A Heron's View

Brian Stanley TD

"Sinn Féin's environment spokesperson Brian Stanley has described today's package of measures on water charges as "an introductory offer, and a con job designed to lure people into agreeing to pay a charge that will inevitably be increased to much higher levels in years to come".

Deputy Stanley said: "The fact that the initial bills for water will now be substantially lower than those announced by the Energy Regulator at the beginning of October is a victory for opponents of the water charges. 

"The Government now needs to go one step further and abolish the water charges altogether."

He said that otherwise, households would face much higher bills when the concessions were due to end after 2018."

quote taken from Irish Examine © 2016

The Irish government of scallywags are now offering people on Social Welfare a One Hundred Euro  bribe to sign up for Irish Water - which is nothing more 

"Than a sprat to catch a WHALE !"

I have news the Irish people have woken up and they have the bit between their teeth and within those people are those others who have the taste of blood within. 

To the TD's and Ministers of Fine Gael &Labour it yours that they are after! So might it not be better to 'fall on your sword now ? ' so resign and call a general election now before  the people get really angry and remember that the commemoration of the 1916 Uprising is not too far away. . . .

All photo's are the copyright of Colin Russell © August 2013

The centre piece of the circle

The Well Dressing

Druids relax while camera man sets up

Mrs H had just bonked me on the head with the wand because I had been a bit flirtatious with a red head!

Some of the group taking a well deserved rest in between shoots and that is not a pencil dangling from Mrs H's lips !

Here the sufferer lays their head & is cured.

On sunny Sunday it was a genuine relief to step outside and feel the warmth of the sun on one's body. So we took the decision to make a short tour to the Headache Stone, a place which we had passed on an inclement winter's day last year.

The sign on the gate depicts it as St Hugh's which is unfortunate because it is actually St. Aedh's (pronounced as 'aeh')

St Hugh or rather St. Aedh who was one of Ireland's primitive saints (The Royal Society of Antiquaries 1896) and his importance is that he reputedly cured St Bridget of a headache.

I had heard that it is best not to put a pain free head on a headache stone, because it is likely that you will then get one ! This advice I related to Mrs H as she set off to take photo's while Toby (dog) & I kept each other company. Not lazy merely cautious because there were sheep & young lambs close by and I like to obey the Countryside code. Mrs H had only been gone a few minutes when there came a loud bellow from a Bull, it is a very distinctive noise; this again reassured me by not taking Toby was the right decision and as I had not heard any screaming ! I guessed that Mrs H was free from harm and I was right as you can see from the photo's !

What I wanted to know was exactly how did St A manage to go from A to H there being no phonetic similarity. Research via Google has revealed :-

Mo-Lua ba hanamchara do Dabid
Dar muir modh-mall,
Is dom Aedhog, is dom Chaemog,
Is do Chomgall.

'My-Lua was soul-friend (= spiritual director) to David over the slow-rolling sea (i.e., in Wales), and to my-little-Aedh, and to my-little-Caem (Kevin), and to Congal.'

This quatrain refers to the time when there was constant and friendly communication between the schools and churches of Ireland and the Welsh and English coasts, when Welsh students came to study in the Irish colleges, and brought back with them to Wales many Irish traditions that can still be recognised in Welsh literature. This was the time when Alfred, a student in Ireland, laid the foundations of that love for learning which afterwards caused him to solicit the aid of his former Irish professors in founding the first University of Oxford. The quatrain also contains the name of one of our saints, a name disguised more effectually than any other, that of St. Aedh, if we may venture to call him so. Aedh is really his name. It is one of the commonest Irish names, and is now represented in English by Hugh, a name with which it has no connection whatever. Ref www.libraryireland.com