All thoughts today for the parents and family of little Nora Quoirin who is still missing somewhere in or around the Malaysian jungle. If prayers mean anything she will soon be found and hopefully safe and well. Obviously the longer it goes on the less hope there is. This tragedy has captured the worry of many people in many countries and the numbers now engaged in the search surely something positive will happen soon.
I have just returned from some time in the West of Ireland. “What was your weather like?” ” I suppose it rained.” Well dear friends, the weather was great and it rained, wonderful thunder plumps, strong sunshine, warm breezes and cloud scapes that were awesome.
To me this is an amazing island and the West is magical. All the comforts of a borrowed cottage, books, paints, laptop and phone camera and I’m happy. Throw in some locally made produce and a bottle of wine and this equals happiness.
But, one wonders, what will it be like this time next year. Once Brexit bits will there still be a happy and relaxed atmosphere or will we all be getting used to a new thought process, read 1984 George Orwell’s look at life, so similar to a Boris regime, already we have the cameras watching us, the thought police around, people rewriting reports and articles to suit the government.
IT’S ALL BREAKING DOWN
I Can’t imagine what it must have been like during the ‘power outage’ on Friday. We hear people talk of being stuck on trains for 12 hours some with babies, some elderly, some disabled. Hospitals where there was no power – what happens in the middle of an operation when the lights go off and the machines stop functioning. Quite seperately airports come to a standstill as check-in machines stop working and the knock on effect of this leaves planes stranded all over the place. Strikes mean people can’t safely book holidays or work trips – it’s chaos. Stabbings, shootings, bonfires and Brexit. It’s a scary time. Read 1984.
The Milk Of Human Kindness
For as long as time, mothers have breast fed their babies so why was it necessary to hold a festival recently to promote the idea of this natural way of nourishing the new born?
Sadly there is a cultural issue especially here in Northern Ireland; we have the lowest figure of breast feeding in the world, only four in ten mothers choosing or able to feed their babies. Why? It’s sad to hear that some of our politicians and city fathers have called nursing mother exhibitionists and women criticising young mothers who are feeding their children in a public place often because there is no facility to do so in private – and why should they. This is the most natural and healthy breakfast, lunch or tea for a little baby, quality milk that will give them nutrition and protect against illness.
All of this was discussed and celebrated at this years Breastival when upwards of 1700 wives, husbands and children arrived at the Ulster Museum to take part in this special day. As Jennie Wallace one of the organisers says: “Belfast is a festival city so why not celebrate what is normal and educate the public.”
Last year the event received recognition with the MAMA Breastfeeding Championship Award in Glasgow. MAMA is the largest independent annual midwifery and maternity conference in the UK and such was the impact of our local entry international delegates left saying they’d never seen anything like it before, unique and a model for other countries.
Jennie is concerned that despite the NHS and World Health Organisation recommendations that children be breastfed until two years of age and beyond , in Northern Ireland fewer than 7% are fed in this natural way beyond six months.
“There are many negative cultural attitudes facing women here apart from being insulted in public when they are trying to give their babies the food they need; going back to work brings up issues, often women have to turn to substitutes like formula milk which is over priced and there’d no need for it when natural food is readily available.”
What about the women who can’t breastfeed?
“Breast feeding is a skill and with support many of these problems can be overcome but the health service is over stretched so help is needed from other sources. Expressing milk is an option,” she added, “as is donor milk.”
There’s a milk bank in Fermanagh the only one of its kind in this country. The Sperrin Lakeland Milk Bank accepts expressed milk which is sent in insulated containers to the bank where it’s checked for bacteria and pasteurised then stored and sent to neonatal units as required. It’s information like this that comes to light at the festival, also how low breastfeeding rates in the UK are costing the NHS millions of pounds and how this type of feeding can improve the quality of life preventing disease for both the woman and the child.
But it’s not all talking!
