A County Sligo B & B will feature in a new TV series involving singer Daniel O’Donnell.
ROAD TRIP: Daniel O’Donnell and his wife Majella heading off on their road trip for the new TV series.
The new six-part UTV Ireland series called ‘Daniel and Majella’s B&B Road Trip’ is being billed as a reality travel programme with a difference.
Daniel and his wife Majella take to the open road in a Skoda Yeti (Skoda are sponsoring the programme) and visit sites of natural beauty, all while staying in B&B accommodation.
Their B&B hosts will act as tour guides, showing them around the area as well as sharing stories across dinner and breakfast tables.
The series was filmed over two weeks in July and is to air in October.
The Donegal man said the show will serve to showcase places close to his heart and deliver, in a quirky way, an image of real Irish people for would-be visitors.
“We had an idea to put together a show that visits Ireland as opposed to encouraging people to travel outside the country. We wanted to show the areas that we love,” he said.
“In my early days I stayed in B&Bs an awful lot, when we toured dances around Ireland. It just seems like a great way to show off the country because you are meeting the local people as well. If you stay in hotels you don’t necessarily meet the real Irish people,” he said.
One of the places to feature on the trip is Moy River B&B near Cloonacool. The well known south Sligo guesthouse is run by Rita Normally and Pat McCarrick.
The programme will also feature Daniel and Majella on a trip around Lough Key Forest on segways.
A story of love, emigration and travel comes to the Hawk’s Well stage on September 24.
TRUE STORY: Sonya Kelly in “How to Keep an Alien” produced by Rough Magic Theatre Company for Tiger Dublin Fringe running at the Hawk’s Well Theatre on September 24. Photo by Anthony Woods.
‘How to Keep an Alien: A story about falling in love and proving it to the government’ tells the autobiographical account of Sonya Kelly, who wrote the play and acts in it as well, about how she fell in love with Kate from Australia and the trials and tribulations the two face trying to get a visa for Kate.
“It is about getting my partner from Australia an Irish visa to come and live in Ireland. It tells the process we went through to secure that visa, such as proof of our relationship and handing all of that into the Department of Emigration.
“The show is about that journey, but it also about Kate’s ancestors who left Ireland to go on a boat to Queensland and the irony of someone, 150 years later, looking to get back here. In a sense it has an ironic twist,” Sonya said.
The show, since its debut, has struck a chord with audiences and critics alike. It was the winner of the Tiger award at the Dublin Fringe Festival, it also sold out in Brisbane in Australia, and when Sonya spoke to the Sligo Weekender, it had just finished a successful run at the Edinburgh festival.
“It has a resonance in the sense of how human beings have been going across the world in the last 150 years. I have had someone after nearly every show come up to me and tell me about their similar story and how they got through it. In that sense it certainly has a resonation globally,” Sonya commented.
Although the subject matter is heavy in the sense of emotion, and the story itself, it is tinged with great humour which Sonya hopes Sligo audiences will enjoy.
“It is great craic. It is a funny play which I would call a funny play with sad bits. There is so much to laugh at, and we laugh at the Irish and the Australians. There is one scene in particular in the Garda National Migration Bureau and you have a situation where gardaí are trying to announce names of people from Malaysia and do so with a Roscommon or Longford accent.”
For Sonya, it will be a return to Sligo and the Hawk’s Well where she brought her debut play ‘The Wheelchair on My Face’, which was well received. She enjoyed her time in Sligo and hopes for more of the same this time around.
“I brought my first show [to Sligo] in 2013 and I was also there many other times with Fish Amble (Theatre Company). It is really beautiful, and the audiences and people are lovely. As well as that the town is gorgeous and I love nipping down to the Garavogue or somewhere like that for a pint after the show or grabbing a sea-weed bath so I will love going back, it is the ultimate bus man’s holiday,” Sonya enthused.
‘How to Keep an Alien’ is in the Hawk’s Well Theatre on Thursday, September 24 at 8pm. Tickets are €16 (€14 conc) and can be booked through the Hawk’s Well box office on 071-9161518 or see www.hawkswell.com
Popular Sligo restaurant Eala Bhan has closed it’s doors indefinitely after a fire broke out on the premises on Monday night.
CLOSED: The multi-award winning restaurant informs the public of their closure until further notice.
The kitchen and storage areas suffered extensive damage as four units of fire service tackled the blaze. A nearby restaurant also suffered some smoke damage while overhead apartments had to be evacuated.
For more on this story, pick up a copy of this week’s Sligo Weekender newspaper – In shops now.
The Food Experience butchers and delicatessen in Wine Street car park, which has been there for a number of years closed on Saturday.
