

There are also answers to common questions people ask about leaving a gift in their Will.

And explains how to get started.

Requesting your free booklet does not oblige you to do anything else.

To receive your free, no obligation booklet – in complete confidence – please contact Concern’s Legacy Manager, Siobhán O’Connor.

Call 01 417 8020, email siobhan.oconnor @concern.net, or write to 5255 Lower Camden Street, Dublin 2

Dublin Dossier Russia and Hitler’s Nazi Germany in his famous Nineteen Eighty-Four novel which centres on totalitarian repressive regimes. However that properly apt assumption is wide of the mark. Our Orwell Road dates back to 1864 when it was renamed from Windmill Road. That's about sixty years before the birth of Eric Blair, who in time would change his name to his writing pseudonym -'George Orwell', inspired by the River Orwell in Suffolk, England. Orwell Road was most likely named after Orwell Kirk, a church in Perthshire Scotland, by a prominent Scots Presbyterian, David Drummond living locally at the time.

The more recent events in Ukraine led some residents and a number of Councillors from both local authorities to propose changing the name to Independent Ukraine Road, as a gesture of solidarity.

Others maintain that changing the name would hurt residents more than the Russians. Prof Rónán Collins, himself a resident of Orwell Road, suggested a more meaningful measure would be the expulsion of the Russian ambassador.

And now some good news on Orwell Road..

Chef Dan Hannings Orwell Road Restaurant, Rathgar.

Owners Marc and Conor Bereen

Same road, happier news. On these pages last year we said our au revoir to Coppinger Row Restaurant in South William Street and now happily announce the opening of the latest restaurant creation by brothers Marc and Conor Bereen at 8 Orwell Road.

Together with chef Dan Hannigan, they have launched a modern new Irish restaurant.

It replaces previous eatery, Howard’s Way. Simply called Orwell Road, the new restaurant plans to use as many Irish and local products and ingredients as possible - as Conor quips ‘with one aim – everything must be delicious’. Conor and Marc have been designing and running restaurants in Dublin for nearly twenty years. Their Coppinger Row

and Charlotte Quay restaurants being recognised as amongst Dublin’s finest.

Conor Bereen has totally changed the design to make Orwell Road an appealing local restaurant. Brother Marc’s focus is on all aspects relating to front of house and customer experience.

As with sister restaurant Charlotte Quay, the result is a bright, crisp, fresh space with lots of comfort. The glasspanelled frontage inspired various design elements throughout the interior with the sea green Venetian plastered walls adding depth and texture and while stylish and elegant. All of which sets up the main focus – the food!. Chef Dan Hannigan has honed his skills at Michelin-starred restaurants,

62 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

including L’Ecrivain and Thornton’s, as the head chef at Mister S and of course at Coppinger Row and Charlotte Quay.

Imagine the anxiety of opening the new Orwell Road when talk was rife about changing the road name to Independent Ukraine Road.

Dublin Dossier

Dubs v the rest: For the loyal Dub ‘Jackeen’ GAA fan they might collectively be ‘Culchies’

What’s in a name: Tracing the origins of ‘Jackeens’ and ‘Culchies’ Now this is not deliberately setting out to be offensive. There's myself, a 'Dublin Jackeen' and then there is everyone else on the island, whether from any other county, other cities and towns or the remote middle of nowhere. For the loyal Dub GAA man they might collectively be ‘Culchies’. Over the border they'd be ‘Nordies’ and on this side we'd be ‘Free Staters’. But we haven’t enough space to be going into all that. So back to 'Jackeens' and 'Culchies'.Offensive or not, I'm afraid it’s a little bit complicated.

In a recent issue of Senior Times I discussed the demise of the once famous Malahide oysters. In my researches for that piece, the word ‘culchie’ cropped up when a contributor to RTE’s Sunday Miscellany radio programme more or less suggested that I too, might be one.

Back in days long passed when Dublin was famous for its oysters, a 'culch' was what they called the bed of mud

and broken seashells laid down for the cultivation of oysters and other shellfish.

In the mid-1830s James Talbot, the 4th Baron Talbot of Malahide, leased out the estuary shoreline at Malahide for the harvesting of oysters. The men at Malahide who worked these smelly beds of ‘culch’ were apparently called 'culchies'.

At that time Dublin oysters were hugely popular, For example about 50,000 oysters would be swallowed during the Lord Mayor's show in Dublin. It created lots of work for hundreds of locals, not just in Malahide, but all along the coast to Baldoyle, Sutton and Howth.

Meanwhile term ‘culchie’ continued to develop through Victorian times and went on to describe anyone working with manure or and other rotting smelly materials. Eventually it became used to described anyone from outside Dublin City...starting with people from

End of the Rare Ould Times..

‘The Pillar and the Met have gone - the Royal long since pulled down - as the grey unyielding concrete - makes a city of my town.’

The Rare Ould Times, written by Pete St John was recalled by one of his sons at his recent funeral, was written on the dining room table at 251 Collins Avenue, Whitehall. Pete, born in Inchicore in 1932 as Peter Mooney, is also sadly now gone from our town. His memory stays, and so at future international football and rugby games around the world, the fans will for ever roar out The Fields of Athenry - also penned at that same Collins Avenue dining room table.

The Rare Ould Times, written by Pete St John, was recalled by one of his sons at his recent funeral, was written on the dining room table at 251 Collins Avenue, Whitehall. Pete was born in Inchicore in 1932 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie 63

Malahide, Portmarnock, Baldoyle, Sutton and Howth. So my ancestors might actually have been the original ‘culchies’.

The 'Jackeen' side gets more complicated too, I'm reliably informed by Google that 'Jackeen' isn't exclusively a Dublin city and county designation. It derives from the English Pale, a Middle East coast region which from the late 15th century was under the direct control of the English government. 'Jack' refers to the Union Jack and with the addition 'een' for small, makes 'Jackeen', the disparaging 'small England' moniker.

The Pale centred in Dublin but extended up to Dundalk in County Louth and over into Meath and Kildare, making my lovely Mum, who came from Kilare, a 'Culchie' and a 'Jackeen' and makes my Dad, from Baldoyle in County Dublin, a 'Culchie' and a 'Jackeen'. Snap!. No offence taken.

Wine World The Maipo Valley, Chile, arguably one of the finest wine producing regions in the world

Check out authentic artisan wines

Mairead Robinson champions the growth of the Chilean Wine industry at the Senior Times Live Show at the RDS

Santa Rita winemaker Oscar Salas The fact that Chilean wine is the most popular wine sold in Ireland today, and has held that position for some years now, came as a surprise to some of the many people who enjoyed the tasting workshops in Dublin recently. During the three day event a number of tutored tastings took place where people got to enjoy a range of wines from Santa Rita and from Carmen – two very popular Chilean brands here in Ireland.

First of all was Santa Rita 120 – Ireland’s favourite wine. While the Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc are well known, the newer Pinot Grigio has come more recently to the market and as a light white, it is destined to be a real summer hit. Wine maker at 120, Oscar Salas, who I chatted with on the Senior Times Podcast platform recently, has blended 85 per cent of Pinot Grigio with 15 per

cent of Moscatel to produce a wine that is both fresh and floral with a pleasant finish and it has an ageing potential of three years. What is interesting about this delightful wine is its alcohol content, which comes in at just 9.3 per cent, making it really suitable as an aperitif, a picnic wine, and perfect with light salad lunches. As several of the tasters remarked it is a perfect wine to keep in the fridge for when a friend drops by of a summer’s evening to sit in the garden a chat!

The other Santa Rita wine that we tasted was the Medalla Real Reserva, which is 100 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon and is also made by Oscar Salas. It comes from the Maipo Valley, arguably one of the finest wine producing regions in the world and 60 per cent of the wine is aged in oak barrels for eight months, with the remaining 40 per cent aged in stainless

64 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

vinacarmencl

24 SINCE 2016

IN IRELAND

www.120santarita.com

@120santaritacl

VinaCarmen

www.carmen.com

Wine World

steel vats until bottling. This wine was undoubtedly the star of the show at the tastings, with a rich ruby red colour and notes of tobacco and cloves and vanilla. A perfect food wine for red meats and ripe cheeses, it has an ageing potential of five years and comes at a balanced 13.3 per cent alcohol.

We also tasted three wines from Carmen under their colourful Frida Kahlo label.

The Sauvignon Blanc is indicative of the quality that Chile can produce with this grape, matching even the success of New Zealand. The grapes come from the Central Valley, wine maker is Cesar Catalan and the resulting wine is both refreshing and vibrant, well balanced with a long finish. This was also really enjoyed by all the tasters, who were not familiar with such Sauvignon Blanc from Chile.

And so to Rose – my favourite summer wine. Once again from Carmen’s Frida Kahlo range 2020, this is a true rose, not over sweet, but rather tasting of fruit and flowers. With an alcohol content of 12.4 per ent, it should be served nicely chilled and pairs with light meals of cheese, pasta and seafood. It is made with 100% Syrah and again the winemaker is Cesar Catalan.

The third wine from the Frida Kahlo range was a Merlot 2021 which has a deep and intense purple colour which immediately captured the eyes of the tasters. The grapes come from the central valley, and as with the other two Frida Kahlo wines, the winemaker is Cesar Catalan. The wine is fruity and spicy on the nose and has caramel and vanilla notes. Merlot is a favourite red wine for many people, it has a certain chocolate flavour and pairs very well with food without being a heavy red. As such it goes very well with pasta and lean red and white meats. With the alcohol content at 12.8 per cent, it is a balanced wine which will complement food without overpowering it.

Throughout the Dublin tasting, the attendees were all very engaged and contributed to discussions on the ideal temperature to chill white and rose wine, how long you can keep an open bottle of red or white wine after opening, and course the ongoing discussion of cork versus screw-cap. Everybody agreed that they learnt a new appreciation of Chilean wine and were particularly interested to learn that Carmen is the first Chilean winery, founded in 1850 with a track record going back over 170 years. Perhaps not such a New World wine as many had assumed.

All the wines benefit from Chile’s Mediterranean climate with comprises of warm, dry summers and cold rainy

66 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

winters. Of course the proximity of the Andes Mountains plays an important role as the mountains rise in altitude, the temperatures drop. On the other side of this long country, the Pacific Ocean also plays a very important part. The interaction between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean create a broad daily temperature differential that helps the grapes develop fresh and unique flavours.

Having enjoyed such pleasant and interesting wines, it was not such a surprise in the end for people to learn that one in four bottles of wine sold in Ireland hails from Chile!

Look out for details of our next wine tasting workshops at the Senior Times Live event in Cork on the 3rd and 4th of September. Meanwhile be sure to check out some interesting Chilean wines next time you are wine-shopping. You will find that there is not just good value, but great quality from this South American wine-producing country.

Why not subscribe to Ireland’s magazine for people who don’t act their age? €40 for 8 issues delivered to your door

It’s also the ideal gift for a friend or loved one for their birthday, retirement or other special occasion. We will even send a personalised card with the first issue.

To subscribe or to find out more – Call us on 01 496 9028 or go to www.seniortimes.ie or send your cheque or postal order (made payable to SeniorTimes) to SeniorTimes, PO Box 13215, Rathmines, Dublin 6

SeniorTimes magazine is published by S&L Promotions Ltd SeniorTimes, PO Box 13215, Rathmines, Dublin 6 • Tel: 01 496 9028 • Email info@slp.ie

Michael O’Loughlin has enjoyed teaching bridge for over 40 years; his book, “Bridge: Basic Card Play” is available from the Contract Bridge Association of Ireland (01 4929666), price:€10.

Bridge

Calling all Novices – Intermediates!

by Michael O’Loughlin

The Rule of Seven is to exhaust the partner of the person that number from 7, giving 1. This tells When you as declarer hold just one on lead of her cards in that suit – thereby declarer how many times to duck: once. dge ridge byby Bridge Michael Michael byO’Loughlin Michael O’Loughlin O’Loughlin Win themaking ♦A on the round.

You have five Diamonds between your ownreturns (a). a(a).

Win(a). the ♦A on round.

You have fivehave Diamonds between your own Win thethe ♦Athird on the third round. five Diamonds your own certain stopper in the suit which it third impossible forYou her to return Sobetween when East a Spade declarer hand and and dummy’s.

Subtract fivefive from seven to give you you two.

Therefore, you you hand and dummy’s.

Subtract five from seven to give you two.

Therefore, you hand dummy’s.

Subtract from seven to give two.

Therefore, defender has led versus a No Trump her partner’s suit because she will have does not duck again but rather takes her hold up/duck twice and your win win youryour Acethe onthird the round. up/duck twice win round. hold up/duck twice and Ace on third the third contract, count the number ofhold cards in noand cards left inAce heronpartner’s suit.

By round. Ace. If declarer were to duck again, then Calling lling Calling allall Novices Novices all Novices – – Intermediates!

Intermediates!

– Intermediates! (b).

Win the ♣A on the second round.

7 – 6 = 1.Hold up/duck just once. (b). Winhold the ♣A on round.

