Yarns & Rhymes

Padraig McGinn from Ballynamony, Carrick-on- Shannon, was on the clerical staff in Sligo and Dundalk districts many years ago. "Mark Connolly, (IT Solutions and Telecoms) is a fellow member of the RTE Audience Council and I meet him occasionally, but is probably the only serving ESB person I now know", says Padraig. "I am a long-time retired and do a bit of writing as I was pretty immobile for some years and not able to shoot, fish or garden, which were my hobbies."

Recently Padraig published a 200-page paperback of yarns which his wife Angela and he compiled some years ago for the "Sunday Miscellany" programme on RTE, and some recitations he did for the Bard of Armagh competition! "I recite them occasionally in my local at night when only the less discerning are left. A few of the yarns relate to ESB incidents and the last 70 pages are reminiscences from my days on the Rural Electrification Scheme, in the 1950s."

Padraig was runner-up in the political satire section in Strokestown Poetry Competition in 2002. Yarns & Rhymes retails at €10 and is selling very well in shops from Donegal to Drogheda. Greene's of Clare St. and the little shop in the Mater Private Hospital stock the book in Dublin.