John McCullagh – Page 232

Oxymorons

June 9, 2020October 21, 2004 by John McCullagh

The fashion-conscious enjoy skin-tight slacks and a healthy tan. Politicians talk of nuclear defence and Star-Wars shields. Computer people rail against Microsoft Works. Civil servants weave a web of garbage in Plain English forms. Examples of oxymorons abound in our world. What are they?

I was contemplating how our recent stories of reminiscence evoke bitter-sweet memories when the term’s internal contradiction struck me. This epigrammatical device deliberately junxta-poses contradictory terms; it is used sparingly and carefully by writers. On the other hand the grant-milkers, the ‘great and the good’, the ‘movers and shakers’ sprinkle oxymorons through their language and press-releases like confetti.

One of the minor aims of Newry Journal is to expose self-publicising fraudsters. You have read some examples here. Now I’m asking you to come up with your favourite (i.e. most despised!) examples.

Can anything be altogether separate; the same difference; a working holiday; virtual reality; pretty ugly; a civil war; a peace force?

[Abbey Gymnists c.1964 F. Arthur Murphy:Michael McCullagh:Coach, Gerry Brown: Peter Poland: … : Hugh McShane (?) M. ? : Martin McConville: Markey: …: McGivern: Back.. 4. Gerry Hobden ..] Corrections please to Guestbook! (Ta to Gerry Hobden for Guestbook note. I’m sorry not to have recognised you for we were acquainted! I’m fairly confident M 1. is not Gerry McLaughlin (of Stream Street), unless there was another of that name!

Over to you! Examples on Guestbook, please.

The Rampart Walk

June 9, 2020October 15, 2004 by John McCullagh

We promised you a guide to walks of various degrees of endurance. Park at Mauds, enter the Ramper through the construction site (you’ve got the Right of Way) and follow the river path to the Tide: Council has supplied gates and a pleasant pathway for you to cross the Dual Carriageway and return to town via the Old Warrenpoint Road. Charming, safe and idyllic – less than three miles in total.

Burial of Harry Stotle

June 9, 2020October 14, 2004 by John McCullagh

The second Dromintee man read that Book of Harry Stotle and it got a hault of him and he couldn’t get shot of it. He did in the end, wi’ the help of a Father Duggan – a silenced priest. Somehow they had more power.

Gap of the North

June 9, 2020October 14, 2004 by John McCullagh

Gap of the North, written by Noreen Cunningham and Pat Maginn and published in 2001 by O’Brien Press is an excellent handbook for the tourist and the local enthusiast alike.

It is described as the guide to the archaeology and folklore of Armagh, Down, Louth and Monaghan and it fulfils that function excellently in a handy softback volume. Suffice it to say that Newry Journal considers it an indispensable reference for many of our articles.

It comes with a handy map showing all 48 monument types and gives the monument type, location, grid reference and status of each, before describing it in detail and recounting associated folklore.

The project was initiated and supervised by Anthony Cranney who was also responsible for many of the photographs. If you want to visit all, you will also need the appropriate O.S. maps.

A few reservations only. The Crown Mound (31) is in private ownership and cannot be visited. This ought to be noted. I feel it would have been helpful if the access routes to mountain sites, like Clermont Cairn on Black Mountain had been marked. Perhaps a few such mountain trails could have been detailed.

But I’m nit-picking. It is a terrific handbook and great value at under

Ireland top goal-scorer ever!

June 9, 2020October 14, 2004 by John McCullagh

We were in Dublin to celebrate our achieving more than 100,000 visitors on Newry Journal. The aul’ mate Keano wanted to share the photo-opportunity. What can one do? ‘I believe you have something yourself to celebrate. Ireland’s highest goal-scorer ever!’ ‘No comparison,’ he generously conceded. ‘You’re my main man!’

The Book of Harry Stotle

June 9, 2020October 8, 2004 by John McCullagh

There’s them kin work the Black Art of the Divil and there’s not a word of lie in that. It cud be done before and it can still be done. I heared a priest in Dundalk the other week preaching that it cud be done!

There’s several ways of doing it. A man cud sell his soul to the devil and be free and rich and merry for seven years and then the devil wud come till claim him. But he cud make the devil sweep the bottom of the seven seas for him before he’d go and all the time the money pouring out of the tops of he’s boots.

There was some way of swearing on an anvil in a blacksmith’s forge. Sure Willy the Wisp was a blacksmith in the first place that sold himself till the Divil an’ beat him in the end. An’ they cud hold up the Ace of Hearts at the Consecration of the Mass and they’d get the Black Art. Or gather the seeds of the bracken on black plates on Hallow Eve at midnight. And ye cud read some book that came from foreign parts: it was a book with black pages and white writing and you had to read it from back to front and from right till left. They called it the Book of Harry Stotle. And it warned you

‘Read me through

Peruse me not

Or Hell’s Fire

Will be your lot.’

Sure I’ll tell ye more the next time ye call on your ceili!

Whistlin’ In The Barn

June 9, 2020October 8, 2004 by John McCullagh

Peader was reflecting on days and people, and a way of life that were gone. He spoke of a travelling woman of these parts who stayed in his parent’s place one time, and who took over the settlebed and made the people ‘wait hand and foot’ on her for a week.

She was nothing to the old Travelling Woman who was snow-bound in his grandfather’s on the Dromintee Old Road. She had her own flour with her, which she had begged. When given permission to make her own griddle of bread she told the grandfather at the fireside to ‘quit yer smokin’ and spittin” while she was around the hearth. She backed this up with the remark that she had ‘once owned three cows in the County of Monaghan’. War ensued in which even the cat – and the traditional South Armagh hospitality – fled. Out she had to go into the snow-drifts.

The grandmother couldn’t have this and pleaded for a compromise that allowed the travelling woman a temporary banishment only to the barn. She began loudly to play a tin whistle out there so that the neighbours might learn of her banishment. He saw the gathering throng of spectators on the ten-foot drifts on the road overlooking the wall and the fear of local ridicule caused him to relent. She was brought back to the house.

Egyptian Arch

August 27, 2020October 8, 2004 by John McCullagh

The Egyptian Arch was completed in 1851 and was designed by William Dargan. The design was based on the Pylon, or gateway to an ancient Egyptian Temple. The latter of course is the origin of the name that we give to those giant steel structures that carry power lines between settlements.

…Except Us Chickens

June 9, 2020October 6, 2004 by John McCullagh

The police were in hot pursuit of the bank robbers who sought refuge in Rio de Janeiro zoo. The gang spread out to make their detection more difficult. They had to be careful not to secrete themselves in dangerous animals’ enclosures.

Some thieves elected to hide in the enclosure for deer and tapir. Police thought they might buck the trend by kidnapping Bambi or some other such hind. They were eventually captured.

It was a dear mistake. They were additionally charged with trespass and criminal damage to municipal property.

Those who chose the exotic fowl enclosure found that their hidey-hole was dark and cavernous. Still when they arrived, the cops shone their torches into it for some time to check if anybody was hiding inside.

Eventually this croaky voice emerged from the coop at the back..

‘There’s nobody in here, except us chickens!’

…

Sorry! I know you heard it before! But it still creases me up!