Latest news with #CoSligo
BreakingNews.ie
17-07-2025
- BreakingNews.ie
Man accused of unlawful killing of Tom Niland pleads guilty and admits to killing Sligo pensioner
Five days into his trial for the unlawful killing of 73-year-old Tom Niland, who was beaten in his home and left to die by three men, John Irving changed his plea to guilty on Thursday. Irving (31) became the third person to plead guilty to manslaughter over the death of Mr Niland, who suffered brain injuries, a fracture to his eye socket and multiple rib fractures following the assault. He was put on life support but died from his injuries 20 months later. Advertisement His attackers took his wallet containing €800 or €900 and went to Casey's garage in Ballina, Co Mayo, where they paid for petrol and goods in cash. They had left the same garage just hours earlier, unable to pay for diesel, they had already put into their Vauxhall Vivaro van. Francis Harman, the driver of the van, had told the garage owner that he would be back later to pay for the fuel. After Irving, of Shanwar, Foxford, Co Mayo, pleaded guilty this morning to Mr Niland's unlawful killing, Ms Justice Eileen Creedon discharged the jury which had been hearing evidence in the trial. Advertisement It can now be reported that Francis Harman (58) of Nephin Court, Killala Road, Ballina, Co Mayo and John Clarke (37) of Carrowkelly, Ballina, pleaded guilty to the same offence last week. The three men broke into Mr Niland's home between 6pm and 7pm at Doonflynn, Skreen, Co Sligo on January 18th, 2022. They assaulted him, took his wallet and drove to Lough Easkey, where they disposed of gloves, the wallet and other items that might link them to the crime. Shortly after 7pm, Mr Niland's neighbours saw him trying to cross the road, unable to see because his eyes were swollen shut. They said he was covered in blood and described him as unrecognisable due to the extent of his injuries. Doctors at Sligo University Hospital discovered bleeding to Mr Niland's brain, a fracture to his right eye socket and multiple rib fractures. Although he showed early signs of progress, he was put on a ventilator in intensive care eight days after the assault and did not recover. He was pronounced dead on September 30th, 2023, aged 75. More to follow...
Irish Times
14-07-2025
- Irish Times
Neighbours did not recognise Tom Niland due to injuries sustained in alleged home invasion
A man in his 70s was so badly beaten during an alleged home invasion in Co Sligo that his neighbours did not recognise him walking along the middle of the road covered in blood, a Central Criminal Court trial has heard. Anna and Fiona Calpin said they only realised it was Tom Niland when he spoke to say he had been 'robbed' by three men. A paramedic also told the court Mr Niland was 'crying blood' as a result of the multiple traumatic injuries he sustained to his face and skull. John Irving (31), of Shanwar, Foxford, Co Mayo, is on trial accused of breaking into Mr Niland's house along with Francis Harman (58), of Nephin Court, Killala Road, Ballina, Co Mayo, and John Clarke (37), of Carrowkelly, Ballina, on January 18th, 2022. READ MORE Mr Irving is alleged to have assaulted Mr Niland, leaving him with injuries that caused his death more than 20 months later, on September 30th, 2023. He was 75 when he died. Mr Irving is accused of unlawfully killing Mr Niland at his home at Doonflynn, Skreen, Co Sligo. He is also accused of entering the house as a trespasser and causing Mr Niland serious harm. He is further alleged to have intentionally or recklessly caused serious harm to Mr Niland and to have falsely imprisoned him. Mr Irving has pleaded not guilty to all four charges. Anna Calpin told Tony McGillicuddy SC, prosecuting, that she was walking around outside her home opposite Mr Niland's house with her daughter Fiona when they noticed cars slowing down on the road. They went to see what was happening and saw a man on the road. 'As we approached he was standing in the middle of the road with his hands out in front of him, he couldn't see anything and we didn't know who it was,' she said. 'When we got closer to him, the first thing we heard was, 'I was robbed', and then we realised it was Tom.' The witness said Mr Niland's face was 'totally distorted', his eyes were swollen and shut, and there was a lot of blood. She said he had a runner on one foot and a shoe on the other but neither was laced up. She recalled Mr Niland telling her his doorbell rang and when he opened the door, three men wearing masks appeared and pushed him into his hallway. He said they took his wallet, which contained €800 or €900. Ms Calpin brought Mr Niland into her home and called an ambulance and the Garda. Fiona Calpin said Mr Niland was 'unrecognisable' until he spoke. Anna Calpin's husband, David Calpin, said he was in his workshop when his daughter came in and said Mr Niland had been 'robbed and assaulted'. Mr Calpin went inside to his neighbour before going across to Mr Niland's house where he saw blood 'running down the glass of the front door', on the driveway and the road. A pair of tights or nylons lay on the driveway. He said he realised it was a crime scene so he left to wait for gardaí to come. George Williams, who works in the ambulance service in Co Sligo, told Mr McGillicuddy he went into the Calpin home and saw Mr Niland with a towel wrapped around his head. When Mr Williams removed the towel, he saw multiple injuries around Mr Niland's face, head and skull. He said Mr Niland's eyes were 'completely swollen shut and he had the appearance as if he was crying blood.' Given Mr Niland's age and the level of trauma, Mr Williams believed the injuries were potentially life threatening so he decided to immediately remove him to an ambulance. Dr Martin Caldwell told Mr McGillicuddy he was the emergency surgeon on duty at Sligo University Hospital when Mr Niland arrived. He said Mr Niland had suffered 'serious and life threatening injuries'. Scans revealed bleeding to the brain, a fracture to the floor of the orb of the right eye and multiple broken ribs on his right side, the court heard. Despite the brain injury, doctors decided it was not necessary to send him to the Beaumont Hospital in Dublin for surgery. Between January 20th and January 26th, Mr Niland made progress and was able to sit on a chair. However, his condition deteriorated at that point and he became more drowsy. He required a ventilator to help him breathe and doctors decided to place him on life support in the intensive care unit. By early March, he had made no progress, Dr Caldwell said, and a consultant neurologist took over his care. Another witness, John Scott, told Mr McGillicuddy he was part of a group of kayakers who were heading out on Lough Easkey in Co Sligo four days after the assault on Mr Niland. As he was placing a kayak into the water, he said he noticed something unusually square under a couple of inches of water by the side of the lake. When he took it from the water he realised it was a wallet. He phoned a friend who is a garda and told him the name Tom Niland was on the ID inside the wallet. He said he did not know the significance of it at the time, but about one hour later, Garda Elaine McAndrew arrived at Lough Easkey and took possession of the wallet. The trial continues before Ms Justice Eileen Creedon and a jury of eight women and four men.
