The secret of true
happiness
I know that Genes have little to do with ones personality ,when one is
Serious with God
Reading an article last week in a local paper - Did you get your Happiness Gene - brings poignantly to mind, an experience I had some several years ago on a dreary and wet Sunday evening in Dublin.
I was surrounded by my three children, the youngest, Sheba, being only eighteen months old, and having been born five months after the tragic death of my 38 year old husband, Dr. Desmond Dillon. People who had rallied around in force after the accident, had now folded their tents and silently stolen away. I was alone and very lonely and struggling to get through the bleak chiaroscuro of these desperate days.
Casually I turned on the TV and was exposed to the richness of a programme from England entitled Songs of Praise.
A man began to read from the Bible, with which I was not acquainted, and his words had a dramatic effect on me. So much so, that on the spur of a mad moment, I took out my cheque book and wrote a cheque for a widow in Australia who had been left with twelve children. Racing down the road I flung it into the letterbox before I had a chance to regain sanity because in my then position, it was the epitome of foolishness and financial suicide.
However, the Good Lord , with whom I had a nodding acquaintance, had other ideas, and walked straight into my life. It has been well said that when we show love, God acts, and this was my observation. I experienced a sense of peace that was ineffable. Hitherto, I had been a daily church goer but the armchair Christain personified. As a result, I had never met Jesus. That day I did. I was levered right out of that snug chair and I have never since looked back. For the very first time in my life, I started to live the Gospel, and small miracles became my daily encounter.
I can honestly say, that I have never endured a bout of depression from that period onwards, then in my middle thirties, and without a shadow of doubt,
I KNOW THAT GENES HAVE LITTLE TO DO WITH ONE'S PERSONALITY WHEN ONE IS SERIOUS WITH GOD. Then one 'makes' one' s personality to suit the execution of His plans. Let's face it, one will not eat a box of Mars Bars if one is trying to lose weight and the same goes in the control of dark and dismal moods if one enjoys the luxury of a sound mind.
Giving one's will to the Lord each morning and accepting with grateful thanks all He sends for that day, without demur, is the secret of happiness, knowing full well, that He never makes a mistake and that all things work together for good for those who love Him ( Romans 8-28) . Being contented with what one has and forgiving a hurt without delay , bring vast rewards. The result is ineffable peace, great health and super vitality.
There are three things He asks of us in order to maintain this condition of serenity:
(I) to act justly;
(2) to show mercy;
(3) to walk humbly with the Lord. (Micah 6:8), remembering, that humility is truly, the Mother of Salvation.
Oh woman of three cows a gra,
Don't let your tongue go rattle,
Don't be haughty, don't be proud
because you may have cattle!
Anita Kilbride - Jones,
Saint Paul's Bay, Malta.
Des feeding Oisin (6 weeks old)
Joe Maher (left) shows Handball to Irish International Airlines Hostess Sharon Lynn as team mate Dr Desmond Dillon watches,the two Irish Handball Champions are to compete for the World Handball Championship at the New York Athletic Club
Dr. Des Dillon - all-round athlete.
May the shamrocked sod bloom
stately on his breast !
Dr Desmond Dillon
Lisdoonvarna's Des Dillon, affectionately known to the Gaels of County Clare - because of his tanned, arresting appearance - as the 'Brown Doctor', and also as 'The flying handballer', was the first Clare handballer to make a breakthrough at Inter County level. A brilliantly talented athlete, adept at handball, boxing, swimming, hurling, football, rugby, tennis and shinty, the man from the 'Spa' was to become Clare's first handball personality. Des' first introduction to handball came at the Cistersian College, Roscrea, County Tipperary where he was a boarder during the nineteen thirties and forties and where he won the school's senior title during the period '43 to '45. Moving on to University College Dublin, he garnered an impressive haul of five Fitzgibbon Cup medals, the inter University Hurling Championship and captained the Combined Universities against the rest of Ireland in l952. He represented Offaly, Clare and Dublin in handball and hurling. He won an Oireachtas hurling medal with Clare in '54, a Railway Cup medal with Munster in '55 and was wing forward on the Clare team surprisingly defeated by 'Mackey's Greyhounds' in the '55 Munster Hurling Final.
