Forms for joining the Kilcullen Garda District Text Alert scheme are available from The Grocery in Calverstown, Kilcullen Garda Station, Kilcullen Credit Union, and scheme committee members. Please encourage neighbours and friends to join.
Tom Kendzia's rescheduled workshop will take place in Kilcullen Parish Centre next Thursday at 7pm.
To book for this workshop, which is open to all parish choirs and musicians of all ages, please contact Hannah at 087 9365767.
A Parish Bookshop Advisory Team has been established in Kilcullen.
Following an inaugural meeting last week, Siobhan Tutty Bardon and Evelyn O'Sullivan were elected as joint chairs of the team, with Debbie O'Brien acting as Secretary.
The aim of the team is to find and evaluate books for the Parish Bookshop that will be relevant to the needs of parishioners of all ages.
Discussed at the meeting were matters such as how the bookshop could be a means of advertising and promoting faith in Christ and Christian values.
The team will try and establish what kind of books are required to meet the faith needs of a wide range of parishioners, from children through teens to adults, families, the eldery and the sick and bereaved.
The next meeting will be on Tuesday 25 May.
(Click above to go directly to Armelle's Kitchen.)
Nice job they're doing on the pavement outside the bank. Certainly not as likely to trip on the way to the ATM.
Kilcullen has recently gained a little colour, with a sweet Gallic flavour!
They're dainty, succulent, and come in a variety of flavours. I suppose, to be accurate, we should use the French spelling of macarons.
And what are they, pray? Tender meringue-like cookies with almonds, filled with buttercream. Delicious disaster for weight watchers. With Coconut, Lemon, Coffee, Banana, Orange and Vanilla options.
Unless you are one of those strange people who can resist sweet temptation, don't dare look on Armell's website, armelleskitchen.blogspot.com
Because the photos of the macarons, and other pastries and cakes which Armelle can make to order look good enough to eat in themselves.
The pictures are taken by her partner, Kenny Rorie, a Scotsman with a real flair for food photography.
Though they have been living in Kilcullen for five years now, the Armelle's Kitchen enterprise is very new. The service includes free delivery throughout the mid-Kildare area.
"I have worked in kitchens since I came to Ireland, in Clontarf Castle, the Clarion Hotel in the IFSC and in The Vineyard in Blanchardstown," says Armelle, who originbally hails from the north of France. "But because of the recession I was made redundant, and decided it was time to do something on my own."
She comes from a family of cooks, and her father has always had a particular interest in making cakes. "When I went home for Christmas in December, I helped him with Yule Log cakes for 20 members of our family," she laughs. "Cooking was where we were all brought up."
Armelle currently works from home, but hopes in coming years to have built up enough business to open a small home bakery shop in town.
In the meantime, though, her baking can be found in several shops in the locality, and she will make up presentation cakes and pastries for special occasions.
Temptation is just a call away to 086 3309373 or email armelleskitchen@live.ie, or you can also become a fan on Facebook, www.facebook.dj/armelleskitchen
Brian Byrne.
This article was first published on the Kilcullen Page of the Kildare Nationalist.
(Click above to go directly to Armelle's Kitchen.)
The Kildare Steiner School community came together recently with the volunteers of the Native Woodland Trust to plant 1,500 native Irish saplings at the school in Gormanstown, outside Kilcullen.
The saplings planted included oak, willow, beech, holly, cherry and other fruit trees.
"The planting also gave the community a great opportunity to do what it does best -- work together to create and enjoy something beautiful," says school spokeswoman Angie Ruane. "It was great to see parents, old friends, families and children alike all pitching in and sharing their energies. The weather was unbelievably kind to us and after the planting the cob oven was fired up for home-made pizzas, when the relaxing part of the day really started."
