Headford News & Community Spotlight - Goddess of the (Headford) Kitchen

SAVE THE DATE! Sunday September 14th 2014 is the Solas Family Resource Centre Annual Dance. It will be at the McWilliam Park Hotel in Claremorris and tickets are available now at Solas for only €10. Music will be by TR Dallas (from 5 ot 8 pm) and Showbud (from 9 to 11:30 pm). Everyone who is anyone will be there (maybe even Garth Brooks - it could happen), so get your tickets quick, before they're all gone!


COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT

Demeter

Remember Demeter? Oh, sure you do. She was the Greek goddess of the earth, agriculture, the harvest and fertility. Her daughter, Persephone got all the good press, but it was Demeter who was responsible for bountiful crops of grain, for keeping people fed and happy. Mostly known as a ‘mothering’ goddess, she was nurturing and care-giving. In short, she’s a rather overlooked heroine.

Fast forward a few millennia and half a continent west to Headford and you’ll find a modern-day Demeter. Mary Mahon keeps people fed and happy in a number of different ways.

On a muggy Thursday in July, she’s been spending the day in a hot kitchen making four cheesecakes and two pies for a 25^th wedding anniversary. She has a bit of a catering business, cooking for parties, anniversaries and pretty much any social event throughout the year.

Mary Mahon

‘It’s therapeutic,’ Mary says. She illustrates her point by offering a slice of delicious apple tart and telling me about her Christmas parties which are ‘famous.’ Her kitchen is about the size of a third world country, and it would need to be. Last year, she made food for sixty neighbours and friends who attended the annual Christmas gala at her house.

Mary’s nurturing nature gets even more of a workout each Wednesday and Friday. As a participant in the Rural Social Scheme, she delivers meals on wheels all around the Headford area countryside.

Cooking and food have always been a part of Mary’s nature. Growing up in Rossaveal, she was one of seven children. Her mom taught her to cook and she says she’s been catering since a young age. ‘It made me feel like a little mother, I guess.’ After attending catering college, she worked in hotel kitchens, honing her skills. Then, in 1986, she met her husband, Gerry, in Salt Hill. It should probably come as no surprise that their three children love to cook, too.

Mary, Bonnie and the Minx

But it isn’t all about food at the Mahon house. Mary and Gerry are both rabid vintage rally participants and members of the Shrule and District Vintage Club. Proud of their vintage green 1966 Hillman Minx, they’ve driven it to rallies all over Ireland, and even England. When she’s not cooking or driving old cars, Mary says she walks Knock Ma in the evenings ‘to switch off,’ and she positively adores country/western dancing.

When Mary talks about her life-long dream, it draws another connection to Demeter. In addition to being responsible for bountiful harvests, this particular Greek goddess was perceived to truly empathize with the human experience . . .

‘I’d love to have a little pub,’ Mary says. ‘It’s always been my dream. I like to listen to people’s stories.’ 

If she ever does get that pub, no doubt it will be a great success! 

Headford News and Community Spotlight - Lighting up Local Legend

COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT 

For those who are visiting Headford this summer, and for those who live here but want to find out more about local legend, this week’s Community Spotlight will shine on an area landmark with an enigmatic past. The Ballycurrin Lighthouse.

Ballycurrin Lighthouse

It’s something most of us around here take for granted, but did you know there’s a fascinating collection of stories behind this 18^th Century lighthouse? Situated at the edge of the Galway/Mayo border, it’s a lovely hidden wonder. So hidden, in fact, that when William Wilde, Oscar Wilde’s daddy, wrote his extensive account of the area (Wilde’s Lough Corrib), he sailed right by the lighthouse and didn’t even remark on it.

Said to be the only inshore lighthouse of its kind in Europe, with a roof made out of a mill wheel (now there’s an interesting architectural choice), the Ballycurrin Lighthouse was built in 1772 by a member of the Lynch tribe. Which Lynch, though, is a matter of debate.

