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John Arnold

John Arnold

Evening Echo

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Sheer bliss... carefree summer days in West Cork with my beloved grandchildren

We never went on family holidays back in the days of my youth. I’m not saying that in any ‘poor mouth’ manner - no, back in the 1960s and early...

previous day 7

Evening Echo

John Arnold

This old fox is hoping Sunday will bring real happiness to all

I DO wonder sometimes do people take life too seriously? Don’t get me wrong now, I know this world can well and truly be described as a ‘vale of...

18.07.2024 9

Evening Echo

John Arnold

A century since an independent Ireland first competed in Games

Next Sunday there will be in excess of 80,000 people in Croke Park for the All-Ireland Hurling semi-final between Limerick and Cork. Most of the crowd...

04.07.2024 10

Evening Echo

John Arnold

I botched my Leaving 50 years ago, but it put me on right path

DO you know we lit the fire in the room a few nights last week! I know, it’s crazy, the middle of June and the fire lighting in the grate. As Yeats...

27.06.2024 10

Evening Echo

John Arnold

Strange and wonderful things always happen in Lourdes...

‘TELL me John why isn’t there a statue of Bernadette anywhere near the Grotto?’ I was asked that question in Lourdes last week! We are all...

20.06.2024 10

Evening Echo

John Arnold

John Arnold: I coulda been a contender, so I salute all election candidates

‘ARNOLD, John - Vote No.1’. Well, that has a nice ring to it alright, and with a name beginning with A, I’d be guaranteed to appear ‘early’...

06.06.2024 8

Evening Echo

John Arnold

Treasure trove of history in a book on Donoughmore’s past

THERE was an audible intake of breath and a gasp when Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Kieran McCarthy spoke last Friday night of the chain he was wearing. He...

30.05.2024 50

Evening Echo

John Arnold

A split season, no-cash entry, pay TV... a glut of GAA own-goals

I LEFT early for Thurles last Sunday. After Bartlemy Mass, I came home to do a few jobs - feed a stubborn calf and the two pigs - and I was on the...

23.05.2024 40

Evening Echo

John Arnold

John Arnold and me... delving into my family’s tangled roots

WHATEVER happened to John Arnold? Well it’s a story - no... a mystery really - that I’ve tried to solve over the years without success, and still...

09.05.2024 20

Evening Echo

John Arnold

They want longer pub hours in a nation with a drink problem?

SOMETIMES, I wonder am I too conservative. People seem to think that clinging to long-held beliefs and principles is symptomatic of, as they say,...

02.05.2024 40

Evening Echo

John Arnold

Remarkable history of a cross bought at a Cork car boot sale

BACK in the 1990s, major renovations and improvements were undertaken on the churches and schools in this parish. A Committee was formed to oversee...

25.04.2024 10

Evening Echo

John Arnold

Church’s burial custom recalls era when wolves prowled land

WRITING lately of my more than half a century as a GAA member, I quoted the first two lines of a famous song, I’ve been to a great many places /And...

18.04.2024 20

Evening Echo

John Arnold

My night with GAA exiles who are kings of Kilburn High Road

DID ye ever see the play The Kings Of Kilburn High Road by Jimmy Murphy? Set in London in the 1990s, the play is all about six young Irishmen who...

11.04.2024 10

Evening Echo

John Arnold

Still standing 70 years on: warm memories of our ‘Turf House’

“AND tell me, is the Turf House still standing?” Well, I was taken aback by the question. It was back in the summer of 2016 when Paddy Murphy was...

04.04.2024 30

Evening Echo

John Arnold

Meeting pals from St Colman’s Class of 1974, half a century on

“YUDDY, yuddy, yuddy, yup, yup, yup, who’s goin to win the Harty Cup?”  That’s what the ‘cheer leader’ sang and we’d all answer back...

