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October 2019 Vol 44 No. 10
Sunrise at Rush, by Leo Bissett
ONLINE BONUS PAGES Download our online addition for all this extra free content. Click this link to download https://online.flippingbook.com/view/397492/ Busting the myths Do carrots really help your eyesight ? What is a “vomitarium”? Does lightening strike twice in the same place ? Astronomy Night sky in October Puzzle Page. Crossword, quiz, tongue twister It happened in October Who was top of the pops ? Who died ? What war started ? Who was born ? Recipe Page Home made apple pie and custard Fingal County Council. Planning Applications and
04 Letters to the editor 06 How healthy is Rush Main Street 07 Bungalow in Rush for just € 5.00
08 Thoughts on time 10 The Original Brexit 12 Tidy Towns Results 13 Rush Barber Maurice Cole Retires 15 Around Rush 18 Our Man Down Under 20 Fingal Gateway to Europe, by Kevin Thorp 21 Grow it Yourself - Crop Rotation 22 Major water leak 23 More World Champions for Rush
reports on Council meetings affecting Rush Classified Ads. Anyone buying or selling ?
From the archives What was in the Rush Community News in July 1999
24 Forgotten Dublin Characters 25 Science - The Fridge Freezer
Did we do OK? Our cover page for this month’s issue shows one of the “issues” about how our main street looks. Here’s our other idea for the cover. Did we made the right choice ? Mail editor@rushcoco.ie and tell us what you think. Cover page designed by Martin Keaney
Your Team @ Rush Community News
Kevin Thorp, Editor Liam Gavin, Acting Editor
Thanks to this month’s contributors, including Valerie Malone, Richard Wilson, Patrick Burke, Gerry Coleman, Ray Phoenix, Leo Bissett, Fingal Rowing Club
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Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor,
for most of the past 40 years I have been living in Germany, and besides missing the contacts with some of the people, there have been some other things I miss. For various reasons many of my visits were much too short to accomplish all I had in mind. For some years now I have been seeking a particular old photograph that I remember used to be on display in the "Good Old Days" museum in the 70´s. It shows the blessing of the boats at Rogerstown and it must have been taken before the begining of the 20thC., or very soon after it began. Perhaps one of the first photos of Rush? Certainly it was taken prior to the begining of World War I. I was told that an ancestor of mine was included among those in the photograph, and that he owned several of the boats at that time. I could never find out what his first name was. Perhaps your newsletter could make a call for anyone with knowledge of such exponents, in particular of the picture I am seeking. Perhaps someone in the Rush Historical Group of the ICA, who were involved in creating the book, "Rush by the Sea", 1996, knows more? It is otherwise likely that the information may be lost for posterity. I would be very happy to even recieve a scanned copy of the photo to this email address. Besides if any of your readers have any background information about the photograph, or those shown on it, I would also much appreciate that.
Kindest regards to all in Rush & thanks in advance Eugene Weldon
Editor’s Reply Dear Eugene,
It was a strange co-incidence to receive your letter the very week that your father Jimmy’s uncle, Niall Weldon, passed away. I know that Niall was very friendly with Liam Butterly, proprietor of the Good Old Days, which was just down the road from the harbour. The answer to your query might actually be found within your own extended family’s archives, but if anyone else gets in touch, I’ll certainly let you know.
Best regards,
Liam
Niall Weldon R.I.P. We were saddened to hear of the passing of Niall Weldon, who died on 3rd September, in his 97th year. Regular readers will be familiar with Niall through the extracts from his many writings that have featured in the Rush Community News. His four books give a fascinating insight into his life and work in Aer Lingus, and they form an important historical record of the development of our national airline.
Niall was predeceased by his wife Elizabeth (Lily). We extend our sympathies to his children Barry, Mary, Elizabeth, Anne, Janine, Karen, Ian and Declan, and his much loved 16 grandchildren, 4 great-grandchildren, brothers, sisters, sister-in- law, daughters-in-law, sons-in-law, relatives, friends and neighbours.
May he rest in peace.
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Report of the Month - How healthy is Rush Main Street ?
We assess the Main Street in Rush using an objective rating system devised by experts to see how the design and layout can affect people’s health
everything into account, they were deemed to receive a negative rating.
L ast June, the Irish Times published an article called “How Healthy is Your Street,” by Jennifer O’Connell. The general idea was to use an unbiased method of rating the impact of the physical environment on the health of people living in an area. The methodology was developed by the British Royal Society for Public Health, and The Irish Times employed a group of experts to compare 10 sample streets around the country. The aim was not to make a “best to worst” league table, but to spark off a conversation about how our main thoroughfares can be designed in such a way as to enhance the quality of life of residents. The scoring system awarded high marks for the presence of socially beneficial outlets, such as health centres, fitness clubs, surgeries and pharmacies, and marks were docked for what were perceived as negatives, such as bookmakers, off licences, and take -aways. Pubs posed a bit of a dilemma for the marking system, because they play an important part of Irish community life, but they can also negatively affect physical and mental health, so taking
It would be possible to enter into an endless debate about the relative merits of the marks for each type of outlet, but it has to be said that the overall scores were pretty much what might be expected, so on balance, the system seems to give an accurate comparison between streets. In the report, Lahinch scored highest, with 202 marks, Greystones came next on 124 marks, Waterford and Ranelagh both scored 100, and at the other end of the scale, the newly gentrified Stoneybatter in Dublin got 70, despite being recently named as one of the 50 “coolest” neighbourhoods in the World, and at the bottom of the class, Clondalkin got 48 marks, Drogheda got 36, and poor old Ballinasloe finished up with a miserable 28 points. The writer encouraged readers to carry out a self- assessment of the main street in their own locality and as we are always up for a challenge, we did just that, and here’s how it went.