However, the retail shop is just part of a business which also includes the production of readymade meals and a catering service and these will continue.
It is understood that to comply with more stringent regulations in relation to food production the operation had to be moved to a larger premises in Carrick-on-Shannon, where readymade meals for other shops and food for the catering service will continue to be produced.
Meanwhile, Ruby Lane, a ladies wear shop located in Johnston Court shopping centre off O’Connell Street in Sligo, also closed its doors on Saturday.
It had been open for around two years but a spokesperson for the store said that the closure was due to the scale of competition in the ladies wear sector, not just locally, but, increasingly, online.
The well known Hennigan’s bar on Wine Street, which had been leased, is also currently closed.
The most recent operator has confirmed that his lease is up and he will not be renewing it.
A Sligo teacher who set up a school in Tanzania to educate girls and give them a better chance in life, undertook a fundraising cycle with three of her colleagues at the weekend.
BIKES: Anne Gorby, Colette O’Hagan, Pamela Scanlon and Leonie Boyce arrive back in Sligo having completed their charity cycle.
Collette O’Hagan, principal of Mercy College in Sligo, was joined by Anne Gorby, Pamela Scanlon and Leonie Boyce for an epic Sligo-Galway-Sligo cycle which started on Saturday and finished on Sunday evening with a reception at A Casa Mia on Rockwood Parade.
Over eight years ago, Colette – then principal of Corran College, Ballymote – undertook, with the help of students, staff, parents association and friends to raise €40,000 to build a Trade School in Kisiju, a bush village, 100km south of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania.
This was accomplished in 2008. The Trade School consists of two classrooms, two workshops, and office, store and toilets.
Accommodation for teachers has also been purpose built and this means that teachers can be recruited from other parts of Tanzania and Africa.
The first mission was set up there over seven years ago by Fr. Patrick Keaney SDS with whom Colette O’Hagan liaises directly.
To date, Fr. Patrick, with the help and effort of the people in the area, has built the mission, a hospital, a school, a church and accommodation for staff.
Since coming as Principal to Mercy College, Colette has carried on the fundraising and support of this project. Development Education has also been introduced as a subject in Mercy College and during this academic year an exchange of projects between Mercy College and the Trade school will come to fruition.
“The annual goal is to raise approx. €3,000 each year so as to pay salaries for teaching staff, additional funds will buy material and equipment for the school such as fabric, scissors, thread and sewing machines,” Colette told the Sligo Weekender.
“There are only a small number of Government aided national schools in the area and there is very little opportunity for students to advance their education after leaving primary school.
“Our Trade School gives these children an opportunity to learn a skill and educate themselves. The success of the project to date has resulted in the need for a primary school so further additional funds will go towards this new project.”
During the October 2015 mid-term break, Colette, accompanied by deputy principal Anne Gorby and eight students from Mercy College, will make a return visit to Kisiju, to see for themselves the progress being made and to share their skills and experience and to learn about life and school there.
Kisiju is situated 100 km south of Dar-es-Salaam. This journey takes three hours by jeep – one hour on a tarred road and two hours on a dirt track.
The people living there are subsistence farmers and fishermen who survive on what they can produce themselves. Their only farming implements are hoes and machetes.
The area of Kisiju is infertile and little or nothing will grow. Mango, coconut and cashew nut are among the trees that can survive. The people live in grass or mud houses, which they build themselves.
If you would like to donate to the Dar-es-Salaam trade school project, you can do using the bank account details below. All donations go directly to the project. There are no administration costs and trips to the mission are personally funded by the individuals travelling.
Bank: Bank of Ireland, Stephen St, Sligo
Account Name: Tanzania School Building Fund
Account No: 86849549
Sort Code: 90-54-40
Ireland has always had ties to the upper echelons of politics in the United States.
JET SET: Brendan F. Boyle pictured with President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One.
John F Kennedy, Tip O’Neil and even the current president Barack Obama all have ancestors from Ireland.
For current Congressman Brendan F. Boyle those roots are in Easkey in west Sligo and Donegal, and growing up in Philadelphia, he was acutely aware of his Irish heritage from an early age.
“My mom and both of her parents are from Easkey in Sligo and my dad was born and raised in County Donegal. As a result I have a lot of family in Sligo, Mayo and Donegal. Over the years I have visited here about four or five times and this is a great opportunity for me to get back and visit family.”
“The last time I was here was about four years ago. My brother decided to get married in Ireland and we decided to do the family wedding and have it just up the road in Donegal town,” the Congressman said.
For Congressman Boyle, the dual identity of both being Irish and American is a very important factor in his life.
