Bonfire night - June 23rdWITH the Eve of St. John just around the corner all over the county children will be gathering materials to light bonfires in celebration of the traditional midsummer festival.

While Mayo County Council supports this tradition, the environment awareness officer, Sharon Cameron, has advised the public the lighting of bonfires should be undertaken with great care and consideration for the environment and for people’s health.

Traditionally bonfires were lit exactly at sunset on June 23 and had to be watched and tendered long past midnight, with prayers offered to obtain blessings on the crops.

There was much fun and dance and games were played. Wood and straw were the materials burnt in traditional bonfires.

However, with changing times many bonfires are now used as a means of disposing of waste. Waste materials such as plastic and tyres contain chemicals which, when burned, produce toxic fumes.

Welsh Angler Ceri Jones pictured with his prize troutA RECORD breaking brown trout, weighing nearly 24lbs (11kg), was taken from Lough Corrib on Saturday afternoon.

The specimen fish, unofficially the second largest on record, was caught by

Welsh angler Ceri Jones in deep water near the lake's biggest island, Inishgoill.
If ratified by the Irish Specimen Fish Committee as authentic, the fish will go down as a record for Lough Corrib and rank as the largest trout caught in Ireland in 118 years.
Mr. Jones, who works as a freelance photographer with the British angling magazine Trout Fisherman, was trolling using a ‘roach deadbait’ when he hooked the fish.
“When I hooked it first, I knew instantly it was big fish. It was like hooking a car, the line just streamed off the reel.
“Using this type of big bait, you're either going to get nothing or a big fish.”
The 46-year-old, from the Rhondda Valley in South Wales, played the fish for over an hour before he managed to land it.
The trout was weighed by another angler at the water's edge at 25lbs 2oz but was later weighed at 23lbs 12oz, using a butcher's scale.
By the time he returned to Burke’s Bar in Clonbur, where he is staying, word of his prize catch had already got out and dozens of people had turned up to catch a glimpse of the fish.
Mr. Jones, who last year caught another specimen trout weighing 19lbs on Lough Corrib, admitted he is something of a fanatic when it comes to chasing big trout, coming every year to fish the same stretch of water.
He plans to have his prize fish stuffed and mounted in the bar.
The official Irish trout record, which has stood for more than a century, is held by William Mears who landed a brown trout of 26lbs 2oz from Lough Ennell in 1894.

Only 200 breeding pairs of Curlew remain in IrelandHOW could it be that we have this wonderfully balmy draft of warm air while the rest of the northern hemisphere shudders with cold?

From the far coast of China, across all of Russia and continental Europe and through most of the United States, winter has all held in her tenacious grip. If it were not for the Azores High we should be in the same situation. But we aren’t, and for that we can be glad.

About the middle of last week I was woken early one morning by a cacophony of sound as a flock of whooper swans were gathering out on the lake.

I lay listening to their trumpeting in the half dark, toying with the idea of going out to greet them, even if only to find out how many there were.

Pictured at home with Ben (left) and Joe Styles are Sharon Boyle, GMIT lecturer, Jenny parkes, GMIT technology student, and Noreen Henry, GMIT lecturerA GMIT technology student has helped enrich the lives of twin brothers with Muscular Dystrophy through the use of communications technology.

Mature student Jenny Parkes has helped 24-year-old twins Joe and Ben Styles to communicate with friends and family  through a high quality mouse-operated camera and voice recognition software.

The Castlebar-based brothers, who have limited mobility and are mostly housebound, are now regulars on Facebook

and are Skype-ping friends and family around the world.

Jenny, who is a mature student on the Higher Certificate in Information Technology Support at GMIT Castlebar, worked as a carer prior to returning to college and had an interest in the emerging field of assistive technologies.

A wild minkBACK in the spring the wind brought down a fine ash tree into a neighbour’s field. We struck a deal: if I cut it and split it we could share the wood. Just the job.

Then came an endless succession of other things to do - a bit of gardening, a spot of fishing, exploring the coast. Winter was yet far off, so far that it might never come.

Bumble Bee

BOMBUS. Whoever thought that one up? Yet when we take a look at our bumble bee friends, what other name would fit quite as well?

Having noticed that bees are somewhat conspicuous by their absence, I spent a couple of early mornings and subsequent evenings looking for these valuable insects in the vicinity of my home. I found a few, but I think there are not as many as I would like to see.