Articles in the Headline Category

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. ...

Errigal Contracts investment in training academy reaches €6.5 million The Managing Director of a Monaghan company that has invested €6.5 million in its own training academy has called on the Government to fast-track the implementation of its fiveyear apprenticeship strategy. Damien Treanor of Errigal Contracts said it was vital for the Government to incentivise more young people to choose work-based learning and practical skills training at what was a critical time for the construction sector, with skills shortages continuing to cause alarm. Errigal’s purpose-built training academy is based in Monaghan and ...

Businesses, primary producers and public asked to help shape focus of new innovation centre The Chief Executive of the BioConnect Innovation Centre to be established at Knockaconny in Monaghan this week called on local businesses, primary producers and members of the public to play a determining role in the projects that the €7 million research and innovation facility will help develop. In an interview with the Northern Standard, Dave Macauley said a unique opportunity was on hand for Monaghan people in the coming months to effectively set the BioConnect agenda and ...

Michael Fisher Representatives of the hospitality sector yesterday met government representatives to discuss Monday’s announcement by the Taoiseach Micheál Martin that the re-opening of restaurants for indoor dining and pubs that do not serve meals was being deferred (see separate report). The venues were due to open their doors to visitors next Monday. The Restaurants Association of Ireland says the delay of possibly two weeks to re-opening indoors and allowing only vaccinated customers to dine is flawed, unworkable, discriminatory and currently illegal. It says the whole summer is now lost ...

Illegal drugs to the value of €1,475,000 had been seized by the Gardaí in search operations in Co Monaghan over the past 12 months, Garda Chief Superintendent Aidan Glacken told last week’s meeting of the Co Monaghan Joint Policing Committee. Chief Superintendent Glacken said the figure compared to €83,000 for the previous 12-month period. During the past year Garda searches had detected eight illegal cannabis growhouses and cash to the value of €128,500 had also been seized. The Chief Superintendent added that in the 12- month period between June 2020 ...

As Co Monaghan celebrated a significant milestone in broadband connectivity in Drumhowan on Friday, the community’s famed acting twins John and Tommy McArdle delivered a timely reminder of the joys of reconnecting with the work of Inniskeen poet Patrick Kavanagh. The McArdles’ performance of an excerpt from their celebrated showcase of Kavanagh’s characters and colloquy conveyed the timeless quality of “the half-talk code of mysteries and the wink and elbow language of delight” and reminded the audience of the essential value of human communication as we enter a Covid-19- accelerated ...

A Ballybay woman was elected Lord Mayor of Dublin on Monday. Alison Gilliland from the town, a resident of Dublin since 1995 and a Labour Party councillor on the capital’s local authority, is only the 10th woman out of the 353 people to hold the position, which was instituted in 1665. Chairperson of Dublin City Council’s Strategic Policy Committee on Housing, Councillor Gilliland succeeds the Green Party’s Hazel Chu. A Labour Party member since 2009, she was elected to the City Council in 2014. A former primary school teacher, she ...