Irish Northern Aid
News
 |
||||
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8075829.stm
The funeral Mass for Kevin McDaid who died after being beaten by a loyalist mob will take place at St John's Church, Coleraine, later.
The Catholic father-of-four was attacked near his Somerset Drive home in the town last Sunday.
His friend, Damien Fleming, who was also attacked, remains critically ill in hospital.
Nine men have been charged in connection with Mr McDaid's murder and the attempted murder of Mr Fleming.
Trouble flared in the Heights area of Coleraine last weekend after Rangers won the Scottish Premier League over rivals Celtic.
Support for the two Glasgow football teams, known as the Old Firm, has traditionally divided along religious lines in Northern Ireland.
Most Rangers supporters are Protestants while Celtic fans are predominantly Catholic, and the rivalry between the teams has often been mirrored in sectarian clashes following big games.
Mr McDaid's family said they were concerned police were involved in "negotiations" with loyalists on the day he was killed.
However, Assistant Chief Constable Judith Gillespie said officers worked to ease tensions and came quickly to his aid.
On Friday night, a band parade in Coleraine, which organisers diverted to avoid the area where the murder happened, passed without incident.
Parish priest Father Charlie Keaney said some Rangers supporters had left their football shirts in tribute outside Mr McDaid's house.
http://www.derryjournal.com/journal/Living-in-fear-on-edge.5320752.jp
Published Date: 01 June 2009
A woman living in Abercorn Court backing on to the Fountain Estate in the city claims she's been left to live in fear following a number of sectarian attacks on homes in the area in recent weeks.
Betty Curran has also criticised the PSNI's response time to the latest incident near her home earlier this week when a number of young people threw bricks at cars.
"On Tuesday night I was on the phone and I heard a lot of commotion outside," she explained. "I thought maybe there was work being carried out at one of the houses but when I went outside all I could see was a lot of bricks and large stones lying in the car-park.
"A neighbour called the police but no-one came out until the following afternoon. If the situation had escalated we would have had no support whatsoever and I dread to think what might have happened."
Betty has appealed to youths in the area to leave her and her neighbours in peace.
She said: "Over the past few weeks I've had eggs and other things thrown at my window. I have good friends on both sides of the community here and just want to be left in peace. "Given the terrible things which have happened in Coleraine in recent days I really hope people will intervene to make sure this behaviour stops and these attacks don't get out of hand as we enter the marching season."
Sinn Fein Councillor Maeve McLaughlin has condemned the attacks which she says should not be tolerated.
She said: "These types of incidents are wrong and should not be happening in 2009. As we approach the summer it is all the more important that political and community representatives get together and show leadership by stressing the unacceptability of these sectarian attacks.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/31/northern-ireland-kevin-mcdaid-murder
The killing of Kevin McDaid and the brutal beating of Damien Fleming during an attack by a loyalist gang last Sunday expose the bitter sectarianism that still scars Northern Ireland
Caroline Davies and Henry McDonald
The Observer, Sunday 31 May 2009
Sunday 31 May 2009
Silence fell as the hearse bearing Kevin McDaid's coffin stopped at the exact spot he was murdered, yards from his Coleraine home.
Then, just as his son Ryan, 22, helped by pallbearers, hoisted his father's body on to his shoulders and began the slow march along the narrow walkway to his front door, music could be heard. Strains from the flutes of loyalist marching bands floated across the River Bann, wafting over the mourning party.
It was too cruel a coincidence.
On one side of the river, Catholic grief. On the other, the ritualistic show of Protestant pageantry.
On the day Kevin McDaid's corpse was brought home, a victim of the violent sectarianism Northern Ireland is supposed to have laid to rest, Coleraine amply demonstrated just how fractured is the thin veneer of the peace that exists in the province today.