First, there’s the claim that Liam Lynch, a local landlord, built the lighthouse. But, the boathouse beside the lighthouse has a stone engraved with ‘Erected by Henry Lynch, Esq. A.D. 1772,’ so that supports the story about Sir Henry building the lighthouse as a marker for the Galway to Cong ferry. Timber was burned in the uppermost portion of the lighthouse to create the light that would guide the ferry to Lynch to deliver his provisions. Sir Henry was a 7^th ‘Baronet,’ an inherited title which meant that, technically, he was gentry, but literally, he had not been knighted or even received any kind of accolade. He was just a guy whose great-grandda owned a big house. This might be why he was more often referred to as ‘Harry.’

Another story involves Sir Henry’s wife. The polite version is that she had the lighthouse built so he could find his way home at night, since he was fond of visiting the pubs in Galway and Cong. In this version, Sir Henry’s wife has no name or identity of her own, poor creature.

However, in another version of the story, Sir Henry’s mistress is named. Sibella Cottle, the mother of seven of Henry’s illegitimate children, might have built the thing. She was reputed to use ‘witchcraft’ to spellbind Sir Henry to her for life. 

Oh, those wacky Georgians . . .

Headford News and Community Spotlight - A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion

Did you know that Solas offers a telephone 'Befriending' service? If you or someone you know lives alone or feels isolated and would like a 'friend' to ring once a week for a chat, please call and let us know. Our volunteers are happy to help!


COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT

Upon learning of the death of a lifelong friend, Albert Einstein wrote in a March 1955 letter to his friend’s family:

“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

For many people, that illusion of past and present offers a soothing familiarity, a way to place ourselves in the continuum of life. For instance, when you pick up your great grandma’s old 19^th century tea pot, you get a whole different feeling than when you use your white plastic Dunnes kettle. Antique objects—pieces of the past—stand in stark contrast to the homogeneity of the mass-produced present. They can act as a sort of balm for the spirit, helping us feel connected to those who came before.

If there’s anyone who understands this concept well, it’s Karen Hughes. Karen brought her mother-in-law, Rosie’s legacy with her all the way from Liverpool to Headford, when she recently opened up the aptly named Rosie’s Antiques on Main Street.

The new shop is located in the old Solas office, which has gotten a complete face lift and looks positively gorgeous! As you enter the shop, a large table dominates the centre, filled with colourful, sparkling and tasteful objects, and a candle scented like ‘Fireside Treats.’ 

Everything is awash in peaceful, pastel colours and light pours through the windows and bounces off cut-glass vases, bottles and glasses. It’s little wonder few people pass the shop without stopping in.

Karen is a lovely woman with dark hair and a creamy complexion who refused to have her photograph taken, so you’ll just have to imagine what she looks like.

The shop is an eclectic mix of what Karen calls a ‘mish-mash of nick-knacks,’ and beautiful antiques. Prices range from as low as Two Euros to as high as Four Hundred Euros.

‘I didn’t want it to be one of those dusty, old antiques places,’ she says. You know—the kind that smell funny and seem overly dark. So that’s why there’s a mixture of old and new, past and present.

Karen shows me a piece she’s particularly proud of. A 19^th century set of three beautiful crystal decanters in a wooden holder that has a lock and key. ‘Most people ask why there’s a key on this,’ she says. My response was that it must have been used to keep the liquor locked up so the servants couldn’t drink it. Karen tells me I’m right, but in fact, I’m not.

It’s called a tantalus, named after one of Zeus’s sons who got in trouble and was then ‘tantalized’ by food and drink he was not allowed to consume. While the wooden frame on this piece would have been locked with a key, it was more for show than to actually protect the liquor from servants. Most self-respecting butlers in the great aristocratic houses would never have considered pilfering from the master’s liquor supply. If such pilferage had been a problem, why was a solution not found until well into the reign of Queen Victoria? And why create a device that would only protect a few decanters, while the bulk of the household liquor supply was kept in the cellars, to which the butler held the key? The more likely scenario is that the tantalus was just one of many novelty devices which were popular with the expanding and increasingly affluent middle class of the last half of the nineteenth century. Having grown up with few, if any, household servants themselves, they could believe they were imitating their betters by “protecting” their few decanters of expensive liquors in a tantalus.

When Karen and her husband moved here from Liverpool last year, her mother-in-law, Rosie, had recently passed away. They chose this area because her great-grandfather was from Galway and she and her husband were used to coming to Ireland for holidays. Just a few months ago, they found a house in Ower and everything fell into place.