“Each year have the ‘Global Latch On’ as well as fun topics and kids workshops,” Jennie explained. “Always popular is Sling Swing which is basically a dance class which you do whilst the baby is held in a carrier close to its mother as she moves!”
more information www.breastivalbelfast.co.uk
COLOUR ME BEAUTIFUL
Matthew Morrison is a man with his finger on the pause – quite literally. As house steward at the Argory, the National Trust property, he was called in to fulfil a vital role in conceiving a unique light sculpture.
At one time the Argory, a fine house in Armagh built in 1842, was lit by oil lamps and candles; then, making the gas in one of the outhouses, new fangled lighting was installed with the showpiece being a ‘gasitaire’, an early type of ornamental chandelier with branches ending in acetylene gas jets considered cutting edge at the time. After a huge fire in 1989 the house had to be restored and more recently the huge chandelier and other precious brass light fittings were dismantled and a metal conservator came from England to assess the situation and decided to take the large fitting back to his workshops in London to refurbish and clean. However, this left a space in the West Hall. Although electric has been installed, something special was required to replace the gasitaire.
Step in Kevin Killen
Kevin is a specialist in 3D design and fine art and he’s fascinated by the medium of light and his idea was to create what has come to be called the Artificial Sunshine instillation.
He roped in Matthew, house steward at the Argory, who never anticipated walking around the big house in almost total darkness with a bulb on his right index finger talking about the history as he went, pointing out interesting features, the colours and the swirls of the ornate plaster work.
Kevin recorded his breathing and, in layman’s terms, bent the glass to match the swirling story of the house and the neon light pulsates through the glass rods changing colour and mood with each breath. It looks like an ethereal woman dancing, arms up to the high ceiling.
Some like it – “Love it, want one”, “Brilliant”. Some don’t. “Doesn’t suit the vibe of the house.” Certainly a talking point.
Every colour reflects the house.
“The blue of the china, pink of the lampshades, the green of the grass and so on, it’s very modern and although some people don’t like it the majority find it fascinating and in keeping with the last owners collection of modern art. I spend most of my time living in the past telling stories and showing off the collections but we’re always delving into history to come up with something new and this interpretation is something special.”
The family history is complex, landed gentry who made their money in business and through being major land owners in County Armagh. In 1817 Joshua McGeough died and Drumsill House was willed to his son Walter Adrien and Walter’s two sisters on the proviso that he didn’t marry and bring a wife into the house as long as the sisters lived there.
But Walter fell in love.
So in 1824, six miles away from Drumsill and his spinster sisters, he build the Argory for himself and his wife, a grand house is set in 320 acres, half is leased out and half forms the woodland trails, walled and formal gardens, walks along the River Blackwater and adventures for visitors. Today there’s a gift shop, a bookshop and a cafe where twins Niamh and Nadine Campbell serve the most delicious fresh baked scones. The house itself is retained as it was, a family home for Walter and his first wife, then when she died he remarried and in all had seven children. The house came down through the generations always elegant, beautifully furnished and with many works of art.
The last and most recent owner was Walter Albert Nevill McGeough Bond DL born in 1908, a man who appreciated the arts and much of his father’s collection includes works by Ulster artists on show in the house. But Nevill didn’t much like the damp weather so he spent half the year in Jamaica and at home became something of a hermit only attending St. James’s Church in Moy wrapped in layers of coats and lamenting the growing costs of running the Argory. He was effected by the Troubles, especially with the murder of his friends Sir Norman Strong and his son James at Tynan Abbey, so in the late 70s he decided to gift the building and the contents to the National Trust although he remained living in part of the house until he died when he was 78 and is buried in the grounds near the house.
What would he think of this youthful upstart hanging in the West Hall? Matthew has no doubt.
“The neon gives a similar light as the gas and although some people find it too modern for the house, because Mr. MacGeough Bond collected modern art, Isobel Wright, who was once his housekeeper and now one of our guides, believes he would have approved.”
The Artificial Sunshine remains gracing the Hall until November when the antique chandelier will return to its original place in the West Hall. Kevin’s masterpiece will then find a permanent home elsewhere in the Argory and remain a unique piece of modern art.
Find out more at www.nationaltrust.org.uk/argory
