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HOORAY AND CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THOSE WHO HAVE WORKED SO HARD FOR SO MANY YEARS TO MAKE EYERIES THE INCREDIBLE PLACE IT IS TO LIVE!!!


Eyeries Eyes Are Smiling
By Sean O’Riordan
The Irish Examiner

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Photo by Linda Hoffman Kimball


A picture postcard village of just 70 people has been declared the best kept place in Ireland.

Hugh O’Neill, chairman of the Eyeries Tidy Towns Committee in Co Cork said he was "flabbergasted" after Eyeries was named overall winner of Ireland’s Best Kept Towns at a ceremony in Belfast yesterday.

"We never thought in our wildest dreams that we’d get both the best kept village award and overall award.

"We just can’t believe it, even though we’ve put a lot of effort in over the last 30 years."

Locals have a rota system in place to keep the village spotless, and grass verges on the approaches to Eyeries are cut every week.

The village is also known as one of the most brightly-painted in the country and has been the setting for a number of films and dramas, including Falling for a Dancer.

Mr O’Neill said the €5,000 first prize would "come in very handy".

"It’s manna from heaven. We didn’t know where we were going to get the money to build a small footbridge over the river and a picnic area which we had planned. "

Local county councillor Jerry Sullivan said great credit was due to the small community.

"All ages are involved and they make sure they pick up litter every day. They have done well in Tidy Towns competitions before winning several medals, but this is a fantastic achievement.

"I hope it will attract more tourists to the village and even more film-makers. We are also hoping to get green flag recognition for our local strand, which would be another boost."

Many good wishes from Ireland and Anam Cara at the Summer Solstice!

The Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere is on June 20th at 23:09 UT/GMT this year. In Ancient Ireland, many of the Megalithic Monuments were aligned to the rising or setting sun on key solar points in the year.  In the Boyne Valley, we have the famous Winter Solstice alignment at Newgrange. Townleyhall, a small passage tomb located just north of Newgrange, is aligned with the rising sun at the Summer Solstice http://www.knowth.com/townleyhall-summer-solstice.htm

At Carrowkeel in the west of Ireland, Cairn G is aligned with the setting sun at the Summer Solstice http://www.newgrange.com/carrowkeel-solstice-08.htm (from Michael Fox -- email@newgrange.com)

Watercolour Workshop -- A Fabulous Success!

After a week of instruction from Evelyn Dunphy and painting in situ and in the conservatory, the workshop watercolourists and Anam Cara hosted an exhibition of their work for some of the neighbours and the villagers of Eyeries. It was their way of giving back for all the warm greetings and friendly chats they had while painting away up and down the village.

FABULOUS NEWS!!!

I am more than thrilled to say that I have just been granted Irish citizenship! Now all that remains for me to do is to learn the national anthem "A Soldier's Song," (in Irish), to go to Dublin for the pledging-fidelity-to-the-Irish-State ceremony, and to celebrate with all my neighbours and friends at, what I hope, is a long-into-night ceili with lots of singing, dancing, and great craic!!!

Writers -- Win a Retreat to Anam Cara!

Anam Cara is currently sponsoring two writing competitions. For submission details and deadlines about the one for poetry, go to: http://www.anamcararetreat.com/poetry-competition-2012.html For more information about the short fiction competition, go to: http://www.anamcararetreat.com/poets-and-writers-magazine.html. Good luck!

writing.ie Launches Anam Cara Poetry Competition

From writing.ie: "Anam Cara Writer's and Artist's Retreat and writing.ie are once again joining forces to sponsor a writing competition, this time for poets. The winning poet will receive a place in the one-week residential retreat Speaking in Pictures: A Poetry Writing Workshop Concerning Visual Art, conducted by Susan Rich. !For a description of the workshop, go to Anam Cara's website; to learn more about Susan Rich, go to: http://poet.susanrich.net/ or read her article right here on writing.ie revealing exactly how your poetry can benefit from revision in 'It's Not What You Write, It's How You Re-write.' "This competition is for previously unpublished poems, no longer than 14 lines, inspired by I and the Village a 1911 painting by the Russian-French artist Marc Chagall, currently exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

"To submit, email you poem, including your name, postal address, and telephone number to Sue Booth Forbes: anamcararetreat@gmail.com. The deadline is Midnight in Ireland, 29 May 2012 "The winner will be announced for Bloomsday, 16 June 2012. An all-poet panel of judges will select the short list, from which Susan Rich will select the winning poem. The short list and the winning poem will be posted right here on www.writing.ie and Anam Cara's website at http://www.anamcararetreat.com/anam-cara-competitions.html."

The Winner of Anam Cara Short Fiction Contest Revealed

The following announcement recently appeared in www.writing.ie:

Judge, award winning writer Vanessa Gebbie, told writing.ie:
I read thirteen pieces of work. All were great, and I am so impressed with the creativity, the writing, the skills out there... thank you to everyone who entered, and special congratulations if your story reached this last stage - I enjoyed them all, without exception, and picking a winner was very hard. I narrowed it down to three who interpreted the theme of A Garden of Eden really well, read them many times, then slept on it. They were both very different...but in the end, I had to choose a winner:

My winner is ‘The Well’ by Rumjhum Biswas, Tamil Nadu. India

.For me, this piece does many things. Firstly, it contains some lovely writing:

"The leaves lay like anchored boats on the water’s surface, until they had soaked up enough liquid to drown.

Secondly, in so few words, a complete world is created, centred on this well -- something that is dark, darkly beautiful, attracts and repels in equal measure. And, as you get to the end, begins to horrify, as we wonder, suspect, begin to question ... and for this reader, that sense continued after every read.

I thought the interpretation of the theme was great -- slightly off-centre, unexpected and original. So many congratulations to the writer."

Rumjhum is thrilled with her win and is booking flights now to take part in Vanessa's workshop in June!

But what of 2nd and 3rd?

Winning a 10% discount on a future workshop, we can reveal that in 2nd Place was "In the Beginning" by Danielle McLoughlin from Donoughmore, Co Cork, Ireland, and in 3rd Place Anne Booth from Canterbury in England, with "Hen Party."

As you know, first prize in this fabulous competition is a place on Vanessa Gebbie's short fiction workshop retreat 'So Much More Than it Seems' 9th-15th June which will be “a chance to explore in depth the craft of short fiction in all its challenging guises, in one of Ireland's most creatively exciting venues. A chance to focus on acquiring skills that will maximise the chances of your work rising to the top and standing out for the right reasons not only in publication slush piles but also in competitions.

In the company of a well-published, multi-prize-winning short storyist, who is also an experienced tutor, this will be a focused, collaborative workshop retreat during which you will create not only complete new work and the seeds of many new stories, but you will also discover tried and tested strategies for editing and revising your existing work to make it as good as it can be. We will make full use of the local resources to find fresh inspiration. Although biased towards the art and craft of short fictions, we will also be able to explore the relevance of the craft issues to prose poetry and longer works.