Kitty’s Cabin in Kilkenny has Reese’s and Hershey bars. It has Willy Wonka chocolate bars. It has packets of  Love Hearts. And it has jars and jars and jars of sweets; so many it is hard to choose. It is a shop where you can still order sweets by the quarter and the man will know what you mean and will pour 110 grams of sweets into the scoop on the scales before tipping them into a red and white striped paper bag and twisting it closed.

There can only …

City life is quickly forgotten – things like public transport in the late evening.

Standing at the Jervis Luas stop at 11 pm, waiting for a tram that takes an eternity to arrive, it seems that a strange amalgam of humanity has gathered for no apparent reason. What reasons have brought them here at such an hour?

A young professional woman stands deep in earnest telephone conversation? Were the evening hours spent in the office? Or maybe there were drinks or a meal with friends? She turns her back and …

The morning paper carried news of the disappearance of a man fishing at the next cove; the story explained the activity of the local lifeboat and the police helicopter, which had made repeated passes along the coast. The sad and pointless lost brought memories of an August afternoon four years ago

After a wet and misty morning, the cloud had finally broken and bright Basque sunshine had lit the coast. This was what brought people there, the vast sweeping white beaches that ran on forever. The whole of the country …

If the undertaker phoned the funeral notice into the newspaper by 10 am, it would appear in that evening’s edition. One evening in the newspaper would be considered sufficient notice for the funeral, which might then take place the following day. A person dying at 2 am on Monday, might respectably be buried at 2 pm on Tuesday.

To think it arose only from a desire to make the funeral arrangements would be unduly cynical, there were many people who seemed genuinely to value the presence of a priest at …

There are still two jars of blackcurrant jam and a jar of coarse marmalade. The round of church fêtes and sales brings with it an accumulation of countless buns, cakes and preserves. It would not be proper to pass by a stall of home made produce, (one sale before Christmas required a walk to the cash till in order to replenish the funds and make sure no-one’s efforts were overlooked).

The blackcurrant jam is as near perfection as blackcurrant jam might be, the fruit fresh and flavoursome. Its scent and …

A German friend, now in his 70s, remembers his country in the aftermath of the Second World War:

‘My father was away in the army somewhere.  Perhaps in France? We did not know.  My mother was trying to run the hotel.

Our village had been granted a charter as a town in medieval times, but was really no more than a village.

One day a tide of people came through the streets: thousands and thousands of them from East Prussia and other places.  A huge wave of refugees, walking, tired

…

A funeral at Newlands Cross this morning and a hospital visit at The Coombe this afternoon, there was a temptation to walk on into the centre of Dublin, to sit in Saint Stephen’s Green in the bright sunshine of a May afternoon. To have done so would have meant an encounter with the Countess, for no walk through the Green, for me,  is complete without paying respects to her and to Tom Kettle. It would have meant acknowledging that the Countess was right in her assessment of the church to …

Twenty monologues on the life of Jesus.

The Shepherds        The Magi      Mary      Herod       Simeon

Anna      John the Baptist       Andrew       The Woman at the Well       Matthew

Martha       Lazarus        Judas        Pilate        Peter

Claudia Procula       The Centurion       Joseph of Arimathea…

Our midweek services in Borris-in-Ossory resume on Wednesday, 20th June. Between June and mid-September, we are going to have a thirteen week look at the Bible, going through it section by section. The plan we hope to follow is:

20th June – Introduction

27th June – The Law (Genesis to Deuteronomy)

4th July – History (Joshua to Esther)

11th July – Wisdom (Job to Song of Solomon)

18th July – Major Prophets (Isaiah to Daniel)

25th July Minor Prophets 1 (Hosea to Micah)

1st August – Minor Prophets 2 (Nahum …

‘Hits you always will remember – the golden hour’ – the radio jingle had a 1970s feel. Most of the 1980s hits played had long disappeared from my memory, and the songs that I remembered seemed to be ignored.

In 1980 I had a voluntary job that came with board and lodge and £10 a week pocket money.

My housemates were preparing to be monks; there was no television in the gate lodge in which we lived; no radio, and only an elderly portable record player on which to play the …