Search Results for 'Jerusalem'

On a warm Saturday evening in a little town of Arzúa, about 40kms from Santiago de Compostella, a group of Galway pilgrims watched the local brass band competition. Led by their conductors three bands marched up the street, playing marching tunes.

Prosperous Dramatic Society will have the honour of opening the 60th RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival when the curtain rises at the Dean Crowe Theatre, Athlone on Thursday May 3. With their production of Deadline by Robert Massey, the group hopes to follow on from their success at the event last year where they finished as runners-up.

Part four

It is not just Richard Dawkins, though he is a typical, contemporary, example. And it does seem as if science, dazzled, in many cases justifiably, by its own success in extending the boundaries of what we know about the physical world is uniquely liable to this particularly modern form of arrogance.

Christmas can be a hectic time for those on kitchen duties. Between all the prepping and cooking of Christmas dinner, the baking of cakes and mince pies, and party food that has to be whipped up at a moment’s notice, it can make us not want to enter a kitchen for a very long time!

Galway prides itself on being a medieval city. Thanks to some good development during the past 30 years or so, much of our ancient city landscape has been highlighted. Yet compared to Kilkenny, we are only at the tuppence-halfpenny stakes when it comes to physical history. But one new building in particular has done more than anything else to highlight the beginning of commercial Galway, and the growth of the town. I am referring to that deceptively simple projection of a 13th century Norman hall into the public domain at Druid Lane, off Quay Street. Designed by Michael Cadden at the Office of Public Works, using clean-lined modern architecture, the archaeological site is left as it was unearthed, and is presented behind a large glass wall. Uniquely the public is offered total immersion. Not only can we view the site, but there is provision for a public walkway over the site. But more of that in a moment.

The Order of Malta was founded in the 12th century in Jerusalem to care for Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land and along pilgrimage routes through Christian Europe. Subsequently they were known as the Knights Hospitallers and when they came to Ireland they maintained hospitals for the sick, the poor, and the needy, and hostels for the use of travellers. The order is involved in many charitable activities, the most important being the administration of the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps.

THE LAMENTATIONS Of Jeremiah, recording the destruction of Jerusalem, form some of the most emotional passages in the Bible, and inspired one of classical music’s great sacred works.

It’s very hard to describe a true Irishman, without acknowledging that we all share a complicated inheritance. At no time was that complication more powerfully amplified than in the crisis of identity leading up to and during War World I. On the one side is the unionist image of Irish Protestants loyally, and exclusively, rallying to the Union Jack, and sealing that union with their blood; while on the other side, the Catholic and nationalist men and women, the people of the 1916 Rising, who represent the ‘true’ Ireland, in sharp contrast to the misguided Irishmen slaughtered in France on the altar of British imperialism.

It has been a strange gardening year so far. In my garden at least, plants are beginning to flower that have already flowered earlier this year while some spring shrubs are only coming into flower now. I’m not complaining, though, as flowers at any time are welcome. Another thing that is very noticeable this year is the beautiful scents in my garden. Such a variety of perfumes from lilies, buddleias, etc. They really brighten my days.