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Around Ireland Stamped it out in Roscommon

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Ray O’Hanlon

Roscommon town councilor Paula McNamara is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. The "it" in question is what she sees as the downgrading of public services in the county. The straw that has broken the camel’s back is a proposal to move the County Roscommon post office headquarters to, of all places, Sligo.

The Roscommon Herald reported that McNamara is "very concerned with the continuing attack on the services infrastructure in County Roscommon." She is calling on called on local Fianna Fáil politicians in particular to be more vociferous in their defense of county-based services.

Galway’s garbage mountain

County Galway will have nowhere to bury its ever-increasing output of garbage by 2003, according to engineering consultant Larry O’Toole. And if that’s not a long way in the future, try July 2001, the point at which certain kinds of industrial and commercial garbage will be banned from the county’s only "superdump" landfill at Poolboy, outside Ballinasloe.

The Connacht Tribune reported that efforts to find alternative landfill sites in the county are facing a number of problems, including the objections of landowners, geological factors and the fact that large areas of the western part of the county are designated as scenic or natural heritage sites. O’Toole, who was testifying in a court case action by a number of landowners opposed to proposed landfill sites, said that the various problems of finding suitable sites left planners with a pocket of land running from Loughrea to Ballinasloe. Fourteen of 16 possible landfill sites identified in the county were to be found in this pocket, Loughrea District Court was told.

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Cavan tops pops

Another week, another boy band. But what’s routine in Dublin, London or New York is anything but in Killeshandra, the County Cavan town best known for its creamery.

The new Irish boy band Reel have five lads in their lineup and all are eager to follow in the wake of the likes of Westlife, Boyzone and the Backstreet Boys. Two of the group members are twin brothers from Clare. There is one member from Dublin but there is no doubt in the Anglo-Celt newspaper that the Cavan duo in Reel is going to send the whole gang to the top.

The Cavan members are Matthew Keaney from Killeshandra and Phillip Gargan from Tierworker near Bailieborough. Keaney told the Anglo-Celt that there would undoubtedly be a Celtic influence in the band’s work once they start out on the road to stardom.

Metropolis Mullingar

At the rate Mullingar. Co. Westmeath, is expanding, it’s going to collide with Dublin. At least that’s the impression a reader of a report on page one of the Westmeath Examiner would quickly get. Westmeath County Council, according to the paper, has received planning applications in recent weeks for 15 detached two-story dwellings, 16 semi-detached two-story dwellings, seven dormer dwellings, eight two-story town houses, 16 apartments in four blocks as well as access roads and ancillary services on the Dublin Road side of Mullingar.

Close to the Ardmore Road it’s a similar, well, story. A planning application is in for 62 four-bedroom houses, 52 with three bedrooms, four with two and 142 three-bed duplexes, two three-bed apartments, 170 two-bed apartments and 41 one-bed apartments together with a parking lot and all the other needed services.

Seeing red over tricolor invite

The mayor of Derry, Cathal Crumley, is a member of Sinn Féin, so it is no surprise that the invitations to this year’s Mayor’s Ball, one of the most glittering occasions in the city’s annual calendar, were fringed with the colors of the Irish tricolor, green, white and orange — or "gold" as the Derry Journal interpreted it.

The invitation is fine by many in what is a mostly nationalist city, but the Democratic Unionist Party’s Gregory Campbell, who hails from the "Londonderry" version of the town, is furious over what he sees as a provocation by the mayor.

"This invite is in a completely new format from previous years. There’s been no coloring of this type before. The main issue is that this invite was received by a wide variety of people and it is a petty, vindictive and pathetic attempt to stir up tension," Campbell told the Journal.

The more usual color format for Derry City Council invitations is black, red and white.

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