Undaunted by the many obstacles put in place by COVID-19, Men’s Shed Mullinahone, with an average age of 78, has published its third annual Mullinahone Magazine. It’s a jam-packed 240-page book of photographs and articles all related to the locality.

The book’s editor, Desmond Burke, fills us in on the history of the magazine. “It started out as a project to revive the Mullinahone Magazine produced by Michael and Nora Larkin for 25 years, a sort of social and rural renewal project to get people thinking of their place and connecting all the great work that goes on in the area.”

With cash inputs from patrons and articles written by locals, at home and abroad, the magazine covers all the positive contributions that Mullinahone and its people have made.

In addition to practical matters such as updates on the tidy towns, community council and clubs and activities in the village, Desmond tells us: “The magazine is full of jokes and wise sayings, poems from the local bards and memories of the many interesting people who live in and grew up in the village. It has the history of the streets and the variety of people who lived under the roofs of the houses over the last 100 years”.

There is no shortage of Mullinahone-related material to fill the pages, says Desmond.

“Mullinahone was the site of the 1848 Young Irelanders revolt and villager Charles Kickham, the writer and Fenian, greatly progressed the path to Irish independence.

“The village was at the forefront of the Land Wars and its people formed a large part of the Tipperary-Kilkenny Flying Squad during the War of Independence.”

Mullinahone also has a strong sporting legacy. “Five of the men on the Tipperary team on Bloody Sunday 1920 were from the village. There is a hammer-throwing Olympian from here as well as the great Tipperary hurlers of the last three decades,” he says.

Mullinahone people have travelled far and wide, succeeding and contributing wherever they go.

“Who would have thought that Mullinahone people piloted jumbo jets out of Singapore, ran flying schools, supervised the electrical installations in the Channel Tunnel and installed electrical stations in Phom Penh, acted as vice president of Morgan Stanley in New York, sailed around the South Pacific when it was dangerous to do so, kept the peace between Israel and Egypt after the Yom Kippur War, delivered upside-down babies in Melbourne or were photographers of the year. The list goes on.”

Men’s Shed Mullinahone hope to hand on the baton to a younger generation over the next year or two but the ingenuity, dedication and commitment of Men’s Shed Mullinahone will be a hard act to follow.

The magazine is available in local shops in the village and in Callan, Grangemockler, Cloneen and Killenaule.

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