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Rush Main Street
The bottom line is that Rush Main Street scored a highly respectable 111.
For the purposes of the exercise, we started at the junction of the main street and the Channel Road, and we continued down the main street, past the Skerries turn, and finished at
But perhaps the most interesting thing to come out of the exercise is to play with the figures and see what happens if some of the negatives could be eliminated. For example, if someone waved a magic wand and all those 18 vacant units suddenly became occupied, our score would shoot up to 136, easily beating even the very pretty Greystones, and even beautiful Lahinch. In fact, if even 5 of those vacant lots could be given a new life, we would have had a higher score than any of the streets surveyed by the Irish Times. And that’s not even counting any extra marks that those five units might get for whatever new use might be found for them. Certain parts of our main street deserve great credit. We have become so used to seeing the
the Carlyan pub. This seemed to represent the main area of retail activity in the town. Side streets, such as Echlin Court, were excluded. The individual findings will not come as much of a surprise to residents of Rush, but a few points do command attention.
On the positive side, we scored very well in some areas (3 surgeries, 3 pharmacies, a Health Centre, a Gym, a community centre, and 2 playschools). This all helped build up a healthy total of positive marks.
lovely hanging baskets along the street , that we hardly even notice them any more. The public seating area outside Supervalu is a really nicely designed area, and the wall carvings are a great feature. The
The bottom line is that Rush Main Street scored a highly respectable 111
community centre is a great re-working of the old school. Straying outside the confines of the main street, the Millbank Theatre is a gem that the town can be proud to have, and we have no less than two long beaches, two harbours, a park, and more. Many of the shopkeepers in the town make heroic
It also may come as a bit of a surprise to note that there are no less than 48 occupied homes along the main street, and this also gave a boost to the scores. On the other hand, the high number of fast food / take-away outlets, and the large number of hair salons, beauty therapists and suchlike is regarded by the judges as a negative. This is not a comment about any particular business on our behalf, but it just reports on how the judging system works. As might be expected, the largest single negative factor was the fact that between retail and residential, there are no less than 18 vacant units in the area surveyed. So how did we score ? The scoring system is about as complicated as understanding how proportional representation works, but presumably the boffins in the RSPH know how to figure these things out. Working out the score involves a lot of adding things up, multiplying by 100, taking away your first thoughts, subtracting your grannie’s age when she got married, and dividing by the total ages of your next door neighbours. Well, not quite, but there’s no need to go into the ins and outs of the calculation here.
efforts to present their businesses well, and of course when Christmas comes around, the lights come on and the whole town is transformed. So in many respects, the glass is most definitely half full. But there is no getting away from the fact that despite the high score on the Irish Times Survey, the overall impression for a visitor walking the length of Rush is not too impressive. We look forward to the time (hopefully soon), when life is breathed into the derelict buildings once again.
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Bargain of the year - A cottage in Rush for € 5.00
Property prices may have gone through the roof, but a very nice thatched cottage was available recently in Rush for the bargain price of the year, at just € 5.00
Granted, it was a little on the “bijou” side of small, and although the outside looked well, I’m given to understand that the interior left something to be desired. The house is shown above, but in case you are wondering where it is located, take a look at the picture on the right. The cottage was being raffled to raise funds for the Rush Men’s Shed, and the four “estate agents” were spotted by our roving reporter Tony Brennan recently, selling tickets at 3 for € 5.00 in the Haven Pharmacy.
Tony Hickey, Joel Kelly, Sean Byrne and Pat Duff selling tickets in the Haven Pharmacy
Apart from drinking tea and telling corny jokes, the Men’s Shed crew get up to a lot of good work around the town, such as patching up the shambolic hoarding on one of the derelict houses on the main street, building benches for the school, and making bird boxes for the Tidy Towns.
HELP ! Like the pub with no beer, the Rush Men’s Shed is soon to be the Men’s Shed with no shed ! Their current premises is being sold, and they want to express their thanks to the present landlord for the use of the shed. If anyone has a shed, or even a site where they could build or put up a temporary structure, even for a limited time, please contact Tony Hickey on 089-2282362
Tony Hickey working on the thatched cottage
Tubber Ryan putting the finishing touches to a bench for the local school
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Thoughts on Time
Time is a funny old thing, and it can be very confusing. When we measure time, we choose an arbitrary system of counting seconds, minutes, hours, days and years, but we could just as easily choose an entirely different method. For example, the whole solar system travels through space at around 230 Km per second. So instead of saying that some task took an hour to complete, it would be just as accurate (but a lot more awkward) to say it took 60 times 60 times 230 Km, or 828,000 Km to complete the task. “Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing.” Miles Davis To show how time is just a concept and not a real “thing”, consider the imaginary case of Bill and Fred , a pair of Chelsea fans from London. Last May, Bill splashed out all his savings to make the long journey to Baku, Azerbaijan, to watch his team play Arsenal in the Europa Cup Final, while Fred stayed at home and watched the game on TV. The match kicked off at 11 pm on Wednesday 29 th May in Azerbaijan, which was 8 pm in
have 168 hours to fill, with sleep, work, leisure, relaxation, reading Rush Community News, and worrying about Brexit. Assuming you sleep for 8 hours per night, that leaves 112 waking hours. Dressing, undressing, preparing and eating your meals takes perhaps 2 hours per day, leaving 98 hours each week. Assuming you are of working age, let’s say you spend an hour a day getting to work, another hour coming home, and 8 hours at work, 5 days a week. That’s another 50 hours off your allocation, so you are left with 48 hours. If you have two days free from work each week, that means that on those days you have roughly 5 ½ hours of “you time” each working day, and 15 ½ hours on each day off. That 5 ½ hours each day is the most valuable thing you own. It is further whittled down by essentials like showering, going to the shops, waiting for the bus, doing domestic chores, and so on. If these things take say an hour and a half from each day, then it means that you really only “own” three hours of each working day, and 14 hours of each day at the weekend. “A man who dares to waste one hour of life has not discovered the value of life.” Charles Darwin That three hours is the time you have left for relaxing, reading, watching TV, taking a walk, engaging in your hobbies, chatting with friends and family, playing with your children, going to the pub, giving your time to the local community, volunteering for something, and worrying about Brexit, or whatever else takes your fancy.
