Fermanagh News

Two Conors, Love and McShea, lead Enniskillen cruise to Fermanagh title

A rampant Enniskillen showed just how goals win games in this one-sided decider at Brewster Park.

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Pay rises for council bosses who are already earning more than £100,000 a year

Most council chief executives in Northern Ireland — who all earn more than £100,000 a year — have recently received a pay rise, the Sunday Independent has learned.

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Consequences of removing surgeries at SWAH dire, warn doctors

The risk of pregnant women and their babies dying in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone area could increase if the Western Health and Social Care Trust presses ahead with plans to remove emergency surgery from South West Acute Hospital (SWAH), its senior surgeons have warned.

‘You never saw her greet anyone without that wonderful smile and twinkle in her eyes,’ says Queen’s Irish lord-in-waiting

When the news of Queen Elizabeth’s death was announced last Thursday, Alan Brooke, her personal lord-in-waiting and friend, said he “felt numb”.

Letters to the Editor Opinion In a global context, the Greens’ emissions policy is nonsense

Sir — How does the Government expect the population to accept we have to achieve the environmental targets set to satisfy the EU when China, India and others are undoing the good we do every day by multiple amounts and intend to do so until 2040?

Letters to the Editor Opinion Kettle, dryer or oven: which will get the boot this winter?

Sir — Liam Collins’s article last week gave us great ideas on how to prepare for the cold months ahead. In preparation for this winter of constraints, I, too, have been planning, making an assessment on those kitchen friends and enemies.

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Brighid McLaughlin Opinion Brighid McLaughlin’s diary: Did you not hear about my new lad in Milan? It’s early days….

Well, honest to God, I was all over the country this week. First stop was Fermanagh, a county so bathed in beautiful lake water, you’d need a boat, not a car, to get through it. Tis very pretty.

From fishy misunderstandings to Fermanagh not existing – the weird, wacky and wonderful Northern Ireland tourism reviews

Northern Ireland is becoming a prime tourist destination, with natural beauty spots and famous landmarks in abundance.

Best castles in Ireland - 26 amazing Irish castles to visit and stay in

Is this a golden age for castles in Ireland? That might sound crazy, with Irish tourism recovering from a pandemic.

Letters to the Editor Opinion Sending Irish patients to Spanish hospitals won’t improve health services here

Sir — John O’Brien (Letters, July 17) is curious about the wrong thing regarding HSE plans to send patients abroad for treatment in a deal with a Spanish private hospital built to provide the services.

Mum calls on PSNI to reopen daughter’s case file after fresh claims over ‘predator’ in tragic Shauna case

The family of a woman who took her own life, after allegedly being sexually abused by a man who spotted her in a church, wants the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to review her case.

Editorial Opinion Let’s build a shared, equal and agreed future

The Twelfth of July celebrations in Northern Ireland have been described by police as “one of the safest and most peaceful in recent memory”. That is the good news. It should be noted that almost 600 Orange Order parades took place across Northern Ireland last week, the vast majority of which passed off without incident.

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Mother wants justice for two daughters who died by suicide amid abuse claims

A mother who lost two of her daughters to suicide within two months has said she wants “justice for my girls”, claiming their deaths were sparked by an alleged sexual assault.

Editorial Opinion Northern Ireland deserves good solid governance

In the 1890s, Richard ‘Boss’ Croker defined a “mugwump” as a man in politics “who never votes for anybody, but who is always voting against somebody”.

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Sam McBride Opinion Fear and loathing hasten DUP’s decline

Power is slipping away from the Democratic Unionist Party. After two decades as Northern Ireland’s dominant political force, Jeffrey Donaldson’s party is now in serious decline — and it has discreetly accepted this. Just as political leaders are mortal, so parties live and at some point die. The DUP is not yet dead, and might rally, but it is in acute peril. Even if it defies pollsters to beat Sinn Féin in May’s election and remains the biggest party, its future looks increasingly grim.

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‘The Queen is boss – but I do also see her as a friend’: Fermanagh’s finest Lord Brookeborough on a life of royal service

‘The Queen is boss, but I do also see her as a friend,” Lord Brookeborough says with a smile. The 69-year-old, also known as Alan Brooke, has been the monarch’s personal lord-in-waiting since 1997, in which guise he has to regularly come face-to-face with kings, queens and presidents.

The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon on growing up weird in a war zone

It was difficult watching his father’s long goodbye, but the grieving began many years ago for Divine Comedy singer Neil Hannon, who lost his dad to Alzheimer’s last month.

Platform: Denise Donnelly of Bright Eyes Animal Shelter in Enniskillen

The story of the Bright Eyes Animal Sanctuary is really the story of Pat Nolan. He set up the sanctuary in 1989, but before that, he was already rescuing and caring for animals. From a council house in Enniskillen, with people complaining about all the cats, and people calling him names, he built it up and became very respected in the community.

‘Unionism isn’t having the level of conversation that nationalism is and I think it they need to’ — Belfast Lord Mayor Kate Nicholl

‘There will never be a border between us,’ reads a piece of art by the Turner Prize-winning Array Collective on the wall of Lord Mayor Kate Nicholl’s parlour at Belfast City Hall.

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Spotters for Kevin Lunney kidnap gang are next targets on garda target list

Gardaí are investigating mobile-phone traffic between a network of people on both sides of the Border, who are suspected of aiding the criminal gang which kidnapped and tortured Kevin Lunney.

Colum Kenny Opinion Truce to Treaty Part 7: They did not ‘sign the Treaty’ so London agreement left Dáil free to say yes — or no

The final days of the Treaty talks were chaotic. They included a mad dash back to Dublin, and a long last session with the British that stretched past midnight.

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Lost between war and peace: century-old brutal killing of a young woman

A respected academic is taking a fresh look at an unsolved murder almost a century ago of a young woman in the border region.

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The Quinn saga: ‘It is hard to feel safe while the paymaster is still at large’

Dublin Jimmy roamed the town of Ballyconnell pilfering and thieving as he went. Even the parish priest, Fr Oliver O’Reilly, avoided him. “Not because I was afraid of him but because I knew that he was a very dangerous person who had no respect for law or anything else.”

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Primary school where principal’s sex abuse was an ‘open secret’ now faces High Court proceedings

A victim of a Co Fermanagh school principal, who allegedly sexually abused her as a child more than 30 years ago, has lodged a High Court writ against the school where the assaults took place.

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Rising costs stall work on cross-Border cycle path

The brakes have been applied to the latest phase of a major cross-Border cycle path due to rising construction costs.

Victims express regret that alleged sex offender died before they could face him in court

Two of the alleged victims of a man suspected of abusing them in Co Fermanagh when he was a child have spoken of their sadness that the 85-year-old died before standing trial.

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Máiría Cahill Opinion Paramilitary attacks: They hand down brutality, and call it peace

When I was four, while going to the shop with my relative, a young lad limped across the road in front of us on crutches.

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LEADERS’ QUESTIONS

Sitting in the party office at Stormont, Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill has a lot on her mind.

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TV reviews: How can we know what Northern unionists think if we don’t listen to what they say?

The Week In Politics RTÉ One, Sunday, 12pm

Brighid’s Diary: ‘When I think of Belfast, I think of two things – a dome-shaped Paris bun from the old Ormo Bakery and the artist Markey Robinson’

By God, there’s been a lot of clucking going on in the distant hills of Fermanagh in the past few weeks. I had heard some tales of a monster-sized rock being feverishly moved by 13-tonne diggers and lads as big as Shrek. Being nosy, I thought I better phone one of my Nordy friends.