News from Ireland - news from around the 32 counties

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“I met like-minded people from all over the world and they couldn’t figure out how we train,” he told The Mayo News last week. “Ireland has no major association with sleddog racing so they reckoned we had the luck of the Irish on our side.”
(Source: Mayo News)

Meath

Meath's Olympic hopeful, Natalya Coyle, will carry the Olympic Torch through Dublin on June 6. The young Tara woman, who is aiming to qualify for the London Olympics, will be one of three Trinity students who will carry the torch through the city. The modern pentathlete, who has represented Ireland at two World Cups this year, is studying business, economics and social studies at Trinity and is on course to qualify for the pentathlon event at the London Games. She is the currently the 43rd ranked pentathlete in the world.
(Source: Meath Chronicle)

Monaghan

A shop in a recession-hit Border town has started accepting old Irish pounds as payment for goods. Tony Morgan has run Lipton's shop in Clones, Co Monaghan, for 20 years, yet, with the economic downturn hitting home he is hoping his "embrace the punt" initiative will increase footfall at the shop that sells household goods. According to the Central Bank, £362 million is still doing the rounds since the introduction of the euro ten years ago. While it is no longer legal tender, notes and coins can still be exchanged for euro at the Central Bank in Dublin.

"I want people who still have punts to know they can spend them here and they don't have to go to Dublin,” Morgan said. “We are giving a good exchange rate of €1.20.”
(Source: Irish Times)

Offaly

An Offaly mother has been ordered to bring her son home from abroad so he can go to school. Judge John Coughlan said it was “outlandish” that the 15-year-old boy is in Europe with his older brother, who is working there. Mr. Donal Farrelly said there had been difficulties in the school and the boy didn’t want to go, even though his mother had been working hard to encourage him. The boy had been difficult to control, said Farrelly, but the judge insisted that he come home from Europe to appear before the court with the school principal and class teacher.
(Source: Offaly Express)

Roscommon

A Malaysian missionary is appealing after she was refused entry back into Ireland after a short trip to the UK. Maria Susei Mary Jeyarani, 61, who had lived in Co. Roscommon since 2007, was told at the airport she could be a threat to national security. After two days in prison, the Catholic lay missionary was deported. In her appeal to the High Court, her lawyers say she was never given a reason why she was a threat to national security and that her removal was unlawful. The case has been adjourned until later this month.
(Source: Evening Herald)

Sligo

A Sligo man has been jailed for 15 years for the repeated rape and sexual abuse of his teenage daughter, which led to him fathering her child. The abuse began in September 2005 when the girl was aged 13 and continued for two years. Before Mr. Justice Patrick McCarthy passed sentence at the Central Criminal Court on Monday, the victim, now aged 19, said her father had been a hero to her when she was growing up. The 48-year-old man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victim, had pleaded not guilty last month to eight counts of sexual assault and seven counts of rape at the family home between September 2005 and September 2007.
(Source: Sligo Champion)

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