7 round.

– 6 = 1.Hold just once. (b).

Winholding thethe ♣Asecond on second 7 – 6number =up/duck 1.Hold up/duck just once. switch to a Heart and defeat that suit which yourself and dummy upthe the recommended West could Basically what you’re concerned about is the situation where the person on lead Basically what you’re concerned about is the situation where the person lead he Rule Rule ofThe of Seven Seven Rule of Seven Basicallyofwhat you’re about is the situation wherethe theon person on–lead between you. Subtracting that total from times youconcerned are cutting your opponents’ contract the defence winning three has a 5-card suit.

TheThe rationale for holding up is toisexhaust the partner of the has a 5-card suit.

The rationale for holding up is to exhaust the partner of the has a 5-card suit. rationale for holding up to exhaust the partner of the seven guides you asdeclarer to how many times means of communication.

Heart tricks to go with their two Spade he Rule Rule ofThe of Seven: Seven: RuleWhen of When Seven: you you asWhen as declarer you hold ashold declarer justjust one one hold certain certain just stopper one stopper certain in in the stopper the in the person on lead ofcards her in suit that suit – thereby making it impossible fortoher person onperson lead of in that thereby itmaking impossible for her onher lead of cards her cards in –that suit – making thereby it impossible for to her to u K (now a certain towhich holdhas act up is often (c).

Like (a), win the tricks. which it which asuit defender a defender aup. has defender ledThis led versus versus hasaof led No a holding No versus Trump Trump areturn contract, No contract, Trump count count contract, the the number count number the of of number of return her partner’s suit suit because she have willwill have no cards inpartner’s her herreturn partner’s suit because she will no cards leftcards inleft herleft suit. suit.suit. her partner’s because she have no in partner’s her partner’s srds in in that that cards suit suit which inwhich that yourself suit yourself which andand yourself dummy dummy and hold hold dummy between between you. you. between Subtracting Subtracting you. on Subtracting that that that stopper) thenumber third round. called ducking.

By hold holding up the number of times youcutting are cutting youryour By holding the recommended of times youtimes are By up holding up recommended the recommended number of you areyour cutting After declarer wins trick two with the tal from from seven total seven guides from guides seven you you as guides as to to how you how many as many totimes how times many to to hold hold times up.means up.

This toThis hold act act up. of act♠K of straight away. Duck and opponents’ means ofofThis communication. (d).

Win the opponents’ ofmeans communication. opponents’ of communication. ♠A she must force out the uA in order ing lding upup isholding often isExercise: often called upcalled is often ducking. ducking. called ducking. may never win it – ifstopper) West holds the round.

Declaring No Trumps, when do (a),you (c). (c).

Like win♥K the(now ♥K a certain onthird the (c). Like (a),Like win the a certain on the round. (a), win the (now ♥K (now astopper) certain stopper) on third the third toround. make her contract. Fortunately for ♠ A. Not a Rule of Seven position as you you win your Ace or King? xercise: cise: Declaring Exercise: Declaring No Declaring No Trumps, Trumps, No when when Trumps, dodo you you when win win your doyour you Ace win Ace oryour or King?

King?

Ace or King?

Win thestraight ♠K straight away.

Duck and may you you may never win itWest – if holds declarer it’s East (d). (d).

Win(d). the ♠K away.

Duck and you never win it – if holds Win the ♠K straight away.

Duck and may never win it –West if West holdswho holds the uA. do not have a certain stopper. a)(a) Dummy (a) Dummy Dummy the ♠A. the Not ♠A. a Rule of Seven position as do you dohave not have a certain stopper.

Because declarer held up the ♠A until aNot Rule ofaSeven position as you not a certain stopper. the ♠A. Not Rule of Seven position as you do not have a certain stopper. (e). Win the uA immediately to ensure a ♦K♦K ledled ♦K led ♦75 ♦75 ♦75 the second round, East is out of Spades (e).

Win the ♦A immediately to ensure a second stopper with the ♦J10.

Not a the ♦A to ensure second the with ♦J10.the Not♦J10. a Not a Winimmediately the ♦A immediately toa the ensure astopper second second stopper with uJ10.

Not with astopper Rule Declarer Declarer Declarer(e). Win(e).

Rule of Seven position as have you have more than one one stopper. and therefore is unable to return a Spade Rule of Seven position as you more than one stopper.

Rule of Seven position as you have more than stopper. ♦A82 ♦A82 ♦A82 of Seven position as you have more than to her partner.

Had declarer won the one stopper. opening lead with the ♠A on the first b)(b) Dummy (b) Dummy Dummy Deals SouthSouth Deals South Deals ♠ 7 5♠ 27 ♠5 27 5 2 round of the suit, then East, when in ♣K♣K ledled ♣K led ♣754 ♣754 ♣754 Vul Vul None 9 J9 Vul None ♥ A♥ J 9A♥J A None Declarer Declarer Declarer with the uA, would still have a Spade ♦ K ♦Q K 10♦Q2K10Q210 2 ♣A82 ♣A82 ♣A82 in her hand to return and the defence ♣ A Q J ♣ A Q J♣ A Q J would defeat the contract, taking four ♠ K J 9 4 3 ♠ K J 9 4♠ 3K J 9 4 3 ♠Q6 c)(c) Dummy (c) Dummy Dummy N N N ♠ Q 6 ♠ Q 6 spade tricks plus the uA. If East held ♥ K 8 7 4 ♥ Q 10 610 2 62 ♥ Kthe8 7♥A ♥4 K 8 7 4 W W E E ♥ Q 10 ♥5♥5 ledled ♥5 led ♥73 ♥73 ♥73 East East wins wins the East the ♥A♥A wins W E ♦ A6♥82Q 7 38 7 33 Spades in her hand then West would ♦ A 8 7 3♦ A Declarer Declarer Declarer && leads leads back back &the leads the ♥J. back ♦ ♥J. 5 4♦ 5the ♦4 5♥J. 4 S S S ♣ 9 6♣29 6♣ 29 6 2 only have 4 cards in the Spade suit and ♥K82 ♥K82 ♥K82 ♣ 10♣8 10 ♣ 810 8 the defence would only be able to take ♠ A8♠10A810 8 ♠ A 10 3 Spade tricks. This is why the Rule (d) d)(d) Dummy Dummy Dummy ♥ 5 3 ♥5 3 ♥5 3 ♠73 ♠73 East plays plays the East the ♠Q. plays ♠Q. the ♠Q. ♠4♠4 ledled ♠4 led ♠73 East of Seven works: When the Spades are ♦ J 9♦6J 9♦ 6J 9 6 5 47 35 4 3 Declarer Declarer Declarer ♣ K 7♣5K4♣73K divided 5-2, by applying the Rule of ♠K82 ♠K82 ♠K82 Dealer: North East-West Dealer: North East-West Vul Vul Vul Dealer: North East-West Seven declarer cuts communication between the defenders because whenever West North East South West North North East South West East South e)(e) Dummy Dummy Dummy (e) 1♦ Pass 1NT(1) 1♦ Pass 1NT(1) ♦75 ♦75 East plays plays the East the ♦Q. plays ♦Q. the ♦Q. ♦3♦3 ledled ♦3 led ♦75 East 1♦ Pass 1NT(1) East holds the uA she will be out of 2NT(2) Pass 3NT(3) Declarer Declarer Declarer Pass PassPass 2NT(2) Pass 3NT(3) 2NT(2) Pass 3NT(3) Spades when she gains the lead. ♦AJ10 ♦AJ10

♦AJ10

Pass PassPass Pass PassPass Pass PassPass

(a). Win the uA on the third round. You (1) Not strong enough to respond 2♣.

(1)strong Not strong enough to respond 2♣.you’re have five Diamonds between your (2) Invitational: if (1)own Not enough to respond 2♣.

(1) Not strong enough toPass respond 2♣. minimum, (2) Invitational: if3NT you’re Invitational: Pass if you’re (2) Invitational: Pass ifminimum, you’re minimum, hand and dummy’s. Subtract five(2) from go Pass onto if minimum, you’re maximum. seven to give you two. Therefore, you (3) Near maximum with 8 points and a hold up/duck twice and win your Ace on 5-card suit. the third round. (b). Win the ♣A on the second round. 7 Opening lead: ♠4. East plays the ♠Q and – 6 = 1.Hold up/duck just once. Basically declarer has to decide whether to duck what you’re concerned about is the or not. Using the Rule of Seven, i.e., situation where the person on lead has a count the number of Spades in her own 5-card suit. The rationale for holding up and dummy’s hand: 6. Then subtract 68 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

If West holds thetips uAfor together with 5 players ca More Intermediate cards in the Spade suit then declarer https://www.andrewrobson.co.uk/an cannot make the contract. All declarer / can ever do is give herself the best chance.

More tips for Intermediate players can be found at: https://www. andrewrobson.co.uk/ andrew/tips_for_ intermediates/

bridge.

This time, when South plays the ©AKQ West still has the winning ©J left.

See and speak to your partner and opponents - could justand like Connect with everyone at the table.

Bid South and play goface-to-face over give Westthe hishands winner, thus setting up another winner for himself. bridge. afterwards to learn from the post mortem. is necessary to allow the opponents to win trick(s) in order to get Connect with everyone at the table. Bid Sometimes and play andit go over the hands learn fromfor thefree, post just mortem. trick(s) ou afterwards wish to try to RealBridge email me: back in return. haelolough@yahoo.com ou wish to try RealBridge for free, just email me: haelolough@yahoo.com Last time we looked at one common Example 4 Example 4 ªAK432

For absolute beginners

way of winning tricks, i.e., by Force.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------For example, if you hold the KQJ10 of

r------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------absolute ªQ108 a suit,beginners you can simply play one of those W cards to drive out an opponent’s Ace thus we lookedbeginners at one common way of winning tricks, i.e., by Force. For rtime absolute promoting your other three cards in that

N E

Bridge

ªJ9

S mple, if you hold the KQJ10 of a suit, you can simply play one of those suit into winners. time we looked at one common way of winning tricks, i.e., by Force.

For s to drive out an opponent’s Ace thus promoting your other three cards in Wehold nowthelook at a of second which to play one of those mple, if you KQJ10 a suit,way youincan simply ª765 suit into winners. s to drive win out an opponent’s extra tricks: Ace thus promoting your other three cards in now lookwinners. at a second way in which to win extra tricks: This time North cannot win all 5 tricks suit into 1.

LENGTH: . BYlook LENGTH: now at aBY second way in which to win extra tricks: no matter how favourably the opponents’ away all the opponents’ cardssuit in a– thencards are divided. e away all Take the opponents’ cards in a particular whatever card(s) North has to lose at . BYleft LENGTH: have in that suit become(s) winner(s).card(s) particular suit – thenawhatever least 1 trick. A good tip is, if you have e away allyou the opponents’ in a become(s) particular suit whatever card(s) have left incards that suit a – thento lose a trick, lose it early. By doing so mple ¨543 have 1left in that suit become(s) a winner(s). winner(s). you are more in control and you can

find out how the suit is behaving, i.e. ¨543 N Example 1 dividing. This is especially important ¨J97 ¨1086 cannotthere win is allno 5 tricks noentry mattertohow W N E This time Northwhen outside the favourably the opponents’ This time North cannot win all 5 tricks no matter how favourably opponents’ cards are divided.

North has to lose at least 1 trick. good tip and is, ifthe you have to have 8, then they have North hand, i.e., when North doesAnot your partner ¨J97 ¨1086 divided. has to losesoatyou leastare 1 trick.

A good tipand is, ifyou youcan have to W S E cards lose a are trick, losehave itNorth early.

By doing more in control find a high card in one of the other the missing 5.

If they both follow to the lose a trick, lose it early.

By doing so you are more in control and you can find out how the suitthree is behaving, i.e. dividing.

This isorespecially when suits – Hearts, Diamonds Clubs important first round then they have 3 left. If they S out theoutside suit is entry behaving, i.e. dividing.

This is especially important when ¨AKQ2 therehow is no to the North hand, i.e., when North does not have a the second round then - as a means of accessing the remaining both follow to there is noinoutside to the North hand, i.e., when North does not have a high card onewinning ofentry the other three suits – Hearts, Diamonds or Clubs as a low three Spades in –the NorthDiamonds hand. orone of them only has 1 left. This is the h plays the ¨AKQ and everybody follows suit: that’s 12 cards inother the ¨AKQ2 high card in one of the suits Hearts, Clubs as a means of accessing the remaining winning low Spades in the North hand.

Therefore, initially a low spade should best way to COUNT. mond suit gone. Therefore, the only remaining Diamond, the the ¨2,remaining is a means of accessing winning low Spades in thethe North hand.

Therefore, initially a low spade beNorth played from North and the h plays the ¨AKQ andthe everybody follows suit: that’s 12be cards in the South plays •AKQ and everybody played from should both the and theboth ner.

Therefore, initially a low spade should be played from both the North and South hands.

