Beannacht is the Irish word for blessing. As 2020 ends, and we prepare to begin 2021, we extend a heartfelt and beautiful Beannacht from Tipperary-based healer and writer, Eileen Heneghan. Here at Trasna, we wish everyone health and happiness in the new year. Sliabh na mBan, Co. Tipperary …
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Boarding School Blues is a fictionalized story by Louise Peloquin of life at a Catholic high school in 1960s New England. The full story will be presented in regular installments over the next few months with one chapter appearing every other week. Boarding School Blues, chapter 2 Facing the inevitable…
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From: “A Christmas Childhood,” Patrick Kavanagh (1943) “Outside the cow-house my mother Made the music of milking; The light of her stable-lamp was a star And the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle. A water-hen screeched in the bog, Mass-going feet Crunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes, Somebody wistfully…
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Here is another of our Christmas classics: Paul Marion’s “Oranges at Christmas.” Oranges at Christmas By Paul Marion This week, my wife, Rosemary, bought a bag of small navel oranges at Market Basket, the first of these babies for the season. When I opened the plastic bag the twelve baseball-sized…
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This essay was initially published in The Lowell Sun on December 14, 2020. Can We Honor A Native Son? By Suzanne Beebe Jack Kerouac is a world-renowned writer. He opened new avenues for American writers of the 20th century. He was central to the Beat Movement of the 1950s…
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The Power of Non-Violence: The Enduring Legacy of Richard Gregg, a Biography by John Wooding A Review by Chath pierSath I had no idea who Richard Gregg was until I read The Power of Non-Violence: The Enduring Legacy of Richard Gregg by John Wooding. The book could not have come…
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Former Alaskan poet Laureate Tom Sexton’s latest volume of poetry is “Cummiskey Alley.” The collection is named after Lowell’s first Irishman, Hugh Cummiskey, who walked from Boston to Lowell with a group of Irish laborers. Cummiskey and many other Irish labors dug miles of canals in Lowell, and helped birth…
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Boarding School Blues is a fictionalized story by Louise Peloquin of life at a Catholic high school in 1960s New England. The full story will be presented in regular installments over the next few months with one chapter appearing every other week. Boarding School Blues, chapter 1 The Announcement By…
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Rikki Don’t Lose That Number By David Daniel ~1~ We were a small, tight-knit crew of nine, linked by the dance that is youth. When high school graduation came, we didn’t want us to end. That autumn I went off to a small Christian college not far from home. The…
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IRELAND’S MOST LOVED INDEPENDENT BOOKSHOPS This week on Trasna, we feature a few of Ireland’s Independent Bookshops. Ireland has over 200 Independent bookshops, and they fulfill a role that larger chains don’t: they are true members of their community. As poet Enda Wyley explains: “Here you drop in to browse…
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