The school is indebted to the Native Woodland Trust who plant trees in schools across Ireland. Further information on the non-denominational school is available at wwwkildaresteinershcool.org
Dun Ailinne, the ancient royal site just outside Kilcullen, is to be presented in a list of sites in Ireland for consideration as a Unesco World Heritage Site, at a meeting of the organisation's World Heritage Committee in Brasilia at the end of July.
The site outside Kilcullen is included in a cluster of 'royal sites of Ireland' along with Cashel, the Hill of Uishneach in Co Westmeath, the Rathcrogan complex in Co Roscommon, and Tara in Co Meath. The llist being submitted is at the 'tentative' stage in the process.
Other sites on the list include the Historic City of Dublin, Royal Tara, Georgian Dublin, the Céide Fields in northwest Mayo, Dún Aonghusa in Aran, the monastic site of Clonmacnoise and the Burren in Co Clare.
Ireland's three Unesco sites are Skellig Michael, off the Kerry coast; Brú na Bóinne in Co Meath, and the Giant’s Causeway in Co Antrim.
At a public meeting in Kilcullen a year ago, Brian Lucas from the Department of Environment, Heritage & Local Government said that Unesco was trying to limit the number of WH sites, one reason why a 'serial' nomination of the combined Royal Sites was being considered.
I'm planning a new element to the Diary based on the fact that all of us have memories of loved ones who have passed on, and which bring a smile to our lives when we recall them.
If you have such a story, or even would just like a mention of such a person to remind us that they were once amongst us, please email me with the details at mariseoshouse@gmail.com. You can also contact me on +353 86 8267104.
Think in terms of an anecdote about them, for instance, or a piece of music they liked and why. You can even send in a picture if you wish.
The programme will be called 'Thanks for the Memories' and I hope to put it in audio format as a podcast if there's sufficient interest to get it off the ground.
Let me know what you think.
Brian Byrne.
(Click above to go directly to Armelle's Kitchen.)
The 25th of March was the day of the school cross country running. We all came into school really nervous. At half-nine Mr O’Raoghaill called the team. Monica took a picture of the teams, then we set off on the bus. It took 45 minutes to get to Celbridge GAA club. When we got off the bus, the first race had started so we only had about 40 minutes to warm up.
As the song goes, 'trains and boats and ...' oops, sorry, no planes.
These are interesting times for travel and travellers. As an editorial in 'Le Monde' put it, 'for the last five days, humanity has been dancing on a volcano'.
I bought the newspaper at a motorway service area on the outskirts of Nantes, on the second day of a journey by coach from northern Spain. With a number of colleagues and through the good offices of our hosts, Peugeot, we were making our way to an Irish Ferries ship at Cherbourg, due to sail on the evening, and eventually home the next afternoon.
What was intended to be a quick overnight at Elciego in northern Spain, involving a total of four hours of flying time and a day driving a new model Peugeot, turned into a week away from home and office.
But I was one of the fortunate ones. I had it easy. Not stuck at an airport with a family and money running scarce, trying to get home after a holiday. Or not watching a planned holiday disappearing on an airport board of flights cancelling like falling dominoes. Even my work didn't suffer unduly because I had my computer and the internet. And time.
Lots of time. Especially on the coach, the journey on which has reminded me of just how big France is. And beyond France, the wider continent. Up to last week it had become a shrunken place with nowhere further than a couple of hours or so in the air. But without the planes on which we have come to so depend, it has stretched mightily.
It is a coincidence that I was actually driving on the glacier on top of that particular Icelandic volcano a few years ago. Even ate lunch on it from the tailgate of a Land Rover Discovery. I knew that it was considerably beyond the predicted date of its next eruption and I clearly remember wondering what would happen if it did?
Well, now I know. Now we all know. A belch from a dyspeptic planet and the transportation system of a whole continent was bumped back decades. To when air travel was only for a few rich, and the rest of us would measure distances in days and weeks instead of short hours. When trains and boats and the long distance coaches were kings of mass transport.
Of course, it is better now than then. The trains are faster, the boats much more comfortable, and the coaches are smoother and more efficient and have excellent networks of road to travel on.
