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		IN THIS ISSUE
~~~ Foreword
~~~ News Snaps from Ireland 
~~~ New free resources at the site
~~~ Getting Connected           by John B. McCabe
~~~ Irish Winners of the Medal of Honor 
			  by John J. Concannon
~~~ Gaelic phrases of the month
~~~ Noticeboard
~~~ Monthly free competition result

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FOREWORD
~~~~~~~~

Hello again from a very sunny Ireland where we 
are enjoying our best Summer in years. People are 
beginning to miss the rain - a sure sign that 
torrential downpours are on the way!

We have had to abandon our email address of 6 
years standing. Due to the countless viruses and 
spam that pervade the web we have resorted to an 
online method of communication. If you want to 
contact us then simply visit our website and fill 
out the simple form - easy!

You can help to keep us alive by making a purchase 
at our online shop. As a special offer to readers 
of this newsletter we are giving 5% off all 
purchases made before 10th September. And you 
still get free worldwide delivery!

To avail of this offer simply insert the phrase 
'AUGUST OFFER' into the online web form when you 
are asked to insert 'any additional information'.

Visit http://www.irishnation.com

Until the next time,

Michael

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

PLEASE - send this newsletter on to your friends 
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You can help to keep this FREE newsletter alive!

Visit http://www.irishnation.com

where you can get great Irish gifts, prints, 
claddagh jewellery, engraved glassware and 
much more.

5% off all purchases made before 10th September. 
Free worldwide delivery!

To avail of this offer simply insert the phrase 
'AUGUST OFFER' into the online web form when you 
are asked to insert 'any additional information'.

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NEWS SNAPS FROM IRELAND
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HOSPITALITY GROUPS WANT SMOKING BAN POSTPONED

With the complete ban on smoking and pubs in 
Ireland due to be enforced in just a few months, 
owners of pubs, restaurants and hotels have 
formed a group aimed at lobbying local government 
representatives to try to have the new laws 
postponed.

They want the ban put off until 2006 during which 
time new ventilation systems can be installed in 
premises that do not have them.

The increasing desperation of those opposed to the 
ban is starting to show. Predictions of thousands 
of job losses and a collapse in the tourist 
economy have been followed up with scaremongering 
about the danger to women who leave a pub to have 
a cigarette, and also the fact that their drink 
might be spiked when they get back.

The Government however, are unmoved and barring a 
major about-turn the blanket ban on smoking in 
pubs and restaurants will come into effect on 
January 1st 2004.

SELLAFIELD MAY CLOSE IN 2010

Reports in British newspapers have stated that 
Sellafield is to close its reprocessing operations 
by the year 2010. British Nuclear Fuels (BNF) who 
run the controversial plant are to convert the 
facility into a nuclear waste handling operation. 
It is reported that there are over 75 tonnes of 
Plutonium and over 3000 tonnes of Uranium at the 
site. BNF is seriously in debt and has been 
running at a loss for several years.

NATIONAL TRAFFIC CORP SCRAPED DUE TO CUTBACKS

Government plans for a dedicated national Garda 
Traffic Corps have been postponed due to the 
sweeping cutbacks taking place throughout most 
Government Departments. 

The Government has undertaken other ideas in its 
attempts to lower the rate of road traffic deaths. 
The Penalty Points system has been extended to 
include drivers who fail to wear seat belts. 
Drivers who accumulate 12 points will be 
disqualified. Compulsory lessons are planned 
for learner drivers of both cars and motorbikes.

IMPROVEMENT IN US ECONOMY TO HELP IRELAND

The recent improvement in the US economy and the 
consequent rise in value of the dollar is good 
news for the Irish economy which is so heavily 
dependent on US investment. The value of Irish 
exports to the US have also been boosted by the 
rebound of the American currency, which has gained
nearly 9% against the EURO in recent weeks.

DRINKING LAWS MODIFIED AGAIN

New regulations have been introduced in an effort 
to combat excessive and teenage drinking.
'Happy Hours' and other pub promotions have been 
completely banned. Thursday closing time will 
revert to 11:30 pm. No form of entertainment can 
be offered by Pubs during 'drinking up' times. 
Breaches of these regulations by Publicans could 
see their premises closed.

IRISH SUCCESS AT ATHLETICS FINALS

Gillian O'Sullivan from County Kerry won a silver 
medal in the 10,000 walking event at the World 
Championships in Paris.


Voice your opinion on these news issues here:

 http://www.ireland-information.com/cgi-bin/newsletterboardindex.cgi

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NEW FREE RESOURCES AT THE SITE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NEW COATS OF ARMS ADDED TO THE GALLERY:

The following 5 coats of arms images and family
history details have been added to the Gallery:

D: Dixon
E: Ewing
H: Hodge
R: Ridge
V: McVey

View the Gallery here:

 http://www.irishsurnames.com/coatsofarms/gm.htm

We now have over 100,000 worldwide names available.
Get the Coat of Arms Print, Claddagh Ring,
Screensaver, Watch, T-Shirt Transfer or Clock for
your name at:

 http://www.irishnation.com/familycrestgifts.htm

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You can help to keep this FREE newsletter alive!

Visit http://www.irishnation.com

where you can get great Irish gifts, prints, 
claddagh jewellery, engraved glassware and 
much more.

5% off all purchases made before 10th September. 
Free worldwide delivery!

To avail of this offer simply insert the phrase 
'AUGUST OFFER' into the online web form when you 
are asked to insert 'any additional information'.

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GETTING CONNECTED		by John B. McCabe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Michael

Enclosed find new article for your newsletter.
In America the Electricity has been around for a 
long time. We owe it to the great inventor Thomas 
Alva Edison. In Ireland we have harnessed the 
waterways and have caught up with the rest of the 
world. 
 
However in the 1950's many parts of the country 
had no electricity. The 'Rurual Electricifation 
Scheme' was initiated in the late nineteen 
fifties. Our home was connected in 1959. The 
enclosed article recounts the excitement of that 
event.

Hope this article evokes many memories for your 
Irish readers.
 
Regards
 
John B.