It has been one week since Mr McDaid, 49, a father of four, a volunteer cross-community youth worker, a Catholic married to a Protestant, died of a heart attack, having been brutally beaten by a loyalist mob. He and his wife, Evelyn, had come to the aid of their neighbour, Damien Fleming, 46, who, having been beaten and kicked, is clinging to life in a Belfast hospital. Evelyn's badly bruised face is testimony to the sickening violence that even a woman has been subjected to.
"They came here to kill and they did, they killed my Kevin," Evelyn said. "They killed him because of his religion, that's what it was all about, they would have killed me, too, if I hadn't have been pulled to safety.
"I don't know how I am going to let him go, I have just got him back after five days and that was agony. I just don't know how I am going to cope when they go to take him, but I will, I have to for my boys.
"Kevin dying is so unfair because he was always the peacemaker, he was a community worker, involved in cross-community work and everything. If he was alive today he would have been disgusted at what has happened."
Standing with a knot of locals paying their respects outside the McDaids' neat, pebble-dashed terrace home, Sinn Féin councillor Billy Leonard said: "The impact of this last week has been really, really terrible. Really traumatic."
Surveying The Heights, the Catholic enclave where last Sunday bare hatred, hammers, clubs and cudgels demonstrated how far from real grassroots unity Northern Ireland remains, he added: "There's such a lot of anger here. A lot."
There was anger and shame, too, on the other side of the river, where the Protestant marching season was under way with the Pride of the Bann march. Long planned, the march route had been voluntarily shortened out of deference to the McDaid and Fleming families. So it did not cross the Bann bridge, which leads to The Heights .
The pipes, flutes, drums and banners of some 40 bands paraded in the town's main streets, watched by a thin line of spectators. But the occasion seemed subdued. "It's a disgrace," said one Protestant. "Everyone is ashamed. People just daren't talk about it in case they get tarred themselves, you know. But Coleraine isn't really like that. It's just gangs, on both sides," he insisted.
Perhaps. But this is where sectarianism is at its most potent, among the young and dispossessed and disillusioned.
There is no greater metaphor for sectarian division in Ulster than the Protestant Rangers versus Catholic Celtic rivalry. It is tribalism in the raw. And statistics prove that sectarian incidents in Northern Ireland spike during the Scottish soccer season.
McDaid and Fleming appear to have been picked at random by the mob, who rampaged through this Catholic district after Rangers won the Scottish premiership. Witnesses have spoken of more than 30 drink-fuelled loyalists piling out of "Scott's" bar looking to "teach the Fenians a lesson". On The Heights estate they spilled out of cars, chanting: "We are the UDA." They found Fleming, a disabled man who had lost his job in a meat factory. They had got their "taig".
Whether or not this was a UDA attack, it is a disturbing illustration of the sectarian hatred that still lurks, especially in diehard loyalist areas, of which Coleraine certainly has its share.
"This has been bubbling away for years now," said Leonard, as both families appealed for no reprisals.
"Look at him," declared Fleming's brother, Bobby, as the family released photographs of his horrific injuries. "Would you like your brother, sister, mother, father, lying like that? No, you wouldn't. Is it worthwhile? We're human. Hurt nobody else," he urged.
Many of those gathered at The Heights on Friday bore the scars of former battles. Last August, 100 loyalists descended on the enclave. Six people were injured. Some spoke of beatings, of daily having to run the gauntlet in their own estate.
"That's what it's like here. All the time," said Ryan McDaid, 22, who cradled his father as he died. It was concern over the young man's safety that prompted his father to leave the house on that fateful evening. Ryan says he has since received a loyalist death threat.
"Oh, they're here now," he muttered as two uniformed police officers patrolled the end of the road at a discreet distance. "Where were they on Sunday?"
McDaid's family is said to believe the Police Service of Northern Ireland did not do enough to curb loyalist violence and accuse officers of negotiating with loyalists on the day of the murder. Rangers were expected to win and the Coleraine Catholics had discussed the consequences - band marches, gloating gangs, union flags thrust aloft - and the inevitable raid into their neighbourhood. But prior to the game, a group of defiant teenagers did string a line of green, white and gold pennants across the street.
