Paddy Cantwell

My name is Paddy Cantwell and I have been living all of my 87 years here in Aughadonagh, Rahan next to the Blue Drain and the ‘Three Rivers’, where the Clodagh and the Silver Rivers meet. I would like to explain how the excess water from Aughadonagh and Tully got into the river before the

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Paddy Joe Goes Fishing

Today, Paddy Joe is a very happy man. He is going on his spring holidays. Every year, at the end of April, he sets up his fishing camp on the shores of Lough Corrib, one of the most magical places in the West of Ireland. It is a huge lake., home to more than five

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Petticoat’s Loss

Sitting on the water’s edge, skimming stones, she couldn’t help but feel a strange presence surrounding her. She watched the stones skip along the surface bouncing into the unknown. An air of melancholy surrounded her and echoed the mood she harboured within. Lucy often heard told of the story of Mary Hannigan, banished to these

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Pookas Revenge

Near to where I grew up in Blessington there was a dark pool of water that fascinated and terrified all of us children. In winter, the pool was from a sullen overflow that turned hypnotically in its dark bowl; on a windy summer’s day it was a dirty palm that rattled loose stones like knucklebones

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Reflections By A Stream

A warm sunny day called me outside…. being 8 months pregnant, I decided to go for a short stroll….. I heard it before I saw it…. a happy babbling stream seemed to be asking me to stop beside it and to keep it company….. Little leaves floated down on the surface of its fast moving

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Respite

The stress had built up in me to the point where I felt I was going to explode. I could no longer cope. Grief, sorrow, anger, self-pity all swirled around my confused, tired brain. Mum was so ill, I knew she was dying, it could be days, it could be weeks, it might even be

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My First Salmon

The Duff River in County Sligo was one of my favourite places to spend many leisurely hours. Its blackened water results in great measure from the prevalence of this boggy land. My father and our neighbour Tom Gallagher would come here often to fly fish for trout, or if lucky perhaps a salmon. Tom always

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My Friend The Shannon

The River Shannon has been described as majestic and mighty, which it is, but to me it is an old friend. I find the water healing and consoling. I talk to it every day and I tell it things I wouldn’t tell another soul. I love to watch, as birds swoop and call to each

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My Grandfather’s Story When He Was A Boy

Grandfather arrived in Tullamore when he was three years old in 1931. He lived in a house in a place called Kevin’s Street known locally as Lumpur Lane. In 1932 he remembers the Eucharistic congress and all the flags and bunting out all around the town. He also remembers going to meet the funeral of

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My Watery Westmeath Childhood

When I think back on my childhood, I quickly realise that so many of the stand- out moments for me revolved around water. Growing up in Athlone the Shannon was always a massive presence. Crossing the town bridge as a child meant negotiating the noisy, and quite frankly frightening, Bailey bridge which was in place

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Our River

We were inland children; we knew nothing of the tides or the ocean. The river running through our land is woven into our lives and we learn with our scrutiny, the depth of our experience outweighing the lack of width. We know our river is connected to an intricate pattern of lakes and bigger rivers

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Our Slice of The Liffey

I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.” ― John O’Donohue The Liffey runs by our town but not through it. Running east to west it intersects the Naas/Dublin road at its northern end. Curving leisurely through the strand, it meanders past the old watering gates,

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