And maybe we're going to get used to using them all again. Because, I think, even when nature takes its course and the weather sorts out the spews from Eyjafjoll (it's a much easier spell in French), the certainties of air schedules will not return for some time. If for no other reason than volcanoes live to a different pace than we humans, and now that Eyjafjoll is awake she is likely to stay that way for quite a while. She might even waken her neighbours and then there could be a much bigger row in the camp.
I rather suspect that the episode will make many hundreds of thousands quite wary of booking holidays using airplanes. Not so much for any supposed danger, but because they don't want to be left stranded again. And many more who were forced into the experience of using ferries for the first time will have found that these days it is not an unpleasant experience at all, and will consider using them in the future.
On the ferry, the Oscar Wilde run by Irish Ferries, there was a tangible air of people having escaped. We had been fortunate to get places from earlier in the week. Others were still hanging about at the terminal, hoping for cancellations to make space for them. The ferry was already booked solid for the next week or more.
The Captain held back departure by half an hour so that the company could take on board 50 or so other people who had found their way to the ferryport without bookings. Tears of despair and frustration which had been evident in the terminal as those of us with bookings moved through, changed, I reckon, to many tears of relief.
Onboard, it turned out to be a place for meetings of friends and acquaintances. The first person to come up to me on the ship was an old friend from my RTE days, Donncadh O Dualainn, longtime presenter of 'Failte Isteach' on RTE Radio 1 on Saturday nights and a real old master of radio. He and his wife had spent the previous five days trying to get home from Paris, staying in five different hotels.
Apart from ourselves in the Peugeot/Gowan Group crew there were other well known names from the Irish motor business. Paddy Murphy, formerly of Mitsubishi Ireland, who had driven up from the south of Spain with jazz musician Paddy Cole and other friends. They had rented a minibus. Bill Cullen and his partner Jackie Lavin had motored up from Faro in Portugal in a rented Ford Transit minibus. (Which broke down on the trip, apparently, and the Renault dealer will no doubt dine out on that for some time.)
From closer to home, Kilcullen-based solicitor Pat Reidy and his wife Valerie, along with Mark Weld and his wife Zoe and their toddler, had also made their own way from Spain. And a barman I used to know in The Paddocks in Naas from several years ago, Seamus, had found himself stuck in Genoa, Italy. He had got to Cherbourg via Geneva and Paris.
As I finish this (most of it was written on the coach and on the ferry), a certain normality has been restored to Europe's airspace and transport systems. It yet remains to be seen if any lessons will be learned from the whole saga. That same editorial in 'Le Monde' suggested that, in addition to Europe's humanity 'dancing on a volcano', the biggest lesson for us all was one of 'humility'.
Mother Nature can teach such lessons. It is not at all certain that we learn from them.
Brian Byrne.
(Click above to go directly to Armelle's Kitchen.)
I met a group of friends in Avoca Rathcoole last Friday for coffee and a general catch-up. I was looking forward to hearing everyone’s news and latest gossip.
Not so unusual, you might think, except that I’d never met any of these friends in real life before. Although I talked to them almost daily, I knew what they looked like only from their avatars.
You see, this was a tweetup – a Twitter meet-up. We had all connected, chatted and become friends on Twitter through our common involvement with Inkwell, an online writers’ group.
It transpired that several of us were quite close to each other all along. Hazel Gaynor (third from right) lives in Kilcullen, while I (farthest right) am a Kilcullen girl born and bred.
Plenty of people seem to believe that connections made on social networking sites are just 'virtual friends', not actually real people. The beauty of sites such as Twitter is that one can connect with other people with exactly the same set of interests as your own, from all over the world.
Sometimes, if you’re lucky, those people are to be found just down the road from you.
Jane Travers.
Follow me on Twitter @janetravers
and on my Blog 'Jane Obsessed with Jane', www.janetravers.com
It's a long shot, but if anyone is stuck in Alicante and would like to get back to Cork tonight, there are two spare tickets available, a backup plan from a reader who actually got home another way.
