Today is International Women's Day, and among the various local individual and groups events to mark this, students and teachers in Cross and Passion College are doing it in their own way, choosing to challenge stereotypical attitudes to women. Produced by Brian Byrne.

CPC Kilcullen And International Women's Day

The Daily Cast on Kilcullen Diary, a podcast to start Kilcullen's day. It's Friday the 16th of April 2021. Today's Person of Interest is one Mary Isabel O'Brien, a rock and roll rose by another name. Our Feature of the Day is on Fallons of Kilcullen on a year of challenge and optimism for the future. We continue our browsing through our local newspapers, and take a quick check on the national stories of today. Produced by Brian Byrne.

The Daily Cast: Think Food Outdoors

The Giant's Causeway in County Antrim is a geological fact that triggered the tale of two giants, Finn MacCool and a rival across the sea in Scotland, Benandonner. The unusually-shaped columns of basalt rock were formed many millions of years ago in a river valley when the now island of Ireland was a part of a larger continental mass.

A Kilcullen Diary production by Brian Byrne, in association with Irish Car+Travel Magazine.

The Giant's Causeway

Some time ago I was given a tape of a radio programme produced and presented in 1994 by Majella Duane for CKR Radio. The programme was one of a series, Home Front, produced by Majella where she talked with people in towns and villages in Carlow and Kildare to give a flavour of their communities. 

For the programme, Majella talked with my brother Des, Simon Doyle, Miriam's father Matt Dunlea, my Uncle Tom, and myself. Sadly I'm the only one of the five participants still around, but it has been a pleasure to hear those voices again. For having kept the tape and lending it to me, my sincere thanks to Miriam McDonnell, founder of Curragh Lawns Nursing Home.

The picture is of the French team, outside the then Flanagan's Motor Bar. The team stayed in Bardon's Hotel.

Kilcullen Diary Podcast produced by Brian Byrne.

Home Front Kilcullen, voices from 1994

The kindness of humans is at the core of a trek by Dunlavin, County Wicklow, native Andy Howard as he begins an attempt to raise suicide awareness by making his way from London to Australia, without any money. As he makes his way on what he calls The Great Life Project he hopes to raise €100,000 which will be divided amongst suicide-related charities in Ireland, the UK and Australia. Produced by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary.

You can follow Andy's travels on his social media links: https://linktr.ee/andyhoward
Andy
https://youtube.com/@TheGreatLifeProject
Andy
https://www.gofundme.com/f/SeekingHumanKind-Suicide-Prevention/
Andy
Andy Howard
https://www.instagram.com/andyhoward213

Andy Howard's Great Life Project

Dr John E Barker passed away at his home in Liffey Bank, Kilcullen, on 6 February 1927. Retired only a few years, he had had completed almost a half-century of public service when he left that position in 1924. According to his obituary, "he gave unstinted attention to his patients, rich and poor, and was forever remarkable for fidelity to duty, both in his public and private capacity as a doctor."

Kilcullen Medicine Man

Anyone born before 1977 won’t have had experience of being beaten by teachers in Ireland’s schools when corporal punishment was still part of a child's education. It took 60 years after we gained our independence before a patently barbaric practice inflicted on the children of our nation was outlawed, but such punishment was finally banned in 1982. 

Produced by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary.

Sally Sticks And Bamboo Biffs

Next time you get an injection, for flu prevention or Covid booster, remember Dr Francis Rynd. And remember Margaret Cox who triggered his inventiveness. Even as you wince.

Produced by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary.

Image of Francis Rynd courtesy of Wellcome Trust via Wikimedia Commons.

The Needle Man

A century and a half before the movie Jurassic Park brought dinosaurs into their trendy blockbuster modern space, a woman born in poor circumstances in Dorset, England, was to become one of the foremost experts on many originals of the species. Produced by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary.

Image: Portrait of Mary Anning in the Natural History Museum, London (artist unknown).

