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COPE Galway has extended its thanks to Galwegians near and far who have shown solidarity and support for local people in need this Christmas by taking part in the charity’s 10-day “Swim Where You Are” Christmas event, which ended yesterday. The charity, which was unable to hold its traditional Christmas Day swim at Blackrock this year due to Covid-19 restrictions, said it has been overwhelmed by the swim photos and messages of support sent in by well wishers.

THIS HAS been a year without gigs, concerts, or festivals, and yet, it has still been a year which has given us some outstanding music. Here is my selection of the best albums of 2020.

Insider heard it said recently that anyone who was in the predictions business at the outset of 2020 would have found themselves out of work before too long.

The Joyces finally arrived in Zurich on 17 December 1940 exhausted after weeks of torturous negotiations with the German, Vichy-French and Swiss authorities. They had sought refuge in Switzerland during World War I, now they hoped to do so again. To add to the stress of it all they had to leave their daughter Lucia behind in a psychiatric hospital in Brittany which was behind German lines. Joyce hoped that once settled in Zurich he could use all the influence he could muster to have her follow them to safety.

Nora’s last visit to Galway in April 1922 did not go well. Galway, as well as the country, was caught up in a deadly Civil War. The anti -Treaty forces had occupied the Connaught Rangers’ Barracks, Renmore, while the pro- Treaty forces occupied the Great Southern Hotel. The Galway to Dublin train was regularly fired upon from the barracks. There were sporadic gun fights around the Custom House, and the Masonic hall, as both sides struggled for possession. It was a dangerous time and people were fearful.

“I feel like I can breath again”. It was a term often heard after it became clear Joe Biden had won the 2020 US Presidential Election. Yet if Irish people felt they could ‘breath’ as the votes pointed to a Trump defeat, what was going through the minds of Americans living in Galway?

Councillors in the Westport-Belmullet Municipal District on Monday claimed that the recent announcement of funding for extensions to the Great Western Greenway from Achill Sound to Bunnacurry, as well as from Westport to Murrisk - was funding that was announced already in different guises.

Perhaps this was the week when we thought the world would start to heal itself, when a new sort of leadership would emerge to replace the dark days of the past few years.

Tomás Bán Concannon was born on Inis Meáin 150 years ago on November 16, 1870, the son of Páidin Concannon and Annie Faherty. He was called ‘bán’ because of his blond hair and to differentiate him from other neighbours of the same name. He was educated on the island and, unusually for an islander, in the Monastery School in Galway. When he was 15 his brother brought him to America where he went to a number of colleges and attended Eastman College in New York where he graduated with an MA in accountancy. He spent some time working in a business selling rubber stamps, then in his brother’s vineyard in California, and he later set up a business in Mexico. It was there he came across a journal called Gaodhal published by Conradh na Gaeilge in the US. So he learned to read and write in Irish in Mexico.