Mattie Lennon

The Quakers supplied no less than 56 soup pots to 27 counties, saving hundreds of lives during Ireland's Great Hunger. In 2011, Donegal man John Cassidy was strolling on the banks of the Clogher River, in the townland of Cullenboy, when he found an old Famine pot, broken into pieces. He had it welded, restored, and mounted outside Leghowney Community Hall. Such was the interest shown by American tourists that I decided to research the famine-pot/soup-kitchen aspect of the famine.

By Mattie Lennon It was mid-December in the third decade of the twenty-first century. I was at a Table Topics session. Because of my dubious ability to read upside down, I could make out the Topicmaster’s list of questions at the top table. One jumped out at me. “What was your best Christmas ever?”   I hoped I’d get that one. I had an answer. My best Christmas was Christmas 1956 but I didn’t know it at the time.

WORLD CUP FEVER By Mattie Lennon I’m weird. At least that’s what I was told when I said, “Sunday Miscellany was canceled for a *&@!^%$#@!! Rugby Match.” Professor Brendan Kennelly said: "You can overcome a bad marriage, you can grapple with and overcome alcoholism, but you'll never get over losing an All-Ireland Final. But many literary figures, great thinkers and philosophers down through the centuries would argue that sport is not that important. Patrick Kavanagh reminded us that " . . .