February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Stephen McKinley
BILL TO CALL?
In Fermanagh comes news that Bill Clinton may make a return visit to Enniskillen, according to the Impartial Reporter.
Clinton’s visit would be timed to coincide with a grant of money for the Higher Bridges building, on the site of the Enniskillen Remembrance Sunday bombing.
Locals have fond memories of Clinton’s last visit, the newspaper reports.
In an exclusive interview with Impartial Reporter journalist Sarah Saunderson last year, Clinton said, “I hope that in the years ahead, I will be personally involved in the work of this center because it is a lot of what I will be doing too. I’ll have a foundation back home and we can do some things together. So, who knows, you might have to put up with me coming back again.”
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The Higher Bridges center was at one point supposed to be called the William Clinton Peace Center.
Clinton would also visit Omagh, where a new trauma center is being built.
INVITE THE DUP DOWN
Lap dancing — yes, lap dancing — is set to arrive in County Meath shortly.
Martin Rossiter, owner of the Westmeath-based Chicken Ranch lap-dancing club, has successfully negotiated a second, undisclosed location to open in Meath.
Speculation that the club will be in the Navan area is raging, according to the Meath Chronicle.
The lap-dancing club industry is gathering pace in Ireland, it seems. Two other clubs are about to open in Longford and Kildare shortly.
Private lap dances will be available, but no public contact is permitted between guests and dancers.
Local talent? Apparently not: the newspaper reports that many dancers have been hired from overseas agencies.
DEADLY DERRY
Derry’s streets have never been so dangerous, according to local representatives.
Foyle MLA Mary Nelis has called for a tough crackdown in the courts on offenders and has urged woman to take self-defense classes.
“Women are vulnerable to attacks from macho men, especially men who use knives to terrorize. The community and voluntary sector must band together to teach women to defend themselves. There also needs to be a change in the law — these young people need to be dealt with severely,” Nelis said.
Recent weeks have seen stabbings, batterings and robberies, and many of these crimes have been directed at women.
A mother of six, Paula Kelly, was dragged through her front door to the rear of her house by two men, who put a rope around her neck.
Once there she was brutally beaten with a hammer and left for dead.
“They started beating me around the head and after a couple of knocks I went unconscious,” she said. “I’m afraid to go home. I don’t want to go home. I really thought I was going to die.”
WESTLIFE MEMBER
TREATED ‘SHABBILY’
Westlife’s Shame Filan tried to get a resident’s parking permit for Castle Street in Sligo recently. But such was his treatment by the local council department that a local councilor has complained about the treatment of Filan.
“You would think he was an arch criminal,” said Declan Bree, who wondered what criteria was used when a resident was making an application for a parking permit. Filan was asked to come back to the town hall with bank statements and a passport.
“I think it was a shabby and disrespectful way to treat a Freeman of Sligo,” Bree said.
BEARDS GONE
In Wicklow, four men who haven’t shaved for three months finally shed their stubble in aid of a good cause.
John Porter from Conary started the charity shave when he fell ill over Christmas and didn’t shave for a few days.
Three friends and he thought they would grow their beards for a cause they all agreed was a good one — saving the eyesight of disadvantaged children in developing countries.
Porter, with Andy “Rasher” Browne, Albert Greene and Cecil Hudson raised euro 3,000.
Arklow hairdresser Janice Breen, sharpened her razor and shaved the three-month facial growth in the Meetings bar in Avoca.
MODEL TALENT
Bandon’s blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jessica O’Donoghue has been chosen by Celtic Talent International to go to New York for what can only be described as a “shop-window” for the world’s top talent scouts in the modeling world.
The conference will take place in July, and if she is lucky, O’Donoghue will be jetting between New York and Los Angeles in no time.
She got her break when her boyfriend placed photographs of her in a Sunday People “Face of Ireland competition.
A typical Irish look, dark hair and pale skin, was the criteria for the winner, apparently, but Celtic International spotted blond Jessica and signed her.
OZ-BOUND
Used to be an Irishman’s luck lay in the United States. For Padraig “Podge” Foley, it’s Down Under: Australia beckons for the young Kerryman to make a name for himself in the latest reality TV show.
The show is called “The Team” and is described as something similar to “Big Brother” — except with sport involved.
Podge, who, according to his mother, Anne, is a football fanatic, is the only Irish person to be chosen from thousands of applicants all over the world who underwent a rigorous selection process.
“The series is only gone as far as episode three, so he hasn’t been on the television in Australia yet, but Channel 7 has already been featuring a profile of him on their website,” said his mother, Anne. “Even if he doesn’t win it, he will always be a star to us.”