Eolas Educational Services

We urgently require Primary tutors in the following areas:

Greater Belfast
Carrickfergus
Newtownabbey
Derry City
Armagh
Omagh

Also, post Primary tutors of Sciences, English, Mathematics and ESL in

Greater Belfast
Carrickfergus
Newtownabbey
Derry City
Armagh
Omagh
Keady
Lisburn
Downpatrick
Ballynahinch
Newtownards

PM us for more information.

Teachers of English as a Second Language and teachers of Physics, Chemistry & Biology at all levels required immediately for online tuition

'This is a really old poem, written in Irish and with an accompanying English version; it brings us back to a poorer, simpler and less complicated time. It is a favourite of mine. and I hope you like it too.

"Oiche Nollag in Eireann"

Scuab an t-urlár agus glan an teallach,
's coimead na grísaigh beo,
Ar eagla go dtiocfhaidh siad anocht,
Agus an domhan 'na chodladh go suan!
Ná múch an coinneal ard bán,
Ach fág é lásta go geal .
Go mbeidh siad cinnte ar aon
go bhfuil fáilte is fiche roimh cách
Sa teach ar an Oiche Nollag naofa seo!
Léig amach ar an mbord, arán is feoil,
Agus braonín bainne don leanbh.
Agus beidh beannacht ar an dtine
Agus ar an té a bhruith an t-arán
Agus ar an lamh a dhéin an t-obair dian.
Beidh Naomh Iósaef túirseach,
Tar éis an turas fada.
Agus aghaidh Mhuire fann, bánghnéitheach
Agus beidh néal codlata aca.
Sar a n-imthígheann siad arís.
Beidh túirse na mbóthar fada ortha
Agus seans aca a scíth a ligint,
Ó's iomai an míle fada uaigneach
Atá roimh an dtriur aca
Uaidh seo go dtí Beithil.
Ó is fada an bóthar 'tá le taisteal aca,
Agus é idir garbh is mín
Agus Cnoch Chalvaire mar ceann scríbe aca,
Agus chroise adhmad indan.
Ná cur ar an ndoras ach an laiste anocht!
Agus coimead na gríosaigh beó -
Agus guí go mbeidh siad fén ar ndíon anocht
Agus an domhan 'na chodladh go suan.

Brush the floor and clean the hearth,
And set the fire to keep,
For they might visit us tonight
When all the world's asleep!
Don't blow the tall white candle out
But leave it burning bright,
So that they'll know they're welcome here
This holy Christmas night!
Leave out the bread and meat for them,
And sweet milk for the Child,
And they will bless the fire, that baked
And, too, the hands that toiled.
For Joseph will be travel-tired,
And Mary pale and wan,
And they can sleep a little while
Before they journey on.
They will be weary of the roads,
And rest will comfort them,
For it must be many a lonely mile
From here to Bethlehem.
O long the road they have to go,
The bad mile with the good,
Till the journey ends on Calvary
Beneath a cross of wood.
Leave the door upon the latch,
And set the fire to keep,
And pray they'll rest with us tonight
When all the world's asleep.

Always loved this poem by Patrick Kavanagh’s. He wrote it at a time when he was on his own spending Christmas in a small flat in Dublin and feeling the pains of loneliness and the absence of friends and family. How many individuals are in similar positions this Christmas?

A Christmas Childhood
by Patrick Kavanagh

I

One side of the potato-pits was white with frost –
How wonderful that was, how wonderful!
And when we put our ears to the paling-post
The music that came out was magical.

The light between the ricks of hay and straw
Was a hole in Heaven’s gable. An apple tree
With its December-glinting fruit we saw –
O you, Eve, were the world that tempted me

To eat the knowledge that grew in clay
And death the germ within it! Now and then
I can remember something of the gay
Garden that was childhood’s. Again

The tracks of cattle to a drinking-place,
A green stone lying sideways in a ditch,
Or any common sight, the transfigured face
Of a beauty that the world did not touch.

II

My father played the melodion
Outside at our gate;
There were stars in the morning east
And they danced to his music.

Across the wild bogs his melodion called
To Lennons and Callans.
As I pulled on my trousers in a hurry
I knew some strange thing had happened.

Outside in the cow-house my mother
Made the music of milking;
The light of her stable-lamp was a star
And the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle.

A water-hen screeched in the bog,
Mass-going feet
Crunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes,
Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel.

My child poet picked out the letters
On the grey stone,
In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland,
The winking glitter of a frosty dawn.

Cassiopeia was over
Cassidy’s hanging hill,
I looked and three whin bushes rode across
The horizon — the Three Wise Kings.

And old man passing said:
‘Can’t he make it talk –
The melodion.’ I hid in the doorway
And tightened the belt of my box-pleated coat.

I nicked six nicks on the door-post
With my penknife’s big blade –
There was a little one for cutting to***co.
And I was six Christmases of age.

My father played the melodion,
My mother milked the cows,
And I had a prayer like a white rose pinned
On the Virgin Mary’s blouse.

Happy Bloomsday!!!
There’s something close to magical memories in Ulysses for everyone who reads it - even film stars!!

This day, 16th of June, is Youth Day in South Africa. It commemorates the savagery and killings in Soweto. Today marks the 43rd anniversary of the killing of school children in the Soweto townships. These children were protesting because they could no longer receive their general education through their own languages. Almost all instruction in schools was to be through the medium of Afrikaners which the Anglican bishop Desmond Tutu described as "the language of the oppressor". This photograph is of a 12 year old shot dead by the police.

Came across this little insight into the activities of some English library users.

Isn’t it reassuring to know that teenagers in the Southern Hemisphere behave as they do in this part of the globe?

This really does accurately depict today’s classroom!

Happy Birthday Vincent!!