Heritage Notes - 17 September 2010

Just by way of a reminder that the United Nations exhibition continues at the library for a few weeks more, this week we include another picture from the display. One of the important activities beside military duties which Irish troops engaged in during the Congo crisis in the 1960s was that of protecting the youth from the conflict. Organising boy scout brigades and marching bands were some of the additional duties which Sergeant Tom Hackett from Mill Street, Cappoquin took on, with Tom pictured here at the rear among some of his young recruits in 1963. Photograph courtesy of Mrs Maureen Hackett.

Portlaw Fair in the Square

The Portlaw Heritage Centre and friends are delighted to announce that the annual 'Fair in the Square will once again take place this year on Sunday, September 12th from 2-5pm (weather permitting). It promises to be a fun filled day with live music and many fun filled activities and stalls ongoing throughout the day. This year, the sideshows will include crazy golf, golf putting, bouncy castle, fancy dress, dog show, face painting and many more. The organising committee invite thouse interested in setting up a stall to come forward at a minimal cost of just €10 for the day. Proceeds raised on the day will be donated to The Martin Hospital, a very worthwhile cause, so your support would be very much appreciated. Go along, there will be plenty of craic.

This is an event that is run each under the auspices of the Portlaw Heritage Centre and proceeds go to different local charities each year. The Centre will be open to visitors as well.

Heritage Notes - 10 September 2010

This week’s picture

This week’s picture comes from Teresa and Gerry Moore of Shanbally. It shows a group scene outside Collender’s public house in Main Street, now Danny and Nora’s Central Bar. Mr Collender, who was a local school teacher in the early 20^th century, and family are pictured in their finery here, and any further information as to the date or the names of the people would be much appreciated. When you zoom into the electronic version of this image, it is clear that the notice board between the two boys and the rest of the group contains some photographs or postcards, including ones of Dromana Bridge and Main Street, Cappoquin, while the larger posters inside the window are advertisements for Clarke’s perfect plug tobacco and snuff.

Heritage Exhibition at Library

By special permission form the County Library Service, the ‘Cappoquin and the United Nations’ exhibition at the library will continue upstairs for a few weeks more. It has been great to see the interest the exhibition has aroused and indeed the amount of new photographs and information which continues to arrive. We have now found thirty five local people who have served in UN peacekeeping work abroad, and there may well be more. The exhibition is open during library opening hours on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and all day Saturday until further notice.

Heritage in your face(book)

While practically all the information there is to know about Civic Link can be found on our website at www.cappoquin.net , just a reminder too that you can find the Heritage Group and other items also on facebook, where our ‘friends’ total has now gone over 200 and also updates on our blog.

Heritage Notes - 13 August 2010

Cappoquin and the United Nations

The material has literally poured in over the past week for our exhibition on Cappoquin and the United Nations. We now have over 250 photographs and lots of other pieces of interest relating to the involvement of local people in serving the United Nations over fifty years. The exhibition will run throughout Heritage Week at Cappoquin Library and will, we hope, help to show local people what wonderful work has been done by local people on behalf of the United Nations, and of peace, in far flung corners of the Congo, Chad, Lebanon, East Timor and more. We will give full details of opening times etc next week but the event will certainly run from August 21st to 28th during Heritage Week, and possibly longer. A huge thanks to Mary and to Waterford County Library for their help with this, our first formal contribution to Heritage Week.

Raft Race Countdown

The posters are up and all the organisational arrangements are well in hand. We hear the occasional sound of nails going into timber coming from the back gardens of Cappoquin but the raft building preparations are always a pretty secretive affair. This week, thanks to the camera work of Phyl Cuddihy, we enclose a reminder of the crazy excitement of the finishing stages of the last Cappoquin Raft Race in 2008. It should be a great day out this year too, with the added bonus of the additional pallet races and, of course the usual barbecue event at the Boathouse. Best of luck to all involved, for Saturday August 21st with first paddles in the water at the Rock around 2.30pm.

Heritage Notes - 6 August 2010

Picture time

Out photographs over the past couple of weeks have generated quite a deal of interest, and we can promise more to come. The late Breda Keating from Green Street has been picked out by several people in the Vocational School picture from the 1930s. Last week’s picture of the building team at Mt Melleray has also produced some local interest. The father of Margaret O’Connor (nee McCarthy) of Dungarvan Road was four from the left in the second last row. Johnny Keating of Lismore was second from the left in the same row, and his brother Thomas was three from the right in the second row from the front. Many thanks to Margaret and to Billy Hogan of Lismore, for the information here.

This week’s picture is a real classic, coming from the collection of Congo memorabilia of Jim Fives, who served there with the Irish United Nations peacekeeping force in 1960. Shortly after the first Irish troops were sent to the Congo, a hurley maker in Kilrush, Co. Clare supplied 250 hurleys for the soldiers’ recreational use, and a thirteen-a-side competition was organised. No easy task finding a level playing field in the Congo, not to mention finding a quiet day in a war zone to have a game in the early 1960s. Jim Fives was not only a veteran of many a Tourin triumph but also hurled at inter-county level for Galway. He is pictured here third from the right at the rear, lining out for C company of the 32nd Batallion.