Wed. 29th of May, while Bill’s diary will record the date as Thursday May 30 th . Both brothers watched the match at the same time, so both are correct, but we all know that the same event can’t take place on two different days. To add further confusion, time moves more slowly the faster you are going. So if the International Space Station happened to by flying directly over Baku as the match kicked off, and again as the final whistle blew, the astronauts’ watches would show that the game took ever so slightly less time to play than if they went by the stadium clock. Over a period of a couple of hours the difference would be almost unmeasurable, but it is there nonetheless. In a full year, the astronauts in space age 0.014 seconds less than people on Earth. That doesn’t sound much, but it is significant enough that the clocks on GPS satellites have to be periodically adjusted to take into account the fact that they are travelling at great speed and for them, time travels more slowly than back on Earth. What you do with your time Back home, using the conventional way of measuring time, we have 24 hours (1,440 minutes) allocated to us for every day of our lives. In a week, we
London. That meant that it finished at around 1 am on
Thursday in Baku, but it was only 9.45 pm Wednesday in London. Fred’s memory of the match is that Chelsea beat Arsenal on
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That three hours is absolutely essential to maintain what current jargon calls the “work-life balance.” In the old days, it was described as “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” We can’t “make time” for anything. If something is going to take longer than we anticipated, all we can do is to steal time from some other activity and reallocate it. If the traffic is bad and it takes longer to get home from work than usual, that leaves less time for relaxation. Or if a trip to the shops takes an hour instead of 45 minutes, that means something else loses out in the mix. Take time to enjoy everything One of the most effective ways of maximising the use of time is to make a conscious effort to enjoy each activity you engage in.
Rather than regarding a trip to the shops as a chore that has to be endured, why not make an effort to enjoy it ? Admire the flowers along the way – smile at the children you see playing – say hello to someone and chat for a minute – pop a euro into a collection box and get the satisfaction of doing something nice. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a job they enjoy so much that the time spent working is enjoyed as much as the precious 3 ½ hours left at the end of the day. But we all have the opportunity to value our time as the valuable and scarce resource that it is. Every hour spent having an argument, feeling a grudge, moaning about the weather, or worrying about Brexit is an hour that you are stealing from
yourself. While every hour you savour, whether it is spent being
active, cooking the dinner, watching TV, or just sitting quietly, is time well spent.
“God, but the traffic in Rush was terrible today”
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The Original Brexit - by Liam Gavin
Hard Brexit, Soft Brexit, Backstop, Norway Option… It’s all happened before, long long ago
Eventually, the North Sea piled up on one side of the strip of land connecting Britain to Europe, while the Atlantic piled up on the southern flank. The Brexit side won the day, and the sea burst through from the north. Brexit had happened, and Britain was an island. Muddy connection to Europe Or was it ? After the mega-flood, things settled back to something approaching normal. The connection to Europe just got a bit muddy, and the backstop was a strip of land roughly extending from just north of the Thames estuary to the Netherlands. If Boris had been around at the “it became possible to go on holidays to Europe without getting the old feet wet” time, he would have been horrified, because this backstop prevented a clean break for a full 250,000 years. But the difficulty of travel, which entailed trudging through a quagmire, made Britain less attractive to Europeans, and the rest of Europe basically just left them to themselves. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it ? Through this 250,000 years, there were various half-hearted mini- Brexits, where the sea defences were breached, but 180,000 years ago, a second mega-flood happened, and the hippos that were contentedly wallowing in the swamps around Westminster
A t the time of writing, the whole Brexit fiasco is still in the lap of the Gods. The newspapers and TV reports still bandy about terms like the Hard or Soft Brexit, the famous Backstop, and the Norway Option, as if this was all something new. In fact, it all happened before, and the last time Britain and Europe parted Freedom of movement Half a million years ago, where the white cliffs of Dover are today, a series of undulating chalk hills joined England to France. There were no borders, and there was freedom of movement all around Europe. Nearer home, you wouldn’t have needed a boat to get to Lambay, which only became an island much more recently. But scientists now believe that Ireland was never actually connected by land to Britain, something that might ruffle a few orange feathers in and around East Belfast. Mess dragging on interminably But back to the mark one version of Brexit. You might think that the current mess is dragging on interminably, but the original version was even more indecisive. Through various periods of global warming and cooling, the sea levels in the North Sea fluctuated greatly. During the colder periods, so much water was locked up as ice that the sea levels dropped dramatically, while in periods of warming, the ice melted, and the sea levels rose. company was even more dramatic than the current situation.
were swept away. Virtually overnight, Britain had become a “proper” island. Then climate change took control. The ice ages once again dropped sea levels, and once again, it became possible to go on holidays to Europe without getting the old feet wet. A huge, low lying area called Doggerland, in the present North Sea, about the size of England, ensured a Europe “sans frontiers” as they say in France. original “Norway Option” resulted in an overnight hard Brexit, which has lasted until now. A massive undersea earthquake off the coast of Norway triggered huge submarine landslides, dislodging around 3,000 cubic kilometres of material. That’s about the same amount of soil as a stretch of coast, 10 metres wide and 10 metres deep, running from Rush to Dundalk. The earthquake unleashed a phenomenal tsunami, that raced across the North Sea, obliterating Doggerland, carving out the English Channel for once and for The “Norway Option” Then, 8,200 years ago, the
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all, and making Britain an island.
