The highlight of the year 1959 for us in the faith community of St Bride is Canon Ryan’s ordination to the priesthood. But there were one or two other big events - admittedly not as big as events in Thurles and Gurteen - that year too.

Fidel Castro took control of Cuba on January 2; in India, Indira Ghandi was elected President of the ruling Congress Party on February 2. In South Africa, Daniel Malan, the founder of the evil of apartheid, died on February 27; in Little Rock, USA - the land of the free and the home of the brave - race riots occurred in August when black children were allowed to attend previously white-exclusive schools. In February, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan visited the Soviet Union, chatting with Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev and trudging through slush to visit collective farms; in July, Mr Khrushchev visited USA, meeting President Eisenhower and Vice- President Richard Nixon, and in October he hopped into China for a blether with Chairman Mao. In August, President Eisenhower visited Britain and chatted on television with Mr Macmillan. On June 25 Eamon de Valera took the oath as President of Ireland; on 16 September, in France, President Charles de Gaulle offered the people of Algeria the right to choose their political future by referendum.

Buddy Holly fans were shocked by his death at the age of 22 in a plane crash on February 3; blues singer Billie Holiday died on July 17, aged 44. Audrey Hepburn’s elfin looks and Chanel suits encouraged interest in copying her look; Yves St Laurent raised hemlines in his Paris collection. Transistor' radios were launched in August, as was the Mini car, the compactness of which was achieved by installing the engine sideways. Film maker Cecil B. De Mille, famous for biblical and Roman epics, died on January 21, aged 77; his film ‘The Ten Commandments’ was one of the box office successes of the year, along with ‘Samson and Delilah’, in which Victor Mature, in a victoriously mature sort of way, pulled down the entire Paramount studio on top of himself in a ° flamboyant gesture of ‘I told you so’ against his evil enemies. Not to be outdone, on November ll, ‘Ben Hur’ opened in Britain. It got more Oscars than any film had won before; an epic tale of the Roman Empire, it culminated in Charlton Heston’ s pure dead manly victory in a spectacular chariot race which had girls fainting in pre-Beatles swoons. Movie star Errol Flynn buckled his last swash by dying on October 14, aged only 50; his reckless ways had often landed him in court, and he had been heard to say that his life was devoted to women and litigation.

On November 5, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to British Quaker Philip Noel-Baker; Quakers are pacifists and it would be interesting to know what Mr Noel-Baker would have made of the shenanigans which took place in various parts of the world in the ensuing fifty years. On January 12, a Soviet spacecraft flew past the moon into orbit round the sun; in USA, a capsule was designed in which a man could orbit the earth. Meanwhile, back at the seminary ...........

Lynn Toner