The shoes from Brazil
QUESTION Where are the shoes that Amy Huberman promotes made? THE shoes that Amy Huberman promotes for a shoe-retailing company based in Monaghan are in fact made in Brazil and Portugal.
At the end of 2012, Amy launched her first collection of 15 styles of shoe for Buddha Brand, which is part of the Shoe City group based in Castleblayney.
This is a wholesale and retail footwear group owned by the McArdle family that supplies more than 400 leading shoe retailers in both Ireland and the UK.
Eight years ago, Barry and Jim McArdle started up the Buddha Brand subsidiary and i t’s been going from strength to strength ever since.
One of their earlier signings was rugby star Tommy Bowe, himself a native of Co. Monaghan, who signed up to promote the McArdle’s brand of Lloyd & Pryce men’s footwear.
They followed that up in 2012 with a deal with Amy Huberman for her shoe collections.
Her first collection was launched in December, 2012, which consisted of 15 shoe styles under her name, including her American Beauty leather ankle boot for the Buddha Brand.
With Amy lending her name to Buddha Brand shoe profits have soared at the firm.
Amy is now promoting more than 40 shoe styles that range in price from €79. 99 to €169.99.
Production has been outsourced to shoe factories in Brazil and Portugal. Both countries have a strong reputation f or making quality shoe wear that’ s much cheaper than comparable products made in Europe.
Co. Monaghan once had a thriving shoe industry. At Ballybay, a tannery was started in 1950 and lasted until the mid-1970s, making soles for shoes. The manufacture of shoes was also important in the county.
Carrickmacross had a well-known shoe factory, Stedfast Shoes, which was started up in the mid-1930s and which closed down in 1988. Stedfast was also unusual because the firm had its own brass band, which started playing in 1958. Even though the shoe factory closed down 27 years ago, the brass band plays on.
Emyvale had Co. Monaghan’ s first shoe and boot- making f actory, started in the early 1920s.
During the 1932 Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, the-then manager of the factory, who was an English Protestant, turned up the Radio Éireann broadcasts of the Congress to their full volume and opened the windows so that all the workers in the factory could hear them.
In the early 1940s, the factory was bought by a Monaghan man, James Boylan and it continued to make shoes for a further 40 years.
However, Emyvale still has a small shoe-making firm, McKennas, which has been making speciality and custom- made shoes for over 30 years.
So even though the manufacture of shoes is almost extinct in Co. Monaghan for many years, the tradition of shoe-retailing there lives on strongly, thanks to the tie - up between the McArdle family and Amy Huberman.
James Kelly, Galway.
QUESTION Why were ‘temple prostitutes’ a common feature of many ancient religions and cults? IN HIS Histories (c.440BC), Greek historian Herodotus wrote: ‘The foulest Babylonian custom is that which compels every woman of the land to sit in the temple of Aphrodite and have intercourse with some stranger at least once in her life . . .
‘Most sit down in the sacred plot of Aphrodite . . . Once a woman has taken her place there, she does not go away to her home before some stranger has cast money into her lap, and had intercourse with her outside the temple’.
His story is corroborated by various sources, according to Greek historian Strabo (63BC-24AD) in Persian communities living on the Black Sea, ‘virgin daughters,’ hardly 12 years old, were dedicated to cult prostitution. ‘They treat their lovers with such friendliness that they even entertain them.’
Anthropologist James Frazer accumulated a wealth of such evidence for his magnum opus, The Golden Bough (1890-1915): ‘In Cyprus it appears that before marriage all women were formerly obliged by custom to prostitute themselves to strangers at the sanctuary of the goddess, whether she went by the name of Aphrodite, Astarte, or what not . . .
‘Whatever its motive, the practice was clearly regarded, not as an orgy of lust, but as a solemn religious duty performed in the service of that great Mother Goddess of Western Asia whose name varied, while her type remained constant, from place to place.’
He also describes similar practices i n Babylon, Syria, Greece and Turkey.
Frazer concluded that popular worship of the Mother Goddess was used to both celebrate and encourage abundance in both animals and agriculture ‘ though temporary, union of the human sexes at the sanctuary of the goddess for the sake of thereby ensuring the fruitfulness of the ground and the increase of man and beast.’
A number of modern authors dispute these findings. Stephanie Lynn Budin (2008) goes as far as to dismiss the practice altogether, arguing that Greek writers were smearing their enemies with defamatory stories to prove their own moral superiority.
Others claim such tales are male fantasy propagated by 19th century historians such as Frazer. More moderate historians don’t deny the use of temple prostitutes – there is clear evidence that temples operated brothels and that young girls held the highest offices of the priesthood, even before their first menstruation – yet they agree the levels of debauchery were exaggerated. Terrence D. Innes, Little Witley,
Worcestershire. QUESTION What is the record for the longest living dog? BLUEY, an Australian cattle dog, holds the official world record for oldest dog at 29 years and five months. Les Hall of Victoria, Australia, got Bluey as a puppy in 1910, and the dog worked with cattle and sheep for nearly 20 years was put to sleep on November 14, 1939.
More recently, claims have been made for Max, a 29-year-old mixed terrier, from Louisiana, but his date of birth can’t be confirmed. The same goes for Bella, a Labrador cross from Derbyshire, whose owners believe she was 29, but because she was a rescue her precise age couldn’t be verified.
The average lifespan for a dog is between ten and 13 years. In contrast to the general pattern in the animal kingdom, smaller breeds tend to live longer than bigger ones. Chihuahuas and Yorkshire terriers often live to 15 or more, whereas a Great Dane can expect to live only seven years. Jane Yeats, Kings Langley,
Hertfordshire.
QUESTION At a cricket match (45 overs a side) between Timsbury and Cleeve, in the Bristol & District League, an opening batsman in each side scored more than 200 runs. Has this ever been bettered? THE previous answer stated that there have never been more than two scores of over 200 in a Test match.
This is not so: at Bridgetown in the 1964-65 series between the West Indies and Australia, there were actually three 200s. Bill Lawry scored 210 and Bobby Simpson 201 for Australia, and Seymour Nurse scored 201 for West Indies. James Gibb, author of Test Cricket
Records, Collins, London.