Search Results for 'Elizabeth'

Easter treasure hunt at the

Leo Varadkar, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport told Irish restaurant owners this week that his Department and the Government are taking concrete steps to help restaurants and the wider tourism industry.

Our beautiful county of Mayo was in the headlines this week for all the right reasons and all the wrong reasons. It was a week of great jubilation, but the county was also shrouded in scandal and controversy.

Ya know, with all the years when we had money and a few cars outside all of the houses owned, and the Jacuzzi bubbling away on the acre of decking, when every village had its own coke dealer, and the selection of brothels open all hours, when we were just like every other country in Europe nobody ever came calling. We tried to get all shapes of world leader in to show just how far removed we were from the image of the John Hinde postcard.

US President Barack Obama has confirmed to Taoiseach Enda Kenny, at a St Patrick’s Day reception in the White House, that he is to visit Ireland in May and it is hoped that he will come west as part of that trip. Former US President John F Kennedy visited Galway during his reign in office in 1963 and Galway City councillor Padraig Conneely extended the same invitation to President Obama during a visit to the US in 2009.

A local woman whose thieving sprees around Temple Bar in Dublin saw her feature in the Sunday World earlier this year, racked up her 100th conviction in total this week (November 17) in Athlone District Court.

I have always thought it strange why so many women feel isolated from the Catholic Church, when it has at its centre a woman, Mary - the Mother of God. It is not right that many women feel they are ‘second class citizens’ within a church that attempts to reach out to all. Surely without Mary, the New Testament would be worthless. Surely after the Nazarene Himself, the Mother of Jesus, who is venerated by the Catholic and Orthodox churches, is the first and greatest saint in heaven. Mary is revered by all Christian churches, and honoured by Islam. At the very first council of the Church, at Ephesus four hundred years after Christ, she was declared to be the Theotokos, Mother of God (the actual God bearer). But even before that her image, holding the Child, was etched into tombs in the Roman catacombs. Being the Theotokos, Mary could have become remote, unreal from the human experience. After all we are told that she was born free from Original Sin, which as a total ‘theological illiterate’ I don’t fully understand; but I accept the logic that if Mary was not the mother of God, then Jesus was not God. I believe that He was. Yet despite the supreme position of Mary many women feel isolated, uninvolved, as if they have no contribution to make.

An invitation will be extended to Queen Elizabeth to visit the Mayo Peace Park, if a proposed state visit to Ireland materialises in the next few years.

A vote by Castlebar Town Council in favour of inviting Queen Elizabeth II to the Mayo Peace Park for an official state visit to Ireland mooted for 2012 has been condemned by a local Sinn Fein councillor.

The visit of the British ambassador Julian King and the Duke of Abercorn James Hamilton to Kilkenny this week has left locals speculating about whether their positive reports of the city and county, might encourage a royal visit from Queen Elizabeth when she comes to Ireland.