The tickets are for 10.30pm flight, €90 face value and the change fee is €100. So €190 a ticket. Tickets are €300/seat at the moment. Phone 0851715531 if you know of somebody who can use them.
These pictures from the recent wedding of Michelle McCarthy and John Berney are by Kilcullen-based photographer Jean Kenny. I think everyone will agree they are quite stunning.
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As has been traditional for many years, the Kilcullen members of KARE recently organised the KARE Golf Open which starts off the opens season at The Curragh Golf Club.
Mary Shortt recalls how the event started with the late Joe McTernan sponsoring the 'Hack On Champagne Open' in aid of KARE, the countywide organisation which promotes social inclusion for people with intellectual disability.
"He was the first businessman in Kilcullen to sponsor KARE in such a way," she says. "Some years later, Dominick Doyle of Newbridge Cutlery came on board as well."
After Joe McTernan's death, the Kilcullen branch of KARE decided they would keep the event going in order to maintain the town's input, and they have been running it ever since.
"We make around €3,000-€3,500 a year from it since we began. We were also the first such open to allow lady players."
Since Joe McTernan's passing, Willie Doyle of Newbridge Silver has been the main sponsor of the event.
The prizes were presented in the presence of Curragh GC Mens and Ladies captains Seamus Rothwell and Maggie McElroy.
Seamus Rothwell said the club was proud of its association with the work of KARE and he hoped that the event would continue to be a feature of the club's programme.
Mary Shortt thanked the club for making the weekend available free of charge every year to the event. She also paid tribute to all the sponsors since the event began, especially the current sponsor, Willie Doyle. "I would also really like to express my thanks to all the players who have helped us out over the years," she added, "and also to Chris Lowry and the Competitions Committee for running the competition on the days."
Heritage, talent and culture will be the themes in Brannockstown's first ever Summer Festival, to be held 11-13 June.
The village's past and present will be featured over the weekend, which will have photography, music and dancing, historical talks and walks, and a community barbecue.
Local skills, crafts and artisan foods will be on display.
The committee is now looking for old photographs, scrapbooks, local history booklets, and school heritage projects which may be lying about in local homes.
The three key contacts are Steve Schwer, 045 483691; Ian Shiel, ishiel@o2.ie; and Amanda Hennessy, Amandahoran01@gmail.com.
With the running of the Punchestown Charity Race in aid of PKRF tomorrow, the total funds raised since it was inaugurated two decades ago will have exceeded €1.1 million.
One of tomorrow's riders will be Sandra Hughes on Hardy Eustace, the dual Champion Hurdle winner, trained by Dessie Hughes at Osbourne Lodge. Pictured are at the training stables yesterday are Emma Nolan, Punchestown Kidney Research Fund; James Nolan, PKRF; Sonia Treacy, Newbridge, dialysis patient; Dessie Hughes; Sandra Hughes; and Anne-Marie Molloy, Secretary of the Punchestown Charity Race.
A number of events planned for the concluding days of Youth Week includes the launch of the Parish Youth Club tomorrow night (Friday).
There will be two sessions, 7-9 years from 5-6.30pm and 10-14 years from 7-9pm.
On Saturday there's a Youth Mass at 7.30pm. It will include a Youth Testimony by parishioner Gillian Dunne,
The Sunday Youth Mass at 11am will feature the commissioning of the Young Readers, testimony from Michael Hinds, and music from the Jesus Youth Music Ministry.
On Sunday afternoon from 12 noon to 2pm there will be a session with the Jesus Youth Movement.
The Flora Women's Mini Marathon 2010 takes place in Dublin, Monday 7th June. The Punchestown Kidney research Fund, is a local charity which will be represented by a team of ladies from Kilcullen and area. It's a fun day and should be experienced at least once. The date for registering is past but we have a limited number of spare enteries. If you missed the closing date, contact us.
