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: Society
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 […]
It’s the summer of 2008 and the concrete has barely set in the grounds of a Catholic seminary in Shijiazhuang, a city of 11 million people in Hebei province in northern China and also the centre of Chinese Catholicism. In 2008 China is a giant building site, in the midst of a decades-long splurge of […]
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, […]
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 […]
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Stonemason keeps alive a rural tradition
Dominic Keogh is a master stone mason keen to preserve the craft of dry-stone walling, once the knowledge of every farmer in Mayo. On the way to meet him recently in Spell’s Bar in Ballaghadreen I pass mansion sized houses with limestone cladding facades and sandstone pillars, suggesting stonework as a local marker of aspiration […]
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Three churches, three traditions
A few minutes’ walk from the imposing limestone grandeur of St Patrick’s Church, the Assembly of God Mission in Ballyhaunis is conspicuous by its location, a commercial building shared with a furniture store and a gym. Few people knowing they’re passing a church when they walk down the side lane known as Barrack St. In […]