The fact that there is now a cross-party appeal for witnesses to help the police is because all are desperate to keep a lid on this type of violence. Despite being a university town, Coleraine remains one of those places in Northern Ireland where ancient hatred regularly bubbles to the surface .
Fifty years ago some shopkeepers and businesses put up job advertisements in their windows advising that "Only Protestants need apply". Although such advertisements were made illegal decades ago, the town remains a hotbed of extreme loyalism, which is sullenly opposed to the Belfast-based leaderships of the Ulster Defence Association and Ulster Volunteer Force, both of which have tried to move loyalism in a more political direction.
Those accused of murder, attempted murder, assault and affray last Thursday in Ballymena magistrates' court clearly have some support within the Protestant and loyalist community. Seventeen armed police officers, some in riot gear, had to form a human barrier in court around 70 supporters of the defendants and the victims' families and friends.
The tension in the court-house and the palpable fear back in Coleraine illuminate a wider problem facing Ulster loyalism as it tries to cope with the changing Northern Ireland. While the majority of the UDA's six brigades contemplate giving up arms - one in particular, South East Antrim, has confirmed to the Observer it is poised to decommission weapons - one of its units remains opposed to handing over guns.
That unit is the so-called North West Brigade led by a notorious loyalist terrorist known as The Mexican and which includes Coleraine.
Nationalists who have lived in the town all their life are sceptical about moves by the Northern Ireland Office to try to bring the Coleraine loyalists in from the cold. John Dallat, an SDLP member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, criticised both Shaun Woodward, the Northern Ireland secretary, and the security minister Paul Goggins this weekend over what he called their "pussyfooting" with local loyalist terrorists. "The ministers were reluctant to say that any members of the local UDA may have been involved in the attacks last Sunday," said Dallat. "Everyone in Coleraine knows otherwise."
He added: "This was an organised invasion of a vulnerable area, and not a whim among a couple of guys watching football in a pub. You do not go to watch a Rangers match with a hammer or a cudgel."
About 58,000 people live in Coleraine borough, of which Catholics make up 20%. For decades during the Troubles the Catholic community kept its head down, fearful of demonstrating any aspect of Irish nationalist culture.
At the start of the Troubles, with thousands of Protestants fleeing from nearby Derry city into Coleraine, the town's only Hibernian band folded and from 1969 onwards there was no celebration of Irish culture. The loyalists claim it as their town, now.
But the rest of Coleraine just wants peace.
On the white railings outside McDaid's home, green and white Celtic shirts are tied, alongside bouquets, and verses. One reads: "Peace is the destination and the way. Love is the path we must take." It is signed "A Protestant".
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uda-breakaway-brigade-in-vow-to-hand-over-weapons-14321520.html
Monday, 1 June 2009
A breakaway brigade of the Ulster Defence Association has vowed to hand over its weapons, it has been reported.
The UDA’s rebel South East Antrim Brigade confirmed it is preparing to decommission its arsenal prior to the British government’s deadline for the surrender of weapons in August.
In an interview with yesterday’s Observer newspaper, the commander of the renegade brigade — who refuse to recognise the |authority of the mainstream UDA leadership based in Belfast — said guns, ammunition and explosives would be handed over to General John de Chastelain and his team of international arms decommissioning experts.
The area under the control of the South East Antrim Brigade has been home to some of the most notorious loyalist terrorists of the Troubles, including John ‘Grugg’ Gregg, the man who shot and wounded Gerry Adams |during an assassination attempt on the Sinn Fein leadership in 1984.
The Brigade’s catchment area stretches from just north of Belfast up to Larne, and across to Ballymena and Antrim town.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0601/1224247818187.html
Mon, Jun 01, 2009
ANALYSIS: A key issue for the Yes side is the Government’s ability to wage an effective campaign, writes STEPHEN COLLINS
THE LATEST Irish Times /TNS mrbi poll confirms a trend that has been developing for the past six months. There is now solid support for the Lisbon Treaty holding up as the recession bites ever deeper.