On Tuesday, May 11 at 8pm, Kilcullen Parish Centre, an Information Evening will take place. Guest speakers will tell about life on dialysis and all aspects of kidney related illness. It's well worth coming, as we have very good speakers. If you have not already heard Darren Cawley from Mayo you cannot miss this.
James Nolan and some new people will address us this year. Please come, even if you're not doing the mini marathon. You are very welcome.
Contact Phena Bermingham 045-485232 or Mobile 087 976753; Caroline Dempsey 087 2562563; James Nolan (shop).
Phena Bermingham.
This Course will provide participants with the knowledge, skill and competence to develop their own small scale vegetable enterprise.
It is FETAC approved and satisfies the requirement for the New Organic Farming Scheme.
The Course will run over five Saturdays commencing mid May 2010.
The practical course will be conducted between two Organic Farms in the Carlow area.
Further details from Cindy Mahon, Teagasc Office, Rathstewart, Athy, Co. Kildare (059)8631719 or (087)2811698 or Paula Pender, (086)2688625.
A 'Pretty in Pink' Marie Keating Foundation Fundraiser is being held in The Hideout on Friday 30 April.
Start time is 9pm and the event runs 'till late. All in a good cause, boys, so get out the pink shirts and colour key to your other halves.
Horses relaxing on Sunday near Kilcullen last weekend. Pic by Noel Clare/The Bridge.
Fallons Cafe Bar in Kilcullen won the Kildare Best Restaurant award in Leinster Region of The Irish Restaurant Awards 2010 sponsored by Santa Rita/Sunday Independent Life Magazine.
The event took place in the Killiney Castle, Dublin and nominations for the awards were made by readers of the Sunday Independent Life Magazine, members of the Restaurants Association of Ireland and by regional judging panels.
All County winners will now compete for the Regional and All Ireland Title which will be announced at the Irish Restaurant Awards in the Burlington Hotel Dublin on Wednesday 9th June 2010.
The Solas Youth Cafe will have an Open Night on Wednesday 21 April at 7.30pm.
The venue is the Tennis Club building and all teenagers between 15-17 are welcome.
People at the recent Kilcullen Tidy Towns Table Quiz 2010 in Bardons. Pictures courtesy Noel Clare/The Bridge.
The Drama Dynamics Teen Theatre performs Alan Ayckbourn's 'My Very Own Story' in Kilcullen Town Hall Theatre this week, from from Wednesday 21st to Saturday 24th April (Inclusive).
Starting time is 8pm each night and the production, directed by Evelyn O'Sullivan, can be enjoyed by children and adults alike.
A church music workshop will be given by Tom Kendzi in Kilcullen Parish Centre on Tuesday 20 April, 7-9pm.
Tom is a world famous expert in the genre and the event is suitable for all musicians and choirs, including Gospel choirs, and folk groups.
The charge is €10 per person and this includes printing and resources.
Kilcullen will be participating in the National Spring Clean in May, during which more than 5,000 related events will be happening throughout the country.
The Kilcullen effort will take place on Wednesday May 5, starting at the Town Hall at 7.30pm.
All are welcome to help clean up litter throughout the community.
A fundraising night is being held on Tuesday after the races in the Riverside Restaurant.
It's in aid of the Irish Horse Welfare Trust and is sponsored by Ladbrokes.com
The off is as 8.30pm with a drinks reception, followed by a 3-course meal and and auction and raffle. The event will be attended by Mick Fitzgerald and Grand National Winner Tony McCoy and many other well known faces and supporters of the Irish Horse Welfare Trust.
The Trust is a voluntary organisation working around the clock doing fantastic work rescuing, rehabilitating and re-homing horses and ponies.
The IHWT Team is dealing with a huge number of horses and ponies weekly. Your support is vital and appreciated.
Places are limited and to book tickets contact Sharon at 086 6047840 or contact the restaurant directly at 045 482966.
