Articles in the General News Category

Here in the Northern Standard, while out and about bringing you the news from around the county during the last few months, we have been struck by how well our towns and villages have continued to look during Lockdown. Despite National Spring Clean month being aborted in April and the National Tidy Towns…

Plenty of thrills and spills in ‘new normal’ style of championships Colm Shalvey reports The long-awaited start of the club football championships arrived under the ‘new normal’ last weekend. A new format using home and away venues for the round-robin stage, limited crowds in the grounds, onlookers using any imaginable vantage point to get a glimpse of the action, dressing rooms remaining out of bounds and several clubs offering live streams of their games meant it was anything but an average championship weekend. However, despite the lengthy layoff, the games across the ...

JOHN GRAHAM The first salvos have already been fired in this year’s two tier hurling championship with the opening qualifier games seeing Carrickmacross HC and Inniskeen going to the senior championship while Monaghan Harps HC and Clontibret went to the Junior series. There were two games in the senior hurling championship last night Wednesday, July 29th, Castleblayney HC at home to Truagh, which…

DERRY MOURNS JOHN HUME Michael Fisher ‘Lord, make me an instrument of your peace’: the prayer of St Francis based on the Gospel beatitudes filled the vast space of St Eugene’s Cathedral in Derry yesterday as the city by the Foyle said farewell to its visionary. More than anyone else John Hume, former SDLP leader and MEP, had helped to transform the fortunes of the city over the past fifty years and bring peace to the North. The Nobel Peace Prize winner along with David Trimble in 1998 following the Good ...

Michael Fisher Largy College science student Ruth Madden from Clones has achieved her most important success so far, this time on the world stage. Her invention has won the Gold Award for Physics and Engineering at a major international science and technology competition that took place online in Hong Kong on Saturday. Representing her school, Scifest and Ireland, Ruth showcased her invention, “The Microplastic Filter – a small solution to a global problem”. This globally unique filter system removes microplastic fibres and particles suspended in the waste water of domestic ...

An allocation of €1,277,475 is being made available to Monaghan Co Council for the implementation of the Housing Adaptation Grant scheme through which persons needing to make structural changes to their homes in order to accommodate elderly or infirm relatives can apply for funding assistance. The allocation was announced this, Thursday morning. A discussion at the last meeting of the Co Council in July saw several members make the case for additional funding for the suite of measures available…

Michael Fisher There were just four cases of Covid-19 in Co. Monaghan recorded in July and none since the start of August. The total since mid-March is 542 up to Sunday midnight. The national total is over 26,250 (see table). Meanwhile the Minister for Social Protection, Heather Humphreys, T.D., has secured government approval to extend until September 17th the suspension of redundancy provisions relating to temporary lay-off and short-time work, which arose as a result of Covid-19. The Minister also secured approval to extend the duration of the Covid-19 Enhanced ...

CPL, the largest solid fuel supplier in the State, has welcomed the extension of the ban on the burning, marketing and selling of Smoky Coal to all towns with populations over 10,000 people, which will come into effect on September 1st, but has warned that any extension will be ineffective. CPL said in a media release: “Minister for the Environment, Eamon Ryan, has signed the new restrictions, to include an additional 13 towns to the existing list where smoky coal is already banned. The ban is now extended to cover ...

Cavan/Monaghan Sinn Féin TD Matt Carthy told the Northern Standard yesterday that he had received confirmation from Bus Éireann that all Monaghan passengers who book their tickets online will be guaranteed a seat on the service. In recent weeks complaints have arisen of passengers in Co Monaghan being left stranded at bus stops due to reduced bus capacity arising from Covid-19 stipulations. Deputy Carthy said he had raised the matter with Tánaiste Leo Varadkar TD in the Dáil and had also written to Bus Eireann CEO Stephen Kent. Correspondence sent ...

Following consultation with the Health Service Executive (HSE) Irish Water, working in partnership with Monaghan County Council, yesterday confirmed that a Do Not Consume Notice in place since 29 July 2020 for all consumers on the Threemilehouse and Togan Public Water Supply Scheme due to elevated levels of manganese in the water supply has now been lifted. The notice applied to approximately 290 customers supplied by the scheme. All users can now resume normal use of the water supply for drinking, food preparation and brushing teeth. Pat O’Sullivan, Irish Water’s ...