School Finally Gets Toilets
THE days of children having to traipse across the yard to use outside toilets will soon come to an end at a Limerick school.

After a long campaign, Nicker National School in Pallasgreen has received additional funding from the Department of Education to start building works.

Numbers have been on the rise and the school has badly needed an extension for years.  The original school building dates back to 1894 and was last upgraded over 50 years ago. Classes are also taught in two pre-fabs over 40 years old.

But worst of all was the outside toilets.  Now they will be a thing of the past.

“The toilets will be included in the new build along with two main classrooms, learning support and resource room,” said principal, Karen Franklin.

She hopes that the work will be put out to tender soon and building on site and in the field adjacent, bought by the previous board of management, can start as soon as possible.

“We are delighted to receive the money and I would really like to thank teachers, staff, board of management, parents association, parents, pupils and their families for all their patience, support and help with fundraisers,” said Franklin.

Deputy Niall Collins said the issue with the toilets had caused a lot of concern among parents and he was delighted that the funding was granted to alleviate the problem.

“It’s fantastic community school. A lot of the conditions in the school are sub-standard and I’m glad the money has come through,” said Collins.

Limerick Leader

Stray Parrot Mystery

A LONGFORD woman had a very surprising visitor to her home last week when she discovered a

The bird eventually landed on the woman’s floor clearly tired, cold and hungry.

After feeding her new visitor, the woman started making some calls and ended up contacting the Kildare Animal Foundation which takes in exotic birds.

“We gave the bird a couple of hours rest before wanting to move her as the stress might have been too much,” Dan Donoher of the Kildare Animal Foundation said this week.

“That evening a very kind and great supporter of the shelter drove to pick the bird up and bring it to safety.

“By the time the Alexandrine Parakeet or Alexandrian Parrot as they are sometimes known arrived it was much brighter and just wanted more food.”

After a feast of fruit, vegetables, grains and nuts, the bird rested up and started to acclimatize to its new surroundings.

The bird is now in foster care with a member of the foundation to see if it is just an escaped pet, and Donoher believes that the bird could have Longford roots.

“It is more than likely that the bird is from the area,” he explained, pointing out that animals like this don’t get very far once they get out of their usual surroundings.

“When they get out, they are often chased by other birds or in some cases they starve to death.”
Now the search is on for the rightful owner. Already the foundation has had a number of calls from people claiming to own the bird, but the foundation has a special way of weeding out the fake calls -- they just talk to the bird.

“The bird says a good few words and knows its name. It’s very clever,” Donoher added.
Anyone claiming to own the bird should know its name and the extent of its vocabulary.

“If this bird isn’t claimed then we will find it a great new home where it will be well cared for and live with other parrots,” Donoher explained.

Longford Leader

Gun Technology
AN Athlone company is behind the development of smart technology for guns which has caught the attention of White House officials.

Triggersmart, developed by Athlone-based company Georgia Tech, is designed to ensure that only a gun’s registered owner is able to fire it.

The technology is the result of an idea developed by Limerick entrepreneurs Pat O’Shaughnessy and Robert McNamara, who were paired up with Georgia Tech through Enterprise Ireland. General manager of Georgia Tech in Athlone, Joe Dowling, explained that Georgia Tech has been working on developing the technology for the past two years.

“We looked at fingerprint and palm recognition, or grip recognition which measures the pressure points of a hand, but all of these take a while to register the user -- it could be several seconds. But we were looking for a more immediate solution. So we went for RFID, radio-frequency identification technology, which recognizes the user in 0.2 seconds,” he explained.

The RFID reader in the handle of the gun reacts to a tag either in a bracelet or ring, or even embedded under the skin, and is similar to the technology used to microchip animals.

“To fit the reader into the handle of a gun we had to design one of the smallest RFID readers in the world, 1cm by 1cm,” he added.

Dowling said the product has garnered huge attention since the school shooting in Sandy Hook Elementary School and the ensuing gun control debate in the U.S.

“We are trying to pitch it as a gun safety feature. Part of Georgia Tech is based in Atlanta, Georgia, and representatives of Georgia Tech were asked to come and meet Attorney General Eric Holder in the White House. President Obama in a speech recently mentioned smart gun technology, and this was a reference to what they are talking to us about,” he added.

The majority of research and product development for the Triggersmart technology has been carried out in Athlone by two Georgia Tech staff.

“It’s been an interesting project and different from other projects we’ve been involved in. I would like to see the major gun manufacturers implement this as an optional safety feature in their products,” said Dowling.

Mullingar Advertiser

Mom Scalds Dad
A MOTHER of one who punched her husband in the face before tipping a kettle of boiling water over his head has been jailed for three years.

The victim ended up in a coma in hospital and needed plastic surgery, Belfast Crown Court heard.

A prosecutor said the attack happened after 44-year-old Margaret Joanne Collins had been out with a female friend and returned home to find she had been locked out by her husband, Brian.
He eventually opened the door and a drunken argument broke out between them.

At one stage in the kitchen Collins repeatedly punched her husband about the face before “tipping a kettle of freshly boiled water” over his head, prosecutor Stephen McCourt said.

McCourt said although her friend got her to stop that assault, she punched her husband again in the head later.

The next afternoon an ambulance had to be called and Collins was rushed to hospital, where he lay in a coma for a number of days. He also received plastic surgery for injuries to his scalp.

Judge Kinney told Collins, of Hynford Street in Belfast, that her attack last March was serious and sustained, carried out in domestic circumstances against a then vulnerable victim.

Kinney accepted that Collins' marital relationship was volatile, violent and destructive, characterized by chronic drinking and domestic violence.

Reports indicated, said the judge, that Collins was anxious and vulnerable and would require support and supervision.

He added that while she did not pose a general danger to the public, she could represent a possible danger to her husband.

Defense QC Terence McDonald said what occurred had been an escalation of previous incidents.
He said it was a depressingly familiar story of a couple who both had alcohol problems, and when drinking their behavior became erratic, sometimes involving violence.

McDonald said Collins was agreeable when sober, but she had a certain naivety about her married relationship. 

As part of her sentence, Kinney ordered that Collins serve an extended two-year period of supervised licensed parole upon her release from jail.

Belfast Telegraph