Actor and seanchai Eamon Kelly recently travelled from his home in Dublin to his native Sliabh Luachra on the Cork/ Kerry border to launch the millennium edition of the Sliabh Luachra Journal.
The journal has played an invaluable role in documenting the history of the area which remains a rich repository of Irish folklore, music, song and dance. This edition, the 10th in the series, is edited by Irish Examiner journalist Donal Hickey.
?????????????i stet loves nothing better than to visit his native Kerry and in particular, his home place, Sliabh Luachra, straddling the Cork/Kerry border, which remains a rich repository of Irish folklore, music, song and dance.
Recently, he made such a journey from his home in Dublin to launch the Millennium edition of the Sliabh Luachra Journal, the 10th in the series, edited by Irish Examiner journalist, Donal Hickey.
At the community hall in Gneeveguilla, Eamon Kelly told the audience he believed every parish in Ireland should have a journal of its own to record its history and traditions.
"It is important to record our heritage and traditions. Young people today hardly know what happened 20 or 40 years ago, never mind what happened a century ago," he said. And then without too much prompting, he slipped into the role of the seanchai and treated the gathering to the tales that have a magic all their own when he weaves them.
This 110-page edition of the journal once again explores the roots of traditional music in the area, looks at the importance of the post office in rural life and at the Land War.
An article by Jeremiah O'Leary of Rathmore recalls how the sons of Sliabh Luachra fought and died in the first World War. The article deals with the sacrifice of the Hickey family from Lyreaoune. Four Hickey brothers, and possibly a fifth, lost their lives on various battlefields during the conflict.
"Very few families from any participating nation can have given as much as the Hickeys of Lyreaoune," O'Leary writes. The journal, which goes to natives of Sliabh Luachra around the world, from Africa to Australia, is read widely by Kerry emigrants.