There has been another increase in support for the Yes side and a small decrease in the No vote over the past two weeks. This would have given the Yes side a comfortable 66 per cent to 34 per cent margin of victory if the referendum had been held last week.
Such a margin of victory would have represented a more comfortable victory for the Yes side than the second Nice referendum in 2002, when 63 per cent voted Yes and 37 per cent voted No.
The decisive shift in public opinion, which has been clear for some time, raises questions about the failure of the Government and the main Opposition parties to put the issue to the people before the European election.
The problem now is how a badly demoralised Government will be able to wage an effective campaign in the autumn, on an issue that is so vital to Ireland’s national interest, if it suffers the kind of electoral disaster next Friday that now appears unavoidable.
The referendum will also require all the political parties to mobilise their supporters and commit significant funds to the campaign so soon after the gruelling European and local elections which will have drained the energy and pockets of their supporters.
There will be some comfort for the Yes campaign if Declan Ganley and Libertas fail to make a significant breakthrough in the European election campaign as The Irish Times poll indicates will happen.
Ganley has said he will not have a leadership role in the next referendum if he fails to get elected to the European Parliament and that will remove at least one thorn from the side of the Yes campaign.
On the other hand, support for the other main anti-Lisbon party, Sinn Féin, has remained solid in the poll with the party’s MEP, Mary Lou McDonald, still in with a chance of retaining her European Parliament seat in Dublin.
Socialist Party leader and anti-EU campaigner Joe Higgins is also in with a chance of a seat in Dublin, although it would be at Sinn Féin’s expense.
One way or another, though, the victory of an anti-Lisbon politician in Dublin would not be a serious worry to the Yes campaign as both Sinn Féin and Higgins have been adamantly opposed to the European project since 1972.
The key problem for the Yes side now is whether a battered and demoralised Government and a buoyant Fine Gael and Labour Opposition, with the scent of Fianna Fáil’s blood in their nostrils, can put their differences aside to work together in a coherent Yes campaign.
If the autumn referendum somehow turns into another disaster and the No side win again then Brian Cowen, Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore will all be equally responsible for the failure of political nerve that prevented them from getting the referendum campaign over with in the first half of the year.
The clarification of the Lisbon Treaty to allow all countries retain an EU commissioner, along with the legal guarantees on specific Irish concerns such as neutrality, taxation and abortion will be agreed at an EU summit in Brussels in a few weeks.
They could just as easily have been agreed at the March Council and the referendum would now be out of the way.
The poll makes it clear that support for the treaty has increased again among all categories of voters. As expected, middle-class voters are the most enthusiastic, but there is now a clear majority for the Yes side among all social categories.
In regional terms, the Yes lead is now the biggest in Dublin, where 60 per cent support the treaty and 23 per cent are on the No side. In Connacht-Ulster, the Yes lead is 55 per cent to 27 per cent, while in the rest of Leinster it is 55 per cent to 30 per cent. Munster is the least enthusiastic region, with 47 per cent to 31 per cent.
Asked if, in the current crisis, it is better for Ireland to be part of the EU, an overwhelming majority of 81 per cent say Yes compared to 10 per cent who say No with a small number of undecided voters at 9 per cent.
There is a substantial majority in favour of the EU among all social classes, age groups and party supporters. Not surprisingly Sinn Féin supporters are the most negative about the EU, although a decisive majority was still in favour. What is surprising is that the most enthusiastic supporters of the EU are Green Party voters, followed by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour in that order.
In class terms, the best-off AB group is the most supportive; the poorest DE group the most negative. Farmers are still among the most enthusiastic.
In age terms, older voters over 50 are the most positive, while those in the 18-24 age group are the most negative, although there is still strong support for the EU across all age categories.
© 2009 The Irish Times
http://www.derryjournal.com/journal/Death-of-Ian-Young.5320765.jp
Published Date: 01 June 2009
'Ambassador', 'champion', 'leader', 'visionary' and 'pioneer' are all words that have been used to describe Ian Young, who has died at the age of 63 after a long illness.
