Articles in the Headline Category

By Veronica Corr THE LAUNCH of the Taste of Monaghan Festival took place in the Market House, Monaghan Town, on Monday evening last. Sponsors, restaurateurs, public representatives and interested parties turned out in force to welcome for the fourth time, what has become an annual event. The honour of launching the festival was shared between Monaghan Town Mayor Seamus Treanor and County Mayor Hugh McElvaney. Monaghan County Council, Monaghan Town Council, Mallon’s Butchers, Silver Hill Foods, Castle Leslie Estate and Fleming’s Department Store proudly sponsor this initiative. The launch which took place upstairs, was preceded ...

There was a welcome at Monday night’s meeting of Monaghan Town Council for the commencement of works to restore the site of the stalled mixed use development project in the town centre – locally dubbed “the hole in the ground” – to its former function as a car-park. Town Manager David Fallon told the meeting that things were moving with regard to the reinstatement project. The developers had now their licences and permits in order, and work had started. Mr Fallon hoped there would be progress and ...

By Michael McDonnell michael@northern-standard.ie The future of Monaghan’s Harvest Time Blues festival looks secure, following another great weekend of gigs that had the county town buzzing as punters packed the venues in large numbers to enjoy some top-class acts from both sides of the Atlantic. Committee member Sean Conlon told the Northern Standard that while the exact figures were not yet totted up, it appeared anecdotally that the numbers attending all the events were holding up well when compared with last year, especially when set against the current economic difficulties. ...

By Michael McDonnell michael@northern-standard.ie The substantial sums of money being paid to members of county councils and city councils were in the spotlight again this week as the Irish Independent published the results of its survey into the overall amounts picked up by each of the 883 public representatives on local authorities around the country. In the week when Health Minister James Reilly found himself in hot water and had to perform an embarrassing u-turn over a proposed €10 million cut to funding for personal assistants for people with disabilities, the ...

A Clontibret lady scooped an impressive €36,000 in last Saturday’s Big Money Game on RTE television. Joan Leonard from Coolarta, on the Monaghan-Armagh Border, earned her passage onto the National Lottery’s summer TV gameshow thanks to a scratch card purchased for her by her daughter Marie, a key member of the staff of The Northern Standard’s sister company R & S Printers Ltd. Joan was watching the Olympic boxing events the previous week when her name was pulled out as a contestant – and received the good news ...

The Nelson Doyle Dancers from Canada brought an authentic burst of Canadian colour to Monaghan Town Centre on Saturday last. The famed new Brunswick dance troupe arrived in Monaghan last Thursday as part of an Irish tour organised by Marven McCarthy of Maritime Travel, Miramichi. They visited the Patrick Kavanagh Centre in Inniskeen on Thursday evening and performed in Ardaghy on Friday night. The group visited the Wildlife and Heritage Centre in Clontibret where they were given a traditional Irish welcome by proprietor Peader Morgan on Saturday morning. They attended Mass in St. ...

Because of the severe bad weather over the past few months a decision was made, solely by the show committee, to cancel the Cattle and Horse sections of the Castleblayney Show. So, with great reluctance, ‘Plan B’ was put into operation. This involved moving the other sections of the show from the field, so generously offered by Jimmy and Sheila McShane and family, to the warehouse complex behind the Lidl store. This move was a great disappointment to Jimmy and Sheila who were so looking forward to having the show on ...

By Patsy McArdle A GROWING wave of public anger is mounting in Co Monaghan – and in several other areas – over huge cutbacks in local government funding to local authorities for public services as a “penalty” for resistance to the Household Charge! THE issue has led to an emergency special meeting of Monaghan Co Council this Thursday afternoon in advance of the adoption of budgetary proposals by the Council for the maintenance of services throughout the county for the coming year. Earlier this ...

Monaghan Town’s much talked about ‘hole in the ground’ – the site of the stalled mixed use development project in the centre of the county capital – could be a thing of the past come the end of February 2013, Monday night’s meeting of Monaghan Town Council was informed. Town Manager David Fallon told councillors that the Council had now signed a contract with developers Clarkes for work to commence on the restoration of the site to its original condition as a car-park. Mr Fallon said the ...

By Patsy McArdle THE South Monaghan-based coach hire company, Matthews Coaches of Inniskeen achieved new heights of prestigious success this week by winning an Olympic contract, in London, to transport the world’s top athletes to the Games, in the English capital. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Leo Varadkar congratulated the company on Sunday last as “the only transport firm in the Republic to have secured such a contract” . On Monday morning Matthews Coaches sent fifteen of their vehicles, along with ...