Acting as Toastmaster for the evening, Helsa Giles guided us through last Thursday’s meeting with her usual ease and grace.
Claire O’Connell began the presentations by sharing a very apt poem with us that was penned by her father. In January Sails, he expresses his impatience with this “landlocked” month in graphic nautical terms. He advises us to “anchor” our heart by the fireside and “check the sails against the bitter winds that blow.” His relief at January’s eventual departure is palpable in the line, “Now the year begins at last.”
In his speech, The Hit I Want, Brendan Foley extolled the virtues of natural dopamine hits. This feel-good hormone and chemical messenger have numerous benefits for our health and sense of well-being when generated by our own activities. He advocated “cold water plunging” as a major source of this natural hormone. However, he assured the less courageous among us that all types of exercise, listening to pleasant music, reading, writing, and social activities like Toastmasters can also provide us with this positive chemical. He was very persuasive in his argument that these natural sources were far preferable to the instant but fleeting hits to be had from alcohol, drugs, or social media.
In a very evocative speech, No Smoke Without Fire, Paul Gallagher presented a thoughtful reflection on our Irish identity and the place of the fireside at its heart:
“Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin.”
He evoked memories of people cooking and gathering around the fire. Here was the focal point of the family and often the community. The embers of the fire of a departing emigrant family were sometimes placed in the neighbours’ hearths as a symbol of hope for returning someday.
In contrast, today, Paul observed that people live in separate rooms with evenly controlled temperatures and social media for company. Has the soul of our homes been lost in our modern, heated, chimneyless abodes? he mused.
Twisting to a Different Consciousness was the intriguing title of Bobby Buckley’s speech. Originally from Mallow, Bobby has lived much of his life in Dublin. In this speech, he took us on a walk along one of his favourite routes near Rathfarnham. He shared little vignettes of history with us along the way. He took us to the Arch where a traveller was wrongfully executed for a murder that the local landlord, who accused him, committed himself.
He described the thunderous waterfalls along our route and the cross at the base of one of them. As we walked by the River Dodder, he conjured up a shocking image of all the bodies being swept along by it in Famine times. He explained that this accounted for the location of a morgue and a pub in this spot. The pub, The Dropping Well, is still in business.
By a strange stroke of serendipity, Bobby discovered that his great-grandfather worked in this area as a junior gardener and won the hand of the daughter of a local landowner. Bobby found a record of their marriage in the register at Classon’s Bridge. We thoroughly enjoyed our journey with him, and he concluded by challenging each of us to take the audience on our own personal tour.
What an interesting evening we had, and that was before we got to the Topics Session!
 |
| President: Bobby Buckley, Toastmaster: Helsa Giles, and Topicsmaster: Pat Sexton. |
 |
| Evaluators: Marie Lynes, Rachel Liston, and Claire O'Connell; Speakers: Bobby Buckley and Paul Gallagher. |
