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Blackie’s Big Apple Rip
The Castlebar bulletin board gets a mention in the context of a piece from ‘Listener’ concerning Castlebar Town Council’s visit to Peekskill and New York for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. The piece begins "His nickname undoubtedly belies his personality for there are few as colourful and as flamboyant as the Castlebar Town Councillor Blackie Gavin." The discussion on the Castlebar.ie bulletin board regarding Blackie’s sartorial appearance is dwelt upon in some detail but the Listener’s final conclusion was that neither Governor Pataki nor Senator Clinton would remember the "Mayo guy in the red and green football shirt" in six months time!
Wiping out an Outrage
Finally the offensive slogans painted on the side of Christchurch in Castlebar some weeks back have been deleted. The Mayo News points out that the incident is in total opposition to the highly cordial interdenominational relations in Castlebar. The author of the piece in the Mayo News suggests, however, that an opportunity was lost in that the Town Councillors should themselves have proceeded en bloc to the Church and physically erased the slogans themselves!
MEP’s SAC Rant
Another Fianna Fail rant against protecting the environment is reported in the Mayo News. MEP Sean O’Neachtain told an Abbeyknockmoy FF Comhairle Ceantair meeting that he simply does not want areas of protection as they will interfere with local people’s traditional rights to cut turf – (or should that be their right to destroy rare European bog habitats in the West of Ireland? We assume that this view is from the same school philosophy outlined by the chairman of the IFA recently at a meeting in Limerick where the general solution to protecting rare species such as the Hen Harrier was, as reported in the Limerick Leader, to ‘shoot the bastards’. If the farmers succeded in shooting all these rare birds then Duchas would have no reason to declare Special Areas of Conservation! The fact that Irish farmers receive almost one billion euros from European taxpayers each year does imply certain responsibilities for protecting habitats.)
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