Hear the Corncrake’s Call in Belmullet

Thu, Jun 05, 2014

After a highly successful Corncrake Tour last year, Baile Slachtmhar Bhéal an Mhuirthead (Belmullet Tidy Towns) and Ballycroy National Park will be hosting this unusual event again this summer, as part of the annual Erris Beo Festival. Erris is one of the top five places in Ireland to ‘go wild’, according to The Irish Times. Visitors travel to Erris to experience natural beauty at its best, so it is unsurprising that the corncrake returns to this stunning place year after year, all the way from Africa.

Hear the Corncrake's Call will be held on Saturday, June 14. Mr Samuel Birch, corncrake conservation officer will give a brief talk at 9pm in the Talbot Hotel in Belmullet, assisted by Ballycroy National Park visitor centre education staff. Afterwards, a bus will transport the entourage to the Mullet peninsula to hear the 'crex crex' sounds of this endangered species.

Castlebar DJs launch colourful ‘selfie’ campaign

Thu, Jun 05, 2014

Two Castlebar DJs have come up with a fun campaign to put the ‘selfie’ phenomenon to work to raise funds for specially trained dogs that help transform the lives of children with autism.

Can you Handel it?

Thu, Jun 05, 2014

Following on from the enormous success of The Handel Challenge 2013, the task has once again been set to recruit 100 local singers to fundraise €200 each, rehearse all choruses and perform Handel’s Messiah on November 2 2014 in the Church of the Holy Rosary, Castlebar.  Featuring top international soloists and orchestra, this promises to be a truly spectacular night.  Over €33,000 was raised by this event for Mayo/Roscommon Hospice in 2013.  This year, all funds raised will be divided between Mayo/Roscommon Hospice and Mayo Mental Health.

Thu, Jun 05, 2014

In two separate, intelligence-led operations on Wednesday, officers from Revenue's Customs Service seized 32,500 cigarettes with a retail value of €14,156 and a potential loss to the Exchequer of €11,840.

Planning permission approved for two new Primary Care Centres in Mayo

Thu, Jun 05, 2014

The Health Service Executive announced yesterday that planning permission has been approved for two new primary care centres in Westport and Claremorris. The tender process by the National Development Finance Agency is under way. The primary care centres will be located at Kilcolman Road, Claremorris, and Toberhill, Westport. These centres are part of the overall HSE plan to develop primary care services in local towns.

The Mayo centres will be developed on a public private partnership basis. The primary care centre in Westport will include accommodation for GPs, mental health services, public health nursing, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, psychology, speech and language therapy, chiropody, dietician, dental, and primary care counselling.  The total HSE staff complement will be in the region of 20 staff. A local ambulance base will also be located in this centre. Following the development of this centre the services at the existing Westport Health Centre and Mental Health Day Centre, Altamont Street, Westport, will be relocated to this new purpose based centre.

Shrule’s Maria Walsh wins coveted Rose of Tralee place

Thu, Jun 05, 2014

Shrule native Maria Walsh has been selected as one of the 23 Roses who will compete in this year’s Rose of Tralee festival in front of a television audience of more than one million people and 2,000 spectators in the famed Festival Dome.

Mayo teacher and students part of the huge success that was EXCITED 2014

Thu, Jun 05, 2014

EXCITED – The Digital Learning Festival, the first event organised by the movement of the same name, has been proclaimed a resounding success by its organisers and the hundreds who attended the two day event in Dublin Castle this weekend.

Choral festival was a singing success

Thu, Jun 05, 2014

The third Mayo International Choral Festival, which saw six days of choral competition throughout the county and welcomed 33 visiting choirs last month, was another huge success, according to organisers.

Mayo students presented with their awards for Texaco Children’s Art competition

Thu, Jun 05, 2014

Four Mayo students were last week  presented with top awards in this year’s 60th Texaco Children’s Art Competition. Sixteen-year-old Shania McDonagh, a pupil at Mount St Michael Secondary School, Claremorris who won the overall first prize in the competition and a prize of €1,500, for her work entitled ‘Coleman’. She was presented with the award by  President Michael D Higgins and James Twohig, director Ireland Operations of Valero. No stranger to the competition, throughout the past five years Shania has won first place in various categories. The other winners from Mayo who picked up special merit awards were Maeve Walsh (13) and Anna Prendergast (seven) both from the Castlebar Art Club, and Jenny Murphy (11) from the Slowey School of Art in Ballina.

Calleary calls on Government TDs to protect LEADER programmes in Mayo

Tue, Jun 03, 2014

The Dáil will this week debate a Fianna Fáil motion calling for the full protection of the LEADER scheme and funding for local LEADER companies in Mayo and across the country. Mayo based Fianna Fáil Deputy Dara Calleary has called on Mayo’s four Fine Gael deputies to stand up for community development companies in Mayo, and ensure that funding is protected when changes kick in next month that will see existing programmes integrated with programmes due to begin in 2015.

€360,000 for discovery points in Mayo

Fri, May 30, 2014

Minister of State for Tourism and Sport Michael Ring this week announced €3.2m funding for the next phase of the Wild Atlantic Way development. As part of the overall funding package €360,000 has been allocated to Mayo for works on 24 discovery points and four embarkation points along the route.

The discovery points which have been identified for upgrade are essential to the success of the project and represent locations where the visitor can stop off, get out and explore, find out about some unique stories relating to the natural heritage of the area as well as the culture and social history associated with the location. The funding, announced through Fáilte Ireland, will be for a programme of improvement works for 133 discovery points and 22 embarkation points which have been identified along the 2,400km route. The route which stretches from the Inishowen Peninsula in Donegal to Kinsale in County Cork is already garnering significant interest overseas.

Kilcoyne the star of the show in Castlebar

Fri, May 30, 2014

Where did it all go wrong is what the Fine Gael party faithful will be trying to figure out over the next few weeks as they saw their seats in the county town drop from four to two over the weekend. One man who won’t be asking that question is Independent Cllr Michael Kilcoyne who topped the poll with an amazing 2,921 votes, a massive 1,210 first preference votes over the quota of 1,711. From not long after the boxes were opened and spilled across the counting tables in the Royal Theatre in Castlebar early on Saturday morning, there was never any doubt that Kilcoyne was going to top the poll, it was only a matter of by how much. When he was elected on the first count, he was the first councillor in Ireland elected in this year’s local elections, but he had to wait until the early hours of Tuesday morning for the official declaration of election after the recount of the Castlebar papers had been concluded. More on that below.

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