After that, North expects to win the remaining 4 spades in thethe mond suit follows gone. Therefore, the12only remaining the ¨2, is a After that, North expects to Small cards suit: that’s cards inSouth the Diamond, South hands. (deuces, threes, fours, etc.) hands.

After that, North expects to win the remaining 4 spades in North hand provided the suit breaks in the usual fashion: 3/2 initially. the ner.

Diamond suit gone. Therefore, the only win the remaining 4 spades in the North become winners when nobody else has North hand provided the suit breaks in the usual fashion: 3/2 initially. remaining Diamond, the •2, is a winner. hand provided the suit breaks in the any cards left in that suit. usual fashion: 3/2 initially. mple 2 §AQ432 Example 5 ¨876 Example 2 Example 5 ¨876 WW EE Example 5 mple 2 §AQ432 N N §J97 §108 SS §J97 §108 N ¨Q10 ¨KJ9 W E N W E ¨KJ9 ¨Q10 W E §J97 §108 S S S §K65 §K65 ¨A5432 ¨A5432 K, ♣A and ♣Q and South plays the ♣§K65 draws the opponents’ s.

Therefore, the §s.

Here it is necessary h plays the the uth playsthe the§K, §K,§A §Aand and§Q §Qand and♣draws draws theopponents’ opponents’ §s.Therefore, Therefore, the for South to lose 2 only remaining ♣ , the two small ♣ s in tricks in order yremaining remaining§, §,the thetwo twosmall small§s §sininthe theNorth Northhand handbecome becomewinners. winners. to end up with 3 tricks – the North hand become winners. so lose tricks immediately in end up with 3 tricks – Here it is necessary for those South two to lose 2 tricks in order to h plays the §K, §A and §Q and draws the opponents’ §s. Therefore, the etimes the opponents’ cards don’t as asasinfor above metimes the opponents’the cards don’tbreak/divide break/divide askindly kindly inthe the above Here it is necessary South to lose 2 tricks in order to end up tricks – Sometimes opponents’ cards don’t order to easily access the South hand. so lose those two tricks immediately in order to easily access thewith Sout3 hand. remaining §, the two small §s in the North hand become winners. mples: mples: break/divide as kindly as in the so above lose those two tricks immediately in order to easily access the Sout hand.

Often you have to give one or more tricks Example §AK432 etimes theexamples: opponents’ cards don’t break/divide as 6kindlyExample as in the above 6 to the opposition in order to get some Example 6 §AK432 mples: tricks back in return. It goes against N mple ample33 Example 3 ©654 ©654 the grain for a novice bridge player to N §Q97 §J108 concede a trick but an experienced player W E §Q97 §J108 mple 3 ©654NN W E does so all the time. Remember one of ©J987 ©10 S ©J987 ©10 the best known of Aesop's Fables. It tells WW EE S N the story of a race between a tortoise (= ©J987 ©10 S §65 a creature that moves very slowly) and a W S E §65 What are the maximum number of tricks hare (= aYou creature that can run very fast).

What are the maximum number of tricks North/South can win?

Four!

S ©AKQ32 ©AKQ32 North/South can win?

Four!

You cannot The hare is What are the maximum number of tricks North/South can win?

Four!

You cannot win all five – so deliberately lose the first trick. Now, because Eastvery and confident of winning, so win all five – so deliberately lose the first it stops during the race and falls asleep. cannot win all five – so deliberately lose the first trick.

Now, because East and West both started with 3 cards each in the Club suit, all remaining 4 Clubs in the ©AKQ32 This time, when South plays the ♥ AKQ trick.

Now, because East and West both The tortoise continues to move very West both started with 3 cards each in the Club suit, all remaining 4 Clubs in the North hand are winners.

South the ©AKQ still has winning left. stime, time,when when South plays thewinning ©AKQWest West still hasthe the winning ©J left.

West stillplays has the ♥J North left.

South started©J with 3 cards each in the Club suit, slowly but without stopping and finally hand are winners. h could West his winner, upup another for uth couldgive give West his winner, thussetting setting anotherwinner winner forhimself. himself. could give West his thus winner, thus setting all remaining 4 Clubs in the North hand it wins the race. The lesson of the story is time, when South plays the ©AKQ West still has the winning ©J left. up another winner for himself. are winners. that you can be more successful by doing etimes it is necessary to allow the opponents to win trick(s) in order to get metimes it is necessary to allow the opponents to win trick(s) in order to get h could give West his winner, thus setting up another winner for himself.

Sometimes things slowly and steadily than by acting (s) return. k(s)back backinin return. it is necessary to allow the trick(s) in ordertotowin get trick(s) Theinlessons to get be learned are: Observe quickly and carelessly. Bridge is a game etimes it isopponents necessary to to win allow the opponents order to how the missing cards are divided: if you for tortoises. (s) back intrick(s) return. back in return. mple ªAK432 ample44 ªAK432 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie 69

mple 1

mple 4

ªAK432

uccessful by doing things slowly and steadily than by acting quickly and sly. Bridge is a game for tortoises.

Bridge

or a complete deal: Now, for a complete deal: e7

Example 7

ª87 ©Q1086 ¨J108 §KJ107

ª432 ©532 ¨AK432

ªAK5

N W

E S

§32

ªQJ1096 ©J97 ¨Q9 §Q98

©AK4 ¨765 §A654

East is required to win 9 tricks. South leads the ♠Q. East has 7 top tricks: ♠AK, ♥AK, uAK and ♣A. Therefore, he needs to generate 2 more tricks; the only place those 2 extra trick can come from is the Diamond suit. East deliberately gives up a Diamond trick to an opponent and, after regaining the lead wins 4 Diamond tricks to bring his total number of tricks to 9.

What mistake could East make? If East were to firstly play out his winning ♠AK, ♥AK and ♣A he would be setting up winners in those suits for his opponents.

Instead he must set up/establish winners for himself in the Diamond suit while still retaining controls of the other 3 suits.

Poem

A Bad Morning at the Bridge Club I’m giving up bridge – today’s my last day.

It’s Amen to Stayman – I’m going away.

The insults and muddles are giving me troubles And I can’t sleep at night for thinking of doubles.

My cards are all rotten and I have forgotten Who’s playing and what’s trumps And what’s gone on my right.

So it’s goodbye to Blackwood, I’m off to the backwood I’m bidding goodbye to the dear little club.

I can’t stand the hassle; I can’t stand the pain.

I’m getting those bad cards again and again.

I’m giving up bridge – today’s a bad day.

Declarer is horrid, I’m going away.

My partner’s a dope and I’m losing all hope And when she says double I know we’re in trouble.

My partner’s points are not high and I’m wondering why She kept on bidding right up to the sky.

We’re in seven spades and all my hope fades When surprise, surprise, her high bid pays.

We’re winning all tricks; the defenders feel sick And I have to admit my partner’s a brick.

I’m giving up bridge – today’s my last day.

So it’s goodbye to Transfers, I’m going away.

Be kind to your partners and don’t mind their cheek, For it’s only a game – oh, I’ll see you next week.

70 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Another point this hand throws up: if East does not give up a Diamond trick initially but rather plays out the uA – uK –u4, then, the u3 and u2 in the West (Dummy) are winners but there is no way of getting to them.

Free bridge emails If you wish to receive three times per week free bridge emails which include lessons, videos & quizzes, please email me: michaelolough@yahoo.com

What is RealBridge?

• See and speak to your partner and opponents - just like face-to-face bridge.

• Connect with everyone at the table.

Bid and play and go over the hands afterwards to learn from the post mortem.

If you wish to try RealBridge for free, just email me: michaelolough@yahoo.com

Absolute beginners classes For anyone who is interested, I’ll be running a Bridge Absolute Beginners Course from the 4th – 8th of December 2022 in The Falls Hotel, Ennistymon, Co. Clare.

No prior knowledge of Bridge required or expected. Please contact the hotel for details or email me: michaelolough@yahoo.com

Irish Hospice Foundation launches Pledge to Plant campaign Irish Hospice Foundation (IHF) launches Pledge to Plant - its plant, grow, sell initiative to raise vital funds.

Pledge to Plant has been created to give anyone wishing to support the work of Irish Hospice Foundation the chance to sow seeds and grow flowers, plants and vegetables to sell to family, friends and colleagues to raise vital funds for services supporting those facing end-of-life and bereavement.

Anyone registering to get involved in Pledge to Plant will receive a free supporter pack full of information, planting tips and complimentary seeds to get started with planting in May and organise a plant sale in June.

L to R: Marie Staunton – Gardener, Sharon Foley – CEO IHF, Aisling Easton (7), Hazel Easton (4)

highlight the incredible support that Irish Hospice Foundation provides”.

Helen McVeigh, Fundraising Director with Irish Hospice Foundation says: “We are delighted to launch Pledge to Plant and hope to see many people involved. Whether green fingered or not, we’d love to see people planting seeds for flowers, herbs, vegetables or salads, to sell to friends and family. We hope everyone has a good time planting and raising vital funds for Irish Hospice Foundation to support work in endof-life care and bereavement!”

This year Irish Hospice Foundation will invest over €1m in one of their services - Nurses for Night Care - which delivers nursing care into the homes of those facing their final days. Funds raised from the Pledge to Plant campaign will go towards this crucial national service and end-of-life work across the country, helping to make a real difference to those facing end of life.

Pledge to Plant has its initial roots in remembering a loved one. Kathy

Whyte had the idea after her mum, who was a keen gardener, died.

This legacy, combined with a wish to generate funds for Irish Hospice Foundation, inspired Kathy to develop the Pledge to Plant initiative.

For more information or to register, see hospicefoundation.ie/ pledgetoplant/ or call Irish Hospice Foundation on 01 679 3188.

This year, Irish Hospice Foundation is delighted to have the support of gardening expert Marie Staunton on board - “I’m getting involved with Pledge to Plant because it’s something I can personally do to Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie 71

Collecting

Stamp of

approval

Paul V. Tattersall relates how stamp collecting saved the sanity of many older people during the Covid lockdowns and how many of them have returned to their childhood hobby.

Most older people can remember when stamp collecting was the number one hobby for boys, and indeed many girls, in their younger days, particularly those growing up in the Fifties, Sixties or Seventies. As times moved on so did pastimes and video games or other newer pursuits took over and young people put away their stamp albums in the attic or gave them away to younger siblings.

However, over the last couple of years, when the Covid pandemic was raging and people were told to stay home, many older people, unable to visit family or friends, felt very isolated in their homes.

One can get very tired of mindless daytime TV, and quite a few people, tidying the house or rummaging in the attic came upon their old stamp albums and a long-lost interest was re-kindled.

This particularly happened to those who, while abandoning the hobby as college, work, dating, etc., took over, still couldn’t throw away a nice stamp; so, they tore it off the envelope and put it in a shoebox on top of the wardrobe. During the lockdowns some people got down these shoeboxes and set about sorting out the contents, only to be bitten by the bug once again.

Stamp collecting, or philately to give it its proper name, can be a very fulfilling hobby, with many beneficial side effects.

Obviously it is a relaxing hobby, but also can be a very sociable one. For example, the Dublin Stamp Society, which has been active since the 1940’s, caters for members who wish to get together once or twice a month to discuss their various collecting habits, put on displays of their collections, ask questions or buy and sell

Three vintage Irish stamps from the 1920s worth around €400

items at the little auctions or ‘Bourses’, conducted at the meetings. Apart altogether from making a new bunch of friends.

Re-organising a collection, exchanging with other collectors both in Ireland or abroad, and sorting out stamps to send to such exchange partners is a good exercise to keep one’s mind active and stave off the onset of dementia.

Stamp collecting can take many forms; some collectors specialise in particular

72 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Issued in the United Kingdom in May 1840, the Penny Black was the first adhesive stamp in the world, which is why this stamp is considered so valuable. The Penny Black carries a picture of Queen Victoria and does not show the country of origin, as is custom today. Despite there being plenty of Penny Blacks for sale, an unused one can earn a lucky owner around €3,000, making it a very popular amongst collectors.

countries only, like Ireland or Europe, others collect stamps with special frank marks, while others collect thematically concentrating only on stamps featuring ships, or birds, or music, or Christmas,

Collecting etc., which can make for some very attractive displays. Other collectors specialise in ‘dead’ countries, eg., countries which have ceased to exist, like East Germany, Ceylon, Tanganyika or Rhodesia, while some others collect British stamps which feature Irish postmarks, eg., stamps in use before 1922.

Then, of course, there is also the interesting possibility of coming across a stamp with a flaw, or printing error, which might be worth thousands! Before Independence some Irish Republicans used to put stamps featuring Queen Victoria’s head on their envelopes upside down, and some of these envelopes have become collectors items now!

During the lockdowns collectors who exchanged with others abroad benefited from a constant source of entertainment when letters arrived on their doormats from exchange partners in far flung places with stamp packets containing a hundred or more foreign stamps.

It could easily take half a day to sort these out chronologically, thematically, or by country, put them into the appropriatealbum and then select a suitable collection of stamps to send back

in return. The walk to the nearest postbox also provided useful fresh air and healthy exercise!