~~~

Some moments are burned into the soul and remain 
as permanent reference points for a life time. 
They are as great watersheds between distinct 
periods of evolution where nothing will ever be 
the same again. Such was the summer of nineteen 
fifty nine which saw the arrival of the rural 
electrification scheme to south Monaghan. Great 
debates were held about the advantages and costs 
involved in being connected up and many an 
argument raged among the townlands about whether 
or not to 'take the electricity'. My father who 
lived with a terrible fear of penury, a nervous 
disposition which left him indecisive and prone 
to forebodings of imminent disasters, advised 
against it. The expense was too much and he 
firmly believed that once people were lured into 
acceptance by the initial low cost attraction 
the price would soar and 'drive us out of house 
and home'.

Mammy was more optimistic and her determination 
and pride which would not allow us to be 'behind 
the times' won the day. She took the matter into 
her own hands and rode her bicycle all the way to 
Ballybay where she engaged an electrician to wire 
the house and be ready for connection when the 
power lines were switched on.

It was a scorching summer and longer than any I 
had ever remembered. Meteorological records can 
easily prove otherwise but for me it was the first 
summer of real awareness, of excitement, of new 
beginnings and so much was happening that year 
that it seemed like I had never been alive before 
or else had stepped over an unseen border into a 
more vibrant world.

Men came and put down marking pegs along the 
roadside verges and at intervals across the fields 
to indicate where holes were to be dug for the 
poles. Soon the countryside was littered with 
mounds of clay as if enormous rabbits had scooped 
out giant burrows in the night.

All was not throbbing with the pulse of progress. 
The rabbits had bred like wildfire in the previous 
months and populated the area in plague 
proportions, destroying crops, cratering the 
fields and fouling the pastures with millions of 
droppings.

Mixamatosis was introduced to eradicate the rabbit 
population with devastating consequences. The 
disease caused horrible swelling in the head and 
eyes of these animals and they wandered stupidly 
to their death, sometimes killed in their hundreds 
on the road way. We watched these pitiable 
creatures with their gigantic death laden eyes 
huddled in their dying thousands in every field 
and country laneway.

The electricity board had delivered supplies of 
pylons, stacked in groups of five or six at 
strategic intervals along the road. The scorching 
sun raised blisters of oozing tar from their pores. 
Nineteen fifty nine forever in my mind recalls the 
smell of melting tar and the feted stench of 
decomposing rabbits on the road.

A new craze took hold of every boy in our area that 
year. The magic of digging holes, erecting pylons, 
coupled with the giddy adventure of being an 
overhead linesman caught the imagination. 
Everywhere on farms holes were dug, strings strung 
from tree to tree and old lids and polish boxes 
improvised as switches.

My mother was none too pleased when my brother and 
I paused from our exertions of digging yet another 
great hole and tore our vests so we could more 
accurately mimic the sweating workers with their 
manly chests exposed to the sun.

