Pew Sheet – 26th March 2023

The Rector writes ‘ For some time now I’ve been trying to think of something that we can send over to our friends in Perton, as a thank you for the lovely little knitted Angels they sent us.  

As part of the 200 Celebrations, we have ordered O’Conail’s chocolate bars with a photo of Dorothee’s lovely painting of the Church on the cover. I think that these will make excellent presents for any visitors during our celebration year. They will also be available to buy from the St Mary’s Church Wardens from Easter (no chocolate to torture you during Lent!) 

Then on St Patrick’s day in the Bishop’s Palace, I spotted a lovely knitted Shamrock Brooch on another of the guests and I thought that this would be even more perfect as a gift to our Link Parish!

As we are going to need 100 or more of these, it will need to be a team effort and Gerlene Kennedy is kindly heading up this project. If you can crochet at all and would like to be involved please let me or Gerlene know. We will have little ‘kits’ with the wool and the pattern available after Easter.’

Random Notes CDXXIII

                 As will be already known to those members of the congregation who know the compiler of this note, the collecting of postmarks is one of the areas of interest that he have been involved with for well over fifty years, and this Random Notes is, if truth be told, but a bit of a self indulgence on his part in that respect!

Postmarks are the dated marks, usually circular, that the Post Office uses to cancel postage stamps on letters, etc.

Until not long ago, wherever a letter was posted, there it would be stamped with the date stamp or postmark of that place, however big, small, remote, or urbanised the place might be.  In this country we had at one time in the region of 3,800 Post Offices (there are now but only about 1.400), of which nearly 300 were in co. Cork alone, each having its own stamp or stamps, and to search out, arrange, catalogue and file away, and to have at least one example from each office has longtime been the quest of a number of dedicated collectors! 

The collecting of Irish postmarks, as indeed those from many other countries also, has of late become increasingly difficult, insofar as letters posted now are all sent for cancellation to one of the country’s four mail centres at Dublin, Portlaoise, Athlone, and Newtownabbey, local cancelling being alas no longer carried out, with the result of course that it is now no longer possible to identify where and when a letter was posted.  

What a shame that now are gone the possibilities of having on a letter the postmarks of places such as the now uninhabited An Blascaod Mor, co. Kerry, Dublin Castle, Newtwopothouse, near Mallow, Blue Ball, co. Offaly, Horse and Jockey, co. Tipperary, Crooked Wood, and Horseleap, both in co. Westmeath, Hackballscross, co. Louth, Elly Bay Coast Guard Station, co. Mayo, O’Callaghan’s Mills, and Shannon Airport, both in co. Clare,  Caragh Lake, co. Kerry,  Birdhill, co. Tipperary, The Pidgeons, co. Westmeath, etc, etc.

In addition a great number of Post Offices have of course in recent years been closed, and in that regard the area where we live is a good example of the extent of the decimation that has occurred, both recently and in the relatively recent past, the following offices now being no more; Ballinaclashet, Ballyfeard, Ballygarvan, Haulbowline, Minane Bridge, Myrtleville, Monkstown, Nohoval, Ringaskiddy, Riverstick, Rochestown, Scilly, Shanbally, and Summercove.

In addition the collecting of postmarks from other countries is also an utterly fascinating and vast area to collect, with it being possible to find postmarks from the extremes of bases in the frozen Antarctic to the parched and sun baked villages of central Africa.   Islands, big, small  are an enthusiastically collected area of the greatest interest, as also of course of course are those from remote hamlets and villages, unusual place names, etc., such as those from the windswept and remote mid south Atlantic volcanic island of Tristan da Cunha, nicknamed  ‘the world’s loneliest island’,  the  two villages of Hell, one in Norway, the other on Grand Cayman in the Caribbean, the world’s smallest Post Office at Ochopee, in Florida, Buckingham Palace in London, the Golden Temple at Amritsar, the Acropolis in Athens, Pyramids at Giza, the miles from anywhere Mutiny on the Bounty refuge of Pitcairn Island in the Pacific, the clubhouse of the Royal Automobile Club on Pall Mall in London, Raffles Hotel in Singapore, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the now abandoned Scottish islands of St. Kilda, of the outer Hebrides, and Stroma off the coast of Caithness. the 58 letter name of Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch on Anglesey, the two letter hamlet of Ae in Dumfriesshires, the settlement of Alert in the barren wastes of northern Canada and hundreds and hundreds of other wonderful places, more than enough to keep one amused for a lifetime!  Briefly therefore it may fairly be said that the collecting of postmarks is a most fascinating, engrossing and captivating of pastimes, taking one in one’s own imagination to all sorts of interesting and exotic places, and in fact oftentimes prompting one to visit some of the places.

If perchance this note has caught any reader’s attention and interest to perhaps investigate further, the compiler would, it nearly hardly be said, be more than pleased to assist and help out in any way possible.

K.L.R.