These are excerpts from the Irish Culture & Customs Newsletter.Many links for music lessons, photography...

Irish Culture & Customs Newsletter - April 15
Enjoy.
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LEAVE EM LAUGHING

More amusement to the max with these one-liners from Maxine!

My husband and I divorced over religious differences. He thought he was God and didn't.

I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it.

I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.

You're just jealous because the voices only talk to me

I'm not a complete idiot - Some parts are just missing.

Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.

Consciousness: That annoying time between naps.

Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?

Being "over the hill" beats being under it!

Wrinkled Was Not One of the Things I Wanted to Be When I Grew up.

Procrastinate Now!

I Have a Degree in Liberal Arts; is that for here or to go?

Stupidity is not a handicap. Park elsewhere!

They call it PMS because Mad Cow Disease was already taken.

Ham and eggs: A day's work for a chicken, a lifetime commitment for a pig.

The trouble with life is there's no background music.

I smile because I don't know what the hell is going on.

Save the earth, it's the only planet with chocolate.

Never go to bed angry - stay up and plot your revenge

Don't believe everything you think.

I don't know what your problem is, but I bet it's hard to pronounce.

You're not yourself today. I noticed the improvement immediately

As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in public schools.

I may be old, but people who look like me always win the lottery.
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QUIPS, QUOTES, PROVERBS & TOASTS
The English language brings out the best in the Irish.
They court it like a beautiful woman.
They make it bray with donkey laughter.
They hurl it at the sky like a paint pot full of rainbows, and then make it chant a dirge for man's fate and man's follies that is as mournful as misty spring rain crying over the fallow earth. T E Kalem
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JOKE OF THE WEEK
From the Good Clean Funnies List/Thomas Ellsworth

Flying home after visiting her daughter in Ireland, a woman arranged to have her husband meet her plane at the Vancouver, B.C., airport. This meant a stop at the
border crossing between the United States and Canada, where her husband was asked, "What is your reason for entering the country?" and "How long are you planning to stay?"

He replied that he was picking his wife up at the airport after her trip to Ireland.

Without missing a beat, the guard asked two more questions
in the same business-like tone: "Is the house clean?" and
"Are there fresh flowers on the table?"
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DID YOU KNOW
1. 1761 a family of itinerants from Navan were refused entry to Dublin. The family settled on the outskirts of the city and created the town of Rush. Two hundred and fifty years later, almost the entire population of Rush can still trace their roots back to this one family.

2. Balbriggan, Co. Dublin, was once the hosiery capital of the world. Around the turn of the century stockings and tights were widely known as 'Balbriggans'.

3. Every spring, more than twenty million eels swim into the River Bann to breed. The Bann is the longest river in Northern Ireland the total length being 80 miles
(129 km). It winds its way from the south east corner of the province to the north west coast, pausing in the middle to widen into the enormous Lough Neagh.
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THE WEEK THAT IS
1. Article: irish Linen- The Cloth of Kings
https://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/AEmblem/Linen.html

2. Article: Two Charming Ladies of an Uncertain Age
https://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/Atravel/LadiesDriving.html

3. Article: The Year of the Spud
https://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/2Kitch/aSpuds.html

4. Article: Who was Behind the Doors of Dublin?
https://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/ALandmks/DoorsofDublin.html

5. Article: The Child of Prague
https://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/ACustom/InfantPrague.html

6. Article: Counties of Ireland - Cavan
https://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/ACounty/Cavan.html

7. Poetry Corner: Seamus Heaney
https://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/Poetry/SeamsHeaney.html


8. The Irish Kitchen: Grilled Mountain Lamb
https://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/2Kitch/rLamb1.html#GrilledLambandSalad

9. Basic Irish - Spring Cleaning
https://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/3Focloir/Lessons7.html

10. Kids Ireland: The Story of The little Bird
https://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/1Kids/StoryofthelittleBird.html

11. April Trivia Contest. The new contest is posted and all entries must be in by midnight on April 30 whatever time zone you're in:
https://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/TriviaContest.html

12. Circle of Prayer The fourth Novena in this cycle began on April 12 and continues through April 20. Whatever your spiritual leanings, please keep the following in your prayers or meditations:
The family of Simon Shepherd RIP who recently died
from a brain tumor;
Kim, a young wife and mother who is severely brain damaged
after a fall; Johanna Robarge;
Mary Layman; Laurie Martin; Jane F; Baby Brenna; Liam Nolan's friend Kim Parker;Hartson Dowd, and little Isabella. Also Randy & Donna and their children; Ergin
& his wife Joan; Josie and her family; Kathy, Pauline Dewberry, and so many others especially our men and women in the military serving their country all over the world. Please God, they will all be home safe and sound soon.
https://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/Blessings/CirclePrayer.html
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FROM AROUND THE WORLD
Boston, Mass: A Mother?s Son and the Marines
An Irish American mother who lost her son in Iraq last year used the $20,000 death benefit she received from the government to fly her son?s whole platoon from North
Carolina to Boston to participate in the St. Patrick?s Day parade in her son?s honor.
To read the story in its entirety, please click
https://www.irishabroad.com/news/irish-voice/news/Articles/A-Mother-Son-and-the-Marines050408.aspx

USA: Benedict the Builder Comes to America
Pope Benedict arrives in the USA on Tuesday. He will be greeted at Andrews Air Force Base by President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and local dignitaries of the church and the apostolic
nuncio. For more details please click
https://www.uspapalvisit.org/

USA: High Kings to join Celtic Woman Tour
After receiving rave reviews opening for Celtic Woman recently at NYC's famed Radio City Music Hall, The High Kings have accepted the invitation to join them
as special guests on the Celtic Woman tour through June 2008.
The High Kings headlining tour originally planned for spring will begin in the fall


LINKS
Irish Lesson with Celtic Harpist Dennis Doyle
A great site For anyone wishing to learn more than a few basic Irish phrases plus
get the phonetic pronunciation :
https://english.glendale.cc.ca.us/gaelic.html

The Irish Page
This time around, Jack and Vivian offer a traditional Irish song. It was probably sung to tease a young woman who'd been observed casting her eyes on the piper more than once during the evening. It is called Tir abhaile 'ri -
Go home with you. Please click
https://www.irishpage.com/songs/abhaile.htm

The Mighty Clan Moran
Is your surname Moran? Irish America takes a closer look at the interesting folk who make up the clan Moran. Please click
https://www.irishabroad.com/irishworld/irishamericamag/aprmay08/departments/RootsTheMightyMoran250308.asp

News from and about Jim Crotty
Jim is one of our generous Trivia Quiz sponsors and his prize is the gorgeous shamrock print you can see on our Trivia Page here:
https://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/TriviaContest.html
While were sad to report that Jim & his family are moving away from our region to Texas at the end of June, we were very happy to learn that Jim will continue his photography business on line. Click here for his web site and all his news,which includes being selected as a judge in the prestigious Shoot the Hills photography competition - well done, Jim!
https://www.picturesqueohio.com/

Around Ireland
Around Ireland is a mobile documentary project completed as part of the MSc in Multmedia
Systems at Trinity College Dublin. The four photographers involved traveled the
32 counties of Ireland, gathering video and images on mobile phones over the course of the Summer of 2006.

To find out more about them and to view their images,
please click
https://www.aroundireland.net/about.html


May strength be your brother,
and honor be your friend,
and luck be your companion
until we meet again.
And, as they say in Ireland, mind yourself.

Slan agus beannacht!