Ian's contribution to the development of this city's very active Chamber of Commerce is immeasurable. Equally so is his contribution to the wider economic development of Derry and the NW region. Ian Young was Chamber President in 1997 and 1998. However his impact on the organisation and in the local economy was felt long before that and indeed long after that. He remained on the Chamber board up until his passing.
Ian also made an enormous contribution behind the scenes in various roles in the peace process for which he sought no recognition other than to see his beloved city move towards reconciliation.
The Chamber in a tribute said: "Ian helped us to shape a brighter future and we can give no greater tribute than to help make this city and region the best that it can be."
The Foyle MP Mark Durkan expressed his deep sadness at the news of Ian's passing.
He said:"I am deeply saddened to learn of the death of Ian Young after his spirited battle with illness. Ian brought ready energy and natural enthusiasm to all that he did. He had a deep pride in the people and place of Derry. This was reflected in all the positive purpose he showed through the Chamber of Commerce, through Derry Boston Ventures, and his support for charity and community initiatives.
"Commercial life has lost a model businessman. The city has lost an ambassador. The North West economy has lost a champion and local voluntary and charitable causes have lost a true supporter.
"All of us who knew and worked with Ian have lost a friend. I extend my deepest condolences and sympathies to the Young family at this very sad time."
John Hume tribute
Former SDLP Leader and Foyle MP John Hume expressed his deep sadness and said "Ian Young gave outstanding service to the people of Derry both as a businessman and as President of the Chamber of Commerce. I remember well the great support he gave to the Derry Boston Ventures project designed to market the products of our small industries. Pat and I express our deepest sympathy to his wife Maggie and family."
Funeral
Ian Young will be buried in Altnagelvin Cemetery today after a service in All Saints' Church Clooney, Clooney Terrace, at 2pm. House is private and family flowers only. Donations in lieu to Marie Curie Cancer.
As a mark of respect the Chamber office will be closed tomorrow 1st June.
http://news.stv.tv/uk/99714-protestant-fraternity-returns-to-irish-spiritual-home/
BOYNE VALLEY, Ireland (Reuters) - For John McAdam, the Orange Order's new lodge on the banks of the Boyne river is a homecoming, spiritually as much as physically. Hailing from a farming community in County Cavan in the Irish Republic, McAdam's membership of an organisation rooted in Northern Ireland's Protestant community is unusual and not something he normally trumpets when he is south of the border.
30 May 2009 16:52 PM
But this day was different.
Grappling with a huge drum, which will beat out the time of the march, McAdam is thrilled at the prospect of parading in the Republic and, most importantly, at the site of the Battle of the Boyne, the core of his community's cultural identity.
"Just the fact that we are here, down south. I love it," said the plant manager, who has been living in England for 16 years. "It's in my manor, if you know what I mean."
The Orange Order's origins date from the 17th-century battle for supremacy between Protestants and Catholics.
William of Orange, originally of the Netherlands, led the fight against his Catholic father-in-law, King James.
William's final victory over James along the Boyne in 1690 sealed the religion's supremacy in Britain and Ireland.
Every year, members of the Order, wearing orange sashes, and black bowler hats, celebrate the battle in marches across Northern Ireland.
The ceremony on Saturday was the first in living memory to take place at the site of the battle and a sign of how cross-border relations have improved since a 1998 peace deal ended three decades of conflict between pro-British Protestants and pro-Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland.
The violence killed 3,600 people.
LEAVE THINGS BE
Robert Saulters, grand master of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, is full of praise for the Dublin government's help in setting up the Boyne Loyal Orange Lodge 1690, one of around 50 lodges in the Republic.
The Order wants to rebuild a large obelisk by the river that marked the battle. The Irish Republican Army blew it up in 1923.
"We were delighted with the work the southern government have done," Saulters said.
But not everyone is comfortable with the Order's presence.