Ironically, the reason we have such a good understanding of this geological process is due to the scientific research that was carried out when Britain decided to link itself back to Europe, by constructing the Channel Tunnel. This research enabled the accurate dating of the two mega-floods, and it revealed the routes taken by the water flows. It is possible that the whole cycle could repeat itself at some stage in the future, and bearing in mind that the Channel is only about 60 metres deep, a drop in levels caused by global cooling of more than that would reverse the original Brexit, without even the need for a referendum. However, global cooling seems to be an even more unlikely scenario than the “Leavers” and the “Remainers” coming to an amicable agreement. Rising sea levels are the order of the day, and as levels creep up, Britain will become ever more separated from the rest of the World.
Britain’s Brexit Strategy - Branching out
Check out our guide to the October night sky in the online magazine Simply enter https://online.flippingbook.com/view/397492/ into the browser on your phone, tablet or computer
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Tidy Towns Results Announced
We don’t often get a “HOLD THE FRONT PAGE” moment here in Rush Community News, but just as we were about to go to press, the results of this year’s Tidy Towns competition were announced in the Helix. Last year, Rush scored 278 points, and a third place finish, behind Blackrock (283) and Howth (281) That was an improvement on our results in 2017 (270 points and 10th in category), so hopes were high that the hard work of the Tidy Towns committee and their volunteers would be recognised by the judges this year. As the song goes, “inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow”, and that’s how it was for Rush this year, adding 8 points to last year’s tally, for a very respectable score of 286. This left us in a mid-table position in our category, three places behind Lusk, which scored 316 in Category E (Large Town, population 5,001 to 10,000)
points. The category winners, Dalkey, got a very impressive 336 points, highlighting the fact that we still have some way to go . Congratulations are due to our neighbours in Skerries, who won their section with a magnificent 338 points. Rush competes in Category E, which is for towns with a population between 5,001 and 10,000 while Skerries is in Cateogry F, for towns with between 10,001 and 15,000 people. If our population continues to grow, it won’t be long before we are in the same
over the 61 years the competition has been running, and it is no longer just a competition for the “prettiest” town. It is not enough to just slap flowers up all over the town in the weeks before the judges are expected to arrive, and to have some twee features dotted around the place. The emphasis now is on creating a “sense of place”, for those who live, work, and raise families in the towns. There is also a move to promote biodiversity and sustainability, with bee hotels, careful use of environmentally friendly materials, and the encouragement of native flora and fauna. Success in Tidy Towns is very much a team effort, and the “team” is everyone in the town,
group as Skerries, Shankill, Clondalkin and Ballyboden.
Over the coming weeks, the Tidy Towns Committee will be carefully analysing the judges evaluation, to see where we picked up marks, and just as importantly, were we still have room for improvement.
not just the hard working volunteers in the actual committee.
Tidy Towns has shifted emphasis
If you would like to help with Rush Tidy Towns, visit us on Facebook, call 086-8145177 or email us at tidytownsrush@gmail.com Volunteers are always welcome.
OOOPS ! Apologies to anyone who turned up for the beach clean on 8th September, which was the date we sent to the Rush Comm. News. We had to change the date to 22nd September after the magazine had already been sent out.
Grateful thanks are due to two local heros, who work quietly but efficiently in the background. Ger Redden does much work all year round to keep St. Maurs and Kenure Park area clean, tidy and to a high standard.
A debt of gratitude is also extended to P.J. O’Hara for all he does to keep St. Maurs and the Cricket Wall to such a high standard. Well done guys, your work is really appreciated.
Coming to a road near you very soon. The depiction of the Yew tree was painted by local artist Carl Jones. The signs are generously sponsored by Progressive Credit Union.
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Maurice makes the final cut
An era in Rush history came to an end on 4th Sept. when Maurice Cole hung up his clippers after 52 years of cutting the hair of the gentlemen of Rush. A barber all his life, Maurice started his career in Bramley Hill, Kent, aged 14, back in 1958 and he had to lie about his age to get his first job. He arrived in Rush in 1967, and started out in a long since demolished building where Dr. Marcus de Brun now has his surgery. From there, he moved to 63-65 Main Street (where Village Pizza is now), and after three years another move brought him a spot near the corner on the Skerries Road, which was memorable for the tricoloured bench outside. Maurice had hairdressing in his genes, following in the footsteps of his father, who worked as a barber in a shop near Supervalue, until he died suddenly in 1954, at the young age of 34 years. His father was handy with a shotgun, and he bagged so many rabbits that Maurice acquired the nickname, “Bunny” Cole. A visit to Maurice’s salon was like a trip into a bygone age. In contrast to the flashy, noisy, rip-off hair “factories” of today, there was always a premium placed on the value of conversation, recounting stories of times past, and it has to be said, the telling of a lot of “fishermen’s tales”, of dubious veracity, (Men’s Shed members, you know who you are) !
William Ryan has the honour of being the last person to sit “on the board” while having his hair cut by Maurice Unfortunately, due to being severely follically challenged myself, this writer has never had the need of Maurice’s services. So it is unlikely that I will have the opportunity to give Maurice’s replacement, Alex, much in the way of business. Alex has big shoes to fill, but if he keeps up the standards set by Maurice, he won’t go far wrong.
