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With a total of 13 people thought to have taken their own lives in the past year, mental health professionals have warned people to be especially vigilant over Christmas – the time of year when, statistically, suicidal people can be most vulnerable.

Figures just released by the Samaritans in Northern Ireland show some worrying trends, including much more concerns about money and family than in other parts of the U.K., and they reveal that only 27 percent of those who had worries this year would choose to talk about their problems, the lowest figure in the U.K.

Volunteers in the Omagh-based Samaritans Centre cater for Fermanagh and Tyrone and are on call 24/7.

On average, they deal with 17,000 calls a year, from face to face, to emails and texted messages.
[Source: Fermanagh Herald]

GALWAY

A Romanian man was sentenced to five years in prison last Wednesday for withholding information during a Garda (police) investigation into the murder of Oughterard publican and teacher, John Kenny, in his pub last year.

Florin Fitzpatrick (38), a Romanian national, whose Romanian surname is Buracuic, had denied withholding information between September 25-28 last year, which might have been of assistance in the apprehension of people involved in Mr. Kenny’s death, which occurred on September 25, 2011 at his pub on Main Street, Oughterard.

A jury took just under three hours to return a unanimous guilty verdict following a three-week trial at Galway Circuit Criminal Court in November and the matter was adjourned to last Wednesday for sentence.
[Source: Galway Bay FM]

KERRY

They carried him down and laid him to rest at the foot of Mount Eagle, on the edge of his home village beside the Atlantic sea.

Back on the outside again, near the corner, in the green and gold. Number five, of course. Páidí Ó Sé, forever now on the wing.

“May the Ventry sod rest lightly on this noble warrior.”

After a day of many words – never scarce in the west Kerry Gaeltacht – those final ones lingered in the little graveyard. The Ó Sé family, heartbroken, stood together for their final public farewell to Páidí. The crowd held back to give them their space.
[Source: Irish Times]

KILDARE

A total of 150 jobs are to be created with the establishment of a new manufacturing plant in Leixlip, County Kildare, it has been announced.

The jobs will be created by MGS.Mfg, a provider of engineered manufacturing solutions to the plastics industry.

The company is to invest more than $12 million over three years in a 150 person manufacturing facility in an existing 45,000 sq. feet building on the Hewlett Packard Campus in Leixlip.
[Source: Kildare Nationalist]

KILKENNY

Kilkenny star Henry Shefflin is facing surgery again and he is not sure when he might be able to resume his inter-county hurling career.

The Ballyhale Shamrocks man picked up an ankle injury in the recent Leinster club game against Oulart-the-Ballagh (Wexford), but the full extent of the problem was only diagnosed during the last few days.

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Nster.com