This morning there has been an announcement of 350 jobs coming to Sligo.
Telecommunications company Eir is to create 350 new positions at its new state of the art facility in Rathedmond in Sligo Town.
The news comes off the back of 100 jobs being announced last week in Overstock.
In this week’s paper, the Sligo Weekender spoke with Aidan Doyle, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, who described the news as “big for Sligo”.
PEOPLE Before Profit campaigners occupied a vacant building in Sligo town this week in a protest over a shortage of social housing.
Members of the group, including the party’s local county councillor Gino O’Boyle, occupied the building on Old Market Street for a number of hours on Tuesday as part of a nationwide campaign to highlight the issue of homelessness.
In a prepared statement, the group said: “We are protesting here today to highlight the issue of homelessness in our local community, and to show solidarity with people who are homeless as well as other groups trying to represent them across the country.”
The group highlighted the “32,764 residential properties in County Sligo, 6,571 of those are vacant. That’s a vacancy rate of just over 20% (20.1%)”.
Cllr Gino O’Boyle said that the hidden homeless figures in Sligo are most worrying.
“A lot of people don’t see those who are couch surfing and staying with somebody else. It is a very unfortunate way to be. What happened this week with the stillborn babies is shocking but not surprising. We have similar things happening in Sligo that are not always getting reported. This highlights the vacant properties here in Sligo.
This property is vacant for eight years and this effects all of society. Members of the Traveller community have problems getting houses but so too have other young people and the elderly,” Cllr O’Boyle said.
For more on this story, see this week’s Sligo Weekender newspaper – in shops now!
Alternatively, you can purchase an online edition here
Three of the north-west’s outstanding sporting teenagers – swimmer Mona McSharry plus boxers Dean Clancy and Dearbhla Rooney – this week travelled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, as part of the 16-strong Team Ireland squad for the Youth Olympic Games.
This competition, which runs from this Saturday, October 6, until Thursday, October 18, features over 4,000 athletes and over 32 sports.
This will be the first outing for Team Ireland since the unveiling of the new logo and name.This will be the third edition of the Youth Olympic Games which are hosted every four years.
The Youth Olympic Games provide invaluable Olympic experience and competition for talented Junior athletes, aged 15 to 18, from over 200 countries around the world.
The event replicates many features of the Summer Olympic Games with a fully maintained athletes’ village. In recognition of the role the games play in the development of future athletes, the Youth Olympic Games also integrates a Culture and Education programme.
Grange swimmer McSharry, 18, will compete in the Women’s Breaststroke (50 metres, 100 metres and 200 metres) and the Women’s Freestyle (50 metres).
Teenage pugilist Dean Clancy, a member of Ballinacarrow Boxing Club, will fight in the Men’s Flyweight division. The boxer turns 18 later this month.Manorhamilton’s Dearbhla Rooney, 17, a product of Sean McDermott Boxing Club, is a competitor in the Women’s Bantamweight section.
All three competitors from the region have previously represented Ireland – McSharry with the most success as she won a gold medal, in the 100 metres breaststroke, in last year’s World Junior Swimming Championships.
At the announcement of the Team Ireland selection for Buenos Aires, a new name and logo have been unveiled for the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of the island of Ireland with a name change from the Olympic Council of Ireland to Olympic Federation of Ireland.
This modernised Olympic crest will also be sported by the Team Ireland athletes for the first time at the Youth Olympic Games.
For more on this story, see this week’s Sligo Weekender newspaper – in shops now!
Alternatively, you can purchase an online edition here
Members of the Sligo Abortion Rights Campaign took part in the 7th annual March for Choice, which took place in Dublin on Saturday last.
The group hand delivered their message to Minister for Health Simon Harris to “future proof legislation that provides the best legal framework for free, safe and legal abortion services that are inclusive and accessible to anyone who needs it”.
“We were heartened to meet the Minister to bring our concerns to him and to meet with those fantastic and tireless campaigners from across the country and those campaigning across the border, on the March for Choice in Dublin on Saturday,” said local ARC member Niamh O’Connor. Legislation for the regulation of the termination of pregnancy is due to be debated in the Dáil today, Thursday.
The Sligo Abortion Rights Campaign is urging local TDs Marc MacSharry, Eamon Scanlon, Tony McLoughlin and Martin Kenny to “enact the will of the majority and to get the best possible patient centred care for pregnant people who seek abortion services in Sligo-Leitrim.