Stamp collecting has received a muchneeded shot in the arm over recent years with all the ‘new’ countries which came out of the break-up of the USSR and Yugoslavia. Many of them have issued very attractive stamps featuring events in their history which they could not commemorate before. Also, the recently growing middle class in China have taken up the hobby with a vengeance, according to Stanley Gibbons, the major UK stamp company, which reports that the official Stamp Club of China now boasts over 20 million members.

So, if you are looking for an interesting new pastime, want to meet a new circle of friends, and keep the little grey brain cells active, why not consider philately – it’s informative, educational, sociable, more entertaining than watching daytime TV and less strenuous than golf!

The Dublin Stamp Society welcomes aspiring new members, has a modest €25 annual membership fee and meets just off convenient St. Stephens Green for those who are interested.

The year 1847 was significant for US stamp collectors as it was the first year in which the public could purchase stamps from the Government. When the U.S. got its first president, his portrait became the go-to picture for several posts, paintings, and stamps.

In 2008, one of these stamps was sold for $900,000. While there were around 1,000 stamps of this kind, only four are known to exist today.

For further information: Dublin Stamp Society. Box 12624 Rathfarnham, Dublin 16 Paul V. Tattersall, President. Email: tattersallpv@gmail.com

Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie 73

Western Ways George Keegan on what’s happening in travel, the arts, food and entertainment along the Western Seaboard

The Humbert Way, a notable Mayo Greenway

The Franco/Irish army marched along the west shore of Lough Conn to Castlebar where they took the British forces completely by surprise The appetite for more outdoor pursuits has increased dramatically in recent years as the number of new greenways, walking trails and cycle routes proves. Here along the Western Seaboard we are spoiled with the number of options on offer. One interesting and historic trail is called the Humbert Way.

Moyne Abbey

The name comes from Jean Joseph Amable Humbert a general and leader of a French expeditionary force who landed at Kilcummin Pier on Killala Bay in the year 1798.They arrived to help the Irish in their rebellion and on board ship were 1,000 men including Matthew Tone the brother of Wolfe Tone.

On coming ashore they took over the residence of Bishop Joseph Stock then protestant Bishop of Killala as their temporary headquarters before starting out on the long journey across country to Ballina and Castlebar. Along the way some 3000 Irishmen joined the force with many carrying just pikes and pitchforks. The Franco/Irish army marched along the west shore of Lough Conn to Castlebar where they took the British forces completely by surprise. They then set about positioning themselves at vital points around the town. The Crown forces fled from Castlebar with the rebels in pursuit. Eventually however the rebels were themselves surrounded at Ballinamuck in County Longford in September of that year.

Now this famous route taken by General Humbert and his men has been made into a 225km cycle trail passing through the foir counties of Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim and Longford, starting from Kilcummin pier, Killala. On the route there are numerous finger signposts alerting cyclists to several areas of particular historical interest. It is deemed to be from easy to moderate and will suit cyclists of all ages and experience. The route will bring you through some really spectacular scenery especially along the coast passing Bartra Island on Killala Bay. 74 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

The Humbert Memorial, Ballina

The mausoleum in Belleek woods in Ballina Co Mayo.

Sir Francis Author Knox Gore (18031878), inherited Belleek Demesne in 1818. He was responsible for building Belleek Manor (now Belleek Castle hotel).

On his death he wished to be buried in the grounds of the demesne with his horse! His son, Sir Charles James Knox Gore, had the mausoleum built over what is thought to be his father’s grave.

Points of interest include Ballina, the largest town in Mayo where the wonderful Belleek Woods (a birdwatcher’s paradise) is situated, Rosserk Friary (7km north on the banks of the Moy), Moyne Abbey (an ecclesiastical ruin and national monument) the Moy Estuary, Bartra Island and Killala village.

Each year a Tour De Humbert 90km cycling challenge takes place in summer and is scheduled to include the Síamsa Sráide summer street festival in Swinford( July 29th-Aug 3rd).

Western Ways

Foxford Looped Walks awaits you This remarkable story took another twist when Sister Agnes was put in touch with a Protestant from County Tyrone named John Charles Smith, owner of a mill in that county. The pair were introduced by a relation of Sister Agnes who happened to be the Irish Political Leader Michael Davitt. This partnership, which was certainly very rare indeed in the Ireland of the 19th century, continued for several years with Smith taking on an advisory role in the Foxford business.

Not far from Ballina you will find the interesting town of Foxford situated between the Ox and Nephin mountains and famous for its historic Mill. The town has established an excellent reputation for being a tourist centre and is popular too for anyone interested in fishing because the river Moy has some great stretches ideal for catching salmon. The two Loughs close by are also noted for brown trout. One famous son of the town was William Brown born 1777 who became the first Admiral of the Argentine Navy and is today considered a hero in that country. There is a memorial park in the town in his name.

At the car park beside the Foxford Sports and Leisure Centre and the children’s playground are a number of signs giving details of the looped walks. The series of walks were developed in partnership with Mayo North East Leader Company Teoranta, Mayo County Council, the County Development Board, local Rural Social Scheme, landowners and local communities. They range from one to eight hours depending on route chosen. All are well sign posted throughout.

One of the easiest and most popular is the ‘Town Looped Walk’ which is just 4km and takes about 60 minutes to complete.

The way is marked with green arrow on white background. It will bring you alongside the river Moy and there is a section through a quiet rural landscape before returning to the town.

If pooch is with you on your visit he can go along too when on a lead.

The longest of the routes is the 86km Foxford Way which complements the Mayo Western Way. This goes south from the town to Straide, around Lough Cullin to Pontoon. It is in fact a circular tour of North East Mayo.

While Foxford now has a thriving community it was not always the case. During the time of the Great Famine there was nothing but poverty and desolation in the local area.

History of the Mills Everything started to change when a nun, Sister Agnes Morrogh Bernard, originally from Cheltenham in England, became a member of the Irish Sisters of Charity. One day in 1892 she stood on the bridge in the town overlooking the rushing River Moy and had a vision of starting a woollen mill.

Her aim was to help create employment for the unfortunate impoverished people of the area following the famine.

76 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

It is said that Sister Agnes showed a tireless energy when she set about her plan. In those early years she organised the setting up of the mill, turned a family home into a convent and transformed a corn store into a school, complete with dormitory and refectory plus sewing and loom room. This quite amazing person also constructed a mill race, erected a turbine and sometime later formed an orchestra and a brass and reed band. The band was formed specifically as a social outlet for the mill workers and still exists in the town today.

The site for the new mill was of course ideal as the river was usually in full flood so producing plenty of power for the turbines. The whole concept turned out to be a blessing for the local community who were suddenly able to supplement their small income by spinning and weaving both woollen and linen in their houses. The fact that many sheep were raised locally was another plus as the wool could be sold to the mill.

The business proved to be a real success story and not even the outbreak of a huge fire on the premises in 1907 stopped Sister Agnes from achieving her aim. Up to 220 workers were employed during the mill’s first 90 years. It’s interesting to note at one time all Garda uniforms for the force were produced in Foxford. The Mills are still in operation today.

Michael Davitt Museum worth a visit A Heritage Museum in the village of Straide on the N58 between Ballyvary and Foxford contains a large collection of historical artefacts, original documents as well as photographs, letters, postcards and land acts all connected to the politician’s life and his work with the National Land League.

It is set in a restored pre-penal church in use prior to the enactment of the 1690 penal laws. There is a visitor centre, car park and a picnic area where local families and tourists can enjoy some lunch on a summer’s day. Adjacent to the museum is the remains of Straide Abbey where Davitt was buried.

Useful websites: www.northmayo.ie www.mayowalks.ie www.paradisepossible.ie www.visitfoxford.com www.michaeldavittmuseum.ie www.discoverireland.ie

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Cosmetics and beauty

Is Vitamin C good for your skin?

Mairead Robinson delves into the benefits of vitamin enriched skincare.

We all know that vitamin C is vital for our good health. Even as children, our mothers would regularly give us vitamin C to stave off colds in the winter months. Mostly we get it from fresh food like fruit and vegetables, but taking a vitamin C supplement has been popular since well before the other vitamins, such as B, D and E joined the list.

But what about applying vitamin C to the skin in the form of creams and serums? You are probably more used to pouring yourself a glass of orange juice to start your day, but did you know that you can give your skin a morning boost with vitamin C in a serum or cream? The benefits include a brighter complexion and even skin tone, while also diminishing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. Many of the newer skin care products now on the market include Vitamin C in their list of ingredients, and one brand I came across recently from Image Skincare is their Vital C range. These products are all about putting back into the skin what it needs to be healthy, nourished, radiant and glowing - in other words – replenished.

Certainly, after years of mask wearing and having just come out of another cold Irish winter, our skin needs this now more 78 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

than ever. The range includes a cleanser, anti-aging serum, hydrating repair cream and an enzyme masque. I particularly like the hydrating anti-aging serum, as it suits all skin types and succeeds in locking in hydration with multiple forms of Vitamin C which really brightens the skin.

As most of us have not had the pleasure these last few years of warm Mediterranean sunshine giving our skin a golden shine, it might be worth investing in a good skin care product that will encourage a streak-free tan – at least until we can hit the beaches again. And if that product is also an Irish female-owned brand, it is certainly worth finding out more. He-shi products are dedicated to bringing exceptional skincare ingredients that work to keep skin looking youthful, while simultaneously protecting against further aging damage. Express Liquid Tan contains 100% natural tanning actives and uses moisture lock technology to lock in hydration. H20 Glow Hyaluronic Facial Mist locks in moisture and creates a fresh naturally tanned and youthful glow. Lastly their H20 Glow Tanning Mousse is a clear luxurious mousse containing a cocktail of avocado oil, Aloe Vera and Aragon oil. Check out these products on www.he-shi.eu

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A gift in your will can heal and save lives. To request your free brochure with more information please return this coupon, visit msf.ie/legacy, or phone Ruth on 01-2815184.

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!

Cosmetics and beauty The popular cosmeceutical brand Skinician, which has featured on these pages previously, was also founded by the same mother and daughter team ten years ago, and these are the women who are now behind He-shi. Over the past ten years, Skinician has been highly successful in a very competitive skin-care business, and their most popular products include Purifying Cleansing Gel, Advanced Restoring Night Cream and Revitalising Day Moisturiser. It is certainly great to see a wholly Irish owned company producing such as excellent products in the global skin care industry.

When it comes to caring for our skin, we should never forget our hands. They really do show some of the first signs of aging.

The dreaded liver spots and the wrinkled skin on our hands can give us a shock and we suddenly feel like they are our grandmother’s hands we are looking at! But when you think about it, our hands are exposed to the elements most of the time, except when we are wearing gloves in the winter. We use our hands often to wash-up; they can be in and out of water and detergent quite often. And indeed, we were told to wash our hands very regularly during the pandemic. So, we really should be protecting them with a good hand cream. In fact, every time we take out hands out of water and dry them, we should be applying a good hand cream. Clarins have a luxurious Hand and Nail Treatment Balm rich in shea butter, which is ideal for deeply nourishing the hands. It helps to protect from very cold weather, sun, hard water and frequent hand washing. It actually softens the skin and targets the dark spots. It is a rich creamy and non-sticky formula which also helps to strengthens the nails. Use each time you take your hands out of water.

Clarins have also developed a beautifully fragranced body cream, rich in essential oils including hazelnut oil and also shea butter. It is from their Eau Extraordinaire range and really does leave your whole body feeling nourished and silky. You can complement this body cream with their Eau Extraordinaire fragrance which also contains citrus and ginger together with jasmine and patchouli to wake up your senses. For a real feeling of wellbeing, treating yourself to luxury creams and fragrances brings strength and comfort to both body and mind. And you know you are worth it!

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Cooking

Creamy chicken and mushroom pasta with spinach

This is the perfect dinner to make after a long day at work when you don’t want a lot of washing up. You literally throw it all in one pan – so handy and easy.

Serves 4 350g chicken breast, chopped olive oil, for frying 1 onion, chopped 1 garlic clove, crushed 200g mushrooms, sliced 240ml (1 cup) white wine 480ml (2 cups) chicken stock 120ml (½ cup) cream 250g penne pasta 50g baby spinach 45g (½ cup) Parmesan, grated Fry the chicken in a little oil in a large pan until cooked through, then remove.

Fry the onion, garlic and mushrooms in the same pan for a minute or so.

Pour in the white wine and cook for about 2 minutes over a high heat, till the steam dies down.

Stir in the stock and cream.

Sprinkle in the uncooked pasta, cover and cook for approximately 12 minutes or until the pasta is soft.

Add the chicken back in. Add the baby spinach and stir through.

Stir in the grated Parmesan, reserving a little to sprinkle over the top, and serve.

Birthday cookies

These are ideal for birthday playdates and parties. They are pretty chunky and don’t spread as much as most cookies, so you can make more at one time. If you make them smaller, you can fit even more on the tray.

