At this festive time of year you’ll forgive me, I know, for giving a plug to a matter of local interest. Adrian Hession, a friend of this parish who has guested here on the site a few times, was onto me the other day to ask if I could give the Aghamore parish magazine a mention, which I’m delighted to do.

Glór Achadh Mór is now in its 29th year. Since then, under Joe Byrne’s tireless leadership, it has collected a serious amount of local stories and illustrated in words and photos happenings of all kinds within the parish.

No more than any other rural area in the country, much has changed in Aghamore since Glór was first published in 1989. The magazine has, with each passing year, chronicled those changes as they’ve happened, in a sense laying down layers of social history in every annual edition published.

The current volume is once more jam-packed with features. It’s broken into four main sections – Contemporary, Reminiscence & Reflection, Arts & Research and Sport & Leisure. It was in relation to the latter category that Adrian was in touch, as he’s the magazine’s sports editor.

Photo: Glór Achadh Mór 2017

There’s 40 pages of sporting action between the covers this year, the high point of which was, of course, Tooreen’s breakthrough Connacht IHC title win last month. The photo above, taken from the magazine, shows Tooreen captain Stephen Coyne accepting the cup from Connacht GAA President Mick Rock following the provincial final victory over Ballindereen.

There’s plenty more besides sport in this year’s edition, which runs to a full 168 pages. I’ve even got a piece in there myself, which focuses on that other major obsession of mine – cycling.

There’s enough reading in the magazine to keep you going ’till Easter and it’s available now in all usual outlets in the Aghamore, Knock, Kilkelly and Ballyhaunis areas. Congrats to Joe and the rest of the Glór team on the publication of yet another superb edition.