McHugh's Miscellany: The Year of the Dragon and remembering good people

The New Year is well upon us but the first thing I did, was to forget about making any New Year's resolutions in 2024.

I did it for years, only to be downtrodden with failures, for the most part, by the end of the first month of January.

The gimmick marketeers even have the third Monday of the month set up as Blue Monday. Then there is the Dry January . . . an altogether different Epiphany than January 6.

That nonsense and the like can even put you into a bad mood for the following eleven months . . .

It is certainly a time for the clearing of the decks, time to think positive thoughts and generally take a sweeping brush as it were, to the cobwebs of the previous year.

I certainly put together a few positive vibes as to what I would like to achieve myself each year but I don't see them as failures, if I do not always succeed.

Resolutions are inspirational yes, but they ought to be more aspirational rather than setting oneself up for a fall. 

And don’t get too worked up either with all these great words of wisdom that are bombarding every social media platform every second minute and which seem to propagate with Zen-like magical powers upon the reader.

Leave it to the more practical and realistic mantra of “I will apply common sense to all areas of my life in 2024”.

The most important thing is that we have our health, but for many, it is probably the lowest of priorities for the following twelve months.

And that includes mental health, which thankfully today, is recognised as being just as important as our physical health.

2024 is the Year of the Dragon, or the Wood Dragon to be more precise in the Chinese Zodiac, and it is said to be the luckiest of animals, although equating a Dragon and an animal is a tough one to come to terms with.

For those that are born this year, they will be lucky and naturally gifted, smart and charismatic. But it will be 2036 before the next Dragons appear!

And we will need all the luck we can get this year

The Wild Atlantic Way is also said to be celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2024, which makes you wonder why no-one thought of it for centuries before that.

As for the recent Dr McKenna Cup debacle, it is sad to see that common sense was clearly not at play here either.
It must be said that had the young lad’s age not been highlighted in the media or the fact that he had yet to play senior for his club, would it have been the case at all that the Ulster GAA in the first instance would decided to make an example of young Finbarr Roarty and Jim McGuinness. I think not!

You have read elsewhere the farce of other underage teams representing their counties in the McKenna Cup and all that went with it, but I take the view that it will consolidate this Donegal team under Jim, rather than hinder it. And I would hope that the Ulster Council will show due respect to all of us, upon appeal.

Agus ar deireadh

Over the Christmas period and this week, some very good people, who lived not far from each other, passed to their eternal reward in Bundoran.

They were Dr Raymond Kerr, Mary Faulkner both from Church Road and this week, Liam Travers snr. from Sheil Avenue.

I knew them all to different degrees and did not want their passing to go without acknowledging their huge contribution to their local communities, each in their own unique way.

We have people like them in communities all over Donegal, in every town and village, who make up the intrinsic fabric of what constitutes the heartbeat of a community.

When they pass, it is incumbent on us all to remember that community is everything when it comes down to our own upbringing, how we deal with life later and indeed the various challenges that will come our way, in that lifetime.