Happy New Year

Rossbeigh Beach 20-11-2014
Rossbeigh Beach 20-11-2014

Here’s wishing the friends and supporters of The Maine Valley Post a year of Good Fortune, Good Health, Goodwill and Happiness for 2015.

As an appropriate New Year’s wish to accompany the chosen photograph my first reaction was: ‘May the tides of life lap gently around your rocks’  but, on reflection, I thought to myself: “No! you can’t go saying things like that out loud on New Year’s Eve.”

So: Considering that we’ve lost so many people from our community in the course of 2014 – and please do take a moment to remember those you knew – I’ll settle for the more traditional:  Go mbeirmíd beó ar an am seo arís – which translates roughly into: That we may be alive at this time again.

There are those separated from us and not by choice but by choices made by those whom we elect to lead us. I got a great letter from a young man who arrived back in Castleisland from Australia for Christmas. The joy he expresses in the simple things of life here is eye-opening. He’s been in Sydney for five years and this has been his first Christmas at home in three long years.

I’ll be including it here tomorrow. In the meantime, have a great New Year’s Night.