Articles in the Comment Category

We have reached a point in Irish society where the protection of children has been placed at the forefront of public concern. Children’s rights have been constitutionally reinforced; stringent safeguards are now in place to protect children from sexual depredation; there is a more developed consciousness than ever before that children and adolescents both are vulnerable to the mental and emotional problems that formerly were perceived as being confined to the realm of adulthood. Perhaps most importantly, the voice of the child is now heard and heeded to ...

The pending reality of water charges is being brought forcefully home to the public of Co Monaghan at the present time. Their inevitability is visible on our streets as work proceeds with the installation of the meters that will tally usage ahead of the issuing of the first bills by Irish Water in the April-June period. The extension of the deadline for registration in order to avail of the Government’s €100 water conservation grant has also been announced this week by Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly. This magnanimous-seeming but ultimately pragmatic move ...

The worldwide embrace of the St Patrick’s Day celebrations, both by those with legitimate Irish roots and many others with only a notional tincture of green in their DNA, is perhaps an imperfect prism in which to try to discern ourselves as others see us. The motley donned by celebrants and the imagery evoked by Irish parades in other parts of the world often speaks to an outmoded and not altogether flattering concept of Irishness – it is redolent of a quaint, bucolic neverland that if it ever existed, bears little ...

One of Co Monaghan’s most proven tourism resources is our rich waterways which have for a long number of years been a magnet for fishermen not just from other parts of the country but from the UK and the Continent. At a time when new tourism strategies are being evolved and the necessity for a distinctive branding image for our county is being seriously addressed by our local authority, a timely cautionary warning was delivered at Monday’s meeting of Monaghan Co Council about the vulnerability of our key waterways resource to ...

A very significant moment for the many voluntary, community, stakeholder and local and national political interests who have been waging a long campaign to bring the Ulster Canal restoration project fully into realisation arrived this week. Cavan/Monaghan’s Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Heather Humphreys TD announced that Government approval had been secured to restore the Ulster Canal from the Shannon-Erne Waterway to the Castle Saunderson International Scout Centre near Belturbet. While a relatively small step in the overall vision that its advocates have for the project’s entirety, it is perhaps ...

The assertion by Monaghan Municipal District Cathaoirleach Sean Conlon on Monday that 10,000 jobs could be created in this county overnight if rural broadband services were brought up to prevailing standards was an attention-grabbing comment. The headline worthiness of such statements when local politicians make them are sometimes perceived as being their inherent motivation, but in this instance we are moved to credit the Sinn Féin representative with a worthier motive. Colr Conlon was making a very important point – and while the putative jobs figure he cited was notional, there is ...

Co Monaghan’s industrial landscape, reeling from the blow of the Bose factory closure, was badly in need of some elevation of the spirits – and it certainly received it with the news confirmed last Friday that the progressive Monaghan-based manufacturing firm of Combilift was investing €40 million in a new factory development. The expansion of the company’s operations will go some way to healing the still open wound in North Monaghan’s industrial skin caused by the decline in furniture production and the closure of a number of significant sources of employment ...

The measures announced by the Government to reduce the sale of cheap drink products as part of an initiative to limit the damage being visited upon the nation’s health by excess alcohol consumption are to be commended. This country’s deeply ingrained ambivalence to the ubiquity of alcohol, in both its deep-rooted cultural and historical manifestations and its more recent emergence as a cynically exploited commercial magnet, militates greatly against effective social constraints that might tend to moderate, for fear of social disapproval, the behaviour of those inclined to excess. Ours is not ...

Carrickmacross, indeed the county at large, is still reeling from last week’s shock announcement of the impending closure of the Bose audio systems manufacturing facility in South Monaghan. “Shock” is a word perhaps too automatically appended to headlines concerning bad industrial news, but in this instance it is the apposite term. Not just the 140 employees, whose plight has attracted universal and deserved sympathy and support, but industry observers and the relevant agencies of Government and State were taken aback by the blunt disclosure, which was not presaged by any significant ill-omens ...

The plans discussed at Monday’s meeting of the Monaghan Municipal District for a new retail strategy for Monaghan Town deserve close attention by all practitioners of commerce who stand to benefit from their implementation. They also offer a possible template for other towns in our county seeking to revive trade and maximise opportunities for increased business – our smaller towns in particular, confronted with the challenges posed by the threatened loss of important local services and associated stature, could derive much compensatory advantage from such an initiative, and it is hoped ...