Mary Anning, Jurassic Woman

Team Ireland for the 2023 UK Transplant & Dialysis Games taking place on the last weekend in July in Coventry, England, gathered in Kilcullen Community Centre for the official launch of their campaign. They were addressed by longtime transplant athlete and Kilcullen businessman James Nolan, who told them they were 'ambassadors for organ donation'. The Kilcullen Diary spoke with a number of team members about their lives as recipients of transplants and the importance of transplant sports. A Rough & Ready Production by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary.

Organ Donation - Have The Conversation

Back in the mid-1970s, people still hitched in Ireland. And those of us fortunate to be in cars frequently gave people lifts. For both parties it was something of a gamble. Of easy conversation, or not. Of possible personality clashes. Of committing to a distance or destination together that might prove to have been a mistake in as little as a minute or two into the drive. Produced by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary.

The Road Trip

Alex Konieczka is an Irish-based environmental activist and the founder of Understory, which uses workshops and talks in communities, schools and other groups to encourage others to make a positive impact on the environment, biodiversity and climate. In this podcast she talks about her background and how she came to this vocation. Produced by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary Podcasts.

Understory, Making Environment Activism

Over the last three years Newbridge singer-songwriter Joan Healy has moved from her first public performances as a busker outside the Whitewater Shopping Centre to now arranging her own gigs. Some of her songs have been professionally recorded and can be heard on Spotify. And she is living two tandem lives, as a teacher and a singer, both of which she loves. Produced by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary.

Joan Healy, Music in the Moment

If you run the statistics, Kilcullen's canine pets are probably depositing over 74,000 kilos of poo every year, writes Brian Byrne. And if you walk around the town, actual empirical evidence shows not all of it is disposed of properly by some doggy owners.

Don't Listen To This At Breakfast

When The Book of Kildare was recently published as part of the celebrations of Brigid 1500, it marked the end of five years of work by artist and calligrapher Josephine Hardiman. It was also something which, after a lifetime of honing her art, had always been waiting for her to create. 

Produced by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary.

The Book Of Kildare

This podcast is one of a series of my short stories. It was written some time after a visit to the Chateau Cloux in Amboise, in the Loire region of France. The chateau is where the artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci spent the last years of his life. Produced by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary. Image: Leonardo da Vinci by Francesco Melzi, public domain.

Name Of A Lady

A radio documentary produced in 1982 about the Kilcullen Capers shows of that year, which was unknowingly to be the last in a decade of such annual shows. Produced and presented by Brian Byrne/Kilcullen Diary Podcasts.

Remembering Kilcullen Capers

The Channel Tunnel between Britain and France was opened on this day in 1994. Produced and presented by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary.

On This Day - Channel Tunnel Opening

On This Day: Opening of the Channel Tunnel

On 7 May 1915, the RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland, with almost 1,200 casualties. Produced and Presented by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary.

On This Day: Sinking of the Lusitania

On 14 May 1932, 100,000 people marched in New York City under the slogan 'We Want Beer'. Produced and presented by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary.

On This Day: We Want Beer

During an interview in the mid-1980s, the late Paddy Nugent spoke about growing up in Kilcullen in the 1930s. Produced and presented by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary.

Paddy Nugent - Kilcullen in the 1930s

The news this week that Evelyn O'Sullivan was going to close her studio on Hillcrest was probably a surprise to many. But it is just one example of the way Covid-19 has changed and continues to change the way we run our lives, and our businesses. Produced by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary.

KD News - A Changed Future For Drama Dynamics

On this day in 1862, Violet Florence Martin was born in Connemara, the youngest of 16 children to the landed Martin family in Ross. She was to become with Edith Somerville the author of many novels about Anglo Irish life, under the names Somerville and Ross. Produced and presented by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary.

Some of the content:
Violet met up with a second cousin, Edith Somerville in 1886, and they subsequently became lifelong companions.

