By Patrick Gormley
Badminton
St Johnston and Carrigans Family Resource Centre is offering four Badminton Taster Coaching sessions to young people who are over 12 years old. The sessions will take place in the Lecture Hall on Tuesday evenings starting yesterday at 7pm. Booking is essential as places are limited. To book please contact Mary/Amanda at (074) 9148551. This project is supported through Donegal Sports Partnership.
Information Evening
There will be an Information Evening and Questions and Answers Session, Thursday, April 3, at 8pm, in the Resource Centre on Various Agriculture Schemes, Social Welfare entitlements, Housing Grant Schemes, Alternative Energy sources for Farm and Home (Wind, Hydro, Wood Energy and Energy Crops). The following guest speakers in will be in attendance: Garvan Connolly DLDC Rural Development Worker and Colm Crossan Environmental Consultant. For further information, please contact Garvan at (074) 9127056 or Mary Crossan of the Resource Centre at (074) 9148551.
Lunch Club
The fortnightly lunch club will be held on Wednesday, April 2, at the usual times. Everybody is welcome.
Newsletter
Contributions for the St Johnston and Carrigans Newsletter can be placed into a box that is in the Main Hall.
John Throne
Everybody enjoyed the meeting with John Throne that took place on March 4 in the Resource Centre. John is the author of The Donegal Woman. This book was naturally a major part of the discussion that evening. We were shocked to learn than less than 100 years ago, slavery still existed in rural parts of Ireland. Children as young as seven or eight were sold for fixed periods by their impoverished parents to farmers who made them work their fingers to the bone. They were treated like cattle. In many cases, they were subject to worse treatment having been beaten and verbally abused. The book, it was revealed, was about the author’s own grandmother who was hired out and raped by her master and forced to marry a much older man when she got pregnant. Her strength and instinct for survival are themes that run through this inspiring work.
Craft Fayre
The annual Craft Fayre will be held in the Lecture Hall, Church Lane, St Johnston, along with a Car Boot Sale in the St Johnston Presbyterian Church Car Park on Saturday, April 19. Proceeds are in support of the Oncology (Cancer) Unit, Letterkenny General Hospital. It was usually held on Easter Saturday but as Easter fell so early this year, the April date proved more suitable. Everybody is welcome and please keep an eye out for the posters for further information.
Bus
Donegal Action for Cancer Care (DACC), the group that campaigns for better care for cancer patients, is holding a supper dance in Biddy Friel’s, Drumoghill, on Friday, April 4. There will be a bus leaving Carrigans at 9.30 pm going via St Johnston. If you would like further information please contact Alma O’Donnell at the Carrig Inn, 9140186.
