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June 27th, 2021

Adamstown Parish Newsletter

Weekend of Sat 26th & Sun 27th June 2021  

Volume 22.    Number 24

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CHURCH ALTARS & DECORATION 2021/2022

The new Rota for looking after the Church Altars and decoration was drawn up following Mass on Sunday last; the new list is as follows:

July 2021 –         Ballyvergin/Glenour

August –             Coonogue

September –       Raheenduff

October –            Brocurra

November –        Doononey/Rathkyle

December –        Kellystown

2022

January –            Tomgarrow

February –           Misterin

March –               Oldcourt

April –                  Adamstown

May –                   Newtown/The Leap

June –                  Knockreigh

Many thanks to the ladies who look after the Church & Altars with such care and generosity. Your support is greatly appreciated.

RECENT DEATHS

The community of Adamstown was saddened to hear of the death of Mary Ring (née Delaney), Rocklane, Adamstown on Sunday 20th June. We offer our deepest sympathy to her husband Patrick, children Patrick, Christine, Margo, Mary, John, Stacia, Peter, Helen, Jane, Teresa, Collette, Thomas and Joseph. Her sisters Sr. Helen, Eileen, Bessie, Sr. Margo, Maurice and Bob and mother in law Anastasia Ring, extended family, neighbours and friends.  Mary was laid to rest in Adamstown Cemetery on Tuesday last following a private Requiem Mass. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a Hanam dilis.

The death occurred on Monday last of John McDonald, Templeshelin, Adamstown.

We extend our deepest sympathy to his wife Ellie, sons Alan and Shay, daughter Helena, extended family, neighbours, friends and his many relatives in our Parish. John’s funeral Mass was celebrated in the Church of St. John Paul 11, Raheen on Wednesday last with burial in the adjoining cemetery. May his gentle soul rest in peace.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK  (George Washington Carver)

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong.

Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.

WORDS OF WISDOM – Speak Up

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”  (Martin Luther King)

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TOBACCO IN COUNTY WEXFORD

Following great interest in our item about Tobacco growing in our recent Newsletter, the following tells us a bit more about the industry in Wexford.

(Nicky Rossitor – the Little Book of Wexford 2014)

More associated with the southern states of the USA, we are often surprised to hear of a tobacco growing industry on our doorstep. In 1828 upwards of 1,000 acres of tobacco was grown in Co. Wexford, mainly by small cottiers. Western Niaca, usually used as a pipe tobacco, was most popular because its heavy leaf gave good returns. Beds made of horse dung, clay and sand, with maybe a little sulphur or potash added, were used to germinate the seeds. The young tobacco plants were left in these ‘hot beds’ until they were ready to be planted out in the field. They were sheltered from the winds by Jerusalem artichokes. The plants usually grew to about 3ft in height. Six to eight weeks after topping, the tobacco was sufficiently ripe to harvest. Curing then took place in the tobacco shed. Up to twenty women worked in each shed, hanging leaves at different levels. In Broadway the leaves were dried by steam, but the steam was too expensive to maintain so leaves were then dried by coke fires. The Imperial Company bought the tobacco from the farmers, grading it into first, second and third class, and selling it accordingly. Unfortunately, its success was to cause problems. English trade with the tobacco-growing states of America was also being injured and legislation restrictions were imposed by an Act of Parliament in 1831. In 1907, an Act repealing all the statutes prohibiting the cultivation of tobacco in Ireland was passed and a year later a Tobacco Growing Society was formed in Co. Wexford.

Although profits were being made, there was still a duty on tobacco-growing. By 1931 a Mr. Devereux, recalled making

£240 an acre profit. In 1933 the Irish Government, in its effort to boost home industries, removed the duty on the growing of tobacco. Then the government realised that if the acreage under tobacco was extended it would reduce imports of tobacco from England and America – the government would lose an important source of revenue in taxing such imports. Their answer was to restrict cultivation to a less robust plant and to control the price of tobacco. Within a few years many farmers gave up cultivating tobacco. Now the industry is gone.

Note: a local man told me recently that he remembered as a young lad, seeing the crooks for drying the tobacco in the loft of the outhouses at his home farm in Adamstown, and he presumed that they are still there today.

PLEASE LET US DO THIS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

So now everyone knows how to wash hands,

Can we now teach them how to throw rubbish in a dustbin or bring it home?

CHURCH NOTICES

IN MEMORIAM

Sat 26th – Mary Thorpe, Newtown (A)

Sat July 3rd – Robert Barron, Coonogue (A)

May they rest in peace.

