Articles in the Headline Category

Scotstown native Áine McGurk has been awarded a Network Ireland Businesswoman of the Year accolade for her Dainty Bear babywear business. Áine, née Sherry and a former student of Beech Hill College in Monaghan Town, won the Highly Commended Award in the Emerging New Business category of the national competition, the ceremony for which was held virtually this year owing to the prevailing Covid-19 restrictions. Áine, who was also nominated in the Power Within category, said she was surprised to be shortlisted but extremely proud of the award presented to ...

Storytelling is alive and well in Co. Monaghan, as evident by a recent entry to a national story writing competition called Stories from the Waterside. A short story written by Fearghal Duffy from Ballybay was selected from almost 500 entries as a winner and has also been published in the Stories from the Waterside anthology launched during National Heritage Week, a unique collection of personal stories connected with Ireland’s rivers, lakes, wetlands and coastal areas. The competition ran in April and May during the Covid-19 lockdown. It focused on collecting ...

• BORDER CAMPAIGNERS THREATEN TO PLAY US CARD TO STOP UK UNDERMINING NORTH PROTOCOL; SF TD SAYS PEACE PROCESS COULD BE AT RISK Brexit came back to the boil this week with concern general in Border communities, Irish Government ranks, the EU political hierarchy and the United States about strategies being pursued by the British Government as they continue to negotiate a post-Brexit trade deal with Europe that are perceived as having the potential to undermine the Northern Ireland Protocol that formed part of their departure agreement from the European Union ...

The 15% increase in the Local Property Tax levied in Co Monaghan during 2020 will be retained for 2021 following a vote at Monday’s meeting of Monaghan Co Council which saw the temperature of discussion rise close to boiling point at times. A lengthy debate on the annual decision with regard to the LPT saw political tensions surface between the Sinn Féin councillors opposed to the charge and the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael members whose combined weight, added to on this occasion by the local authority’s Independent benches, was ...

Monaghan Co Councillors Paudge Connolly and Cathy Bennett apologised at Monday’s meeting of the local authority for recent actions in breach of Covid-19 public health guidance and promised that they would cooperate fully with any future investigation by SIPO or the Standards In Public Office Commission. In statements made at the outset of Monday’s monthly Council meeting – again held in Monaghan Town’s Garage Theatre to facilitate social distancing and observance of other Covid-19 health and safety guidelines – both councillors were afforded time to make brief statements of apology, ...

Sixth Year student at Ballybay Community College Páidí Walsh was celebrating the exemplary distinction of receiving 9 H1 grades when the Leaving Certificate results for 2020 were circulated on Tuesday. Basking in the congratulations of his fellow students and the staff of the Ballybay ETB school, Páidí confessed that it had been a nervous wait to learn the outcome of his examination performance but said what he discovered when he logged on to the results portal on Tuesday morning was “just amazing”. Son of Ciara and Johnny Walsh, Páidí was ...

Areas of Co Monaghan face significant challenge in relation to plastic waste but the potential exists for significant reductions in usage volumes to be made, a new study has found. Midlands-based start-up CUSP has identified hotspots in terms of single-use plastic packaging waste in a number of locations in the county but says that significant reductions in the amounts generated in the county each year are possible if the matter is assigned priority. “Monaghan households generate a combined 3,700 tonnes of single-use plastic packaging waste annually – that’s enough single-use ...

Sinn Féin member of Monaghan Co Council Cathy Bennett has had her party whip withdrawn from her as a result of the controversy over her participation in a family holiday in Lanzarote against public heath guidance and the direction of her party. SF group leader on Monaghan Co Council Brian McKenna said on Friday that he had withdrawn the whip from Councillor Bennett on foot of a recommendation from his party’s National Councillors Forum. “Cathy breached party guidance and public health advice regarding international travel,” Councillor McKenna said in a ...

SF TD calls on Government to take control of inspections The ABP meat plant in Clones confirmed to the Northern Standard on Thursday last that 14 further positive Covid-19 cases had been detected following the screening of all 335 staff at the premises. Two other Clones ABP employees had tested positive during the previous week. Sinn Féin Agriculture Spokesperson Matt Carthy told the Northern Standard yesterday that “urgent clarification” was needed in relation to the further detections at the Clones plant and those at other processing facilities. The Cavan/Monaghan TD called ...

Tyholland haulier Ronan Hughes entered guilty pleas at the Old Bailey in London on Friday on 39 counts of manslaughter arising from the deaths of Vietnamese nationals whose bodies were discovered in the refrigerated trailer of a lorry in England in the early hours of October 23 last year. Mr Hughes, aged 40 and with an address at Leitrim, Silverstream, also pleaded guilty to a charge alleging conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration between May…