For the historical background to this report, I am indebted to Mick O’Brien and Colette Groome.
Maurice with a group of neatly coiffured clients on his last day in Rush L to R, Seán Byrne, Tubber Ryan, Maurice Cole, Tom Barrett, Tom Armstrong, Tony Brennan
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Here’s a neat idea on recycling / repurposing we got from Gerry Coleman (Our man down under). Ideal for cactus plants, but if you are going to use this idea for anything that needs regular watering, it would be an idea to pierce a few drainage holes in the bottom of the cans and then place them on saucers.
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Around Rush - with Valerie Malone
RUSH GARDA STATION Senator Lorraine Clifford wrote to the Office of Public Works (OPW) making enquiries about our Garda Station. The OPW in their reply dated 22/8/2019 said that they had undertaken and completed external maintenance and enabling work at Rush Garda Station. The main work has been completed and Contractor appointed under OPW Measured Term Maintenance Contract. The OPW expect that the building will be ready for handing over to An Garda Siochana at the end of the third quarter of 2019. The letter was signed by Mr. Kevin Moran TD, Minister for State at OPW. SKINNY BATCH Congratulations to staff and management and staff of Skinny Batch for winning a Fingal Friendly Business Award in the category of Community Impact. Skinny Batch with shops in Rush and Lusk, makes the most delicious cakes. These thoughtful people also make cakes that are gluten free, dairy free etc – they all taste great. Congrats again – another win for Rush! STITCHES Previously located on Main Street Rush, has relocated business to 68 Thorn Chase, off Palmer Road. To book an appointment or for further details concerning clothes repairs etc. please contact Carmel on 0872298270. BADMINTON CLUB RUSH This club would just love some new members. They are specifically looking for players interested in competing in the 2019/20 season Division 8 or higher. They have ladies, men and mixed teams. For more information please contact Caroline 0863257594 or John 0857248803 email rushbccommittee@gmail.com or their Facebook Page.
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Our man down Under - Down the Middle - by Gerry Coleman
Gerry Coleman has run-ins with the cops, which is bad enough, but also with his Ma, which is worse. Not to mention the locusts, a drunk driver, and a cinema where patrons are warned not to bring explosives with them
local computer for our records as a lot of people go missing on this highway. We like the Irish so enjoy the rest of your stay, and with that they were on their way. They had the right to put me in the back of a paddy wagon, take me to a holding cell and deport me out on the next flight. NT police are awesome and as they said, if your not doing any harm we won’t worry about you. “..so you’ve been in Australia for 11 months now and you have a 6 month holiday visa?” Hitchhiking to Alice Springs With a new spring in my step I continued hitchhiking and it wasn’t too long till a bloke pulled up in an old utility truck (Ute) who was driving to Queensland. In true Australian fashion this laid back dinky di Ozzie had a carton of beer on the front seat which he proceeded to open and partially consume. As this highway is straight for about 3,000km with only one major turnoff to the left at Three Ways roadhouse to Queensland and very little of interest along the way it wasn’t long before my companion driver got fatigued and this copilot took over. A plague of locusts As I was driving, out of nowhere a plague of locusts descended upon us as if we were targeted for
having the audacity to invade their territory (just like when the plague of Dubliners descend upon Rush beaches during the summer months).The normally redundant windscreen wipers got a good workout as did my heart. Here I am driving down the middle of Australia, a very unforgiving barren lonely place, first time driving in Australia, with a self - induced semi comatosed bloke sitting beside me, don’t know where I’m going, can’t see where I’m going with dead locust carcasses all over the windscreen and the only thing that entered my head was “if Ma could only see now”! Well when she did say goodbye at the front gate she also said “enjoy yourself and have lots of adventure”! Meanwhile back in the adventure machine my companion had awoken from his deep sleep and wondered what had happened to
H aving arrived back in Darwin from my camp cook experience out bush it was nice to shack up for a while at the local hostel and mix with fellow travellers of both sexes and share tales. I was having such a good time in the ‘top end’ that I unfortunately neglected to contact me Ma for three months and when I eventually did she told me that she was extremely worried and thought I might have been taken by a crocodile or murdered in the outback. Oops! Even at 97 she still reminds me of those worrying times. Anyway the time had come to explore some more of this vast spacious continent and head straight down the middle to South Australia. Quizzed by the cops Somebody from the hostel gave me a lift to the outskirts of Darwin. As I was standing there Hitching on the side of the highway a police car pulled up and two cops got out. One quizzed me, “where are you heading, how long have you been in Australia and how are you enjoying it, oh and have you got some ID”. I have a passport somewhere here in the bottom of my rucksack. That’s ok take your time. I handed him my passport with nervous apprehension and as he flicked through the pages my heart sank as he said. “So you’ve been in Australia for eleven months now and you have a six month holiday visa”? Err...yes. Don’t worry about it, your details will be put into our
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the windscreen. When we got to the infamous Three Ways Roadhouse we parted ways, he on to Queensland and me wherever the road might take me. On to Alice Springs After spending a night at Three Ways It was time to continue south to my next destination Alice Springs. A truck driver offered me a lift to Tennant Creek which I accepted and it turned out to be a huge mistake. I didn’t realise that Tennant Creek was only 26km down the road and nobody wanted to stop there as they had their respite at Three Ways and momentum on the long arduous trek south. I was stuck there for many hours on the side of the road with only a million flies to keep me company. The danger of being sucked under the wheels of the endless procession of road trains the endless procession of road trains was uppermost in my mind which take a distance of about one kilometre to stop, as some are over 50 metres long with 86 tyres carrying 200 tons! An Underground Town Eventually I got a lift and travelled the 500km’s to Alice Springs.