When at last the power was switched on we were 
high with excitement and my father warned us of 
the dangers of electrocution. 'It's no toy to be 
tampered with', he said, as we argued which of us 
should switch on the light. Eventually we took it 
in turns to do so, night about, until it had lost 
its novelty.
	
I have always been amazed at how important changes 
within ourselves happen so unconsciously that we 
are never aware of the small day to day 
developments. Growing up, growing old, growing 
tall or growing fat - these are not observed in 
the gradual daily progress which is too small to 
measure but in relation to other objects, people 
or environments. The phenomenological reference for 
my growing up pertains to that simple exercise of 
putting on the light. Initially I had to stand on 
a chair, later on tip-toes and later again it was 
but a hand stretch away. I have much cause to 
wonder at the many other changes which have 
happened to me as imperceptibly but equally 
dramatically as the process of growing up.

The following year the Shankill power lines were 
begun. This was a new development linking two 
generating stations and brought new drama to my 
world.

Huge steel giants strode across the hills, 
towering over the tallest trees, marching through 
swamps and straddling ditches. They carried heavy 
power lines that hissed and sizzled in the frost. 
I had broken my wrist that year and I remember 
standing outside the back of our house watching 
these pylons being erected. They were planted in 
a concrete base and built piece by piece until the 
two great arms branched out to carry the top 
section. The one in our field was nearly eighty 
feet tall and it stood there begging to be 
climbed. And climbed it was! My brother did it - 
I only went up as far as the arms. He had a better 
head for heights than me and up he went until he 
was a small dark speck - ten years old and 
dangling his feet from the triangular corner with 
nothing beneath him but the certainty of death. 
He got down safely and I have nightmares to this 
day to prove it happened.

One Sunday we conquered a smaller pylon on 
Trainor's Hill and my uncle bellowed from half a 
mile away to 'come down ou'are that before yiz get 
kilt'. His grammar was off but his concern was 
genuine!

The giants are still standing and hissing at the 
sky - ugly and un-magical, monuments to a blind 
progress which so disfigures the beauty of the 
country's face.

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You can help to keep this FREE newsletter alive!

Visit http://www.irishnation.com

where you can get great Irish gifts, prints, 
claddagh jewellery, engraved glassware and 
much more.

5% off all purchases made before 10th September. 
Free worldwide delivery!

To avail of this offer simply insert the phrase 
'AUGUST OFFER' into the online web form when you 
are asked to insert 'any additional information'.

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IRISH WINNERS OF THE MEDAL OF HONOR 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
			    By John J. Concannon

By a stroke of good fortune, I became involved in 
an Irish/Irish American book writing project that 
is dear to my heart. 

Since I was a youngster, I have been fascinated by 
heroes, men who have risked life and limb to save 
another human, or defied death to accomplish a 
perilous mission. 

A colleague, the late Gerard F. White of 
Lindenhurst, N.Y., and I worked on an unfinished 
book that would, for the first time, tell the full 
story of Irishmen who have 'won', that is, been 
awarded the Medal of Honor. The honor, bestowed in 
the name of Congress, is the top award that 'a 
grateful nation can bestow' to recognize valorous 
acts in battle 'above and beyond the call of duty'. 

White, who labored in the Medal of Honor vineyard 
for more than 36 years, was a military historian 
and former secretary of the Congressional Medal of 
Honor Society. In 1995, White and associates 
George Lang (a Medal of Honor recipient) and 
Raymond Collins compiled the premier book on the 
subject, a two-volume, 1,334-page history titled 
'Medal of Honor Recipients 1863-1994'.

The books list the 3,401 men who had received the 
Medal through 1994. Thirty-three countries are 
listed as birthplaces of medal recipients. And I 
don't have to tell you that Ireland is the country 
with the largest number of medal winners, by far, 
with 258. Germany/Prussia is second with 128 
recipients. 
  
Of the 258 immigrants who noted on their 
enlistment papers that they were born in Ireland, 
134 also provided their county, town or townland 
of birth. Cork leads the honor list with 19 
medalists, followed by Dublin and Tipperary with 
11 each. Limerick has 10, Kerry eight, Galway 
seven, Antrim and Tyrone tied with six, Kilkenny 
and Sligo each have five. 

