Upwards of five million people in Canada could have Sligo connections and most of them probably do not know it, one of the organisers of a Famine trail commemoration walk last weekend believes.

Members of the public will have an opportunity to join a major search for relics from the Spanish Armada wreckage at Streedagh Beach in the coming weeks.

Sligo Rovers welcomed young Rory Gallagher to the Showgrounds on Tuesday, and even presented the two-year-old with his very own Sligo Rovers shirt.

ANOTHER artefact from the Spanish Armada wreckage has been found washed up on Streedagh Beach.

Fianna Fail will have no shortage of potential candidates to choose from when the party holds its convention for the Sligo-Leitrim constituency in the next couple of weeks.

For many years John Kelly has been the public face of North West Hospice, appearing at numerous fundraising events and in countless photos, so it little wonder that one of the staff there recently christened him “Mr Hospice”.

However, when we spoke to him this week to mark his retirement, the affable Grange man was more anxious to talk about the Hospice than himself and to thank all those who had helped him in his fundraising work and the staff in the Hospice.

“I really want to thank everybody for their support for the Hospice and their help to me over the years. The people in this region are the greatest givers. They are brilliant”, he said.
John, who celebrated his 70th birthday on Tuesday, has been working for the Hospice for the past 17 years.
His first involvement in funding raising began through a personal experience.

“There was a young lady in Grange that I knew whose sister died of cancer and we started fundraising locally. And later she died herself at only 38 years of age That is how it started”, he said.
And John said that is how most people become involved in raising money for the Hospice.

“Nearly everybody has an experience with a family member or a neighbour and they hold a fundraising event or maybe two or three. There are events going on like that all the time and that is how most of the money is raised.”

John has seen the Hospice grow from one nurse in the community to the present 8-bed unit, seven nurses involved in home care and the hospital support team.

For John’s full story pick up this week’s Sligo Weekender- out now.

A Sligo teacher has called into question online safety for children as a survey reveals students as young as 13 using an adult dating website.

The survey showed that 17% of students surveyed in Sligo had a profile on Tinder or another dating site.

It was also revealed that 20% of students in Sligo had witnessed an incident of cyberbullying in the last year.

For more on this story, see today’s Sligo Weekender newspaper. In stores now.

One of the most vociferous opponents of water charges, Anti-Austerity Alliance TD Paul Murphy will speak in Sligo next week.

The Dublin deputy told the Sligo Weekender: “I will be coming to Sligo to bolster and organise in anyway I can the message of non-payment of the water charges.

More in today’s Sligo Weekender newspaper. In stores now.

An independent study on the attitudes of young people towards politics and politicians has found worrying levels of dissatisfaction with the way they are represented by political decision makers.

The survey, carried out by Transition Year students at St. Attracta’s School in Tubbercurry for their new politics website, oblivious.ie, revealed that 86 per cent of the 167 young people who take part do not trust politicians while 61 per cent would close the door if one was on their doorstep.

73 per cent also believe that politicians do not care about issues concerning young people.

Despite the study showing seriously low expectations with regards to engagement with politicians and representation of Ireland’s young people, an overwhelming majority acknowledge that politics has a big impact in their lives and believe that young people should have more of a say in decisions taken by their government.

In a questionnaire issued to 50 TDs and Senators, to which just 25 responded, 47 per cent agreed that Oireachtas was reflecting the views of young people and children ‘only a little’.

The study also included questions about the social media habits and interests of young people.60 per cent said they get their news from their mobile phones compared to 48 per cent who said television and just 16 per cent who said newspapers.49 per cent also said that they watch the news daily or at least 2-3 times per week.

Oblivious.ie is a challenge taken on by the TY students at St. Attracta’s to build and publicise a political news and information website targeted at young people. As well as surveying pupils in their school, they broadened the study to include the participation of other schools in Co Sligo, Co Cork and Co Meath.