Feast Days this week:

Tues 29th – Ss Peter and Paul:

On the day traditionally considered in pagan Rome to be its foundation day by Romulus, we celebrate the twin founders of the Church in Rome. St. Peter died by crucifixion and St. Paul by beheading between 64 and 67.

Thurs 1st July – St. Oliver Plunkett – from Irish nobility whose family supported King Charles 1. Ordained in Rome in 1654 until appointed Archbishop of Armagh in 1669. He ministered in Armagh, though forced to work in a covert way during the suppression of priests. He was arrested and tried at Dundalk in 1679 for conspiring against the state. It was seen that Oliver would never be convicted in Ireland, and he was moved to Newgate prison, London. He was found guilty of high treason ‘for promoting the Catholic faith’, and was condemned to a gruesome death. He was hanged, drawn and quartered on 1st July 1681 at Tyburn, in London. He was the last Catholic to die for his faith at Tyburn, and the first of the Irish martyrs to be beatified in 1920. He was canonised by Pope Paul V1 on 12th October 1975. He is buried at Downside Abbey, England; his head is venerated in St. Peter’s Church, Drogheda.

THE WEXFORD MARTYRS

The Wexford martyrs, a baker Matthew Lambert and a group of sailors, Robert Meyler, Edward Cheevers and Patrick Cavanagh were hanged, drawn and quartered on 5th July 1581. Six Catholics of Irish birth or connection executed for the faith in England had already been beatified in 1929 and 1987: John Roche, John Carey, Patrick Salmon, John Cornelius O’Mahoney, Charles Meehan and Ralph Corby.

May they rest in peace.

ST. AIDAN’S CATHEDRAL ANNIVERSARY

Our Cathedral in which the first Mass was celebrated on June 29th 1846, the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul celebrates its 175th Anniversary on Tuesday June 29th.

It was designed by the distinguished architect Augustus Welby Pugin who also designed Westminster Palace, including the iconic Big Ben which is familiar to TV   venues around the world. The Cathedral is also a wonderful tribute to Bishop James Keating who devoted so much of his energy to the construction of St. Aidans and who died in 1849, and whose remains are interred in the Cathedral.

May he rest in peace.

The present Administrator of St. Aidan’s Cathedral is Adamstown native Fr. Odhran Furlong.

REMEMBER

One kind word or deed can turn someone’s life around.

What other investment costs so little and pays so much?

HANDSHAKES ARE MISSED TERRIBLY

(Fr. Bernard Cotter – Irish Catholic)

What will come back to church and parish life when the pandemic has eventually gone? How many aspects of life will return to what we were used to? I don’t often bet, but I would certainly bet that the Irish funeral will make a return; there is nothing we have missed more over the past 15 months. Some adaptations have meant a lot, like the written tributes now gathered in the ‘Condolences’ section of rip.ie, and the new tradition of guards of honour along our streets and lanes when the cortege passes. But handshakes and hugs are still missed terribly…

WEEKLY ENVELOPE COLLECTION 2021 – 2022

Envelopes will be distributed during the week for the coming year commencing on Sunday July 4th. We are very indebted to all who have contributed during the past year. You may have contributed regularly, annually occasionally,

Thank You.

Despite the lockdown, bills still need to be paid. If you are not in receipt of weekly envelope and you would like to contribute, please contact Fr. Robert on 087 2749029.

COUNT THAT DAY LOST – (George Eliot)

If you sit down at set of sun

And count the acts that you have done,

And, counting, find

One self-denying deed, one word

That eased the heart of him who heard,

One glance most kind

That fell like sunshine where it went –

Then you may count that day well spent.

But if, through all the livelong day,

You’ve cheered no heart, by yea or nay –

If, through it all

You’ve nothing done that you can trace

That brought the sunshine to one face –

No act most small

That helped some soul and nothing cost-

Then count that day as worse than lost.

(Beautiful Thoughts for Beautiful Minds – John Scally)

LEARNING TO LIVE WHAT ONE PREACHES

The opening speaker at a major conference got sick and had to withdraw at the very last second. A shy young priest was being coerced into replacing him. “But I wouldn’t know what to say!” he kept saying. “Just go up to the ambo and trust that the Lord will give you something” the main speaker, the bishop declared.

Finding himself pushed up into the ambo, the priest, said a quick prayer, then saw a fully written talk on the ledge of the ambo. Picking it up, he read it out. It was good and he got a tremendous ovation at the end. But on his way down from the ambo, he met a most agitated bishop. “You are after using my talk” he burst out. “What am I going to say now?

To which the priest replied, “Just go up to the ambo, Bishop, and trust that the Lord will give you something to say”

Which reminds us that one should always check whether one is able to practise the advice that one gives to others.   

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