News from Ireland - news from around the 32 counties

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Mainstream Renewable Power was established to develop wind and solar projects both onshore and offshore and is currently developing over 15,000MW of projects across seven countries in four different continents.
[Source: Westmeath Independent]

WEXFORD

The annual Conference of the Irish Traveler Movement held in Wexford last Monday was told that until the Irish State recognizes Travelers as an ethnic group, racism will continue to exist for Travelers on a daily basis.

Travelers from all over Ireland gathered in Wexford for the 21st Annual Conference of the Irish Traveler Movement entitled “Anti Traveler Racism in the 21st Century: the link between ethnicity denial and discrimination.”

Speaking at the conference Ronit Lentin, Associate Professor of Sociology Race, Ethnicity and Conflict, Trinity College, Dublin, said: “Travelers have campaigned long and hard to be considered a separate ethnic group, and the refusal to acknowledge Travelers as an ethnic group, itself smacks of racism in viewing racism as emanating only from biological, racial difference, though racism, as we know, is never only about skin color. I fully support Travelers’ claim to a status of an ethnic group as the basis for anti-Travelerism” Damien Peelo Director of the Irish Traveler Movement called on the Irish Government to recognize Travelers as ethnic group in policies and in laws.
[Source: Wexford Echo]

WICKLOW

A 27-year-old accused of murdering a man in Co Wicklow three years ago told gardai (police) he drove the victim to where he was killed but did not witness the shooting.

Michael Dickenson, of no fixed abode, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Steven O' Meara at Ballydonnell Wood, Red Cross, Co Wicklow on or about August 6, 2009.

Mr O'Meara (26) a father-of-three from Rosehill in Wicklow town, was last seen on that date.
Grave.

His body was found by gardai five months later, on Christmas Eve, in an isolated wooded area at Ballydonnell, Red Cross.

It is the prosecution's case that Dickenson drove Mr O'Meara out to the remote Ballydonnell Woods, where he was shot by another man, who then helped the accused drag the body into a very shallow grave.

The court has previously heard evidence Mr O'Meara was asked to collect a debt of E15,000 from the accused's brother, Paddy Byrne, which was owed to drug dealers in Dublin and that he was to be paid E2,000for doing so.
[Source: Evening Herald]
 

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