conditions with a lunar-like landscape. Mad Max the movie was filmed here! It been a mining town producing 70% of the worlds opals, most people have explosives and it’s really funny to see signs around the town such as the one on the wall as your entering the outdoor drive in cinema, “PATRONS, EXPLOSIVES are not to be brought into this
In Alice Springs I stayed at the local hostel and got a job as a concrete formworker on a building site with an Irish partnership, one from Mayo and believe it or not the other partner was from Skerries married to a Rush girl! Whilst there I took a trip to Ayers Rock-Uluru which I climbed and after a couple of months continued south into South Australia where I stopped at a place called Coober Pedy, an underground town in the outback desert which is known as the opal capital of the world.
theatre”. We could have done with a few of these signs in Ireland in the 70’s. After a short stay in this subterranean unusual place I took a bus to Perth Western Australia, a distance of 3,000km. Travelled south to Port Augusta SA took a right turn, headed across the Nullarbor desert and had a rest stop at Kalgoorlie. This stop was supposed to be about 4 hours but I went to the pub and got very comfortable and subsequently missed my bus. No problem, went back to pub, had a great night, slept in a lovely cardboard box that night and caught the next bus travelling through 24 hours later and on to Perth. Editor’s note: My mental image of Ayers Rock is a desolate mound in the middle of the desert. Gerry’s picture makes it look more like Croach Patrick on a busy day.
Strange sign in cinema The reason people choose to live underground is because of the extreme heat and windy dusty
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Fingal Gateway To Europe - by Kevin Thorp
This article originally featured in a “History of Town Twinning in Europe, 1987-1997”, edited by Kevin Thorp. It is reprinted here with Kevin’s original illustrations
FINGAL - GATEWAY TO EUROPE Far back in the mists of time when Fingal was thickly forested the first visitors arrived here from Europe. According to Celtic myth they were called the Parthalonians and came from eastern Mediterranean.
of a new wave of invaders in 795 AD.
by the monks in the monastery there.
The Vikings came from Norway and Denmark via the Isle of Man. These savage raiders who descended on the island of saints and scholars to plunder their monasteries regular as clockwork every springtime eventually got to like the place so much they decided to settle down here. The Norsemen settled to the north of the city of Dublin and the Danes established themselves in the city itself. Of all the peoples that have come here these were the one’s who have most indelibly stamped their mark on the area. Land of the Fair Strangers The Norsemen have done this by giving their name to Fingal which in Irish is Fionn-Gall or the land of the fair strangers, a reference to their long blond hair. The Danes who had brown hair gave their name to the Fingal town of Baldoyle, which in Irish is Baile- Dubh-Gall or the town of the dark strangers. Our place names Many Fingal place names give testimony to these Norsemen. Thus we have Howth (a nose), Holm (an island), Skerries (rocks), and Lambay (Lamb-eye or Lamb island) There are numerous names of Norse origin in Fingal. These include Seaver, Sweetman, Loughlin, form Lochlainn a Viking, and of course Doyle. The Round Tower in Lusk dates from the time of the Vikings and was used as a lookout post and place of refuge
After the Norsemen came the French-speaking Normans, led by Richard de Clare, better known by his other title, Strongbow, in 1170 AD. The Normans built castles at Balrothery, (Baile on Ridere, the town of the knights), and at Baldungan, a place whose Irish name is an amalgam of Irish and French (Baile Donjon, or the town of the fortress). These invaders, in turn brought their family names uch as Bissett, Martin, Beashel, St. Ledger, St. Laurence, Darcy and Lacey. Least number of Irish Speakers With so many newcomers crowding such a small area, the native Gaels tended to lose much of their identity under this onslaught and Fingal came to live up to its name as the Land of the Strangers. It became the most foreign of the Irish regions and the one with the least number of Irish speakers. For hundreds of years then, Fingal came to be the unofficial Ellis Island for immigrants to this isle, and has retained a toleration for newcomers and strangers that is probably unique in Ireland.
Recent discoveries in Sicily suggest that they originated in the region near the town of Sperlinga whose name has Celtic roots. These people were wiped out by a mysterious plague and many are interred in a mass grave at Tallaght to the west of Fingal. They were followed in turn by the Fir Bolgs and the De Danaans, the people of Dana who were responsible for the prehistoric cist graves and passage tombs such as the one at Four Knocks near the Naul in north-west Fingal. Red Haired Celts Around five hundred years before Christ the Goidelic Celts arrived in Fingal, bringing with them flaming red hair, their language, Erse, which with some modifications is still in use today, and iron weapons. Just like today when those with the most powerful weapons call the shots, the Celts displaced the indigenous inhabitants whose bronze swords and axes were no match for the razor-sharp blades wielded by the Celts. Irish remained the spoken language of Fingal until the arrival
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Grow it Yourself - “People Like Bunches of Roses”
No, we are not getting an early speak in for Valentine’s Day. The title is a handy way to remember the sequence for rotating crops; potatoes, legumes, brassicas, onions and roots. Crop rotation is important for the soil “health” of your vegetable garden. The idea is not to grow a crop in the same place year after year to prevent disease and nutrition problems in the garden. You’ll need to split your crops into 5 crop families, and they are:
disease. Disease organisms can build up over time, resulting in eventual crop failure. Rotating crops keeps these organisms in check. Crop rotation also helps reduce insect infestations. Different families of plants require different nutrients. By rotating Also; amendments to keep your garden balanced. Some plants enhance the soil, so rotating them through the garden can produce free organic soil conditioning. The potato family are the biggest feeders. In the autumn months (once the root crops have been cleared), apply well-rotted manure or compost or grow a your crops, you keep the soil from being depleted and can target soil
nitrogen themselves so do not require extra manure. They will benefit from leaf mould mulch once they’ve been planted out however (to improve soil structure). Leafy veg (brassicas & salads) like to follow peas & beans. Dig in green manures or add compost (or well-rotted manure) in the spring prior to planting. Mulch with leaf mould in the autumn. Apply compost in the spring where onion family plants will grow. Root crops don’t need much feeding, as they’ll use up everything that’s left over from previous crops. If you only have one small bed, don’t worry. Just divide it and plant your families in the different squares or rectangles.