Kilcullen Canoe and Outdoor Pursuits Club is setting up its own website, which is promised to be online soon.
Meanwhile, more than Ä3,000 was raised for club funds in the recent Race Night held in The Spout pub.
The club wishes to thank all sponsors, horse owners, volunteers and the management of The Spout itself for making it such a successful event.
Four young Kilcullen athletes took medals home from the recent County Cross Country competition and six qualified for the All-Ireland competition being held in Athlone in May.
In the u/12 500m, Laura Quigley took gold, and Katie Quigley brought home a silver. Jack Fitzgerald took the gold in the Boys u/12 500m, and Katie Berney won the bronze in the Girls u/14 700m.
Lisa Aspel and Brendan Aspel also qualified for the All-Ireland.
Professor Peter Conlon, Beaumont Renal Consultant; Clinical Nurse Manager Jane Ormond; Anne-Marie Molloy; Darren Cawley, dialysis patient; Clinical Nurse Manager Johanna McWilliams; and Phena Bermingham, Kilcullen Ladies Mini Marathon Organiser; at the official handover of three home dialysis training machines to the hospital last night.
The machines were paid for by the Punchestown Kidney Research Fund, which is helped by the annual Punchestown Festival Charity Race and the activities of the Kilcullen ladies who participate in the Flora Womens Mini Marathon each year..
Brannockstown National School has won its second Green Flag.
The new flag reflects the school's achievements in energy conversation.
It was collected recently by teachers Mrs Finnegan and Ms O'Riordan, along with Green School committee members Aoife Coughlan and Rachel Egar.
Kilcullen Community Action is holding its AGM on Monday April 26.
It is the first AGM since the organisation completed its change to becoming a limited company.
All who have any interest in making Kilcullen a better place to live in are urged to come along.
Three training dialysis machines for a programme to provide kidney patients with home dialyis machines will be officially handed over to Beaumont Hospital this evening by the Punchestown Kidney Research Fund.
The machines cost almost €33,000 and are being used by 14 patients who hope to have home dialysis units, saving them having to go to hospital three times a week.
"This will free up resources in the hospital dialysis units," says James. "They are at full stretch just now, working 24/7."
Michelle Kirwan celebrated her third anniversary of Ruby Shoes in Kilcullen last week. Congrats, Michelle.
A Kilcullen couple who want to win 'The Ultimate Job in Ireland' need your help in voting them through to the final selection.
The next round chooses 10, and the 50 are being voted for on the website of Runaway Bride & Groom. Voting closes on Saturday night.
You can see Elaine & Kevin's entry here, and vote for them.
Fine Gael Councillor Martin Heydon has called on Kildare County Council to become more proactive on the issue of job creation within the County.
Speaking at last Friday’s reconvened Kildare County Council meeting, where he had placed a motion calling for the establishment of a job creation committee to act as a task force within the county, Cllr Heydon said the strengths and knowledge of local communities and local business people should be used to help create jobs right now, to ensure that everything that can be done by the local authority to aid job creation, is being done.
On the same day, live register figures were released for March 2010. They showed that a total of 17,907 people are now signing on in Kildare, an increase of 19.4% on the corresponding figures for March 2009. They also showed that Kildare and Wicklow had the greatest increase per county in the Live Register figures for the month.
“The startling increase in unemployment within Kildare requires radical and innovative action," Cllr Heydon said. "While I acknowledge the county development board and the proposed establishment of an economic development sub-committee, I believe we need something much more focused with a clearly defined objective and timeline.”
The county manager urged the members to give the proposed sub committee on economic development time before forming a new committee. While this request was acceded to, a review of the progress of the sub committee would be expected in the coming months.
“Circumstances are changing so rapidly it is imperative that any counter measures to try to firstly halt this decline in unemployment then actively reduce it, must be just as equally swift,” concluded Cllr Heydon.
