I travelled 16 kilometres south of Westport recently into the hill country of Drummin to meet one of the county’s world champions. Along a road lined with meadowsweet, heather and vetch I journeyed to the home of James Hopkins, a sheep farmer and fastest man with a hand shears at the world shearing finals last […]
Category: Local
Residents of the direct provision centre in Ballyhaunis say they fear being moved to a hotel in Ballina which has been the focus of local protests over its conversion into an international protection accommodation service (IPAS) centre. Rispa Mwangi, a Kenyan national living seven years in the Ballyhaunis centre, said she is afraid of protests […]
The Community Hall in Ballyhaunis was brimming recently with talent to celebrate International Women’s Day. On the stage, Ukrainian dance troupe, Romanian classical guitarist playing lead, a Filipino adding rhythm and vocals alongside a German soprano. A Lithuanian singer Aretha Franklin’s “You Make Me Feel Like a Woman”. The acts are introduced by the hostess, […]
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Tour of bog reveals fragile ecosystem
Patches of sitka spruce which intermittently line the road winding north from Ballyhaunis in the Ballaghadreen direction are evergreen clues to the recent decades of rural economics and policy making which encouraged the planting of peatlands with fast growing coniferous trees. The prevailing thought was timber harvesting offered a means to exploit otherwise idle, un-exploitable […]
One of the more striking data sets in the recent national census concerned Ballyhaunis. The town was shown to have one of the fastest growing populations in the Western region according to the 2022 census which shows the town’s population rose 14.3 percent –adding 438 people, to 3,495 – between 2016 and 2022. By contrast […]