Many pro-Irish nationalists regard the Battle of the Boyne as a crucial step towards the institution of full British rule in Ireland up until the early 20th century.
The Orange Order's parades, with their distinctive soundtrack of thunderous drums and pipes, are seen by many Catholics in Northern Ireland as a triumphalist display.
Despite the 1998 peace deal, entrenched sectarianism in the province means that the parades often spark violence.
In Drogheda, close to the Boyne Valley, some residents said the Orange Order was entitled to celebrate its history.
"I think it's a good idea. It shows we have moved on," said Tony, 75, who declined to give his last name.
But not everyone in the town, which has a memorial to 10 IRA members who died on hunger strike in 1981, approved.
"After all these years they should just leave things be," said Joe, a retired builder. "They are only stirring up trouble."
"If they rebuild that obelisk it will just be blown up again."
(Editing by Michael Roddy)
Last updated: 30 May 2009, 16:52
http://www.myrecordjournal.com/site/tab1.cfm?newsid=20323642&BRD=2755&PAG=461&dept_id=592709&rfi=6
By: Richie Rathsack, Record-Journal staff
Richie Rathsack / Record-Journal
MERIDEN - "Not a moment for thought, no desire for fame, his split-second rescue brought posthumous acclaim. Such was the fate of Michael Donlon, the brave. At the expense of himself, two souls he did save."
Official State Troubadour Tom Callinan sang these words during a rededication ceremony by the Ancient Order of Hibernarians at Sacred Heart Cemetery Sunday to honor the bravery of the Irish immigrant.
In 1909, Donlon jumped onto the train tracks to push Mulvina Gauthier and her 8-year-old daughter, Delcina, out of harm's way moments before the 2:12 express train from Wallingford came through. Donlon himself, though, was unable to get out of the way and was killed.
Hibernarian Dennis Kelly worked with local author and historian Dan Deluca to piece together background information for the rededication and to locate relatives of Donlon and Gauthier, but had trouble locating any.
A breakthrough came when relatives of John Manfred, the son of Delcina Gauthier, saw an article in the Record-Journal Tuesday. John Manfred, 69, was shocked to hear the tale, having known nothing of it before reading the article.
While he was not able to travel from Maine for the ceremony, his daughter, the granddaughter of the little girl who was saved, was able to attend along with some of Manfred's cousins.
"John was flabbergasted when he heard. He said 'It was never part of our oral history that my mother was saved,'" Lois Manfred-Carabetta, a cousin of John Manfred, said.
At the time, it seemed as if the tale would never be forgotten. A picture of the original dedication ceremony shows an estimated crowd of 2,000 who came out to honor the hero. The Furgalack, Taylor and Ricci families donated a print of the photograph to the AOH, according to Deluca.
Kelly said this is a great opportunity to remind people of local history that today's generation may not know happened.
Leila Fecho of Mansfield, Manfred's daughter, was extremely happy to hear about the news and to learn more about her father's side of the family.
"All I knew about my father's family is that it was very complicated," Fecho said. "Now I know. To find out that both were saved by this Irish stranger is amazing."
Delcina Gauthier died while giving birth to John Manfred. After his mother's death, he was sent to live and be raised by relatives in Mansfield.
Leila Fecho's husband, Dirk, said he was grateful to know about Donlon, saying that if Donlon hadn't been there or acted just seconds later his wife and daughter would not be here today. Their daughter, 3-year-old Leilani, just happens to have a birthday on St. Patrick's Day, adding to the close connection of the family and the Irish.
The day to honor Donlon began with a mass at St. Rose of Lima Church, the same place the original service for Donlon was held 100 years ago. Kelly said some of the same songs that were sung then were sung this time.
"It was just a beautiful service," Kelly said.
Mayor Michael S. Rohde, who attended the service, thought Donlon's tale of heroism was just incredible.
"It's a phenomenal local story with a-100 year history," Rohde said.