Makes 10 120g unsalted butter, at room temperature 100g (½ cup) brown sugar 70g (1 /3 cup) granulated white sugar 1 egg 2 tsp vanilla extract 300g (1¾ cups) self-raising flour ½ tsp salt 250g chocolate chunks 100g sprinkles Preheat the oven to 200°/180° fan/gas mark 6. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

Mix the butter and sugars with an electric mixer (or by hand if you don’t have one) until pale and fluffy.

Add the egg and vanilla. Mix thoroughly.

Add the flour and salt. Mix till well combined.

82 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Fold in the chocolate chunks and sprinkles.

Make into balls about ⅓ or ¼ cup size, and place on the lined baking tray.

Bake for about 12 minutes, until nicely browned.

Leave on the tray to set for about 5 minutes after taking out of the oven, before removing and allowing to cool completely.

Tip - You can also freeze the uncooked dough balls and bake from frozen the same way as above – just give them an extra few minutes!

New York baked cheese cake with butterscotch sauce

This restaurant-quality dessert may seem daunting but, trust me, it’s actually super easy, and it tastes incredible. Just remember to make it a few hours or even the night before you want to serve it.

Serves 12 For the base: 200g digestive biscuits 2 tbsp light brown sugar 100g butter, melted For the cheesecake: 800g full-fat cream cheese 200g light brown sugar 3 tbsp plain flour ½ lemon, juice only 1 tsp vanilla extract 4 free range eggs 200g sour cream Butterscotch sauce: 100g caster sugar, 50g butter, 100ml cream Preheat the oven to 240°/220° fan/gas mark 9. Grease and line a 9 inch/23cm springform tin.

To make the base, blitz the biscuits in a food processor, add the brown sugar and melted butter and mix together.

Press the mixture into the bottom of the tin and bake for 10 minutes.

To make the cheesecake, place the cream cheese in a mixing bowl, add the brown sugar and whisk until smooth.

Add the flour, lemon juice and vanilla and mix. Gradually whisk in the eggs.

Stir in the sour cream and pour the mixture into the baking tin.

Gently tap the tin on the counter a few times. This will bring any bubbles to the surface and level out the top of your cake.

Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 130°/110° fan/gas mark ¼ and bake for a further 45 minutes.

Turn off and let the cake cool in the closed oven. Once cooled, pop it in the fridge to set. (It can take several hours to cool and set, so make sure to give yourself plenty of time.)

To make the butterscotch sauce, add the caster sugar to a pot and heat until melted.

Add the butter and cream. Stir until it forms a sauce – about 5 minutes. Don’t worry if there are lumps, as they will dissolve as it heats.

Remove from the stove and cool a little before drizzling over the baked cheesecake. You can also drizzle some melted chocolate if you have it. Then put it back in the fridge for 10 minutes before serving.

Cooking

Swedish meatballs

Whenever I go to IKEA, it reminds me to make my own version of Swedish meatballs. We love these, and Leon says they’re the best he’s ever had!

Serves 4 450g minced lean beef 120g (1 cup) breadcrumbs 1 egg 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce good pinch each salt and pepper splash of olive oil, for frying 480ml (2 cups) full-fat milk 480ml (2 cups) beef broth or beef stock 500g tagliatelle 1 tsp cornflour, dissolved in a little boiling water , 15g (½ cup) chopped fresh parsley, handful grated Parmesan, plus extra to serve Mix the beef, breadcrumbs, egg, Worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper together and shape into little balls.

Heat the olive oil in a non-stick pan and fry the meatballs on one side till they brown, then turn over.

When browned all over, pour in the milk and beef broth or stock and bring to the boil.

Add the tagliatelle and turn down the heat. Stir occasionally, to make sure the pasta isn’t sticking together, until the tagliatelle is cooked.

If the sauce is thin or separating, add the cornflour mixture and cook for a minute or two until smooth and thickened.

Add most of the parsley, reserving a little, and plenty of grated Parmesan. Stir through and serve with a little extra Parmesan and the reserved parsley sprinkled on top.

American buttermilk pancakes

These are the best pancakes ever! When I was in New York they served them with maple syrup and a little butter between each pancake – that’s what I do now, and it is so good.

Serves 4 210g (1½ cups) flour 2 tsp baking powder ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda 1 tbsp icing sugar ¼ tsp salt 360ml (1½ cups) buttermilk 1 egg 1 tsp vanilla extract butter, for frying To serve maple syrup sliced banana – optional chocolate chips – optional With an electric mixer or by hand, whisk all the ingredients, except the butter, together till well combined.

Heat a bit of butter on a non-stick pan over a medium-high heat, and use a ladle to pour in a scoop of the batter.

When bubbles appear on the top, turn the pancake over and reduce the heat to medium – they only need a few minutes on each side. Remove to a warm plate and cover with tinfoil.

Repeat until all the batter has been used up.

Serve with maple syrup and your favourite toppings – we like banana and chocolate chips!

Pad Thai

I do this super-easy Pad Thai whenever I feel like a takeaway version, as it tastes even better, in my opinion! I’d recommend using noodles that you cook in advance rather than straight-towok noodles, as the texture and taste are so much better.

Serves 3 200g uncooked Thai rice noodles For the sauce 3 tbsp fish sauce 3 tbsp sugar 3 tbsp rice wine vinegar 2 tsp soy sauce ½ lime, juice only pinch of chilli flakes 400g chicken breast, chopped light olive or rapeseed oil, for frying 1 small onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, crushed 1 cm fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped ½ red pepper, chopped ¼ white cabbage, shredded 1 carrot, sliced thinly splash of sesame oil, for frying 2 eggs 1 tbsp peanuts, lightly crushed big handful of coriander lime wedge, to serve 1 red chilli, sliced, to garnish Cook the noodles according to the package instructions and drain.

Mix all the ingredients for the sauce together and set aside.

Fry the chicken in a little olive or rapeseed oil in a pan over a medium-high heat, and remove when browned all over.

In the same pan, fry the onion, garlic, ginger, pepper, cabbage and carrot in a little sesame oil till slightly softened.

Move the veg to the sides of the pan, and crack the eggs into the middle. Gently stir with a fork until they’re cooked through, then mix together with the veg.

Put the chicken and noodles back into the pan, add the sauce and mix well. Add the crushed peanuts and coriander, and serve with a little squeeze of lime juice. Garnish with sliced chilli.

Recipes from Lili’s Family Favourites – Tasty, fuss-free recipes the whole family will love by Lili Forberg Published by The O’Brien Press.

Price €19.99/£17.99

Four copies of Lili’s Family Favourites to be won!

Senior Times, in association with the publishers, The O’Brien Press, are offering four copies of Lily’s Family Favourite’s in this competition.

To enter, answer this question: How much brown sugar is required for birthday cookies? Send your entry to Lilys Favourites Competition, Senior Times, PO Box Number 13215, Rathmines, Dublin 6.

Or email john@slp.ie Deadline for receipt of entries is 28th June 2022.

The first four correct entries drawn are the winners.

Senior Times l May - June 2022 l www.seniortimes.ie 83

Health

The Low Down on Heart Health Supplements From high blood pressure to high cholesterol levels, trying to keep things low becomes more difficult as we age (not to mention our break-dance moves!).

While prevention and medication play a huge part in maintaining a healthy heart, natural supplements can complement these methods to give you a boost when striving for optimal heart health.

Omega 3 Omega 3’s are essential fatty acids which we cannot make in our body, and therefore we must receive them through our diet. However, with only 10% of Irish people eating enough oily fish to obtain these omegas, it is important for many to consider a supplement.

Sona Omega-3 fish Oil contains 1000mg of fish oil per capsule, including EPA and DHA. When combined, DHA and EPA contribute to healthy heart function. Other benefits of omega-3 supplementation include: - Reduced inflammation - Reduced plaque build-up in our arteries - Reduced blood pressure - Significant reduction in triglycerides, which are fat - molecules in our blood - Increase levels of the good type of cholesterol in our - bodies, HDL cholesterol.

Red Yeast Rice: Red Yeast Rice has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries due to its powerful health benefits. It is a special type of rice, fermented by a particular type of mould called Monascus ruber.

The compound which gives Red Yeast Rice its powerful potential is called Monacolin K. As it happens, this molecule is also used in prescription medication to help lower cholesterol. Red Yeast Rice is used to lower cholesterol levels and improve heart health naturally.

Many high-quality studies found that when red yeast rice was used alongside statin drugs, it was safe and effective in lowering total cholesterol levels, and more specifically the harmful type of cholesterol called LDL cholesterol. In addition, this combination was effective in lowering fats in our blood and lowering our blood pressure.

This beneficial effect is obtained with a daily intake of 10mg of Monacolin K from fermented Red Yeast Rice preparations. Most Red Yeast Rice products contain little, or no Monacolin K. Sona Red Yeast Rice are standardized and provide the recommended level of 10mg per daily of Monacolin K. Co-Q10: Coenzyme Q10, or CoQ10 is a nutrient essential for many processes in our bodies. It occurs naturally in our 84 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

body but declines naturally as we age. The total amount of CoQ10 in the adult body is about 2 grams, and about 500 mg of that needs to be replaced every day.

However, factors such as statin use (cholesterol lowering medication), genetic disorders and other diseases can increase the rate in which our production of CoQ10 declines, which can have detrimental effects to our heart health.

Supplementing with CoQ10 is linked to improving heart disease outcomes. Research has found that treatment of CoQ10 supplementation over a period of two years can help to improve heart failure symptoms, as well as reducing the risk of death from heart disease.

Unfortunately, food sources of CoQ10 are limited. Meat, fish, nuts, and some oils are the richest sources, but there’s not enough in any of them to significantly boost the levels in your body. Most dairy products, vegetables, fruits, and cereals contain even smaller amounts.

Instead, you should consider a daily supplement that provides at least 100 to 200 mg of highly bioavailable CoQ10. Sona CoQ10 120mg provides the recommended 120mg of CoQ10 per capsule to help enhance energy levels and support a healthy heart.

Poetry

Six poems by Anthony O’ Halloran Orchard Raid

A dusk raid on Mrs Burke’s Orchard yields one beauty of bath, sliding down the escape gap, Nuala Lonergan struggles to remain silent.

A blackberry smudged face skulks into Auntie Claire’s pantry.

Sipping from her mug, Nuala ruminates as her nettle stung ankles absorb Mrs Burke’s retribution.

Almost

A fledgling jackdaw takes to flight in Thornton’s top acre.

Flapping her weak wings, she barely rises from the ground.

Vigorously pursued by a hyper Red Setter, inches above Sam’s nose but glides lopsided over a low hedgerow.

Safe!

A panting Sam stares forlornly upwards, jackdaw edged downwards by a gentle gust, marooned in Sam’s questing jaws.

Almost made it!

Daring Dusk Dance

Bouncing off the sofa, Brendan skips towards the letter box’s abrupt rattle; the January storm deceives him.

The postman is three hours late!

A thump disturbs his love dreaming in the scullery, hopes dashed again: a bulky parcel for Grandfather Bobby lies on the floor.

Bernadette’s envelope hangs surreptitiously from the letterbox; letter voraciously kissed.

Brendan returns to love dreaming in the scullery.

Elliot Dalton guards his balcony seat on Lynch’s Rock.

Samantha Fitzgerald pauses by a fallen sycamore to watch a parliament of ostentatious rooks inaugurate their daring dusk dance.

Separating and merging with elegance, climbing and falling with zeal, scattering and sliding with flamboyance, swishing so intensely that they slice the sky over Samantha’s head.

A harmonious performance of avian aerial anarchy is staged for the audience of two, Elliot and Samantha never doubting that the multitude were always one.

Lost Love

On Parade

Love Dreamin

Hope and Despair renew their nocturnal acquaintance, as Geoffrey dreams of inhaling Hannah’s scented auburn hair on her exile’s eve.

Geoffrey clinging onto nothingness for three full years, intimate imaginings linger as his drowsy reach for Hannah finds the cold pillow again.

Why is lost love so tactile?

Deliberately taking the long route home via Kelly’s road, five foot three inch body of this fourteen year old carrying an ecstasy filled face on parade through her no street village.

Molly relishing her status as the village’s sole female angler with every single step in her one size too big wellingtons.

Absorbing every gaze from passers-by at her one pound brown trout.

Dr Anthony O’ Halloran holds a Ph.D in Government from University College Cork, an M.A in Comparative Politics from University College Dublin, a B.A in Law, Politics and Sociology from the National University of Ireland, Galway and a National Diploma in Business Studies from the Waterford Institute of Technology. As a Fulbright Scholar, he studied American Politics at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

His monograph The Dáil in the 21st Century was published by Mercier Press, Cork and his co- authored text Politics in a Changing Ireland: a Tribute to Seamus Pattison was published by the Institute of Public Administration, Dublin.

Dr O’ Halloran’s co-edited collection of international essays Walls, Fences, Borders and Boundaries: Essays on Social Exclusion, Inclusion and Integration was published by Kendall Hunt, Iowa.