Potato: Potato, Tomato, Pepper, Aubergine.
Legumes: Peas, Broad Beans, French Beans, Runner Beans.
Brassicas: Brussels sprouts, Cabbage,
Cauliflower, Calabrese, Broccoli, Kale, Kohlrabi, Oriental Greens, Radish, Swede and turnips.
green manure. In spring, dig in the green manure leaving a few weeks between manuring and sowing if you can. After harvesting the potatoes, plant anything from the legume family.
Onions: Onions, Garlic, Shallots, Leeks.
Roots: Beetroot, Carrot, Celeriac, Celery, Florence Fennel, Parsley, Parsnip and all other root crops except turnips and swede which are in the brassica section.
The main reason to rotate crops is to prevent the spread of plant
The Legumes fix
Adapted from https://www.quickcrop.ie/blog/2012/01/crop-rotation/ & https://greensideup.ie › media › Crop-Rotation
About Rush GIY We are a local community group and part of the GIY Ireland network. Our vision is for a healthier, more sustainable, and more connected world where people grow their own food. We were founded in 2012 under the ROOTS umbrella (Rush & Lusk Open Organisation for Transition Status), which promotes community resilience in a future with declining fossil fuel resources. our email list or get more information by contacting: rushgiy@gmail.com or https://www.facebook.com/RushGIY/
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Water Water Everywhere - But mainly on South Shore Road
An estimated 700,000 litres of water spewed onto the South Shore Road on September 10th, when a 3 metre length of old mains pipe burst sometime around 6 am. Residents were without water from 10am until after 6pm, as a team from Fingal County Council worked valiantly to repair the damage. The water lost during this time was about as much as five families of four would use in an entire year.
Up to 761,000,000 litres of water is lost through leaks every single DAY in Ireland, which is equivalent to over 300 Olympic swimming pools. Of course we all need to conserve water, but to put this in perspective, the amount of water lost to leaks in just one day would be more than what would be needed to wash every car in Ireland, using a garden hose, and then for everyone in Ireland to have a shower and no less than 1,000 cups of tea afterwards.
Wondering how we came up with some of the numbers in this report ? We promise we didn’t just make them up. Check out https://www.thejournal.ie/average-water-use-ireland-facts-3339951-May2017/
Around Rush - Valerie Malone
S ECONDARY SCHOOL ENROLMENT St. Joseph’s Secondary School, Rush, shows an intake of 124 first year students for the school year. Unfortunately, due to lack of space a further 104 applicants had to go on a waiting list for entrance to the school. St. Joseph’s are liaising with the Department of Education and Skills and subject to funding, hope to install temporary accommodation for the overspill. GLEE CLUB Former Junior Beo Show winner Lisa Fox who among other thing salso starred in Tony Award Winning show Once is now teaching right
3.30-5pm each Wednesday afternoon.
Safe Hands staged to delight and entertain. November 12th promises Papi Chulo while Baloon will be staged on November twenty sixth. December sixth is coming near Christmas when Cold Sweat a.k.a. Permission will grace the stage of our own wonderful theatre. Such fine theatre will surely make cold nights more enjoyable. Editor says: Thanks for these updates Valerie. Any club, organization, association, or group is welcome to submit news items for inclusion. Notices of forthcoming events are FREE to all local groups. Rush Community News reaches around 500 readers online in Ireland and many more overseas every month, as well as all the copies sold in the Community Centre and Tesco by our marketing team. Why not use it to spread your message ? Call into the Community
RUSH COMM. COUNCIL CLASSES Classes/groups in Ballet, Bridge, Counselling, I.C.A., Jo Jingles, 10 Art Ideas, Tai Chi, Parent and Toddlers, Rush Ladies Club, Scoil Rince, Irish Dancing, Senior Citizens all take place in Rush Community Centre each week. RUSH LIBRARY Rush Quilting Club meet on Tuesday mornings from 10.30-00 to enjoy the art of quilt making together. A similar group whose shared interest
is a good Scrabble meet each Tuesday evening at 6.30 p.m.
here in Rush. Lisa with over fourteen years- experience is running a Glee Club, whose
MILLBANK THEATRE The coming season looks very promising to those interested in theatre. On 15th October a play called Woman at War billed as ‘funny and warm’ will be staged. October twenty ninth will see In
members will perform The Wizard of Oz at the end of the year. Anyone interested is urged to contact Lisa on 087 7619605 or email info@lisafox.ie Rehearsals take place in Rush Community Centre
Centre or email me at editor@rushcoco.ie
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Rush produces more World Champions
Last month, Rush man Eoin Morgan captained England to victory in the Cricket World Cup. Now it’s the turn of two young musicians to reach the “top of the World” in their own competitions. Cillian and Aoife Bissett both started off playing with St. Maurs where Aoife was tutored by Francis Lowndes and Paul Carrick and Cillian by Pipe Major Noel Harford which was top class.