We Irish can proudly note that five of the 19 
fighting men who won a second Medal of Honor were 
born in Ireland. They are Henry Hogan from County 
Clare, John Laverty from Tyrone, Dublin's John 
Cooper, whose name at birth was John Laver Mather, 
John King and Patrick Mullen. Three double winners 
of the Medal were Irish-Americans: the indomitable 
Marine, Daniel Daly, the U.S. Navy's John McCloy, 
and the fighting Marine from Chicago, John Joseph 
Kelly. 

Over the years, the Ancient Order of Hibernians 
has had strong associations with the Medal. At 
least two AOH divisions have been named after 
Medal recipients, including Colonel James Quinlan 
Division #3 of Warwick, in Orange County, N.Y. 
Quinlan, a native of Clonmel, County Tipperary, 
was awarded the Medal for gallantry 'against 
overwhelming numbers' while leading the Irish 
Brigade's 88th New York in the battle of Savage 
Station, Virginia, during the American Civil War.

Then there's the remarkable 'super survivor', 
Michael Dougherty, from Falcarragh, County Donegal. 
Dougherty, a private in the 13th Pennsylvania 
Cavalry in the Union Army, won the Medal for 
leading a group of comrades against a hidden 
Confederate detachment at Jefferson, Virginia, 
ultimately routing it. The official report noted 
that 'Dougherty's action prevented the Confederates 
from flanking the Union forces and saved 2,500 
lives'. Later, Dougherty and 126 members of his 
regiment were captured and spent 23 months in 
various Southern prisons, finally arriving in 
Georgia at the notorious Andersonville death-camp. 

Of the 127, Dougherty alone survived the ordeal, 
'a mere skeleton', barely able to walk. But he 
walked aboard the homeward-bound steamship 
'Sultana', crowded with more than 2,000 
passengers, six times its designated capacity. 
The crammed steamship was slowly moving up the 
Mississippi River toward St. Louis, when, on the 
fourth night out, the boilers exploded, cracking 
the ship in two and tossing Dougherty and the 
other passengers into the Mississippi. Only 900 
survived, including Dougherty, who somehow found 
the strength to swim to a small island, where he 
was rescued the next morning. 

Finally, after an absence of four years, the 
21-year-old Union veteran reached his hometown, 
Bristol, Pennsylvania. That's why AOH Division #1 
of Bristol, in Bucks County, is known as the 
Michael Dougherty Division. 

~~~

This article has been adapted from an 
article at the 'Wild Geese Today' Webzine,
a leading Irish history and heritage Internet 
site, established in 1997 with the purpose of
sharing 'The Epic History and Heritage of the 
Irish' with the immense number of individuals 
of Irish ancestry found worldwide.

http://www.thewildgeese.com

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GAELIC PHRASES OF THE MONTH
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PHRASE: 		An feidir liom cabhru leat?
PRONOUNCED:	on fay/durr lum cow/roo latt
MEANING:		May I help you? 

PHRASE:		An gno pearsanta no oifigiuil e?
PRONOUNCED:	on no par/san/tha no iff/igg/ool ae
MEANING:		Is it personal or official? 

PHRASE:		Cad is ainm duit, le do thoil?
PRONOUNCED:	cod iss an/imm dwit, leh duh hull
MEANING:		What is your name, please? 

View the archive of phrases here:

 http://www.ireland-information.com/irishphrases.htm

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NOTICEBOARD:	

The next Gathering of the Crowley Clan will be 
September 3, 4, and 5, 2004. The venue is the 
Westlodge Hotel in Bantry, Co Cork. The Crowley 
Clan is a voluntary organization of Crowleys from 
around the world. We meet every 3 years in County 
Cork. Further information at our website 
www.crowleyclan.com

Slán, Thomas Crowley, An Taoiseach, Crowley Clan 

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AUGUST COMPETITION RESULT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The winner was: anna_martinez71@hotmail.com
who will receive the following: 

A Single Family Crest Print (decorative) 
(US$19.99 value)

Send us an email to claim your prize, and well 
done! Remember that all subscribers to this 
newsletter are automatically entered into the 
competition every time. 

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You can help to keep this FREE newsletter alive!

Visit http://www.irishnation.com

where you can get great Irish gifts, prints, 
claddagh jewellery, engraved glassware and 
much more.

5% off all purchases made before 10th September. 
Free worldwide delivery!

To avail of this offer simply insert the phrase 
'AUGUST OFFER' into the online web form when you 
are asked to insert 'any additional information'.

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I hope that you have enjoyed this issue.

Until next time,

Stay Safe!


Michael Green,
Editor,
The Information about Ireland Site.

http://www.ireland-information.com
Click here to contact us