Contact: 087-6013637 and aohalloran@champlain.edu

Senior Times l May - June 2022 l www.seniortimes.ie 85

master your mind

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Fingal County Council has announced an exciting Over the last two years we have been actively looking after our programme of free events for Bike Week 2022. Ireland’s energy levels and immune systems and as important as this is, it is also 14th annual Bike Week takes place from May 14 to 22 this important to make sure are not neglectingformulated the most important partkey nutrients Mastermind haswebeen specifically to deliver year. The theme is ‘Click Into Gear’ and the Fingal event of our body, which is our brain. Our brain works as the control centre programme is designed to get everyone excited about to support mental performance and brain function. of our entire body, it looks after our thoughts and actions, keeps your cycling whatever your age or experience. lungs breathing and your heart beating. It works hard 24/7 and for these

reasons alone it is crucial we keep our brain, energy levels and cognitive During Bike Week Fingal County Council will host an functions in perfect working condition for a happy and healthy life.

official launch for their ‘Cycling Without Age’ initiative.

Cycling Without Age trishaw journeys will give older people Revive Active’s Mastermind (€49.95) is an award-winning product

specifically formulated using a powerful blend of 11 active ingredients the ­ chance­ to feel the wind in their hair as they experience to support brain, cognitive and psychological function, nervous the joy of cycling in St. Catherine’s Park, Lucan. system and mental performance. Mastermind’s key ingredients include Omega 3 DHA, Zinc, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6 and Vitamin C. Looking for a healthy way to start your day? Take some • Omega 3 DHA (350mg) is the most abundant fatty acid in the brain, making up to 40% of its mass. It is an essential fatty acid which cannot be made by the body efficiently and must be taken into the body through a normal balanced diet or supplementation.

• Zinc (5mg) has numerous roles within the body, but it is key in aiding with cognitive function and energy levels.

• Vitamin B5 (6mg) also known as Pantothenic Acid, helps to support mental performance.

• Vitamin C (80mg) contributes to the normal function of the nervous system and psychological function.

‘Supporting your brain is just as important as our physical wellbeing. Our brilliant brains have a high energy requirement and a low repair capacity.

It is important we nourish and support our brain function. Choose Omega 3 rich foods like oily fish, nuts and seeds and foods with a high antioxidant count like berries and colourful vegetables and fruits. Consider a highquality supplement like Revive Active’s Mastermind to help support your cognitive function further ‘. Sinéad Bradbury, Performance Nutritionist, SENr Mastermind is an orange flavour and can be taken at any time of the day, best one hour after food. Delivered in a powder format that dissolve quickly in water and are absorbed faster by the body in comparison to a tablet or capsule. Which can be mixed with approximately 300ml of water or juice and taken on the go. Mastermind is free from stimulants and plant extracts and is also gluten free and suitable for vegetarians.

One sachet a day is recommended for adults aged 18 years and over.

Ages 15 to 17, take one sachet every second day, maximum three per week. Not recommended for children 14 years or under. Mastermind is ideal for those living a busy lifestyle, working professionals, students, and active ageing.

86 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

time out to join in the Spin & Swim event at Velvet Strand Portmarnock by cycling to the beach for a refreshing dip from 8.30am. This opportunity to enjoy a mindful approach to cycling in the sea air is sure to appeal to many.

Bike Week isn’t just for the confident cyclist, it’s the perfect time to get back in the saddle even if you haven’t been on a bike for many years! Fingal County Council’s Active Travel team say they are delighted to offer Adult Cycle Training at Racecourse Park in Baldoyle on Saturday, 21 May from 10am to 12 noon. For those who find returning to cycling is ‘just like riding a bike’, Saturday afternoon offers a great opportunity to explore the newly protected cycle lane route with a guided community cycle from Baldoyle to Howth led

by Councillor Joan Hopkins.

For those unable to make it to a physical event there are plenty of opportunities to join the fun online. Clock up a distance of 25, 50 or 100km at the gym or at home across Bike Week and submit a photo or screenshot of your distance tracker to earn a special Bike Week medal in the virtual cycling challenge.

For all of these events, as well as recommended cycle route maps, visit www.fingal.ie/bikeweek. The public is encouraged to register early for events to avoid disappointment as Bike Week events are expected to book out.

Northern

By Debbie Orme

Notes

Raising a glass at The Crosskeys Inn, the oldest thatched pub in Ireland

The Crosskeys Inn’s owner, Vincent Hurl, with a bottle of his eight-yearoldsingle malt Irish whiskey.

Vincent outside the quaint setting of The Crosskeys Inn.

The Crosskeys Inn may have collected awards aplenty, but it is only when you step inside that you realise the reason why: stories, music and history collide to make an experience unlike that of any other pub.

the latched door, there is a definite feeling of stepping back through time.

The uneven walls, the stone floors, worn down in the centre from generations and generations of footsteps, the low ceilings and various warrens of rooms, with open turf fires, all bear testament to the authenticity of the pub, complete with its unusual L-shaped layout.

Traditional white washed walls, thatched roof and a perfectly poured pint of Guinness are just some of the things that make The Crosskeys Inn special.

As confirmed by research by Queen's University in Belfast, The Crosskeys Inn is now considered the oldest thatched pub in Ireland, dating back to approximately 1654. However, even with all that history, current owner Vincent Hurl is very much of the opinion that it still has a long future.

The sense of timelessness is enhanced by the enchanting framed pictures on the walls, mostly of past patrons: old men from another time or music sessions from years gone by.

Newspaper cuttings and clippings record the history of The Crosskeys Inn and the local area for future generations to see.

‘I see the Crosskeys as a community asset,’ he says. ‘I’m the custodian. The Crosskeys will be here long after I’m gone and there’ll be somebody else stepping into my position, continuing to preserve its history.’

But it took massive efforts to restore the pub.‘When I bought it, it wasn’t completely finished,’ Vincent explains. ‘It had been reroofed, the bar was open and functional, but the inside of the property was empty.

Since taking over the fire-damaged building in 2001, Vincent has worked hard to restore its charm and character.

As you enter The Crosskeys Inn through

‘Crosskeys was known for the artefacts – but a lot of those weren’t there or on the walls, it was either stored or lost in the fire.

‘We were lucky that over the years there were lots of photos taken in the bar so we could make sure that any old artefacts held in storage could be put back in the same place.’

However, with many items lost in the fire Vincent made sure that relevant replacement artefacts were sourced and he continues to add to the collection to reflect more recent times at The Crosskeys Inn. Given that The Crosskeys Inn is Ireland’s oldest thatched pub, Vincent has worked with tour groups like CIE Tours to help create an unforgettable trip for visitors and show off the rich history of Crosskeys.

Despite being off the main thoroughfare The Crosskeys Inn is accessible being close to Newferry, Loughbeg and convenient to Portglenone and Toomebridge. And, if you are based in Belfast, Lough Neagh Partnership previously ran The Crosskeys Flyer bus service in the summer season for those that want to experience the genuine traditional pub, with music, refreshments and maybe even a tipple. One thing that

Senior Times l May - June 2022 l www.seniortimes.ie 87

Northern Notes has remained constant is its reputation as a music venue with some of the finest players across the land making a beeline to perform.

‘A lot of visitors are completely blown away at the standard of music, particularly amongst the younger musicians,’ says Vincent. ‘We’re very lucky that we have a great pool of musicians. Some of them would be considered the best in Ireland.

‘They’re all-Ireland champions and they’re so young. We’ve kids of nine and ten coming in and playing, up to 80-yearolds, who have been playing for 50 or 60 years.’

Sessions are held every Saturday and occasionally on Fridays and Sundays.

When there is a tour group arriving then music is usually laid on, along with a serving of BBQ food, eel suppers and Irish stew. There is even a purpose-built tour operator room at the rear of the pub and a pet-friendly beer garden to house special occasions or tour groups.

Although coffee and tea are as popular as pints, visitors can also sample of the 100 whiskeys available, including their very own Crosskeys 1654, an eightyear-old single malt Irish whiskey. In 2017, The Crosskeys Inn won the BBC Countryfile ‘Country Pub of the Year’, and was the first ever Northern Ireland pub nominated for the prestigious award, let alone to win it. It also received the CIE Tours Award of Excellence in 2019, amongst other accolades.

Derry music festival back with a bang Irish soul sensation Imelda May topped the bill at the City of Derry Jazz Festival with a stellar performance at the Millennium Forum

Irish soul sensation Imelda May topped the bill at the City of Derry Jazz Festival with a stellar performance at the Millennium Forum The Hyde Park Brass Band were just one of the new acts to join the Jazz Festival line up this year

The Hyde Park Brass Band were just one of the new acts to join the Jazz Festival line up this year

The streets of Derry were swinging as tens of thousands of music lovers flocked to the City to enjoy an extravaganza of sounds as the 21st edition of the Jazz Festival took place over the weekend.

With a history going back to the 17th century, it's not surprising that there may be a ghost or two, but storytelling and poetry are also key to the Crosskeys offering. ‘Storytellers and poets from all over Ireland and some from just down the road have been known to captivate the minds of many visitors with their tales of years gone by,’ Vincent continues.

‘Unlike other historic buildings, which record how our ancestors lived, at The Crosskeys Inn we present a unique living history in which visitors can participate and immerse themselves in traditional Irish culture and craic.’

The five-day festival, which is one of the largest celebrations of jazz in the country, was back with a bang after a two-year break from live music due to the pandemic. The packed programme featured 417 musical performances from April 28 – May 2 across 70 participating venues.

Whether visitors go to The Crosskeys Inn for the music, the craic or a pint of the ‘black stuff ’, the ambience and atmosphere of The Crosskeys Inn remain a draw for many.

‘The energy in the city centre was phenomenal,’ he said, ‘and it was just amazing to see so many visitors flocking to our hotels and hospitality venues. The festival is a real highlight for the local economy so I know the local business community is delighted to see it return in its usual format and to welcome visitors back through their doors to enjoy live music.’

While the final tally is yet to come in terms of visitor numbers, figures are expected to top those of previous years as music lovers flocked to experience the rich musical medley over the course of the weekend with workshops, dance classes, alfresco performances and even a Jazz Parade through the City Centre. Hotels were booked out on the busiest nights, with 99 per cent occupancy on Saturday evening, and there was positive feedback from businesses with the surge in city centre footfall, as the music spilled into restaurants, bars and even street corners.

Looking back on what was a fabulous weekend for the City, Mayor of Derry and Strabane, Alderman Graham Warke, said the festival had lived up to all expectations.

88 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Blooming up the Borough

Northern Notes

Green-fingered residents of Ards and North Down were recently urged to help brighten up the borough as its In Bloom campaign got underway.

The council launched this year's Ards and North Down In Bloom campaign and community competitions to coincide with National Gardening Week.

Volunteers from the Portaferry In Bloom helped to launch the 'In Bloom' community competitions and encouraged residents in the Borough to get involved for the chance to be recognised for their excellent gardening skills.

‘The In Bloom campaign is always extremely popular with residents, community groups and businesses right across the borough,’ said Mayor of Ards and North Down, Councillor Mark Brooks.

‘The campaign gives people the chance to take some time out and enjoy the many environmental and health benefits gardening has to offer. ‘The In Bloom competitions give people the chance to experience the joy of growing flowers and gives residents the platform to help

Mayor of Ards and North Down, Councillor Mark Brooks, is pictured with representatives from the Portaferry In Bloom group: Christopher Duff (Chairperson), Margaret McGreevy, Kerry Shields and Mary Mageean.

create stunning green spaces within Ards and North Down. I would like to encourage all residents to dig deep, pick up a trowel and enter this year’s In Bloom campaign. I look forward to seeing the budding entries bloom in the weeks and months ahead.’

The campaign encourages everyone who lives or works in the Borough to think about their local environment and how attractive flowers, plants, trees and gardens can enhance it. By actively supporting this competition,

entrants will not only make their garden or business more attractive but they will also contribute to the Borough’s entry to the Translink Ulster in Bloom Competition and other regional awards.

Applications are welcome from all residents and entry is free. You can even nominate a neighbour’s garden or other local properties that you think deserve recognition!

For more information, visit ardsandnorthdown.gov.uk/inbloom

Causeway Coast and Glens marks the Platinum Jubilee Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council is calling on the public to get creative as part of its plans to mark Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

A fantastic series of themed events and opportunities for local communities and visitors to the Borough will take place over the coming months to mark the historic occasion. From floristry workshops fit for a Queen, to royal fairytales for tiny tots, the programme aims to engage residents of all ages.

During May and June, there will be a series of royal film screenings, including family film, The Queen’s Corgi at Roe Valley Arts and Cultural Centre, and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s extremely popular musical fantasy, Encanto, at Flowerfield along with Spencer (2021) starring Kristen Stewart, Elizabeth II: A Portrait in Parts (2022) and The Queen (2006) starring Helen Mirren.

For adults, there will be workshops in floristry, glassmaking, silversmith jewellery and needle felting, all with a royal twist to create commemorative pieces of art inspired by Her Majesty’s reign. Roe Valley Arts and Cultural Centre will host a reflective creative writing course to lead participants back through the decades, supporting them in creating a final written piece, with workshops and courses suitable for all levels.

