Articles in the Headline Category

The death on Friday last, July 16 in a road traffic accident of 19-year-old Brendan Óg Ó Dufaigh, the captain of Co Monaghan’s U-20s Gaelic football team, has caused widespread shock and grief throughout the county and in sporting circles nationwide. Mr Ó Dufaigh had played a starring role as centre half back in Monaghan’s 3-10 to 1-11 victory over Donegal in the Ulster U-20 Championship semi-final in Brewster Park in Enniskillen earlier in the evening and was driving home from the Monaghan GAA training facility at Cloghan when the ...

Margaret Urwin of the Justice for the Forgotten campaign group, established in relation to the 1974 bombings in Dublin and Monaghan Town, has called on the Irish Government to seek the intervention of United States President Joe Biden to try to halt the intention of the British Government to introduce an effective amnesty for crimes carried out during the Northern Ireland Troubles. Ms Urwin urged President Biden to speak out on the issue and said it would be helpful if the Irish Government could make representations to Mr Biden in ...

Confirmation that 23 new step-down care beds promised for Monaghan Hospital were now all fully operational was welcomed at Monday’s meeting of the Monaghan Municipal District. But Sinn Féin representative Brian McKenna emphasised that what was required at the facility was additional services and the medical staff to run them, pointing to the disincentive to economic investment in the county which the lack of full hospital services created. Welcoming the 23 beds that had come on stream at the hospital, Independent councillor Seamus Treanor said it was great to see ...

The Border Communities Against Brexit campaign groups has said that the British Government’s attempts to seek major changes in the Northern Ireland protocol is an attempt to pit the two communities in Ireland against each other. Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis MP in a statement to the House of Commons yesterday called for an end to virtually all checks on goods made in Britain intended for sale in Northern Ireland. There was speculation as we went to press that the British Government was prepared to back its calls for major ...

Taoiseach’s Aide de Camp Commandant Caroline Burke joined the attendance in St Macartan’s Cathedral in Monaghan Town yesterday, Wednesday morning for the Funeral Mass of Brendan Óg “Ógie” Ó Dufaigh, the Monaghan football U-20 captain and Monaghan Harps player who died in a road accident at Clontibret on Friday last. The attendance at the Cathedral was limited by Covid-19 regulatory guidance but the depth of grief in the community engendered by the young man’s passing and the solidarity with the Ó Dufaigh family was evident from the large crowds of ...

The plan to extend the Ulster Canal Greenway from Coolshannagh in Monaghan Town to Ardgonnell Bridge was given a planning “green light” at the July meeting of Monaghan Co Council when the elected members approved a notice in relation to the project under Part VIII of the Planning and Development Regulations. Senior Planner Toirleach Gourley told the meeting that the project involved an extension of the existing Ulster Canal Greenway from Monaghan over to the Border at Middletown. It would involve the widening of the towpath, drainage and the provision ...

CARMEL DEPARTS CO COUNCIL WITH FLORAL AND VERBAL BOUQUETS Meetings Administrator of Monaghan Co Council Carmel Thornton is presented with a bouquet from the Council’s three female elected representatives – Mary Kerr Conlon, Cathy Bennett and Aoife McCooey – marking Carmel’s attendance at her final meeting of the local authority on Monday before her retirement after 41 years of public service. In 2019 Ms Thornton became the first woman to act as Returning Officer for the local government elections at Co Council level in Co Monaghan, a moment in her career ...

A proposal by Fianna Fáil councillor Seamus Coyle that Sinn Féin make the undergrounding of the north-south interconnector a pre-condition of continued participation in the Northern Ireland Executive led to division among the members of Monaghan Co Council at their July meeting on Monday. Sinn Féin councillors objected to what they deemed the overtly political nature of the proposal, which party whip Brian McKenna criticised as taking no account of the volatile current state of the Northern Ireland Assembly. But the motion passed by nine votes to six on a ...

“The majority of the members of Monaghan Co Council have done the right thing and not the populist thing,” stated Fine Gael councillor Sean Gilliland in reaction to the decision taken at Monday’s Council meeting to increase the rate of Local Property Tax that will apply in Co Monaghan for the coming year by 15%. The decision was made at the end of an attimes heated debate on a show-of-hands vote of 12-6, and was opposed by the Sinn Féin members of the local authority who had sought to have ...

Errigal Contracts investment in training academy reaches €6.5 million Conroy Gold and Natural Resources announced on Tuesday that it had completed due diligence drilling in the Clontibret area of Co Monaghan where the exploration company hopes to establish a gold mine. The drilling at two holes in Clontibret and that carried out in other locations was part of the process towards finalising the joint venture agreement Conroy plan to enter with Turkish conglomerate Demir Export. The joint venture project has as its principal focus the establishment of a Clontibret gold mine. ...