Heard on Monday that Martin Pat Coleman has arrived home
safe and sound from Australia.He must have felt a great change from
summer in Perth to a cold winter in Ireland.

Phil Taylor won an exciting 15th World Darts Championship on Sunday
defeating Simon Whitlock from Australia.

An item on the BBC N.I. news on 4th Jan told us that some 10,000
Placenames of Northern Ireland and their history, may be lost forever
if funding is not found.Many of the placenames are in the Irish
Language and the English translation is given.The examples shown were
interesting and hopefully funds will be found.

December past was the coldest December in Northern Ireland since 1981.

Words We Use column in Mondays Irish Times has some lovely Fairy Words
from Ann Friel,Fanad,Donegal such as
>Fairy Horse is her word for ragworth
>Fairy Sheaf is the last sheaf cut at the harvest,because once upon
a time it was offered to the fairies to appease them
>Fairy soap is the common milkwort - the roots and leaves were used to
make a lather for washing the hands
>Fairy tickles are freckles.

For the past few days El Zorreno Films have been working on a 10-15
minute film which is under sponsorship of Offaly Film Commission.
It is hoped to have a screening in Tullamore Omniplex in April / May.
The locations used are Ely House in Shannonbridge and locations in
Pullagh. It seems that a Garda car is involved and yesterday
Oliver Darcy saw a Garda car coming from Clonmacnois with a large
camera sticking out the window photographing a car following.
They promised to let us know more details come April / Maytime.

Amazing Grace is the title of the new book by Brendan Grace,the
comedian.

Last Friday on BBC television the second part of a two part trip
on the River Shannon was shown.Titled "Three Men Go To Ireland"
this hour long episode involved Gryff Rees Jones,Rory Mc Grath
and Daire O Briain taking a boat trip on the Shannon from Athlone
to Limerick. They stopped at Shannonbridge,Portumna,visited Leap Castle
crossed Lough Derg to Ardnacrusha and to Limerick.They had a trip to
Innis Mhor on the Aran Islands. The y filmed the episode last October
and they had sunshine all the way. Gryff and Rory called in to Killeens
and bought three long shafted Kapp and Peterson smoking pipes.
Somebody told me that it should be available under a Google search.

The birds are hungry and need water.Three or four blackbirds,a thrush
and a linnet have joined the gang of regular birds feeding on the roof
of the shed in the yard.
The Callows in places have flood -water and sheets of ice. The sunshine
shining through the trees look great but baby its cold outside.
Gay Byrne is still turning out a fine radio program every Sunday 2 - 4
on Lyric FM or 97.8 - 99.4 MHz

Marion Finucane had an interesting talk with Frank Kelly actor and
comedian on Sunday.Frank was telling how his father and a civil servant
called Arthur Booth were the founders of Dublin Opinion.
Frank wrote his own version of 12 Days of Christmas which was a hit.
He presented The Glen Abbey sponsored radio programme for two years
and later for five years.
Frank won a Jacobs Award for acting and at the presentation he met
the Taoiseach Jack Lynch.Presenting his award Jack Lynch told Eamon
that he had never met anyone that sang The Banks of My own Lovely Lee
better than Eamon Kelly. To celebrate Jack Lynch bought a bottle of
Paddy Whiskey and they drank it.
Look up Dublin Opinion sometime