There are a number of community events planned to bring the people of the borough together for this landmark celebration including a spectacular outdoor projection of key moments in the life of Queen Elizabeth II at Flowerfield, and vintage tea dances for senior citizen groups.

Residents of all ages are invited to take part in the Big Community Bunting Stitch-up, a series of free drop-in workshops to help create a giant bunting.

These are for all levels of experience and those taking part can try a range of different techniques from block printing to stencilling, applique, mixed media as well as sewing.

For further information on all dates and times please visit www. causewaycoastandglens.gov.uk/ platinumjubilee where you can find out more about the council’s wider Platinum Jubilee programme.

Senior Times l May - June 2022 l www.seniortimes.ie 89

Meeting Place NOTE: When replying to advertisements give only your telephone number and/or email address. Do not give your postal address.

CARLOW MAN, 6ft, LATE 70s, widower with GSOH, SD. Retired professional with interests in sports, meeting people, dining out and current affairs. WLTM a lady around own age for friendship and socializing, preferably in Leinster.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER A1 LONELY WIDOW from Leinster, full of warmth and kindness, dignified, good appearance, keen sense of humour, family grown up. Seek a warm, personable, educated gent to share coffee and conversation. Age range 75-85.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER A2 OFFALY MAN, 70s, NS, SD, tall, looking for a romantic woman 60s -70s for socialising, interests include walking, reading and winter holidays.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER A3 ‘PRETTY WOMAN’. Widow, North Co Dublin WLTM man for friendship/relationship in his 70s and a NS for chats, outings and caring and sharing. . Warm and loyal with very GSOH and good company.

NS and non-driver. I am good company.

Take a chance on me!

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER A4 NORTH CO DUBLIN MAN 70S, GSOH, NS, ND, likes the outdoors, travel, gardening and cooking. Courteous, friendly respectful, various interests. WLTM lady with some or similar interests.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER A5 DUBLIN LADY, 67, WLTM ladies and gents for socialising., days, trips, concerts, weekends away and general craic.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER A6 SOUTH DUBLIN LADY MIS 60s, NS, SD, GSOH, loving, attractive, average height, very friendly, good conversationist. Interests include music, sailing, tennis, walking, weekends away. WLTM gent 60s to 70s.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER A7 NORTH WEST MALE, EARLY 70s, NS, SD, academic, interested in arts, classical music, theatre, concerts, history, country life, reading, golf. WLTM lady 60-60s with similar interests for companionship/relationship anywhere ins Ireland.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER A8 PLEASANT NORTH CO DUBLIN FEMALE, 60s, NS, SD, seeks the company of

a kind, respectful gent to share happiness in retirement years. Interests include cinema, theatre, all kinds of music, afternoon drives, travel at home and abroad etc.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER A9 DUBLIN MALE NATURIST 60 (looks younger) single, WLTM a nice, broadminded, uninhibited, mature lady to join a naturists club and to travel abroad on naturists holidays.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER A10 TALL SINGLE PROFESSIONAL LADY living in South Dublin WLTM a tall single NS Irish professional gent aged 68-75 for socializing and maybe a relationship.

Many interest including ballroom dancing, concert going, theatre, travelling, eating out, current affairs, GAA, swimming.

Must be of generous nature.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K1 TIPPERARY MAN 6ft, WLTM a woman around my own age for friendship, maybe more. I am a retired professional and widower, GSOH. I lead an active life NS SD. Interests and hobbies include meeting friends, eating out, current affairs, sports and outdoor activities. My children are grown up and living in Dublin.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K2 SOUTH EAST FEMALE, 58, WLTM tall male who enjoys the theatre and garden.

I’m interested in friendship and possible romance. I am 5 foot 7 and have English accent. Reading, theatre, sea and garden are things I enjoy must. Good sense of humour important. If anyone would like to meet up I would be delighted to hear.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K3 ATTRACTIVE WIDOW late sixties, living in Dublin, NS, SD, GSOH, enjoys playing golf, bridge, reading, music and travel. WLTM likeminded gentleman mid 60's to late 70's, for companionship and to share common interests.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K4 SINGLE PROFESSIONAL WOMAN 60s,NS, SD, enjoys reading, walking, foreign travel, the arts and good conversation WLTM an educated, active, refined, kind man with GSOH aged 59 - 69 with similar interests for friendship/relationship.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K5 SOUTH DUBLIN WOMAN M 59, independent, straight-talking, fit, outdoors type with own unique sense of style, seeks company of like-minded professional man circa 60 to enjoy - exchanging views, sometimes walking my dogs, watching sport, dining out, occasional weekends

90 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

away and holidays.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K6 SOUTH DUBLIN LADY 70s, WLTM ladies/gents for friendship, Love to dance, meet for coffee, Chat, walk, and have a good laugh. This lady is fun with a good sense of humour and would like to meet likewise.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K7 ATTRACTIVE WIDOW late sixties, living in Dublin, NS, SD, GSOH, enjoys playing golf, bridge, reading, music and travel. WLTM like- minded gentleman mid 60's to late 70's, for companionship and to share common interests REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K8 ARE YOU IN LIMERICK OR SURROUNDING AREAS? Are you interested in social interaction and 'meet ups' with other retired people for coffee and chat, dining out, shows, days and breaks away etc REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K9 SOUTH CITY CORK GENTLEMAN, single, mid 60’s, sincere, friendly, respectful, well educated, tall, athletic and considered attractive WLTM a tall lady with similar characteristics/interests for friendship/romance and long term relationship. Interests include cooking, swimming, walking, gardening, reading, dancing, music and travel at home/abroad.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K10 NORTH MUNSTER RETIRED WIDOW, warm and caring with a positive and youthful outlook enjoying varied interests & exploring new ones, WLTM a NS genuine, caring, sociable gent early 70s who has a GSOH to explore common interests and share life's adventures.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K11 FUN LOVING CO WEXFORD LADY fifties, young at heart, would love to meet similar ladies for fun days out and general socialising. Interests include brisk walking, good music, travelling, eating out ,coffee and chats .

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K12 PROFESSIONAL RETIRED DUBLIN MAN, 70s, WLTM nice lady from Dublin or surrounding area. ND, SD. Various interests and like to travel a lot.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K13 NORTH KILDARE LADY, 70s, NS, SD. Interests include country walks, nature, wildlife, theatre, historic buildings, and travel.WLTM gent with similar interests.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K14

DUBLIN GENT, 60, WLTM lady of similar age from the capital or surrounding area. Enjoy the simple pleasures such as weekends away, concerts, eating out etc. If you’re a lady who likes a laugh and is a genuinely happy person we might get along great!

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K15 KILDARE MAN 65 suffering from recent bereavement wishes to find a sympathetic lady to talk to. Interests include painting in oils. Have a large house with a room to accommodate a lady.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K16 ‘HAPPY IN JEANS’. Co Meath lady, 65, WLTM gent roughly same age for coffee, or lunch and a chat. I like the seaside, going for walks and a little dancing.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K17 CLARE MAN MID 60s, single, no ties.

Kind, sincere and caring, very socialable.

NS, SD, love traditional and C&W music, gardening and going to events. WLTM down to earth, caring, honest lady in her early 60s with similar interests and from the same area or adjoining counties for friendship and possible relationship..

REPLY TO BOX K18 CAVAN MAN 72 WLTM lady 60-70 from Cavan or surrounding areas. Live in the country and like most kinds of music, Interests include indoor and outdoor events, outings, dining out, dancing, theatre, cinema. . I’m honest and since and if you are a nice genuine lady please get in touch.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K19 ROMANTIC, SHARING, CARING DUBLIN CHAPPIE, 72, single never married. Interests include watercolour painting, art history, woodland walks, seeks commitment with positive lady.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K20 DUBLIN GENT 60s, medium height.

Enjoy reading, walking, cosy nights in, eating out etc. WLTM lady from Dublin or surrounding area with a view to a long term relationship.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K21 DUBLIN WIDOW/FORMERLY FROM MEATH Mid 60's, interested in meeting gentleman with a good sense of humour for walks, coffee, chats, and craic. I also like movies, theatre, concerts, travel, reading, music and art.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER K22 NORTH WEXFORD GENT MID 60s, looks younger, slim, NS, SD. WLTM a lady 50s to 60s. My interests are walking, reading travel, eating out, long drives, current affairs and concerts. So ladies get in touch for loving friendship/relationship.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER T1

NORTH DUBLIN LADY LATE 60s would like to hear from other ladies interested in sun holidays in 2022.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER T2 PLAIN JANE FROM LEINSTER but attractive in many ways. GSOH, educated, young at heart. WLTM a personable, refined, educated gent, preferably a widower, for friendship and chats. Age range 70s-80s. REPLY TO BOX NUMBER T3 DUBLIN GENT 60 YEARS YOUNG. Young at heart, healthy, well presented, fit and attractive with positive attitude.

WLTM lady for discreet romance. Looking for a lady who would like to share a swashbuckling adventure with fun and laughter.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER T4 DUBLIN MALE 60, SEEKS MALE TRAVELLING COMPANION 50-70 for holidays in Thailand when the time is right. Enjoy the lovely weather, beautiful beaches, fantastic food, great night life and gorgeous, friendly ladies.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER E20 SOUTH EAST FEMALE, 58, WLTM A gentleman who perhaps enjoys champagne and strawberries. I’m interested in friendship and possible romance. with taller man. I am 5 foot 7 and have an English accent. My interests include reading, theatre, and gardening. Good send of humour important.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER E21 SOUTH WEST DUBLIN LADY MID 50s seeking kind, sincere, single/widowed gent aged 55/65 as a soulmate/companion.

Passions include golf, animals, especially dogs, and wildlife. Love nature, country walks, gardening, eating out and many other things.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER E22 INTERESTED IN MAKING FRIENDS? I'm female and in my 70s and live in Dublin area. Like to travel keep fit read. I do some voluntary work and like singing with church choir. Like to meet with friends regularly for coffee or maybe a drink.

Would be great to meet someone with similar interests.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER X1 DUBLIN MALE NATURIST 60 (Look younger) single, WLTM with a nice broad-minded, uninhibited, mature lady to join a naturists club and travel abroad on naturists holidays REPLY TO BOX NUMBER X2 WELL PRESENTED, slim, active Meath lady in her 60s NS, SD, WLTM outgoing slim gentleman with a GSOH, who enjoys walking, golf, travelling, theatre and dining in or out for companionship, hopefully

leading to a long term romance.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER X3 PROFESSIONAL LADY, 60s, divorced, Dublin area, slim, attractive, 5ft 3in WLTM professional gent taller than 5ft 5in. REPLY TO BOX NUMBER X4 SINCERE, OUTGOING, YOUNG AT HEART, caring widow, retired, Limerick based professional, who enjoys current affairs, the arts, good conversation, scenic rambles especially by sea and sand and holiday breaks at home and abroad WLTM genuine, warmhearted, sociable, unattached gent in early 70's who is NS and has a GSOH to share post - Covid happy times with.

REPLY TO BOX NUMBER X5 TO PLACE AN ADVERTISEMENT If you are interested in meeting someone of the opposite or same sex, send your advertisement, with four stamps (which is the average reply rate) enclosed in the envelope, to:

Meeting Place, Senior Times, PO Box 13215, Rathmines, Dublin 6 Or email: john@slp.ie IMPORTANT

Ensure you give your approximate age and the area you live, noting your interests. The advertisement should not be more than 60 words.

If you are replying to the advertisement via Senior Time’s email, ensure you include your postal address for those not on the Net. (Only Senior Times will have these details).

Deadline for receipt of advertisements for the next issue is 25th June 2022.

TO REPLY TO AN ADVERTISEMENT

Each reply to an advertisement should be enclosed in a plain, stamped envelope, with the box number marked in pencil so that it can be erased before being forwarded to the advertiser. Send these envelopes in a covering envelope to the address , above, so that we can forward them to the advertiser. There is no limit to the amount of advertisements to which you can reply, provided each one is contained in a plain, stamped envelope.

Ensure you give your approximate age and the area you live.

For those submitting their advertisements by email ensure that you also supply Senior Times with your postal address so that we can post replies from those who have replied by post. (Only Senior Times will have your postal address).

Senior Times l May - June 2022 l www.seniortimes.ie 91

Four copies of Unspoken to be won in this crossword competition!

Senior Times, in association with Gill Books , is offering four copies of Tom McGrath’s Unspoken in this issue’s crossword prize. Growing up in Waterford, Tom McGrath never noticed the odd gaps in the stories of his parents’ lives before he was born; it was only many years after they died that he uncovered the unspoken truths, which did so much to explain the people they had been.

Here he tells the incredible true story of his father’s conscription into the British Army, his escape from a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland, his daring journey across Europe and subsequent recapture – and the devastating news that awaited him in England. Tom’s research also led him to discover that his mother also carried a heart-breaking secret.