“Getting the language right is crucial, as expanding the wording to include healthcare providers (not only medical practitioners) will allow nurses and midwives to play a role in the full reproductive rights of their patients. An ‘opt out’ rather than an ‘opt in’ clause, with an onus on healthcare practitioners not to refuse care will mean timely and accessible services for the most marginalised,” Ms O’Connor stated.
By Alan Finn
Sligo Rovers fan base has a far reaching cachement area.
Supporters come from as far as Westport and Westmeath every second week to see their team in action.
Few are lucky to not only be able to see the team from their bedroom window, but to have also carved out a career with them.
This was the case for Conor O’Grady, whose love for The Bit O’Red sprung to life upon his family’s decision to move to the Maugheraboy area.
“I lived a good part of my life across from The Showgrounds in Rose Hill. We moved here from the Circular Road when I was six and that was really my first introduction to football in an area steeped in it because you have Rovers, you have Merville United and there was a lot of kids in places like Treacy Avenue, Oakfield, Cedar Drive and Jinks Avenue kicking ball from morning until night and I was fortunate to grow up playing with a very good Merville team.”
O’Grady’s first introduction came in the late 1980s. Though the club was enduring a difficult spell at the time, he found his affinity with Rovers was growing all the time.
“I started coming here in 1988. The team then wasn’t doing very well, they only ever seemed to beat E.M.F.A from Kilkenny, but my love for the club began there too. Fran Hitchcock, Rocky O’Brien and Pierce Walsh would have been the first Rovers players I loved watching, but of course the turning point for a lot of fans like myself then was the 1993-94 season.”
Like many fans of the day, O’Grady’s lasting enthusiasm for The Showgrounds was aided by his experiences of the legendary Shed.
“I had to be a Shed Head like all the other lads. Teams used to come out the side of it and it would be absolutely wedged and the opposing team would be getting pelters. The floodlights had just come in too which really brought the place to life, you looked forward to every second Saturday. I started going to away games, my first ever game was against Home Farm, I was in Athlone to see them win the First Division, I was ball boy for a few games too, it was just an unbelievable time to be a fan.”
While watching his heroes from the Shed, Conor was also honing his own skills across the road with Merville United, where his exploits were not going unnoticed.
“We won an U-16 title with Merville United and the next natural step was the Rovers U-18 team, they were managed by Glen Young and John Lynch. Most young lads dream would have been to play with Liverpool or Man United or Celtic, but I always dreamed of playing for the team I grew up watching across the road and this was my first opportunity to do that.”
For the full interview with Conor, see this week’s Sligo Weekender newspaper – in shops now!
Alternatively, you can purchase an online edition here
THE Word at Sligo Central Library returns on Wednesday, September 26.
The first of the new season welcomes Patrick McCabe along with Galway writer John Patrick McHugh.
Sligo GAA have announced their intention to install Paul Taylor as the head coach of the senior team.
Taylor, who played at inter-county level for Sligo and recently managed the Under-21s to a Connacht Final, will be recommended to club delegates at the next meeting of the County Board for ratification on Monday.
In a statement released on Thursday night, Sligo County Board chairperson Joe Taaffe said it was a competitive market and exhausting process which took seven weeks before Taylor emerged as the top candidate from a total of nine potential successors to Cathal Corey, who stepped after one season at the helm.
Taylor will announce his full backroom team in the coming weeks, which will comprise of two local selectors and a new face to the senior set up in coach Joe Keane of Mayo.
A Sligo mother has this week recalled the “scariest time” of her life when she almost lost her son to meningitis.
Jacintha McGowan was urging all parents to be aware of the symptoms of meningitis or septicaemia and to “trust their instincts and act fast” if they suspect their child may be seriously ill.
Jacintha (51) remembered the night her son Koray became ill at the age of 18.
It was in February 2015. “He came home from school with what seemed like a cold and a headache. I gave him paracetamol and told him to sleep for a while.
“When I checked on him after an hour he had developed a temperature and didn’t want the curtains open as light hurt his eyes. At 8pm he started vomiting and his whole body was boiling except his hands and feet which were freezing.
“A friend and I rushed him to casualty and Koray could barely walk with the pains everywhere.
“The hospital staff said that we’d be waiting a while but we could see he was deteriorating in seconds, so I kept pleading with the nurse to get someone to look at him. Eventually they did the normal checks and said it could be a virus.
“But as we were waiting for the results his breathing became shallow and pinhead red spots started to appear on his arm and stomach, so I immediately thought, meningitis. I called a nurse to look and when she saw this she just ran and four doctors came back and it was mayhem from there.
“Luckily they started treatment with intravenous antibiotics on the assumption it was meningitis. That fast reaction saved Koray’s life”, she said.
