The success of the launch and my book however have excited the jealousy and resentment of those  people who owe their position not to any talent (they have none) but to other factors, such as party political allegiance or family ties. I received an almost pathetically silly post from one Barry Leddy in which he asked how much my book launch had cost Cavan County Council, whose generosity to other “historians, is well known. The fact is the event cost the council nothing: I would have been highly unhappy had it been sullied by a cent from their rotten pockets. Wine, drinks etc., were provided by the publishers. The library buildings were open anyway, so I very much doubt there was a significant increase in the  council’s fuel bill, and no member of staff had to be  paid travel expenses to attend on the night.  My decision to agree to the launch in the library was influenced by the tremendous friendship that has existed over the years and the library’s wonderful staff. I’d like to remind Barry that the library is a public building, and not owned by the council. I personally find the idea that I might  be dependant on the council for anything to be highly insulting. It smacks of the comment once made to me by a certain TV cameraman: “You’ll need Cavan County Council before they’ll ever need you.” UGH!!!! Or, to quote Joseph Conrad “The Horror, the horror!” (That’s Conrade the writer, not the actor Barry).

As to the attendance there were NO county council officials there, because they weren’t invited. As for members of the county council there was only Councillor Charlie Boylan, who launched the book, and who was there in his capacity of chairman of the council, and as a long-standing family friend. All the others were invited, but none turned  up. Admittedly senator Joe O’Reilly telephoned me from Strassbourg to wish me well, while Councillor Anthony Vesey was in Azerbaycan  (look it up in your atlas Barry). A final word on the attendance. I was truly flabbergasted that over one hundred and twenty people were there. Alas my dear mother and sister Anita weren’t there, though I’m sure they were looking down on me.

Barry Leddy’s'  tirade was prompted by me asking how much Dr Scott’s conference in the County museum, the one to which “is” were I invited and paid to attend from as far away as the US, even though one of the experts lived only ten miles away from the museum. This at a time when Cavan County Council has no money, when it is letting go of non-essential staff  ie   those n0t related to councillors, and when remaining staff mebers receive a weekly message from the county council manager with their pay-checks urging them to take early retirement.  I am angry that an attempt has been made to besnirch the wonderful event that was the launch of my boook with Dr Scott’s petty ego-trip. I must remind Barry Leddy that no one had to pay to atternd the book launch.  Barry Leddy cannot apparently defend the rudeness of Mr Keys in not replying to my letter about being snubbed by the museum.  I think most observers would see that an attempt to confuse my book launch with Scott’s shameful charade is, to put it midlely, disingenous. Had it been paid for by the council it could have served the finest vintage Pol Roger, Beluga caviar, as well as canapes of foie gras with Perigord truffles, and still its cost would not have  approached the Ballyjamesduff conference.

But I know that the fact that I am able to write a book at all, and not accept my divinely-ordained fate as a cripple and slink back into a corner, and maybe wheeled out for a photo-opportunity where the county manager is posturing as friendly to the disabled, is a course of constant anger and vexation. Furthermore my choice as the book’s author, and not someone from the circle of the “usual suspects” aggravates like hell.

 Finally, let me tell Barry Leddy that his silly post has been deleted by me

I am proud that I was involved in a book which people in Cavan and further afield genuinely en joy, not like some of the trash that appears about low-call history,  such as Sexual Preversion in Seventeenth-Cewntury Cavan or Who Killed Owen Roe?

My book is still available from good bookshops or from the publishers at  Cottage Publications.. It makes the perfect Christmas present and I’m more than happy to apply my John Hancock to it for anyone who wants.

And the man who masterminded the coup and who was the intellectual author of Jara’s murder and that of thousands of others sipped tea in the cosiest of tete-a-tetes with that rabid bitch Margaret Thatcher. He was also the darling of members of the Catholic right in England and Ireland, such Norman Lamont. I remember how I was told by a member of the Knights of Columanus that Pinochet had “rescued Chile from communism” and that most of those who were murdered by the military were communist sympathisers who deserved what they got.

The photograph showed these important people arranged in a serious and un-smiling pose indicative of the duty they feel towards the party. here in the back row was Conducatorul, Comrade Ion Cliucevschii who, as everyone knows, has not been well recently, having been afflicted by a nasty and disabling condition which has rendered him incapable of writing or replying to letters. However, he has never shirked his responsibility of constantly exposing himself to his people through the media and reminding them that he is in control.

Beside him stood the people’s poet laureate Adrian Paunescu who has used his verses to sing the victories of the party and the unbreakable spirit of our great leader Comrade Ion Cliucevschii and his great sufferings. It is fitting that Adrian Paunescu should see his place as being so closely to Conducatorul. We can be sure that he and those lesser poets who realise that he is a modern-day Pushkin will earn yet greater rewards for their loyalty. Adrian had tried to take over the invidious launch of another book, written by a snivelling slanderer who never misses an opportunity to bad-mouth the Motherland, the party and Conducatorul. This unseemly event turned into an opportunity for verbal hooliganism. Not far from Adrian stood Patriarch Teoctist who blessed the volume of poetry, as well as all those who would read it.

Pride of place in the front row was Writer, Artist and Scientist of International Renown Tovarise Erica Ceausescu who has never shied away from placing her many talents at the service of the party.

In prehistoric Cavan Samhain was a time of terror, when the prescribed sacrifices of the first-born were made to the idol of Crom cruach in west Cavan. At a season when the skies were visibly darkening the land around Darragh Fort near Ballymagovern often ran red with blood.

 Samhain marked another turning-point; from those seasons when man mastered nature through husbandry of the soil and care of plants towards the dead season of winter. With the lengthening of night Man became an important slave of nature and its forces, which were mysterious and frightening.

The enveloping darkness was luridly illuminated by people’s imagination. The boundaries between the living and the dead became blurred: the dead shook off their shrouds and emerged from their tombs to pay often unwanted visits to their friends and relations who had been able to cheat the grim reaper. The connection with the dead was so strong that the early Church, which had struggled for so long against this pagan survival was forced to embrace Samhain, transforming it into the Feast of All Saints or All Hallows.

Rob is holding two open days on Saturday August 23rd and Sunday (24th) - incidentally my birthday – when there will also be a launch of the Horse-Drawn Post Project, an ongoing exhibition show-casing the vital role of the horse in our postal system. I believe in progress, but I often wonder how it was that in the days of horse-drawn postal services a letter, newspaper or parcel could be posted in the evening in Cavan or Sligo, and be delivered directly in Dublin the next day. Now such items often have to take a detour to the south, to Athlone, where they are sorted and with luck will be delivered the next day but if they aren’t it’s a “system  failure”, i.e. it’s nobody’s fault – except your own for handing it over to the postal service in the first place! 

The museum springs from Rob’s own passion for saddle-making. He trained with Keith Luxford, the Queen’s saddler, and studied at Cordwainters’ Leatheer College in Hackney. He has written several books, including Repair Your Own Saddlery and Harness (J.A. Akken, London).

Rob Stainke is a very versatile and talented guy. Not only is he a genius in the world of saddlery and harness-making but he’s also a gifted artist, writer and photographer. What’s more he shares his talents through lessons and classes., but don’t take my word for it; visit his website!

I have connections with one of the other crafts ancillary to the use of horses in Ireland: my uncle Frank was a blacksmith, but with the replacement of horses by spanking new Volkswagon Beetles and Massery Fergusson tractors this trade became sadly obsolete, and we considered the fumes belching from the exhausts of these vehicles to be a sign of progress.