Name: .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Address: ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Phone: ...............................................................................................................................................

Email:................................................................................................................................................

92 Senior Times May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Senior Times would like to send you details of special offers, competitions, future features etc.

Please tick this box if you do not wish to receive this information.

Send your entry to Senior Times Crossword Competition, Senior Times, PO Box 13215, Rathmines, Dublin 6.

The first four entries drawn are the winners. Deadline for receipt of entries is 25th June 2022.

Crossword Crossword History

Number 117 by Zoë Devlin

ACROSS 1 1995 film about a talking piglet (4) 3 He led the Israelites across the Red Sea (5) 6 Celebrated and widely-known (6) 10 Person who helps (9) 16 She starred in ‘High Society’, ___ Kelly (5) 17 Sticky chewy sweets (7) 18 Alfresco - outdoor (4-3) 19 Aura or atmosphere (3) 20 Response is in a wren’s nest! (6) 22 Thin oatmeal porridge (5) 23 Plastic containers used by kids at seaside (7) 25 Religious song often sung at Christmas (5) 29 Unable to hear (4) 30 Musician such as Yo-Yo Ma (7) 31 Not permanent for a teary romp! (9) 33 Cab or car driven for money (4) 37 Source of heat and light in the solar system (3) 38 Pitcher or open vessel (4) 39 Can an insect sit with this biologist? (9) 42 Frozen dessert with cream and sugar (3-5) 46 Quay in Dublin on south side of Liffey (5) 47 Castle & demesne in Boyne Valley (5) 48 Japanese art of paper folding (7) 49 Novelist, Edna ___, wrote ‘The Country Girls’ (1’5) 51 Do campers rush & scurry about? (7) 53 Dough-like mixture used to secure glass (5) 54 Soft thin paper (6) 56 Striped insect capable of stinging (4) 59 Bird’s foot (4) 60 Type of measurement - not imperial (6) 62 Grinding tooth, situated at back of mouth (5) 63 Misguide or lead astray (7) 66 Italian city with canals (6) 67 Sports implement used in tennis (7) 69 One who drives a car to win (5) 70 Door fasteners or strands of hair (5) 73 Hideous, outrageous, awful, dreadful (8) 74 One employed to serve alcoholic drinks in pub (9) 75 Imperial liquid measure - of stout for instance (4) 76 Wise old bird - found in a howling gale! (3) 80 Creator of Noddy, ___ Blyton (4) 82 Male head of family or tribe (9) 84 Tea-sets are found in these demesnes (7) 86 Beam or hull of a boat (4) 89 He rocked around the clock, singer Bill ___ (5) 90 Thief (7) 92 Attempted or tested (5) 93 Highly seasoned sausage, usually dried (6) 98 Clinging outdoor vine with evergreen leaves (3) 99 Green, transparent gemstone (7) 101 Junior girl scout or square chocolate cake (7) 102 Leinster county where 47 Across is found (5) 104 Curly-coated dog, maybe from Kingdom County (5,4) 105 Co Monaghan’s ___ Guthrie centre for artists (6) 106 Wind instrument played by James Galway (5) 107 Slippery elongated fish found in keels? (4)

DOWN 1 2 4 5 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 19 21 24 26 27 28 32 34 35 36 40 41 43 44 45 46 50 52 55 57 58 61 62 64 65 68 71 72 77 78 79 81 83 85 87 88 91 94 95 96 97 100 103

Children’s charity (8’1) Wet spongy ground (3) Portent of doom - found in women? (4) Wholly, completely, totally (8) Peak or highest point (4) Vague, not clearly understood (7) Wading bird who brings babies? (5) Historic period or era (3) Great duo, ___ Laurel & Oliver Hardy (4) Natural body of running water (6) Island off Co Donegal found in history (4) Gentleman’s gentleman (5) Dish served as last course of a meal (6) Scent or odour (5) Hand tool used to twist a nut (7) Surface layer of ground such as in 2 Down (4) Essential (9) Wheeled vehicle used in farming (7) One of the acting family, ___ Cusack (5) Canneloni, macaroni, spaghetti (5) Maybe, possibly, perchance (7) Tune or 19 Across (6) Fruit of the oak tree (5) Dublin’s library & museum, ___ Beatty (7) Did Oliver see this whirl? (5) Lift, upgrade or raise (7) Soft summer fruit or rude noise? (9) All sorts of people love this black candy (9) Cut in two (6) Suit of cards that go with 23 Across? (6) A mature non-professional! (7) Gulpers indulge themselves (7) Decorate with needlework (9) Set oneself apart from others (7) Outer layer on a loaf of bread (5) Open rebellion against authority (6) Having striking colour and brilliance (5) Has this large-billed bird a pencil? (7) Co Offaly nature reserve ___ 2 Down (5) Infectious disease for a chorale? (7) Tiny mammal Shakespeare tried to tame? (5) Ice cream or water ice on sticks (9) Title for an adult woman in Germany (4) Leave-taking or polite departure (8) Southern Europe republic (5) Room used for sleeping (7) Place of worship such as in Knock (6) Cure or act of correcting an error (6) Ulster county of Cootehill and Virginia (5) Becketts characters were waiting for him (5) Cord in a candle (4) Irish film director ___ Jordan (4) Shaw’s play was about ‘Saint ___ ’ (4) Exclude or leave out (4) Playing card with a single pip on its face (3) Colour or shade (3)

Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie 93

Adults return to the Gaeltacht for a unique holiday experience

Irish summer colleges are often associated with teenagers, but for almost 40 years participants aged 18 to 88 have travelled to Oideas Gael, in the Gaeltacht of southwest Co. Donegal, for a unique holiday learning experience.

Since its foundation in 1984, Oideas Gael has attracted thousands of participants to its highly-acclaimed language courses and cultural programmes. Many people come to learn or improve their spoken Irish and Oideas Gael courses cater to all levels from beginners to advanced speakers.

Those who would prefer to avoid the classroom, or who would like to try a different kind of holiday, can choose from a wide selection of week-long cultural activity courses, including Irish traditional music, hill walking, exploring the environment, archaeology, geology, painting, tapestry weaving, and more.

These courses are delivered bilingually, and language ability is no barrier to taking part. What’s more, you might leave with a cúpla focal more than you came with.

weekend and the Easter holidays,” says Oideas Gael Language Director Rónán Ó Dochartaigh.

“It’s fantastic to have people back in person and it really is the best and most enjoyable way to engage with our living language and culture.”

At Oideas Gael, there is a strong emphasis on the spoken language and enjoying the learning process.

All participants can take part in the evening cultural sessions—which range from traditional song to Irish dancing to mindfulness classes—which add an additional cultural element to week’s experience, not to mention some good craic!

To learn more visit www.oideasgael.ie or call +353 (0)74 97 30 248.

While the COVID-19 pandemic meant that much of Oideas Gael’s activities since 2020 moved online, this year the organisation’s staff are enjoying welcoming people in person once more: “Already, in 2022, we hosted two very successful courses over St Patrick’s 94 Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

Crafts

Connie McEvoy recalls the boxes that she made and were made for her

Treasured sewing/ trinket boxes During my childhood many happy days and nights were spent just rummaging through the beautiful sewing boxes (smaller ones sometimes doubled as trinket boxes) that were the treasured possessions of my grandmothers, mother and aunts.

Mostly these boxes were handed down from generation to generation as part of bottom drawer collections for brides to be, but my mother loved and used the rather large one that was in Kilcarry where the Moran family resided before she went there as a young bride. It was a rather large black lacquered box embellished with sprays of crimson and olive green magnolia on all sides set in a gold aperture. It was fitted with a brass fastener and hinges and it was probably gifted to the Moran family as a miniature tea chest. My siblings and I always enjoyed watching Mam search for something that was near the bottom of that box as we knew that we would be allowed to put everything back afterwards!

We spent ages going through and admiring colourful cards of bias binding, lace and darning wool for mending the socks and gloves that she knitted for us, there were also cards of thread that she used to mend the silk and lisle stockings that she wore herself. We found tailor’s chalk, press studs, hooks and eyes, elastic that was used to keep our knee socks up and spools of shirring elastic for smocking. Mam’s collection of colourful spools of no 10 and no 40 thread together with her beautiful assortment of sizes and shapes of buttons always went back into her lacquered sewing last because were allowed to create our own little motifs on the kitchen table with the buttons. That large sewing box was always full as Mam made and mended most of our clothes including the six wedding dresses, for her daughters and turned many a shirt collar for daddy and her four sons: thank you William Kelly for emailing the photo of this lacquered box it’s a pity we know nothing of its previous existence.

There are three treasured boxes in my possession at present; the first one which is my favourite was given to me by my aunt Sister Mary Oliver Kavanagh of the Convent of Perpetual Adoration Sisters Bride St, Wexford when I was brought to visit her there during the summer of 1952. She informed me that she was aware of the fact that I had enjoyed knitting and needlework since reaching my 7th birthday and decided to design and make a sewing box especially for me.

My eyes lit up with amazement as I accepted this beautiful gift and then sat back hugging it in a huge leather covered mahogany chair in a state of bewilderment at my good fortune.

My aunt asked me to take it to the table and open it. Inside was another surprise- some tiny spools of thread, needles and pins and a beautiful circular pin cushion that she had designed and worked for me also. The outside of this cardboard sewing box is covered in green silk and the inside is lined in green taffeta.

Sister Oliver hand painted a floral motif (gold outline and glitter) on the lid and assembled the box by stitching it together using apricot coloured buttonhole stitch throughout the entire project except the chain stitch tie on the tassel. The pin cushion is made from remnants of pink silk, and assembled with green buttonhole stitch. A looped pink ribbon was added so as I could hang the pin cushion up if necessary. It was decorated by adding 2 green sequins and 2 tiny clear beads, the butterfly and lantern motifs are transfers. I would dearly love to have had a rummage in Sister Oliver’s sewing box. She made leather gloves, nun’s habits, fire screens, picture frames and velvet door curtains also because she was a master crafter.

The second sewing box is larger and is of a different shape entirely; it too was designed and made by a nun who spent her life in a convent in Co Kildare.

Sister Rose Osborne was a very pleasant lady who I had the pleasure of meeting on a few occasions when I spent summer holidays on the farm of my aunt Mai and her husband Willie Osborne near Rathvilly Co, Carlow, I was twelve years of age when she presented me with a sewing box. She told me that it was constructed from x- ray sheet off cuts that been used to sandwich old greeting cards for display, comprising of four curved sandwiches for the sides plus two flat sandwiches for the base and lid.

Senior Times | May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie 95

Crafts commissioned by the editor of Popular Crafts magazine for the issue published January 4th 2002. I bought the heart shaped cardboard box in a craft shop, covered and lined it with blue taffeta and used white silk as a base to work the lid motif on, the edge of this embroidered motif and the lid edge have both been worked in Buttonhole fringe edging.

Sister Rose informed me that I would be well able to make one for myself and then gave me full instructions including the fact that I would need to punch holes in all edge areas in order to stitch the sandwiches together so as to assemble the box by working saw-tooth buttonhole stitch on the edge of each sandwich, then lacing them together through the buttonholed edges using two strands of embroidery cotton.

Although it would probably be ideal for use as a trinket box it was never utilised as such as it has spent a lot of time for years on show at craft shows/exhibitions including the 50 Plus Expo a few times so it could be said that it is a well-travelled box.

This is the sewing box that I have used mostly since then, it had a nice tassel (centre front lid) I am now eighty years of age and like me this sewing box looks a bit worse for the wear! However it is full of the requirements that I still need on a daily basis.

The third box is the smaller one of my collection, as I designed and constructed it myself it’s really special and it was

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96 Senior Times May - June 2022 | www.seniortimes.ie

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Mary Fallon, Lecarrow, Co Roscommon Catherine Prendergast, Dublin 14 Mary Mahon, Caherlistrar, Co Galway Johanna Begley, Dungarven, Co Waterford

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Sheila Henry, Manor Kibride, Co Wicklow Marion Meyer, Glengormley, Co Antrim John Cummins, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford Deirdre Maloney, Nenagh, Co Tipperary

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Crossword-- Four copies of Lives Apart

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Two-night stay at Oriel House Hotel, Ballincollig, Co Cork Brendan Moore, Dundalk

Emergency Department Hermitage Clinic Old Lucan Road, Dublin 20 Department Hours: Monday To Saturday - 8am To 5pm • On Site Laboratory • State of the art Radiology service with access to X-ray, MRI, CT, Fluoroscopy, PET/CT, Ultrasound, Interventional Radiology, Nuclear Medicine.

• State of the art Cardiac We offer top quality healthcare with Catheterisation Laboratory access to over 250 leading consultants.

• Investigations and Diagnostics • Stitching and Casting • Medical/Surgical Wards Please note that an appointment must • Theatre and ICU be made in advance by contacting: • Day Care Unit • Direct referral access to the Consultant Suites A cc

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Our Emergency Department is a rapid access service run by Emergency Medicine Consultants who have the full support of the full resources of the hospital including;

EXCELLENCE IN

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