News from around the 32 Irish counties

OFFALY
American Ambassador to Ireland Dan Rooney will attend the Midlands Gateway Chamber Ambassadors Ball on Friday, May 21.
Ambassador Rooney was sworn in as US Ambassador to Ireland on July 1 2009. Well known in Ireland as one of the founders of the American Ireland Funds, Ambassador Rooney has also funded the annual Rooney Prize for Irish Literature to highlight the work of the Irish writers under the age of 40.
(Source The Offaly Express)

ROSCOMMON
A major €1.5m project is set to transform Cloontakilla Castle at Rockingham, Boyle from a ruin into a state-of-the art recording studio and guesthouse.
The brainchild of Boyle businessman Sean Simon, the project has already caught the imagination of the British TV program ‘Grand Designs’ and initial filming has already taken place.
(Source: The Roscommon Champion)

SLIGO
A spokesman for the Sligo building company against whom a summary judgment for €37.3 million has been entered at the Commercial Court has criticized the 'dogmatic attitude' of the bank involved.
(Source: The Sligo Champion)

TIPPERARY
A Roscrea photographer has become a local champion of patients' rights after bringing in his own sleeping bag to Limerick Regional hospital, just so he could finally get the treatment he was forced to wait three months for.
PJ Wright, well known around Roscrea in his role as a photographer, became so fed up with having his operation postponed due to the chronic lack of bed spaces, that he had to resort to telling sympathetic ward nurses he was bedding down for the night in his own sleeping bag.
(Source: The Tipperary Star)

TYRONE
A former BBC Northern Ireland sports presenter was 100% responsible for his sacking at the corporation, an industrial tribunal has been told.
Co Tyrone man Jerome Quinn, at one time the self-styled face of GAA coverage at BBC NI, has brought claims of unfair dismissal and direct and indirect discrimination following his sacking in March last year on the grounds that he is an Irish Catholic.
(Source: Belfast Telegraph)

WATERFORD
Tramore academic, Dr Louise Richardson, Principal and Vice-Chancellor, University of St Andrew’s, was conferred with the honorary fellowship of Waterford Institute of Technology last Monday.
From Priest Road, in Tramore, Dr Richardson, a former student of St. Angela’s Secondary School and a graduate of Trinity College, has been leading St Andrew’s, Scotland’s first university and the third oldest in the English-speaking world, since early 2009.
(Source: Waterford News & Star)

WESTMEATH
The South Westmeath Hospice will open on September 6, Health Minister Mary Harney told members of the fundraising committee at a meeting in the hospice on Sunday morning, which was also attended by Deputy Mary O'Rourke and Mayor of Athlone  Cllr Mark Cooney.
Chairman of the South Westmeath Hospice committee Dr Tony Lowry thanked the Minister for meeting with them and asked for an up to date position on the hospice.
(Source: The Westmeath Independent)

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Nster.com