‘I used to teach special needs kids and I knew I needed to do something,’ Karen says. ‘I’ve always been fascinated with anything old, anything with a history.’

The shop has old dressers filled with blue and white patterned dishes and fun objects. A hand-beaded wall hanging is draped across one cheerfully-painted kitchen dresser. A prayer mat from Alaan in the Middle East hangs on one wall. There are handmade lap quilts from the U.S. and a dazzling variety of lamps and broaches.

Karen hopes people will ‘feel free to pop in and browse around. You don’t have to buy anything. I enjoy getting to know people.’

Perhaps the one piece in the store that gets the most attention is the old milk churn. ‘Older people come in just to look at it and say, I remember when . . .,’ Karen says. ‘I love to hear all their stories. Even looking at the old mirrors makes people remember things.’

Einstein would probably say that’s appropriate—that illusions of the past should be reflected in this shop in the present. 

Headford News and Community Spotlight - Satisfaction

Newsflash! Starting next week the Headford News and Community Spotlight will be posted every WEDNESDAY. Look out for us!


COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT

Did you know that nearly 400,000 Irish people are looking for jobs? That’s means close to 12% of our population is unemployed.

But having a job isn’t necessarily salvation, and, for many people, it’s far from satisfying. Sure, we all want income, but we don’t want to be miserable in order to get it. According to a Mercer survey reported in The Journal.ie, over 35% of Irish workers are unhappy in their jobs and want to leave. There are many complaints, of course, but the two biggest are longer working hours and less job security.

It could be worse. According to Forbes magazine, only 19% of workers in the United States are satisfied with their jobs.

While these statistics aren’t exactly shocking, they are important. Work consumes a huge amount of our lives—about 16 years in total if you work full-time—and yet growing numbers of people struggle through their days feeling impoverished from lack of employment, or extremely unhappy with the employment they do have. It’s a recipe for disaster. Or change…

That’s where the Community Employment Scheme comes in. The CE Scheme offers unemployed people jobs within the community for limited amounts of time. While the jobs aren’t meant to be permanent replacements for full-time employment, neither are they the misery-makers those 35% of Irish workers are so unhappy about. And, although the pay for CE jobs is very low, there are other benefits to being on the scheme. 

In the Headford area, over the last six years, one man in particular has been responsible for increasing the numbers of local people employed by the CE Scheme from 21 to 34. As Supervisor of the Headford Community Employment Scheme, Ignatius Egan—‘Iggy’ for short—endeavours to keep people off the ‘live register’ by putting them to work in the community. Part of the compensation for this work is on-the-job experience. ‘It gives people a sense of well-being by being actively employed,’ Iggy says. Plus, the programme allows people to get training in areas of interest so they can get back to work, hopefully doing something they like.

Ignatius 'Iggy' Egan

On an average day, Iggy organises projects and distributes responsibilities to people, like building and landscape maintenance, overseeing a large amount of work for various locations around Headford. His domain is extensive, and includes Cloughanover, Claran and Kilcoona, as well as Headford. Iggy is also responsible for budgeting and acquiring materials—everything from lawn mowers to paint—for all sorts of projects.

To help him with all this work, Ann Forde is Office Administrator.

And Kevin Lee is Assistant Supervisor.

Working a bit like the three musketeers—all for one and one for all—Iggy, Ann and Kevin process wages, organise training and do a monumental amount of paperwork. Basically, they are the local CE Scheme.

In his previous business-life, Iggy was the Operations Director for the Services Division of Hewlett Packard, working closely with customers and software. This is where he says he ‘developed people skills and business management skills.’ But, as Supervisor for the local CE Scheme, there is ‘zero stress,’ and Iggy says, ‘I really enjoy working with the local community. We have a great staff and I’ve made many new friends.’  

The tiny Headford Community Employment Office

You could say that Iggy is helping people not to become part of that 35% of unhappy workers. ‘As a result of what we do—training and skills developed—people go on to get work, and I love that.’ A shy smiles spreads over his face, and he says those words again, almost as if he’s pleasantly surprised by his own good fortune. ‘I love to help people get work when they move on from the scheme. That’s the best piece of job satisfaction you can get.’