Buttevant
COMMUNITY COUNCIL
Buttevant Community Council is constantly to the forefront in the pursuance of the entitlements available to the local community in all matters. With the recent spate of break-ins robberies and general public annoyances the Community Council is contacting all the relevant authorities with regard to these facilities.
The Community Council has written to the Garda Superintindent for the Buttevant area with regard to the provision of a permanent Garda presence in the town. The presence of a regular Garda who will be visible and on patrol in the town would perhaps deter the occurrence of robberies breakins and anti-social behaviour and would reassure the residents that their safety and well-being is being protected.
The Community Council has also written to the local public representatives county councillors Dail deputies and all the relevant local authorities to lend their weight in procuring all that is required to make Buttevant and the surrounding area a safe welcoming and homely place to live in and have pride in.
BINGO
The weekly bingo session continues on Monday night in the local G.A.A. hall with numerous monetary prizes to be won. There is a “bingo jackpot” of €1100, an “in-house lottery” of €460 and “an-extra-sheet” of €200 among the many prizes to be won. No doubt there will be many extra prizes to be won coming up to the Christmas season which will attract many more players. The games begin on the night at 8.30p.m.
BUSINESS ASSOCIATION
A call has been made to all business persons large and small who would be interested in forming or becoming part of a business association for the Buttevant area. All interested participants are asked to contact 087-6725374 as soon as possible.
RACE NIGHT
Buttevant Soccer Club are organising a Christmas Race Night to be held on December 18th. The event will take place on the Friday night in “Kit Roches’” Bar and should be a night full of lively entertainment. Anybody interested in sponsoring “races” or in taking “advertising are asked to contact any club member committee member for further details or telephone 022-41025.
AWARDS
The local juvenile G.A.A. club Micheal McCarthaighs is holding its’ annual awards night on Saturday November 28th in the Charleville Park Hotel. This is the night when the club honours its winning teams top players and administrators for their work within the club during the past playing season. Tickets for the event can be purchased on Friday November 13th. 2015 between the hours of 07.30p.m. and 08.30p.m. at the apppointed venue.
LOTTERY
Buttevant Soccer Club runs a weekly “lottery draw” which helps finance the clubs’ activities. There is a substantial “lottery jackpotto be won which now stands at €5800- and will rise accordingly until it is won. When there is no jackpot winner there is a ‘ three-number-prize draw” for draw entrants. Draw cards can be had from the club-house appointed committee members and local retail outlets. The draw takes place on Thursday night at an appointed public venue. Your support is appreciated for all club activities.
RELIGIOUS
The annual cemetery prayers will take place this weekend on Sunday November 15th in Templemary Cemetey Lisgriffin following them 10a.m. Mass. Prayers will be celebrated in Buttevant Church Cemetry following the 11.30a.m. Mass.
The Church Christmas Tree lights will be switched on on Saturday December 5th following the Saturday Night Vigil Mass.
Christmas Carol Service will be held on Sunday December 13th at 7.30p.m.
Penitential Service for Christmas will retake place on Monday December 14th at 8.00p.m.
HERITAGE GROUP
Buttevant has many monuments that speak to us of our glorious past. However their stories generally fall on deaf ears. Buttevant Heritage Group (BHG) was formed with the purpose of learning how to listen to these stories.
From the onset the BHG adopted an approach based on rigorous historical and archaeological research. We hosted an academic conference in Springfort Hall on March 2011 attended by key academics from Ireland and abroad. These eminent scholars told us that Buttevant was a planned Norman town following a Bastide pattern typical of a great number of planned towns in South West France.
The proceedings of this conference were edited and published as Buttevant: A Medieval Anglo-French Town in Ireland by the historian and archaeologist Eamon Cotter. We liaised with the statutory bodies and sought the advice and financial support of the Heritage Council of Ireland for our initiatives.
This work gained for us the status as a Medieval Walled Town and placed us amongst an elite network of Medieval Walled Towns in Ireland. The local community embraced our Walled Town status and over several years we held our hugely successful Medieval Walled Town Days against the backdrop of Barry’s Castle.
Our research and Medieval Walled Town status allowed us to win funding for a number of projects among them signage for some of our medieval sites lighting of Ballybeg Abbey commissioning of two large murals in the town and banners flags and literature publicising our guided walking tours.
Our most recent project is the impressive map of Medieval Buttevant and artist’s impressions of our key heritage sites by the artist Uto Hogerzeil which was subsidised by a grant from the Heritage Council of Ireland.
The documentary evidence and academic experience at our disposal needed more concrete verification. The practical necessity of road works to provide a proper road through our town has in an unforeseen way helped to reveal the missing links. Such was the scale of the archaeological discoveries on Buttevant’s Main St that BHG and the NRA hosted an afternoon meeting on August 29 to share the findings with the local community.
This meeting ‘Buttevant’s Not so Hidden Hidden History’ attracted a large audience and many stayed to examine the maps diagrams and exhibits over a cup of tea. Little did we know what was yet to be found amongst them a gold ring dated 1713; a pier of the North Gate; an extensive stretch of the cobbled main street; steps into an underground room and numerous artefacts–pottery bones a curler for a wig buckles etc.
BHG are hoping to organise a tour of the dig shortly so people can better understand the work of the archaeologists while everything is still exposed and on view.
The archaeologist’s report which will follow completion of the works will then give context and meaning to these findings and help us to hear the stories they tell of their times.
BHG are also members of the wider Buttevant community and are mindful of the inconvenience and hardship being visited on local businesses and the public. However we confidently believe that at the end of all this Buttevant will become an important landmark in the growing area of cultural tourism.
With this in mind Buttevant has just recently been accepted into Tourism Ireland’s latest marketing initiative: ‘Ireland’s Ancient East’. This expands our linkages beyond local heritage sites to heritage sites as diverse as Newgrange and Lismore. This cultural tourism promises to generate new and enduring income for the people of the town.
Our archaeological findings have captured the imagination of the Facebook community. Photos information and videos on the dig posted on our Facebook page ‘Medieval Buttevant’ have excited comment and debate locally nationally and internationally. Indeed the findings have also attracted the attention of our national media.
In short what is unfolding in our town over these current months will yield a new road and far greater knowledge of Buttevant’s rich heritage to the huge benefit of the town and its people.
ALERT
Please be alert to any suspicious persons vehicles or occurrences in your or your neighbours area. Always report these activities to the relevant authorities.