Westport author's debut book chosen for showcase

Fri, Oct 28, 2016

Westport based author Keith Martin's first book The Little Book of Sham has been chosen by Fund It to be exhibited as part of a showcase of Project Creators work in Dublin on November 2 in partnership with sponsor Bank of Ireland. The Little Book of Sham will feature in the showcase in the Bank of Ireland Innovation Hub on Grand Canal Square for the month of November. Keith Martin is a librarian in his hometown of Westport.

€167,406 approved by Minister Ring for investment in rural recreation infrastructure in Mayo

Fri, Oct 28, 2016

Michael Ring, Minister of State for Regional Economic Development, has announced the provision of funding of €167,406 for the delivery of a number of Rural Recreation projects in Co Mayo through a combination of trail maintenance and development by Mayo County Council, South West Mayo Development, and Coillte.

Funding will be provided to Mayo County Council (€60,000) for Drumleen Loop Walk (Keenagh), a beautiful scenic walk with panoramic views of high mountains, streams, and Drumleen lake. The funding will be used to enhance the existing trail and develop a picnic and interpretative area as well as upgrading the trail to a standard allowing accessibility for all types of users, walkers, joggers, and cyclists.

Mayo finalists celebrate at the Unislimmer of the Year

Fri, Oct 28, 2016

Four Unislim members from Mayo celebrated achieving their amazing weight loss at this year's 44th Unislimmer of the Year Awards in Dublin on Wednesday last week. They competed against 10 other finalists (eight female and two male) hailing from across Ireland for the coveted title of Unislimmer of the Year 2016.

More than €300k allocated to refurbish vacant social housing stock — Ring

Fri, Oct 28, 2016

Michael Ring, Minister of State for Regional Economic Development, has welcomed the allocation of €317,309 to bring local authority housing back into use in Mayo.

“There are two particular programmes which provide support for local authorities to refurbish vacant social housing stock requiring more significant works than the normal level of pre-letting repairs," Minister Ring said. "The Voids Programme, which commenced in 2014, provides funding support of up to €30,000 per unit. The derelicts programme was introduced in 2016 to provide additional support to local authorities in remediating more seriously derelict social houses."

Ballinrobe's Alan hits the top ten

Fri, Oct 28, 2016

Ballinrobe’s Alan Murphy has a hit on his hands with debut book Beyond The Spotlight. The tell-all book, which lifts the lid on the showbiz world, has shot into Amazon’s Top 10 Best Sellers List alongside other celebrity books by the likes of Katie Price, Rylan Clark-Neal, and Cheryl Cole. Featuring exclusive interviews with everyone from Louis Walsh and Rory ‘Panti’ O’Neill to Charlize Theron and Peter Andre, Beyond The Spotlight documents Alan’s career in showbiz which has seen him meet some of Hollywood’s biggest stars over the last decade.

Mayo Sports stars launch primary schools' Daily Mile initiative

Fri, Oct 28, 2016

Primary schools across Mayo are to participate in a new daily initiative, The Daily Mile, which will improve the physical, emotional, and social health and wellbeing of all children and help in the battle to combat obesity. Mayo GAA stars Lee Keegan and Cora Staunton joined children and staff in Snugboro National School Castlebar last week to launch this programme which has its origins in the UK.

St Muredach's take the next step into the future

Fri, Oct 28, 2016

Martin Birrane, a well-known figure in the world of motor racing and a past pupil of St Muredach’s College, Ballina, recently officially opened The Martin Birrane Technology Suite which will cater for all students from first year through to Leaving Certificate.

Charlestown Vintage Run raises €4k for charity

Fri, Oct 28, 2016

More than 200 vintage tractors, cars, bikes, lorries and trucks took part in the annual Eugene McLoughlin Charlestown Memorial Run in August this year. The event is etched into the calendar at Charlestown coming in as the second largest event of its kind in Ireland. The committee, made up of family and friends of the late Mr McLoughlin, have their eyes set on it becoming the largest event of its kind in Ireland in August 2017.

The event this year allowed the community to purchase a defibrillator and training in CPR as well as donating €4,000 to Croi the Heart and Stroke Charity in the west of Ireland. Croi, represented by Edwina Treacy, fundraising manager, stated: “It’s community events like this run that are at the heart of Croi, without them we would not be able to further improve the quality of life of those who come to us in Croi or offer emergency family accommodation so close to University College Hospital Galway for families at a time when they need it most. This year alone we have helped over 60 families with emergency accommodation – 15 of whom are from Mayo.”

Tesco stores in Mayo redistribute meals to local charities

Fri, Oct 28, 2016

Local charities and groups across Mayo have received almost 54,000 meals to date from Tesco Ireland through its surplus food donations programme run in partnership with Irish social enterprise, FoodCloud. A wide range of Mayo based organisations including Claremorris Family Resource Centre, St Vincent de Paul Foxford, and Tacáu - Youth Café have benefited from the redistribution of more than 24,000kg (or 54,000 meals) of surplus food from Tesco stores across Mayo over the past two years.

Transition year students invited to ‘Go Places with Bus Éireann’

Fri, Oct 28, 2016

Bus Éireann has officially launched an exciting new competition for transition year students, ‘Go Places with Bus Éireann’, which is running for the first time in the current academic year, 2016/2017. Participating students will be in with a chance of winning one of five regional prizes of €3,000 for their school, and one national prize of a fun filled day out for their class to a leisure park, including complimentary use of a private coach.

Foxford left high, but maybe not dry

Fri, Oct 21, 2016

Despite seeing a major flood event last year where 50 people had to be evacuated from a nursing home in the dead of night in Foxford the town does not have a "cost benefit" for a solution to be included under the current Western Catchment Flood Risk Assessment & Management (Western CFRAM) Study it was revealed this week.

Cloongullane a positive step towards an N26 solution

Fri, Oct 21, 2016

The progress currently being made in relation to getting the Cloongullane Bridge project running is a very positive sign for the future of getting a major improvement on the N26 the elected members of Ballina Municipal District were told this week.

Paul Hyland, acting senior engineer for Mayo National Roads Design Office, told the October meeting this week: "We haven't been given the approval of Transport Infrastructure Ireland [TII] to progress the entire project, but they have identified following the adoption of the preferred route, we had peer review with TII and they decided that it was important to prioritise this aspect of the upgrade of the N26 and so that is what we're delivering on. The funding to progress this historically from 2011 until now has been to the preferred route, and now the funding and development has been to Cloongullane Birdge. I need to clearly put this out there, this is the most positive statement of intent from TII in relation to the N26.

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