“I am young for my profession but I grew up just before the internet so we relied on what was going on from Ireland through a weekly show that would air on CBS called ‘Out of Ireland’ and also weekly we would get the newspapers. I would read them from cover to cover.
“We were always aware of our roots, but also it was in our present because our family was going back and forth. Some cousins went back to live in Ireland and some who came to America and decided to live there.
“I grew up in Philadelphia beside my grandparents and all of the accents, with the exception of my mom, were all Irish accents. My grandparents were born and raised and married here in Sligo before going to America in their 20s,” he said.
To see the full interview with Congressman Brendan Boyle, pick up a copy of this week’s Sligo Weekender newspaper – in shops now.
The latest survey by the Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) alliance shows Sligo town once again Clean to European Norms, but slipping from 21st to 24th place out of the 40 towns surveyed.
However, Sligo Tidy Towns management team has described the litter survey report as “a snapshot of our town at any given time”.
And they argue that “while our rating for this first round result in 2015 is down on last year’s ranking, the general consensus amongst the Sligo public is that the town is now a much cleaner place to live and work in”.
The Tidy Towns group pointed out that while the survey noted certain littered areas around the town and on some approach roads, it also highlighted the cleanliness of several other parts of the town.
“When it comes to litter, there is always more which can be done, both at local authority and citizen level. We all need to take responsibility for our own areas as clean roads, streets lanes and estates make for a better living experience for all of us,” they said in a statement.
“The Sligo Tidy Towns voluntary group remains firmly committed towards doing everything it can to help enhance the appearance and spirit of Sligo.
“That commitment is strengthened by the continuing goodwill and support shown to us by the Sligo public.
“The latest illustration of that came last Saturday when the Sligo Tidy Towns street bucket collection raised an impressive €3,560.
“Our sincere thanks to everybody who supported us”, the statement said.
While there has been the drop in rankings, Sligo’s situation is very different from just a few years ago when it was branded the dirtiest town in Ireland, after finishing bottom of 50 towns surveyed.
And it appears that standards nationally have risen in recent times. The IBAL survey showed another improvement in cleanliness levels overall nationally, with 75% of areas as least as Clean as European Norms.
For the first time, no towns were branded as ‘blackspots’ or ‘seriously littered’.
Killarney was judged the cleanest town in the country of those surveyed, followed by Dungarvan and Tralee.
The survey, carried out by An Taisce on behalf of IBAL, showed sweet papers, cigarette butts, fast food wrappers and chewing gum were the most common forms of litter.
Dog fouling, while not as prevalent, continues to be a source of public concern, according to IBAL.
“Where special bins are used to collect dog waste, they need to be emptied in tandem with demand. Otherwise they become unhygienic eyesores, as is the case with many recycling facilities,” says Conor Horgan of IBAL.
1 in 10 shopping centres were litter blackspots. “It is not always easy to identify where responsibility lies for littered sites in a town, but in the case of shopping centre car parks the local authority just needs to enforce the law with the landowner,” Mr Horgan said.
There has been big international interest in the sale of the historic former Summerhill College building since it was advertised for sale online at the weekend.
FOR SALE: The former Summerhill College building may be converted into a hotel or nursing home.
Mary Henry of Property Team Henry Auctioneers told the Weekender: “The furthest away we have had an enquiry from was from an Irish person living in Vietnam.”
Speaking yesterday, Wednesday, she said that they have had email enquiries from all over the world.
“The majority of enquiries have been international, with a lot from England. We had some from Dublin but none local so far”, she said.
Ms Henry said that the main interest was for its potential as a hotel while there have also been enquiries about it’s suitable as a nursing home, a residential complex and office accommodation among other possible ventures.
For the full story, pick up a copy of this week’s Sligo Weekender newspaper – in shops now.
It would take a certain amount of courage for most of us to return to a location where our life changed for the worse.
VISIT: American author Robert Drake is the subject of the documentary “Where I Am” on tonight, Thursday, August 27 on RTE One.
Whether it is something as innocuous as the restaurant where your partner split up with you; the stretch of road where you had a crash; maybe the church where you buried a loved one.
For gay American author Robert Drake, courage was not the motivating factor, but forgiveness. Drake was living with his partner Kieran in Sligo in 1999 when he was brutally assaulted in his apartment by two Sligo men, Ian Monaghan and Glen Mahon.
He was left with permanent brain damage and confined to a wheelchair. In 2000 they were each sentenced to eight years in prison.
It was a dark chapter in the recent history of Sligo town, one for which the streets themselves seemed to feel guilt and shame by association. You would understand if Robert Drake never wanted to see Sligo or Ireland again.
