Articles in the Comment Category

Last week’s Global Irish Economic Forum in Dublin Castle could be interpreted as putting a positive spin on emigration. It presented the vast numbers of Irish people, and people of Irish descent, who reside abroad as a major resource, hitherto untapped in any systematic way, that could be deployed to help generate this country’s economic recovery. Many excellent ideas were advanced over the course of the weekend, and the slick presentation of the event and its celebrity heavy guest list conveyed an impression of up-and-at-’em adventurism in the ...

The creeping, sickly sense of déjà vu that descends upon the journalistic staff of this newspaper when a debate on Monaghan General Hospital commences at local authority meetings in this county is, we are sure, shared by the readers who peruse the resultant reports of the proceedings. A forthcoming initiative by the provincial newspaper sector nationally has occasioned a delve into the files of the Northern Standard and it is quite remarkable how much newsprint has been expended by us over the past five decades on the efforts made ...

You can look at all the fuss and furore over who will be the next President of the country in two ways. It can be seen as a distracting pantomime from real and pressing problems impacting on the lives of the people, or as an illuminating window on to the many diverse threads of attitude and viewpoint that form the weave of the modern Irish nation. The pantomime theorists have a lot going for them. The country, plainly speaking, is on its uppers, and a Budget is ...

The attacks made on local and national representatives of Fine Gael at Monday night’s meeting of Monaghan Town Council (see story, page 1) on the grounds of failure to deliver on pre-election promises in relation to Monaghan General Hospital were strong ones even by the bare-knuckle standards of political rhetoric that are a recurrent feature of local authority debating chambers in Co Monaghan. They were, to a degree, animated by political opportunism – payback time for a party that itself had been sharply critical of Government policy in relation ...

Many children in Co Monaghan will now be embarking on their first days at school – an experience that tends to be both daunting and thrilling, for themselves, their parents and their teachers. It would be interesting to know, even if only from the perspective of folk tradition, just how many – if any – of the new students observed the old tradition of bringing with them an apple for their teacher. It is doubtful whether this quaint practice has survived in any widespread way into the 21st ...

The need to remember, to commemorate, is integral to the human condition. We do it solemnly, on occasions such as the Blessings of the Graves ceremonies that have been taking place in recent weeks in the communities of our towns and villages in reverential recall of those dear to us who have passed away. And frequently we refer in celebration to the past, stirring our emotions with joyful recollections of happy events and remarkable achievements of personal, local or national significance. Why we choose to remember traumatic bygone ...

Festivals of every type have grown to be an important part of the Co Monaghan economy, their significance accentuated in recent years by the corrosive effects of the financial collapse on many previously dependable income and revenue streams. The value of these events, of course, transcends the monetary – they have the salutary effect, peculiar to the artistic, of reinforcing local identities and community solidarity while, temporarily at least, transforming them through the infusion of different ideas and cultural practices. Interaction with the visitors these celebrations attract generates ...

Co Monaghan has always been justly proud of its agricultural show tradition, and the recent staging of the annual events in Castleblayney and Tydavnet have reaffirmed the justification for that pride. Both events have presented the various facets of the county’s rural existence in a highly impressive manner, presenting a vista on agricultural enterprise pleasingly at odds with the gloomy habilliments worn by most other aspects of economic activity at the present time. And the picture painted by the county’s agricultural show presentations this year has been a ...

UNLIMITED There have been many milestones along the way for the multi-purpose, multi-million education campus project being developed by Co Monaghan Vocational Education Committee but that of Monday last, when the contract for the building of the development was signed, was undoubtedly the most significant. All the formidable bureaucratic and funding hurdles that the VEC have been faced with since the project was announced by former Taoiseach Brian Cowen in November 2009 have now been effectively surmounted. The transition from aspiration to actuality becomes copperfastened next month when contractors ...

THE CANADIAN CONNECTION The productive development of the tourism industry in Co Monaghan has long been an objective of both local authority and community interests. However, despite many reports, frequent local summits of relevant stakeholders and a plethora of some good, not-so-good and occasionally bizarre ideas, Monaghan tourism has not moved much beyond the ‘Cinderella’ stage as a contributor to the local economy. Indeed, what advances have been made in stimulating a consistent source of revenue for the hospitality sector in the county have suffered some very significant setbacks ...