February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Patrick Markey
It was more of a case of last orders than holy orders when a Catholic nun was given a license to run a pub in the west of Ireland, according to the Belfast Telegraph.
The license was granted to Sister Mary David Mannion by a Dunmore District Court in County Galway. Sister Mannion told the judge she was born into the business and was familiar with the regulations governing the running of a public house.
"But you’re not going to run it yourself?" the judge asked. "No," she replied.
The judge said he had 21 years of experience on the bench and had never before come across such an application.
"I must say it’s an original," he said. The license is for Mannion’s Pub in Milltown, Co. Galway, which the nun inherited from a relative and intends to put it up for sale.
Sign up to The Irish Echo Newsletter
Beers away
So much for the long arm of the law!
A Skibbereen man pleaded guilty to stealing a barrel of beer right from under the noses of local garda, reports The Southern Star newspaper.
"I’m interested to know how he managed to steal something from the storeroom of a garda station," the presiding judge asked the court.
"I would have thought the garda station was one of the most secure places in Skibbereen," he said.
Apparently not. The accused, John O’Driscoll, admitted that he entered the station and stole a £90 barrel of beer that was in the custody of the local sergeant. He also admitted that he had stolen another barrel of beer earlier from a bottling company. O’Driscoll had broken into the station through a window two hours after it had closed on a Sunday evening.
Heart-breaking news
Irish hearts are the most unhealthy hearts in the EU, with almost half of all deaths in Ireland last year resulting of cardiovascular disease.
According to the Galway advertiser, the Irish Heart Foundation is urging people to be more active in an effort to reduce heart disease. In 1997, 45 percent of deaths in Ireland were a result of cardiovascular disease, which includes coronary heart disease, all
diseases of the circulatory system, stroke, and other diseases such as thrombosis.
The foundation carried out a survey of 2,000 people in 1996 and found that 26 percent of the population was not involved in physical activity in the previous year — in 1994 that figure stood at 39 percent.
Other key points in relation to the figures on physical activity in Ireland include:
From age 30 and up, over one third of the population is inactive; walking is the preferred form of exercise (28 percent), followed by swimming (17 percent) and cycling (11 percent); people in urban areas are more likely to be active and that men are more likely to be active than women.
Thrill seeker
Kilkenny man Jason Corocan couldn’t get enough of the excitement on the job. So much so, that the newly recruited Carrick-on-Suir fireman decided that he had to create some challenges of his own. The Nationalist newspaper reports that Corocan appeared in a local court recently after he was charged with phoning in a false 999 emergency call, and then joining a fire team which rushed to the supposed fire.
Corocan, who has since been dismissed from the fire service, said he had been drinking the night of the call and has since sought counseling. The defendant was fined £300. Corocan had joined the force a few months earlier and had apparently been upset at the lack of action. So he called in to report a fire in a nearby ditch.