United Nations exhibition

Our Heritage Group are working away gathering memorabilia and pictures to commemorate the fifty years of involvement by local people in the United Nations work around the world. Jim Fives’ wonderful photographs and uniform items will be joined by some fascinating personal accounts from Maire Mac an tSaoi and others on the Congo, while we are working hard to gather material from the Lebanon, Chad and so on too. Time is running out and, as yet, it is impossible to say how much material we will gather. Anyone with pictures, newspaper cuttings or any other items which you would like to contribute for the exhibition, it would be much appreciated if you could drop them in to Cara McGrath, Angela Collender, Kevin McCarthy or any other member of the Heritage Group as soon as possible. Full details about exhibition dates and times will be given in the coming weeks.

Blackwater Crossing update

Just a further note from the Heritage Group that anyone interested in seeing all the action shots taken by well known sports photographer Danny McGrath on the night of the Blackwater Crossing long puck contest in June should check out Danny’s site on http://www.editorialimages.com/ . All details regarding how to buy a copy of yourself in full flight, or making an idiot of yourself as some of us managed, can be found on the site. At this stage, we hope most of the 49 participants have received their certificates and, if not, the rest will be going to the contestants this week.

Raft Race

Tony and company are hard at work on the plans for the raft race. All systems are go for Saturday, August 21st, with a start time around 2.30 PM. In addition to the raft race itself, for originally designed craft, this year’s event will see a barbecue at the Boathouse and will also feature some pallet races, where people who did not manage to get rafts built for themselves will have a chance to take part in races across the Blackwater at the Boathouse. This should add a whole new dimension to the day and remember, it’s all in the cause of celebrating our wonderful river and raising a few euro to help in the ongoing work at the Rock, which has become one of the most important and well-kept recreational sites we have thanks to the dedicated work of the group there.

Heritage Notes - 30 July 2010

Rebuilding Melleray

Our picture this week comes courtesy of Marguerite Fraher and shows a unique group of men, none of them locals as far as we know. This was the group of forty seven workmen who completed the reconstruction of the main church at Mt. Melleray during the 1930s and, as you can see, they worked for a company known as Maguire and Short, of Dublin and Cork. It’s pretty unlikely that any of them is known in the locality today but this reproduction may be one way to find out…

The Cappoquin Collection

With sales of our new postcard collection having gone well over the 400 mark in recent weeks, we are now pleased to announce that the project is now in profit. The response to the collection has been tremendous and we hope it has added to the enjoyment of the area for any tourists or returning visitors. Available in the Credit Union, Post Office and Veales Market House.

United Nations project

We are continuing to search for photographs and other memorabilia from any local people who have served the United Nations over the past fifty years. To date, we have made contact with the families of three late Congo veterans, and with Jim Fives of Tourin, a Congo survivor now living in Galway. We have also sent out feelers for any information on the careers of administrators with local connections like Frank Crowe and Maire Mac An tSaoi, and have made contact with the army in an effort to track down as many locals as possible who may have served in peacekeeping forces in Cyprus, the Lebanon, Chad and so on. Once again, if anyone has memorabilia which you would like to lend us for a small exhibition in late August, drop in to Cara at the Credit Union or any other member of the Heritage Group would be glad to hear from you too.

Raft Building

Finally, a reminder that the raft race is now just three and a half weeks away and there is no time like the present to get started on some boat building. The two-year gap since the last event certainly seems to have whetted people’s appetites for the event this year, so don’t leave it too late to make a start.

Heritage Notes - 16 July 2010

United Nations Exhibit Plan

With the various Carnival events now put to bed, we are turning our heritage focus for the next six weeks or so to trying to gather as much material as possible about the involvement of local people in the United Nations. It is fifty years ago this month since the first UN peace keeping mission to involve Irish troops began, in the Congo. It may seem strange, but in the summer of 1960, the names of Patrice Lumumba and Moise Tshombe were almost household names in Cappoquin! These were the leading figures in the growing civil war in the Congo, where men like Jim Fives, John Murphy, Mossie O’Connor and Tom Hackett served with distinction. Cappoquin’s Frank Crowe, and one or two others, served the United Nations in a number of high-level administrative posts around the same time.

Since the 1960s, many local troops have seen service with the UN in Lebanon, Bosnia, Chad and elsewhere and some of them even still find the energy for a bit of hurling or soccer locally. We feel it is only fitting that we try to commemorate some of the people at least who have worked so hard over fifty years in the cause of international peace. Our research to date with the army archives suggests it will be difficult to trace every local who has been involved but we will see what we can do. If anyone has information, photographs or any memorabilia from our local links with the UN, please let any Heritage Group member know as soon as possible. We hope to mount an exhibition in late August, if we get enough material, and perhaps to create something a little more permanent after that.

This week’s photo

An interesting picture this week, kindly donated by Tom and Olivia Murray of Kilbree. It shows a group of teachers and students at Cappoquin Vocational School, all seated in the gender-based fashion of the time. It dates, apparently, from around 1938 and includes some fascinating educational items from the time. Note the hand-crafted firescreen at the front, and the rack of rolling pins at the back corner. Is that a gramophone player at the far right? Woodwork teacher Mr Halpin is standing near the centre of this picture but if anyone can give us additional detail about the people in the picture it would be great.

Just when you thought it was safe…

It back! After a two-year break, the great Blackwater Raft Race is once again going to make a splash in Cappoquin. Tony and co (the ‘Rock’ group) are holding this year’s extravaganza on Saturday, August 21st, so put that date in your diary. All proceeds will go to support the great work being done at the Rock and no doubt a great day will be had. The event will be covered under Civic Link insurance as before and we have high hopes for making good use of some of the more ‘fashionable’ rafts for another event in the future, but more of that anon. For now, it’s all hands to the wheel, tiller or whatever takes your fancy for August 21st.