Ava Maguire delves into the archives to bring you the news and images from yesteryear.
March 27, 1976
Annagry factory beats British and continental firms for £170,000 contract
GPE, the Plastics Engineering Company with headquarters in Annagry, has been awarded a contract for the manufacture of the effluent discharge pipeline for the giant Ashai Textile Plant in Killala, Co. Mayo.
The pipeline will be 30 inches in diameter and nearly two miles long, and the contract is worth £170,000.
The glass fibre chemical resistant pipeline is part of the new product range introduced at the Annagry factory and results from agreements reached between Gaeltarra Eireann and Ceilcote of Germany, announced in the Derry People and Donegal News last year.
The complete engineering design and negotiations against rigid specifications were handled exclusively by GPE staff. The fact that the contract was won against stiff opposition from UK and continental engineering companies, and that there were only marginal differences separating the final tendered prices, is regarded as a tribute to the engineering and negotiating abilities of the Annagry company, and the competence of the work force in general.
Top personalities for seminar
Donegal’s elected representatives, TDs, councillors, members of committees and farming organisations will all have a special interest in one of the most ambitious one-day seminars yet staged in the county.
It is to discuss the Socio-Economic Development of the Derry-Donegal region, and is scheduled for the Ballyraine Hotel, Letterkenny on Thursday, April 8.
The seminar will bring together top personalities from both sides of the Border, and some E.E.C personalities from Brussels.
Included will be Dr.Garret Fitzgerald, Minister for External Affairs; Mr John Hume, former minister of Commerce in the Northern Executive; Mr Sean O hEigeartaigh, member of the cabinet of Dr P.J Hillery, commissioner of social affairs in the E.E.C; Mr Richard Wells, a member of the cabinet of Mr George Thomson, Commissioner of Regional Development in the E.E.C ; Aiderman Ivor Canavan, Mayor of Derry; Mr Sean McEniff, Donegal County Council Chairman; Mr. J. D. Williams, Donegal County Manager.
Meeting criticises Bord Fáilte ‘blackout’
The omission of Letterkenny and its Folk Festival from recent Bord Failte publications and the lashing of the Festival and this year’s All Ireland Fleadh Ceoil in Buncrana were the topics of discussion at a specially called meeting of public representatives and local committees which was held in McCarry’s Hotel, Letterkenny.
Mr. Eamonn Hoy, of the North-West Tourism Organisation, was in attendance.
The Festival director, Mr. Barney Doherty, presided.
Referring to the issue of 100,000 copies of the ‘Discover Ireland’ brochure, he said that he felt that the festival had been unfairly overlooked. While his committee accepted that Letterkenny itself was not a tourist town, it was the capital of Donegal and could be regarded as the gateway to a number of tourist centers in the region.
Possibly its omission from the brochure was because it was not a tourist centre.
At last year’s festival they had 12 countries taking part. The festival, the committee felt, was not just catering for Letterkenny but for the region and for that reason they felt entitled to greater recognition in tourism publicity than that which they received.
March 23, 2001
Ardara buries beloved friend
The town of Ardara came to a standstill yesterday as hundreds of mourners turned out for the funeral of Donegal County Councillor Charlie Bennett who died suddenly while attending a St Patrick’s Day Parade in New York on Sunday.
Representatives from political, community and sporting groups from all over the county joined mourners in the town to pay their final respects to one of the best known figures in Donegal.
Cllr Bennett (67), a former Donegal Person of the Year, died while taking part in a St Patrick’s Day parade in Brooklyn, New York. It was his last official function on a trip that had started a week earlier in Philadelphia.
He had complained of chest pains while leading the Donegal party in the parade and was immediately taken to the nearby New York Methodist hospital where he was pronounced dead an hour later.
There were poignant scenes at the funeral in the Church of the Holy Family as members of the extended Bennett family led by Cllr Bennett’s wife, Marian, son, Cathal and daughter, Sinead joined with the thousands of mourners to pay their final respects to a man who was highly respected as a community leader, public representative and extraordinary fundraiser and sportsman.
A lone piper led the funeral cortege from the family home through the town to the church and traffic restrictions were in place around the area from early morning.
Rabble disrupts students’ protest
Eggs, potatoes and other missiles were thrown at Gardaí as hundreds of students in Letterkenny staged a walk out protest at the ongoing teachers strike on Tuesday.
More than 500 students attending St Eunans College took to the streets in a bid to highlight the disruption caused by the actions of their teachers, members of the Association of Secondary School Teachers, Ireland CASTU.
They were later joined by up to 30 students from the nearby Loreto Convent.
The student demonstrations, which lasted several hours have been strongly criticised by the principal of St Eunan’s College, Fr. Michael Carney and Sr. Siobhan Ni Chuill, principal, Loreto Convent who have vowed to “weed out” the troublemakers.
Those troublemakers have been accused of “running amok”, damaging vehicles and property in a rampage through the streets of Letterkenny while others tried to force their way into the Loreto Convent school leading to Sr. Siobhan locking the main doors in a bid to stop the College students gaining entry.
Around the same time a young Loreto Convent student was removed from the school grounds to Letterkenny General Hospital by ambulance with leg injuries suffered after she had been knocked down by a local fire tender.
“The fire brigade arrived at the wrong school and naturally with horns blazing and lights flashing, it attracted a crowd.
“The vehicle was meant to be at the vocational school and my sympathy is with the driver and his crew. It was an unrelated, regrettable incident.” Sr. Siobhan said.
Horror as foot and mouth breaks out
Farming and tourism representatives in Donegal were shocked and devastated when two cases of Foot and Mouth disease were confirmed on a County Louth farm.
Mr George O’Hagan, IFA representative for the county, made a heartfelt appeal to the farming community and public to intensify their precautions in an effort to protect the county’s 400,000 sheep and 200,000 cattle.
Mr Mark Wheeler Chairman of the Irish Hotels Federation in the county described the news for tourism and farming as “absolutely disastrous,” as the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation James McDaid confirmed all sporting events in the country will now be cancelled.
Mr O’Hagan said if the disease in Louth was airborne it was a “worst case scenario” for the rest of the country and at this stage no one knows how far it may have spread.