Both Rohde and Deluca compared the Donlon take to the movie "It's A Wonderful Life," the story of a man who wonders what life would have been like if he had never lived. If Donlon had never lived, the Gauthier family would have been killed by the train, Deluca said.
"One person can make a huge impact on a person's life," Deluca said. "This one person changed history with his actions. It's like something you would see on TV."
Following the Mass at St. Rose, a large group gathered at the cemetery, including flag bearers carrying American and Irish flags. Leila Fecho and her family then took time to visit and place flowers on the graves of Mulvina and Delcina Gauthier.\
"I don't think your great-great-grandmother would mind if you sat on her lap," she said to Leilani, who wanted to sit down while visiting the grave of Mulvina Gauthier.
The AOH hosted a luncheon at its hall after the ceremony, giving the visiting guests a chance to hear more stories from people who had relatives acquainted with her family and their hero.
(203) 317-2227
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/notorious-co-tyrone-road-claims-life-of-teen-14321498.html
Monday, 1 June 2009
Motorists have been urged to take more care after a teenager died in a horrific road crash in Co Tyrone.
The victim, named locally as Shane Naugher (19) of Pomeroy, was killed when the car he was driving smashed into a wall outside Cookstown.
It happened at the junction of Drum Road and Sandholes Road around 4.20am yesterday.
It is understood that Mr Naugher’s car mounted a traffic island and hit a wall. Police said that no other vehicle was involved.
The road where the crash took place runs from Cookstown to Omagh and has been the scene of several fatal accidents in recent years.
In April, three people, including a married couple, were killed in a head-on collision around six miles from the scene of yesterday’s crash.
Peter and Kathleen Toner and David Joel Marshall (19) died and four other people were injured in the crash, which occurred on April 27.
The area’s SDLP Assembly member, Patsy McGlone, said he was deeply saddened by the loss of another young life on Mid-Ulster’s roads.
“This is another awful tragedy,” he said. “Again we are hearing news of another accident in our district and it has left everyone deeply shocked and saddened.
“This was a young man who had his life in front of him and I would extend my deepest sympathies to his friends and family at this time.”
So far this year 49 people have died on Northern Ireland’s roadss. L ocal Sinn Fein councillor Oliver Molloy said the latest tragedy was a “hard-hitting reminder” to motorists.
“This is a reminder for us all about how dangerous our roads can be,” he said. “We are talking about a young life, a teenager who had only recently passed his test, and it is very sad.
“It is another tragedy on the Drum Road and it will hit the family very hard. I understand the young man had a couple of brothers working in Australia and it is going to be a very sad journey home for them.”
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0601/1224247818227.html
ANNE LUCEY
Mon, Jun 01, 2009
THE DRUMBEAT of the bodhrán banished thoughts of the recession this weekend as thousands of tourists flocked to the mid-Kerry town of Milltown for the fourth annual World Bodhrán Championships. The traditional goatskin drum workshops drew entries from Poland, France and Germany to the little town at the gateway to the Dingle peninsula.
Run under the auspices of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, the bodhrán’s peculiar attraction was “rhythm” according to festival spokesman Seán de Buitléar.
“You don’t have to be musical or know notation to join in. It’s pure rhythm. It’s a unique sound.”
Mr de Buitléar said the organisers were “absolutely delighted” with the turn out as they had feared the recession would mean poor crowds – in fact some 20,000 people were expected through the town over the four days, well up on previous years. Meanwhile, a republican commemorative event in Clashmealcon, Co Kerry, at the weekend attracted an unusual protest from Republican Sinn Féin.
It objected to what it said was the incorporation of an Ann Summers underwear party in an event to mark the killing of five IRA men by the Free State.
A statement, on behalf of a local RSF official, said: “While we have no objection to Ann Summers parties, it is hardly an appropriate way to commemorate an event that led to the deaths of these five men”.
© 2009 The Irish Times
Updated: 10/4/2009
Use the Guest Book to Comment on the web site or individual stories.
To get Irish News updates emailed to you