St. Maurs were not competing for a season due to time pressure, so Aoife tried out for Grade 1 band St. Laurence O'Tooles and was accepted, while Cillian went to St Josephs pipe band in Clondalkin. The time commitment for G1 is huge, with two weekly practices, and 40 minutes a day practicing at home. They play in 5 Majors each year with 4 of these in Scotland. Both bands have been successful in 2019 with SLOT winning All- Ireland, UK and British championships and last Saturday crowned world drumming champions for second year in a row and 3rd in Grade 1. St. Josephs had a long winter of practice and this year won East of Ireland, Leinster and Scottish championships, their 1st major title. Last month they capped it all by being crowned World champions for G3. Cillian and Aoife both feel they are very lucky to be playing with such a dedicated bands but are
also very grateful to St. Maurs for the help and encouragement they got there. Both have a small break now but Cillian will be playing in Croke park in September at a charity event and then on 21st of September plays in Liberty hall at a Fred Morrison concert being hosted by his band while Aoife has All-Ireland solos left in September and world solos in November.
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REAL PEOPLE—Characters of Dublin in pictures and verse
The Diceman
Johnny Fortycoats
Dancing Mary
Dublin Characters Now Gone, by Ken Duffy
Thomas Dudley, known as Bang Bang From CIE buses, he used to hang Four inch key, did he use for a gun A John Wayne wannabe, just having fun Dancing Mary, on O’Connell Street A lady very nimble on her feet The word of God, is what she sold Come sunshine, rain or bitter cold Patrick Marlow, Forty Coats to you Had a labyrinth of pockets, quite a few His pockets held, comic books and toys Give us a decko, shouted girls and boys The Hairy Lemon, a dog catcher he His characteristics, named him you see Sallow skin, with bald head and beard He had a face, most children feared The man on the bridge, camera in hand Arthur Fields, made couples stand From Kiev he came to the Emerald Isle To capture the Irish, with a happy smile Thom McGinty, by the Diceman known Had an expressionless face, like a stone On Grafton Street, he was mostly seen Miming his way from Stephens Green Dublin characters, that’s not the whole The Bird Flanagan, and Billy the Bowl The Toucher Doyle, and Tom the Moon No longer with us, all taken too soon.
Bang Bang
The Bird Flanagan
The guy with the pointy ears and the pint is “Toucher Doyle”, who got the name from scrounging pints in pubs around Dublin. It is said that this painting of him by Harry Kernhof in O’Brien’s Pub in Upper Leeson St. was the inspiration for Star Trek’s Mr. Spock
Next Month - Full feature on Arthur Fields, The Man on The Bridge, with new poem by Ray Phoenix
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Science - Water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink - Liam Gavin
Earth is a very watery planet. About 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, and the oceans hold about 96.5 % of all water. The bottom 1,000 metres of the Earth’s atmosphere alone contains about 1,000,000,000,000,000 litres of water and in total, there is around 1,260,000,000,000,000,000,000 litres of water on the planet. Life on Earth could not have happened were it not for the fact that a few lucky co-incidences meant that we had all this water around us. First, we were not too close to the Sun, which would have caused all the water to evaporate. Second, gravity was strong enough to keep it from floating off into space, and third, shortly after the Earth was formed, we were bombarded by lots of tiny watery planets, comets, and what was basically lumpy rain from space, and it all settled on the surface, and made our oceans, rivers, lakes and us.
And yet, with all this water around, we still manage to run out of the stuff whenever we get a few weeks of dry weather. This, of course, is because our water is
not evenly distributed around the planet. Some places get more than their fair share.
Mawsynram, in India, wins the prize for the wettest place in the world, with annual rainfall of nearly 12,000 mm, while in parts of Chile’s Atacama desert, rainfall has never been recorded at all. For decades, we have been trying to figure out a way of releasing the water vapour trapped in the air, and making it rain in areas that are suffering from long- term water shortages. From ritualised rain dances, at one end of the scale, to cloud seeding by airplanes at the other, none of the methods have had widespread success.
The Whisson Windmill But in 2007, a retired medical doctor turned inventor called Max Whisson, claimed to have invented a type of wind turbine that powers a refrigeration unit, to extract the water from the air in much the same was as a cold can straight out of the fridge ends up covered in
condensation. He claimed that a small rooftop mounted device could produce 7,000 litres a day, even in a light breeze. All he needed was funding. Ah, there’s the problem. Unfortunately his idea proved too good to be true. There is a very comprehensive review of the maths showing how he miscalculated the results at: https://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=7930 it is more likely that the rooftop water generator would produce 7 litres a day rather than 7,000. Even so, that could be significant in parts of the world that get a lot less rain than Ireland. But Max Whissom never got to see his product hit the market, as he died earlier aged 93 this year in Autralia, with his Whisson Windmill so forgotten that it doesn’t even merit a mention on Wikipedia. Whisson is actually better remembered for his first invention, a single use hypodermic needle used in the treatment of aids. Calculations out by a factor of 1,000 But the bottom line is that although the theory is fine,
About 60% of the human body is water, and a newborn baby is actually 80% water.
Water recycles for billions of years Water is a combination of Hydrogen, which is the most commonly found element in the universe, and oxygen. All, or at the very least, a very large percentage of our water came from space, and the water that comes out of your tap is actually older than the Earth itself. All of the water that falls as rain has gone through a multi-billion year sequence of spending some time in the ocean, evaporating and forming clouds, falling as rain on the sea or on land, where some soaks into the ground, and some ends up in plants, or in rivers, where it might just flow back to the sea, or it could find it’s way into your kettle. It is statistically likely that some of the water you drink today was once drunk by Jesus, or Caesar, or one of the great Greek philosophers.
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