Looking Back: A summer Sunday in 1978

It's the small things that we mostly throw away which are among the most important things for a community's heritage, writes Brian Byrne.

Which is why we're very lucky in Kilcullen to have had PJ Lydon's squirrel-like penchant down the decades for gathering and keeping stuff.

Like this Kilcullen Parish Bulletin from Sunday 6 August 1978. Which shows just how much has changed in many ways over 44 years. The standout change being the number of masses celebrated in the parish.

On Sundays there were six, one in Gormanstown at 9am and the rest in Kilcullen at 8am, 9.30am, 11am, 12 noon and 7pm. On weekdays there was an 11am mass on the Monday (it was a bank holiday) and at 9.30am and 7.30pm on Tuesday through Saturday.

It was also a Parish Carnival week, with the entertainment for the Sunday beginning with Eugene Lambert and his Wanderly Wagon in the marquee in the afternoon. A Dog Show in the Boys School field was another attraction, and the dancing that evening in the marquee was to the music of Brendan Shine.

On the bank holiday Monday there would be a Feis in the marquee from 11.30, and dancing that night to The Davitts. Dance music for the rest of the week featured Jimmy Dunny, a Ceidhli and Old Time run by the Football Club, Reform, and on the Saturday Super Night it was the Bridge Ceidhli Band from 10pm followed by the main act at midnight, Dermot O'Brien. 

Parents were sternly reminded that dancing in the marquee was for those over 16 only.

There was a second page to this particular bulletin relating the the progress of the Challenge Collection, established in 1974 to raise the local contribution to the funding of the new Scoil Bhride. The total raised to this Sunday was £35,010. The total required locally would be, it was estimated, £48,000, more than originally expected because of 'inflation and bank charges'. The major effort through the Challenge campaign had been the collection of 50p per week from parishioners, and the objective was to have the school fully paid for on the day it opened. The report noted that the building of the school was 'making very good progress'.

So much local history in in just one A4 typewritten page of a Sunday throwaway ...  

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