Conference tallis::celt

    Re Hurlers:  I have a cousin who played in Cork in the 70s, name
    of Stephen Hayes.  Anyone know him?
    
    Dick

    I might possibly know him - he is probably from Blackrock.
    I will find out.

    His mother is visiting here, found out he works for Apple.

	A cousin of mine works for Apple. He's a high level manager. His name
	is Dan Byrne.

						mike

    A D.Hayes played on the 1953 and 1954 Cork All-Ireland teams.
    His local club was Blackrock. Is there any relationship?
    Just about all the Hayes hurlers came from Blackrock, now
    a suburb of Cork City but once, a tiny fishing village on the
    shores of Lough Mahon on the River Lee.
    
    
    Pat M.

    Don't think so.  He now plays rugby for a team his
    father Bart Hayes played for, but I can't remember
    the name of it just now.
    
    

    Batt Hayes used to play rugby for Cork Constitution in the forties.
    A very tough customer, by all accounts!!!! He comes from the Ernie
    Keeffe, Noel Murphy era.

    I think you got him.  His son Stephen is playing for them now if
    my info, or recollection, is correct.  Stephen is my second cousin.

    My Grandmother's people, the Lanes, and the Cahalanes were from there.
    
    On my visit last June, I had a very nice dinner at the Innishannon
    House hotel with its green lawn stretching down to the banks of the
    Bandon River flowing to meet the tide at Kinsale.
    
    I could not help but wonder, as I looked across to the green hills
    where my ancestors worked the land, if this may have been the onetime
    home of their landlord and were they looking down upon me taking my
    ease.
    

    Innishannon is best known nowadays for producing Alice Taylor, writer
    of hokey books about going to school in the "good old days". 

    I have reason to visit Innishannon fairly regularly, a house very near
    to the Innishannon hotel in fact. Recently, in Galway (Freeneys pub to be
    exact), someone told me that there is a room in the Innishannon hotel
    which is haunted and unused. 

    This guy, a middled aged engineer from Galway was having dinner in the
    hotel with friends and they told him that there was a haunted room
    upstairs. He asked the Manager of the hotel about it and the Manager
    verified it. He asked not to be told the story of the room, but that he
    would go up to it and within a half hour tell, one, if it was haunted
    and if so, two, what the source of the haunting was. 

    He entered the room and, told the Manager to come back in a half hour. 

    Nothing happened for a few minutes so he called out if there was
    anybody there. The lights began to flick on and off and then remained
    off. He thought he saw the spectre of a child in great distress in the
    room with him. The child was dressed in old clothing but he couldn't
    place from when. He said at this time that he wasn't sure if there was one
    child or two, but I suspect what he was told later influenced that. 
    Anyway, he said he sensed great sadness and asked if there was anything
    he could do. He also said that he sensed underlying anger. The spectre 
    didn't respond. 

    The lights came on after a few more minutes and the manager came back for
    him (he had extended his time in the room the first time the manager
    came back). 

    I cannot remember what the actual story is but I know that at one stage
    a couple with two children had returned to inherit the house after they
    had been away for a number of years. The women had been mentally ill
    before that and ended up killing both of the children in that room. 
    
    There's a story for you to ask about next time you are in Innishannon
    Dennis.
    
    		Daith�
    

    RE: .10
    
    >Innishannon is best known nowadays for producing Alice Taylor, writer
    >of hokey books about going to school in the "good old days". 

    I'm not sure but what she was "produced" elsewhere and settled in
    Innishannon as an adult.  Though I haven't bothered to read any of
    them, I was under the impression that the village mentioned in her
    "hokey" books was elsewhere.
    
    I did, however, read some of her poetry.  I haven't come across any of
    them in Libraries over here, but one book had I poem I rather enjoyed
    which was about somebody missing out on the sounds of silence because
    they were plugged into their walkman all the time.
    
    Her family owns the grocery store in the village and I understand she
    has an office upstairs.
    
    I stayed at a B&B just up the street on the opposite side.  It was very
    nice.  The house used to be the fishing lodge for the estate of Winston
    Churchill's uncle and local legend has it that Winnie played by the
    river's edge as a wee lad.
    
    If you get a chance, stop by the old forge where the road to Bandon
    crosses the river.  There was a man there, Billy O'Connell [?] who
    claims to be one of the last hot forge farriers left in Ireland.  Most
    of them now put the shoes on cold and too bad for the poor horse if
    it's not a perfect fit.  He tried to get the government to subsidize an
    apprentice he could pass on his trade to, but nobody was interested. 
    His family has had that forge for three generations, I think he said.
    
    He's a good one to talk with if you want to know some local history.
    
    And, speaking of local history, the B&B had a thick notebook of
    material on local history from back before the Battle of Kinsale.
    

    I believe that that blacksmith died fairly recently and that the forge
    now lies empty. The front of one of Alice Taylor's books (I don't know
    which one) had a picture of that blacksmith on the front. Perhaps it
    was the book of poetry. 
    
    I visit a GPs house on the opposite side of the road to the Innishannon
    Hotel further out from the town, now and then. In fact I am going to marry 
    the GP's daughter next year sometime. The Doc knew that blacksmith well and
    my girlfriend remembers visiting the forge when she was young when her
    father stopped in for a chat. 
    
    I don't know whether Alice Taylor actually grew up in Innishannon, but
    I do know that one of the stories in her latest book is about the local
    GP who is my future father-in-law. He was very peeved recently when
    looking up a book on towns in Cork, the only thing that was said about
    Innishannon was that Alice Taylor lives there. 
    
    		Daith