Halloween
is only hours away, and Athlone has gotten its early and annual visit from the
Halloween Witch. Over the past thirty
years, she has visited The Cova shop in Athlone, just before the holy eve of
October 31st.
She sits on guard at the shop for the week leading
up to Halloween, greeting folk with a hollow, yet hearty and piercing laugh
whenever she hears a loud noise.
She appears to be harmless, and her laugh can be
heard all over the Ballymahon Road. Where
she comes from or where she goes, nobody knows, but she has her broomstick, so
can travel.
“To
me, a witch is a woman that is capable of letting her intuition take hold of
her actions, that communes with her environment, that isn't afraid of facing
challenges.”
― Paulo Coelho
Last
week at a ceremony at Athlone town library, a new book was launched which
celebrates sixty years of the Inland Waterways Association of Ireland,
including anecdotes about the involvement and achievement of Athlone members in
the Association.
The association is sixty years old this year, and
the first meeting in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin in 1954 elected Col. Harry
Rice as their President. Rice wrote
‘Thanks For the Memory’ - the seminal book on Lough Ree in the 1950s.
Siobhan Bigley, who was MC, introduced the current
president, Carmel Meegan who told the gathering that today the IWAI boasts a
membership of 3,500, who carry on the work of their predecessors.
“The commitment of each and every member
of the Association has seen the achievement of many great feats and overcome
many challenges which has ensured that boats can still enjoy free access on the
inland waterways from Limerick to Belleek and further afield,” said the
President.
After welcoming Athlone’s Deputy Mayor,
Cllr. Aengus O’Rourke, and the large gathering, the President said the new
book, ‘IWAI and the Waterways of Ireland’ by Brian Cassells, is a marvellous
insight into the Association and a formal record of its sixty year history and
is “a must have for anyone with an interest in Ireland's wonderful inland
waterways.”
Peter Williams, from Tipperary, is a
grandson of the late Col. Rice, and he told some interesting stories about his
grandfather’s history.
“My grandfather was born in
1893 and went to school in Enniskillen, studied medicine in TCD, and was in the
war until it ended on 11/11/1919,” said Peter.
“He went to India, got sick, and survived it all.”
He told that his grandfather’s wife’s family owned
the Prince of Wales Hotel, and his sister was Gertrude Chapman, who was well
known in Athlone.
“When he retired he spent many years charting the
lake, and had a friendship with Sean McBride and many others and he wanted to
bring tourists in, to make a contribution to the economy,” said Peter. “He was a proud Irishman, and kept going
through thick and thin, and was able to enjoy the fruit of his labours, and may
the flame he lit be kept alive.”
The book was launched by RTE personality, Manchan
Magan, who said while he had travelled to every corner of the world making
programmes, he still had to discover much of the Irish waterways.
“We have ignored our inland waterways, but something
glorious is happening now, because the Irish people are beginning to reconnect
with our lands, because over the last few years, we haven’t had too much money to go
abroad, so we have turned inland,” said Manchan. “The Irish were immersed in lakes, mountains
and hills, and we turned our back on that, but we are inspired to see what we
have. Every month we see new and tiny
businesses coming up around this, and there is a ripple of a tide of a whole
new era.”