21.03.2024 10

Evening Echo

John Arnold

I always wanted to act... and I share one trait with our Cillian

AH, lads, what a week we’ve had with ‘moving’ pictures, amateur drama and the Oscars! You know, if fate hadn’t decreed that I pursued farming...

14.03.2024 6

Evening Echo

John Arnold

125 years dead, we must never forget the likes of James Maye

PAGE 3 of the Boston Irish/American newspaper The Pilot carried the following item under ‘News From Cork’ on Saturday, October 31, 1899. ‘Cork;...

07.03.2024 20

Evening Echo

John Arnold

John Arnold: My GAA pilgrimage to Newry, and memories of Cork legend Ring

I’M sorry to say I never actually met Christy Ring. After the Cork hurling team homecoming in the South Mall in September, 1978, I remember Christy...

29.02.2024 10

Evening Echo

John Arnold

Two fine plays about death you must see, set 2,500 years apart

EVERYONE is familiar with that oft-used reading from the Biblical Book of Ecclesiastes, ‘For everything there is a season, a time for every purpose...

22.02.2024 30

Evening Echo

John Arnold

Farewell to a friend, forged via phone call that changed my life

THERE’S a lovely phrase in the Irish language, a kind of seanfhocail you could call it, I suppose - ‘Is ait an mac an saol’, which is generally...

15.02.2024 10

Evening Echo

John Arnold

School register is a real treasure trove shining light on area’s past

How time flies - this time 20 years ago we were busy, busy here getting ready for a school reunion. The year 2004 was 100 years on from the opening of...

08.02.2024 10

Evening Echo

John Arnold

40 years to the day since Luke Kelly died, his Raglan Road lives on

I’VE no idea if Patrick Kavanagh and Luke Kelly were good friends or not. They certainly met in The Bailey public house in Dublin. The Monaghan poet...

01.02.2024 10

Evening Echo

John Arnold

How about 1,000 of us donate €1k each to keep Páirc  Uí Chaoimh name?

FIRSTLY, let me put my hand up and say, yes, I have ‘skin in the game’ when it comes to the naming rights of the main GAA Stadium in Cork. It...

25.01.2024 20

Evening Echo

John Arnold

Leprechauns, banshees, ghosts - well, I’m a believer, are you?

I THINK Dianne McLauren was the only anthropologist I’ve ever met, and that meeting must be 25 or 30 years ago. She came from America and I don’t...

18.01.2024 10

Evening Echo

John Arnold

Love thy neighbour! Why I’ll be cheering on ‘rivals’ this weekend

IT must be over a decade ago that I saw the ‘trailer’ on RTÉ television of a new series called Love/Hate. I never watched a single episode of it...

11.01.2024 6

Evening Echo

John Arnold

Drenched at a charity tractor event, but it feels good to give

THE last day of 2023 started quietly enough. A cold and misty morning it was as I did a few jobs around the yard before mass. We had put in plenty...

04.01.2024 10

Evening Echo

John Arnold

Sure, I complain, and I am an eccentric, but here’s to 2024!

“I’LL be making no New Year’s Resolutions this year! I’m determined that, as the coming year of 2024 moves along, I won’t be throwing...

28.12.2023 20

Evening Echo

John Arnold

I got my teeth into a panto role aged six... as the Big Bad Wolf

I ALWAYS associate Christmas time with the beginning of my acting career - well, maybe using the word ‘career’ might sound a little bit...

21.12.2023 20

Evening Echo

John Arnold

A trip down memory lane with a cousin visiting from the U.S

“And while we were talking of days that have gone, The woes of the world for a time they were gone” Pardon me as I paraphrase the words of Percy...

14.12.2023 10

Evening Echo

John Arnold

Smiles and tears amid the rain on my pilgrimage to Lourdes

IT was way back in 1952 that Gene Kelly made the song Singing In The Rain famous. I felt a bit like that this past week as I spent some wet, wet days...

07.12.2023 10

Evening Echo

John Arnold

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