... with the Dragon Tattoo
... who Played with Fire
... who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
These books are known as the Millennium Trilogy. They are by a Swedish writer, Stieg Larsson. And there won't be any more of them because the author died suddenly a short time after delivering the manuscripts to his publisher.
We should note a couple of things about Larsson. He was an investigative journalist, and a publisher of a magazine. So it is reasonable to assume that one of his principal characters is based a lot on himself.
Mikael Blomqvist is top reporter and publisher of 'Millennium' magazine in the trilogy. And the three books are essentially about his adventures with The Girl, Lisbeth Salander. Actually, Lisbeth is the main protagonist, a strange, fractured, and gifted young woman whose back story only completes itself at the end of the third book.
I don't want to give anything away about any of the three plots. Let's just put into context how I got to read them.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was part of a Christmas present package, which I didn't get to read until February. In English it is a translation, of course, and in some ways this might be part of the reason that I found it initially slow and somewhat stilted. Or maybe that's the way it is in the original Swedish. Larsson's style is to do a lot of detailed background, perhaps more than necessary.
But it was also one of those books which I couldn't put down. I read it over a weekend, dropping all the other things I should have been doing to pick it up whenever I could.
It was partly the yarn, a search for a killer in a family history which Blomqvist was asked to undertake as a journalist. And partly the extraordinary character of Lisbeth Salander, an intensely private person to whose life only the reader is allowed access.
The 'Dragon Tattoo' book comes to a satisfying end. And there never needed to be a sequel, except that Larsson himself was obviously intrigued with his main character and the interactions of the others with her. That he wrote all three books on the trot before bringing them to his publisher reflects that he too knew there was more to find out.
Since I'm a regular, and appreciative user of Kilcullen Community Library, I asked Julie to see if she could get me the second book of the trio. Given the popularity of 'Dragon' and the fact that it has now also been released as a movie, the others were in some demand. But a couple of weeks ago it arrived and I picked it up. I had to finish something else before getting into it, and read two thirds of it last weekend and finished it mid-week. Which indicates that it also was addictive. Without detailing the story, we were moving on in the past and present of Lisbeth Salander, who herself had found a need to face demons from her origins. Mikael Blomqvist and other familiars figured also in the story, in major ways but at a distance from Lisbeth, because that was how she wanted it. Though in fact, and despite her best efforts, they were working on her behalf.
As I've said, it came to an abrupt and unsatisfactory ending. But the reason for this came clear when I left back the book last Friday, and Julie told me she had got in the third one for me. I got stuck into it yesterday morning, and finished it in the glorious sunshine of this afternoon.
In fact, 'Hornet's Nest' takes up seamlessly from the 'Fire' book, and it is clear that they were really written as one. Whether it was the publisher's decision to divide it, or Larsson had already done that, I don't know. But the two need to be read in sequence, and together.
They are all three powerful books. The grounding of the stories, and of the author, in journalism would appeal to me anyhow. Which is maybe why the extensive detail didn't bother me as much as I know it has readers without my background.
As a 'police procedural' genre it shows that, despite the funny names, policing is pretty similar all over the world.
As a series of books with twists and turns of plot, against backgrounds of business and political intrigues, they are collectively, and individually, engrossing. They also provide a window into the quite complex legalities of Swedish life and social regulation.
I put the last book down this afternoon quite satisfied. I have to be, since Larsson is gone and we'll not have any further insights into the life of The Girl.
I kind of feel, though, that the author was happy enough that, for her, justice had at last been truly done.
Right, I've told you nothing, really. Except, it you like a good yarn that also leaves you wondering a little, this trilogy is well worth spending good reading time on.
Brian Byrne.
Mandy McLoughlin's dance pupils showed off a variety of types of dance at their show last night in the Community Centre.
Another good time in The Spout last night for the annual Kilcullen AFC Race Night.
KCA Tidy Towns quiz takes place next Monday night in Bardons. Table of four €40.
The Quiz starts at 8.30. Funds raised go towards the summer planting project.