Dillon became the first Clareman to achieve national prominence at handball, when in '55 he defeated Kilkenny's Christy Delaney to take the Gael Linn Cup, a feat he repeated in '57 defeating Kerry's legendary Jimmy O'Brien. In I957 representing Clare, he captured the Munster Handball Senior Singles crown and in l962, representing Dublin, he reached the Final of the All Ireland Senior Handball Singles. His opponent here was Kerry's Paddy Downey.
The game commenced in the open air four wall court at Kells but was interrupted by inclement weather. Both players and spectators alike travelled to Talbots Inch, in Kilkenny, to complete the game. Eventually Downey scored a narrow 2I/2O fifth game victory to take the title on a 3/2 scoreline.
In I964, Dillon was selected as a member of the Irish Handball Team which travelled to the first ever officially sponsored World Handball Championships at the New York Athletic Club. Dillon represented Ireland in the Doubles Championship and was partnered by the legendary Joe Maher.
Despite his failure to gain that coveted All Ireland success, Dillon's exploits in the handball court firmly established him as one of the top players of his era and placed Clare in the forefront of handball affairs for the first time. He excelled at all games except boxing, having lacked 'the killer instinct' and being trained by the famous Jack Doyle to whom we bore a startling physical resemblance.
Not only was Dr. Des Dillon a marvellous athlete and a man of total integrity, he was also conspicuous by his gentleness of manner and his concern for his fellow men. A very self-effacing and conscientious person, he was 'his own man'. From his patients he earned the appellation: 'The Gentle Giant'. He was a legend in his own lifetime.
Left to mourn his untimely passing at the age of 38 in I964, were his wife Anita and his young children Tara, Oisin and Sheba, to whom we extend our very deepest sympathy. It was an honour to have known him.
NI DOIGH GO MBEIDH A LEITHEAD ARIS ANN.
AR DEIS DE GO RAIBH DA ANAM DILIS.
GHK.
See (sparks to light the fire)
Here is a very special photograph as it includes not just Jimmy Smith but also Jack Doyle, Movita and Dr Pat O' Callaghen.
'Doc' O' Callaghen is one of the all-time greats of Irish sport
A Cork man, he won the Olympic hammer title at the 1928 Games and retained the title in 1932. Indeed it is virtually certain that he would have won it for a third time in Berlin in 1936
were it not that at Britain's insistence, the Irish athletic body, the NACA, was suspended from international competition because it refused to confine its activities to twentysix counties. So the 'Doc' was a spectator in Berlin and saw the title won at a distance ,which he was bettering at the time. Having qualified as a doctor, O'Callaghan settled in Clonmel and there he still remains hale and hearty.
The occasion this photograph was taken had to do with a visit to Clonmel, early in the Forties by Jack Doyle and his then wife Movita. It's not difficult to recognise Doyle. He is the magnificent figure, extreme left back row. Having been married, but not in a Catholic Church, Doyle and Movita (The attrative lass in the centre) had a Church Wedding only months before the photograph was taken at Dublin's Pro-Cathedral. She was already a well-established film star but at that time they were touring Ireland with a variety show. It must be recalled that in addition to his boxing and other talents, Doyle was a fine tenor. Next to Doyle is Jimmy Smith and next to him is Gerald Eagen, who promoted many of these concert tours and who's
colourful life ended tragically in a fire in London, only a few months later. For the record, Movita divorced Jack Doyle, who never remarried. Almost twenty years after this photogragh was taken, she became Mrs Marlon Brando and was one of the stars in Brando's remake of " Mutiny on the Bounty", the original version of which made Movita a star.
St Vincent's Hospital Rugby Team Dublin
Dr Desmomd Dillon
(first left back row)
Beneath at Croke Park, Dublin, 1963.
En Famille