Three years later they published their first book, witten jointly, titled An Irish Cousin. Violet assumed a pseudonym, Martin Ross, combining her surname and the name of the family home. The two women thereafter wrote under the combined authorship of Somerville and Ross.

Over the next 25 years they published a total of 13 novels, all stories based in the Anglo-Irish life of the period. 

Violet was also an active supporter of the suffragette movement, and was vice president of the Munster Women's Franchise League. She was also a contemporary of WB Yeats and Lady Gregory and friendly with both, though she disagreed on what she felt was a romantic representation by them of Irish peasantry. 

Their last published work was In Mr Knox's Country in 1915, the year she died. She was buried in Castletownshend, where she and Edith had first met. Edith herself lived until the age of 91, passing away in 1949. She is buried alongside Violet.

On This Day - Somerville And Ross

One year on, Paul Leighton talks about the progress of the Pollinator Project undertaken by Kilcullen Community Action. Produced by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary.

KD News - It's Not Just About The Bees

The internet, social media, the now almost old fashioned newspapers, and ever-present TV chat shows, make becoming a celebrity, or instantly promoting a business, available to everybody. But back at the turn into the 1950s that wasn't at all the case. Produced by Brian Byrne.

How The Hideout Began

It was in the building at the back of the yard in the family pub, over which was the 'loft' where coffins were stored, and the Boxing Club had space for training and a ring to spar in. But to us children the 'factory' was the most curious and interesting place when it was in action. Produced by Brian Byrne.

Clank, Rattle and Hiss - Remembering The Factory

“At last more or less free. Am writing this two days after we were informed of the Armistice and we ceased our work in slavery, as it might have been called.”  These were the opening words in a letter my Uncle Barney began to his aunts in Kilcullen, Peg and Nora, on the 17th of August 1945. The context was the surrender of Japan after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in WW2. Produced by Brian Byrne.

Barney Byrne, Kilcullen POW In Japan

Dun Ailinne outside Kilcullen, Co Kildare in Ireland, is a place where people came together on regular occasions from the Iron Age until around the sixth century AD. First archaeological excavations were carried out by Dr Bernard Wailes from the University of Pennsylvania in the 1960s and 1970s. In recent years, further investigations have been directed by Dr Susan Johnston from the Department of Anthropology at George Washington University. She talks about unlocking the hill's secrets. Produced by Brian Byrne.

Unlocking The Secrets Of Dun Ailinne

In association with a Climate Action Event organised by the Kildare Public Participation Network for the weekend beginning Friday 27 November 2020, Kilcullen Diary has produced a short series of related podcasts. This episode features Barry McMahon and Eamon Stack talking about their Narraghmore-based social enterprise, Range Therapy, which adds an extra battery to older short-range Nissan Leafs to bring them close to the range newer versions can travel between charges. Produced by Brian Byrne.

Range Anxiety? Give It Range Therapy

An episode in the Kilcullen Diary series In Those Days. This time remembering Norman Ross, a unique man and his business on the unique Valentia Island in Kerry. Produced by Brian Byrne.

Norman Ross, King Of Royal Valentia

Staff and residents at Curragh Lawn Nursing Home are the first in this HSE region, if not the first nursing home in the country, to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Produced by Brian Byrne.

Curragh Lawn Nursing Home gets Covid vaccinations

I don't think I had ever met a concentration camp survivor before one day fourteen years ago, I got on a plane for a four-hour journey from Tel Aviv to Frankfurt. It didn't feel like four hours in the end, because my assigned seat happened to be beside a woman a decade or so older than I, one Sara Atzmon. We talked, and time just faded. Produced by Brian Byrne.

Image by Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada. The Hall of Names,  Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, Jerusalem, Israel.

Genocide - Explaining Is Sacred

Writer, photographer, broadcaster, editor of Kilcullen Diary daily updated news about Kilcullen, Co Kildare, Ireland.

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