A contingent of protesters from Sligo made the journey to Leinster House this week to protest the closures of post offices in County Sligo.
Protesters made the journey to the capital in the wake of a motion put forward by Sinn Fein to give greater support to post offices in rural communities.
Political activist with People Before Profit, Nigel Gallagher spoke to the Sligo Weekender about the protest and the need to protect rural services.
“It was good to get a strong representation from Sligo considering the Sligo post offices that are under threat. At the protest today, the message has been that the government are undermining public services and it is not just in rural Ireland it is also evident in urban Ireland too. It has been a mantra of successive governments to undermine these services,” Mr Gallagher said.
Mr Gallagher was critical of both the government and An Post for what he believes to be a choreographed attack on postal services.
“I think it has been strategic from both the government and An Post in the way they have sporadically closed post offices down when the Dail was on holidays. They did not want to see a big movement to form but we are firmly organised in our community in Maugherow. There are over 700 submissions in opposition to closures there and around county Sligo you would see a similar situation,” he said.
In Sligo, it was announced in late August that a total of six post offices were to be closed.
These were Ballinafad, Ballinfull, Dromard, Drumcliffe, Gurteen and Monasteraden.
By Luke Henderson
The Mad Ravens are making their return in The Apprentice.
This year marks the fourth outing of the troupe who have previously brought us ‘Requiem for Julie’, ‘Aisling’ and the Raven Beckons.
The latest production will bring together many of the stalwarts of previous shows such as Micki Murray, Brendan Tierney, Vanessa Saunders and Elaine O’Gorman.
Micki Murray returns as director and star and Shaun Purcell, writer of the aforementioned productions, has penned this play as well and will act as musical director.
“This is the fourth year we have being putting on a musical and each year we raise money for a chosen charity. Previously we raised money for the Hospice and the Hawk’s Well and this year we will raise money for Sligo Cancer Support Centre,” Shaun said.
The play, which Shaun originally wrote with Dublin as its location, now has a distinctly Sligo feel and the location of this production has swapped from the capital to Finisklin.
“The audience will recognise the place names and some of the dialogue and we hope so that it has that real Sligo feel to it,” Shaun said.
Shaun describes this piece as a “light musical comedy with characters that people will recognise and connect with”.
It follows the story of the feckless duo of Billy and Knuckles, Mr G the gangster and his moll, and the romantic hero and heroine.
“The cast is an eclectic mix of 14 to 60 somethings so there is every age really taking part. We have students from Grange Post Primary School that are involved in music and drama in the school as well as people who are much older that have never done something like this on stage before. It is a very professional feeling show which we hope will be fun and raise some funds for a very good cause,” Shaun said.
The show is on Tuesday, October 2 and Wednesday, October 3. Evening shows begin at 8pm and the matinee is at 11am on Wednesday, October 3.
Tickets are €15 for adults and €7.50 for U-18s. For more call the Hawk’s Well Box Office on 071 9161518 or see www.hawkswell.com
For interviews with the cast, see this week’s Sligo Weekender newspaper – in shops now!
Sligo Rovers have sometimes found themselves with players and managers who are years ahead of the curve.
One such man was at the helm for one of the club’s most memorable periods when Billy Sinclair guided the club to the League of Ireland title in 1977.
Sinclair, who prides himself on professionalism, had a lot of work to do in changing results as well as lifestyles.
One of his first missions was to source a new breed of player from outside of the League of Ireland, and thus, a new batch of soon-to-be legends arrived.
“I was constantly looking for new players. I was contacting the PFAs [Professional Footballers’ Association] in Scotland and England all the time to see who was out of contract. The lads I brought in were professional, you didn’t have to worry about them, they trained in the morning, sometimes trained in the evening.
“The character of a player is very important to me, I got on the phone to the likes of Chris Rutherford, Graham Fox, Gary Hulmes and Alan Paterson among others, I knew straight away that these were lads I wanted to bring to this club.”
Sinclair’s charges enjoyed a mid-table finish, away from the relegation that often threatened them in years prior. The club hailed his achievement, but he felt this was only the beginning of something great.
“I remember one night I was asked to attend a board meeting. My first thought was that my time was up here, but I went along and there was about 20 people there and as I walked towards my seat, they all stood up and applauded me. They said that this was the first time in years they didn’t have to go to Dublin toa apply for re-entry to the league. We did well but I told them that I knew this team was capable of more, we had to keep them and that was the start of it.”
For the full interview with Billy, see this week’s Sligo Weekender newspaper – in shops now!
Alternatively, you can purchase an online edition here