However, he did. In the documentary “Where I Am” (RTE One tonight, Thursday, August 27 at 10.10pm) Robert Drake’s return to Sligo town is captured by documentarian Pamela Dryden.
The Scottish film-maker first read Robert’s story in a 2008 Irish Times article and was struck by his forgiving attitude in the face of such a horrific and life-altering act of violence perpetrated against him.
“He expressed notions of forgiveness to the perpetrators that I found fascinating,” Pamela told the Sligo Weekender. “I tried to approach him, but it was difficult to make contact with him. Back then there was no technology like Facebook through which I could get in touch.”
It would be almost two years before Pamela did make contact, eventually succeeding through fellow writers and some of Robert’s many friends in Philadelphia where he now lives.
“I talked to him about making a film and I think it came at the right time for him,” she said. “He was open to talking about it. He was very articulate and despite his difficulty with speech [as a result of the attack] he had a very important story to tell.”
Initially, Pamela met some opposition from Robert’s close network of friends and support, who were less than convinced that a return to Ireland and to Sligo would be good for his physical or mental wellbeing. “Robert is very strong minded. He was incredibly brave even to make the journey.”
The visit took place in 2011. In Dublin and in Sligo Robert met the men and women who had helped to save his life in the aftermath of the attack.
The documentary also details efforts made by both Robert and Pamela to meet one of the men who carried out the attack.
Although that meeting did not come to fruition, Robert expressed his joy at being back in Ireland, a place which was filled with many happy memories. On one such occasion, according to Pamela, those memories almost became too much.
“At one point in filming, Robert was very moved when he approached a village in Dublin, where he remembered once being very happy.
“He basically broke down, and it was a very emotional moment because the crew, everyone who worked on the film, we were all very fond of Robert — very protective of him. It was a defining moment for all of us, and it was a brave moment in filmmaking, I think, because — with Robert’s permission — we continued filming.
“And it was moving for me, because he told us later that he cried because of all the happy memories he remembered.”
Pamela, who lives in Ireland, and Robert have continued to stay in touch. She said he was one of the first people to text her when the Irish people voted in favour of Marriage Equality in May of this year.
United States Congressman Brendan F. Boyle made his first visit to County Sligo since being elected last year.
VISIT: US Representative Brendan Boyle visits Sligo for the first time since joining Congress
The Democratic Congressman’s grandparents on his mother’s side, Michael and Sheila Walsh, hailed from Easkey in Co. Sligo. The couple left Sligo in the 1920s for Philadelphia, where Brendan’s late mother, Eileen was born.
This is Brendan’s fourth trip to County Sligo, his first being at the tender age of eight in 1985. The reason for the visit this time is a family christening.
Brendan is a Congressman for the 13th Congressional District in the state of Pennslyvania. We will have a full interview with Brendan in next Thursday’s Sligo Weekender.
The granting of planning permission for the provision of a new pontoon dock at Doorly Park will pave the way for the promotion of greater tourist traffic on Lough Gill.
TOUR BOAT: The new pontoon landing facility would allow tour boats such as the Rose of Innishfree to operate from Doorly Park. This picture shows the vessel having to board passengers on Yeats Day 2015 via the bow.
And the new landing facility for boats could be put in place next summer if funding for the estimated cost of roughly €100,000 can be got.
Sligo Tourist Development Association has been granted approval for the reconstruction and repair of the existing quay wall and provision of a 27mx3m floating pontoon, accessed by a metal ramp from the quay wall onto a 6mx3m landing pontoon at Crozon Promenade, Doorly Park.
Secretary of the Association Joe Corcorcan said that the lack of a proper docking facility for tour boats and other craft near the town had been talked about for a long time and his association had been working with Sligo Tidy Towns committee on this project.
“The first thing that was needed was to get planning permission so we agreed to take the lead on that and we have worked with various bodies to achieve that.”
He said that there hasn’t been this facility available and pointed out that for the past 20 years or so the tour boat operated by George McGoldrick has had to work from Parke’s Castle.
“We feel there is a lot of tourism potential on Lough Gill with its history and Yeats connection.
“It also opens up the possibility of two-way traffic on the lake. A tour boat could pick up a coach load of tourists in town and bring them to Parke’s Castle or vice versa. That is a very attractive proposition for a tour operator.”
Mr Corcoran said that they were now looking at possible sources of funding.
“We are very hopeful that with the co-operation of other bodies that this work could be done during the 2016 season”, he said.
A condition of the planning permission is that all “in-stream work” can only be carried out in dry weather between May 1 and September 30.
