Articles in the Headline Category

By Cianna McNally Ballybay has been selected as a Bank of Ireland Enterprise Town and will host a one-day event showcasing all the town has to offer next month. This event, which was officially launched on Tuesday night in The Wetlands Centre, will take place on Saturday, 3rd December from 2pm – 5.30pm in the Recreation Centre and local businesses, community groups and schools have been encouraged to take part. It is free to attend and is open to both customers and non-customers of Bank of Ireland. Ballybay is ...

Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Heather Humphreys TD was among the guests at an event held last week in the Riverdale, Ballybay to honour the achievements in the 2016 Rio Paralympics of Ballybay-stationed Garda Eve McCrystal. The reception was hosted by Garda Chief Superintendent Christopher Mangan. Eve, who is from Bellurgan, Dundalk won two medals at the Paralympics. The invited guests also included Assistant Commissioner Northern Region, John O’Driscoll; Superintendent Alan Cunningham, Carrickmacross; Garda Inspector Kevin Gavin from Carrickmacross; Ballybay Garda Sergeant Mick Bracken; Ballybay-Clones Municipal District Cathaoirleach Pat ...

It was really frisky of Brian McKenna to resurrect the cry, last heard a half century or so ago, for the removal from the facade of the Courthouse of the Lion & Unicorn (NS, 20 October). Brian is not of course alone in wishing to remove or destroy historical symbols and artefacts. And, as readers will know, he finds himself in illustrious company. These iconoclasts include: the Taliban’s destruction of the Afghanistan Buddha carvings; the razing by IS of the Temple of Baal at Palmyra; the Khmer Rouge’s devastating attack on Cambodia’s ...

By Cianna McNally   “Our hearts are really breaking. We don’t have our funny little man anymore but we are asking people not to forget other kids with EB.”   This poignant appeal came from Kathleen Hagan, grandmother of eight-year-old Liam Hagan from Threemilehouse who passed away from Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB), a rare and painful genetic skin condition, at the beginning of October.    Sadly Liam was due to act as mascot for this weekend’s Leinster v Connacht Guinness PRO12 match in the RDS Arena on Saturday and a tribute will be paid to him at the game. His ...

By PATSY McARDLE AN INTENSIVE eleventh-hour campaign to protect the mushroom industry which faces huge difficulties pending the Brexit impact—with the drop in sterling severely hitting producers in Co. Monaghan and elsewhere, who are tied to contracts—was spearheaded by the Leas-Cathaoirleach of the Northern and Western Regional Assembly, Fianna Fail councillor Seamus Coyle, at last Friday’s meeting of the influential eight-county body in Ballaghadereen . Co. Monaghan’s representatives on the 25-member Assembly are the vice-chairman, Cllr. Coyle and Castleblayney Sinn Fein councilor, Jackie ...

Michael Fisher St Salvator’s Church on the edge of Glaslough village became the centre of international interest for several days in 2002. It was where ex-Beatle Paul McCartney married Heather Mills, although the couple later went their separate ways. The church is connected with the Leslie family. It was founded 350 years ago by the Bishop of Clogher John Leslie to replace an earlier 5th century parish church at Donagh old graveyard. So it was very appropriate that the present Bishop of Clogher Right Reverend John McDowell presided at a special ...

By MICHAEL McDONNELL michael@northern-standard.ie EIGHT out of Monaghan’s 12 second-level schools were due to close today (Thursday) as a result of the strike action being taken nationally over equality of pay for younger teachers by members of the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI). It has also been indicated by spokespersons for some of the schools affected that they will more than likely have to close completely following next week’s mid-term break, if the union goes ahead with a planned withdrawal of supervision and substitution services from Monday 7th November. ...

Free Movement of Traffic and Goods Should Continue ….But Sinn Féin say Theresa May on a ‘Titanic Course to Catastrophe’ Michael Fisher Theresa May’s latest comments about the effect on the border of a planned British withdrawal from the European Union have received a mixed response from local politicians. The British Prime Minister has re-iterated she wants to see the free movement of traffic and goods continued and the Common Travel area between Ireland and the UK maintained.   Minister Heather Humphreys said it was positive that in her response Prime Minister May was ...

Addressing continuing frustrations with rural broadband is the subject of an initiative from the Irish Central Border Area Network (ICBAN) Ltd. ICBAN, is a cross-border partnership of Councils along the border area known as the Central Border Region, and includes the County Council areas of Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Monaghan and Sligo. Councillor Sinead Maguire, Chair of ICBAN explains the reasoning for the project: “There are common business challenges and frustrations which arise from not being able to access and use the internet, by virtue of location alone. “This is not forgetting the teachers whose ...

By Cianna McNally “I feel very blessed. Only for her daddy, I would not have coped without him.” These were the words of Teresa King as she spoke about giving birth to her baby daughter, Ruby, on Saturday afternoon last, outside the Sacred Heart Church in Lough Egish. Ruby, who was not due until 28th October, was certainly in a rush to meet her parents as she was delivered by her father Declan in the car. The couple, who also have a one-year-old son, Jacob, were on ...