Irish Times
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
No laughing matter: Poor Creature on goth folk, Kneecap's Gaza stance and their love of Philomena Begley
On a good day the hills around the rural Co Sligo home of the Poor Creature musicians Ruth Clinton and Cormac MacDiarmada can feel like a portal to another universe. 'There's a place up the road from us. It's a TV mast high in the mountains. There's gorgeous mist and fog there all the time,' says MacDiarmada, who has a parallel career wrenching terrifying sounds from his fiddle as a member of the Mercury-nominated 'mutant folk' group Lankum . 'It looms like this incredible, almost Blade Runner-like structure.' Clinton and MacDiarmada moved to the northwest several years ago, leaving Dublin in search of somewhere more affordable. They found a house – they're talking from it right now – but that was just the start. Isolated, beautiful and a bit spooky, their neck of the woods has proved a rich source of inspiration for their magnificently haunting new album, All Smiles Tonight. The LP unfolds like a closely guarded secret. Overall it has a whispering, intimate quality, but when it gets going it's as if someone has taken the roof off the sky. There are extended passages of droning strings that rise like mist from a bog, interspersed with gorgeously unsettling vocals from Clinton and MacDiarmada, the tapestry woven together with both subtlety and impressive amounts of welly by the regular Lankum collaborator John 'Spud' Murphy. Stuck at home during the pandemic, Clinton and MacDiarmada – romantic partners and musical collaborators – started making music together as a comfort and an outlet for their unprocessed lockdown anxieties. READ MORE 'I don't think we were necessarily working towards an album,' MacDiarmada says. '[We were] making stuff because we had the time and space. We had a lot of toys and stuff lying about the house. We had the right stuff and we were in the right place.' Clinton nods. 'We didn't have a theme in mind, starting out. But then, when we looked back at all the songs, they just shared that [sense of coming out of lockdown]. It could have been subconscious, or could be that we like sad songs.' Poor Creature are a very Irish supergroup. Clinton is an experienced traditional musician and one-quarter of the acclaimed all-woman foursome Landless. As a member of Lankum, MacDiarmada has played everywhere from New York to Glastonbury as the ensemble worked their way towards an improbable global success via their ominous take on trad. They are joined in Poor Creature by the percussionist John Dermody, a veteran musician whose background extends to the underrated 1990s post-rock ensemble The Jimmy Cake – think Mogwai meets Flann O'Brien – and who has played with MacDiarmada in Lankum. Poor Creature's first gig as a trio was a benefit for a hip operation needed by a friend's greyhound – the best possible way to launch a band. Yet, for all their collective experiences, they have created something different with Poor Creature: a goth-folk sound that feels equally indebted to The Sisters of Mercy and Planxty, Enya and Fields of the Nephilim. With Clinton singing in a keening not-quite-shriek against vast backdrops of droning noises, they are breaking new ground – though not entirely out on their own. The grandiosely grim All Smiles Tonight is in the same melodramatic register as recent output by the Fermanagh electro-folk artist Róis and the Welsh-Yorkshire goth trio Tristwch y Fenywod. 'Goth folk' has coalesced as a genre, and Poor Creature are among its torchbearers. In their gloomy intensity, the songs on All Smiles Tonight feel ripped from the fabric of modern life. They are, in fact, largely reworkings of 18th- and 19th-century material. The opening number, Adieu, Lovely Erin, tells the story of William Hill, a forger from Belfast who was exiled to Australia in 1826. The LP's title track, which The Chieftains previously recorded, is a lament dating back to 1879. But Poor Creature bring something new: their version of All Smiles Tonight is framed by a stygian throb of percussion, a speeded-up tempo lending a disconcerting jauntiness to a tune drenched in heartache. It makes for chilling listening. The lyrics, as Clinton devastatingly delivers them, are from the perspective of a woman forced to watch as she loses the object of her devotion to another suitor. 'What's amazing is that so much of that stuff still resonates – the same stories. You consistently get the same themes, the same objects, the same ideas,' MacDiarmada says. 'You can still identify with these songs that have sometimes been around for hundreds of years,' Clinton agrees. 'It was Cecil Sharp' – a collector of old English folk compositions – 'who said the songs aren't good because they're old, they're old because they're good.' In rock music, artists tend to stick to the themes, and the people, they know. Not so in folk, which has a rich history of collaboration. Which is how Clinton, MacDiarmada and Dermody can move so easily between their other groups and Poor Creature. The project has also given them space to explore passions that might not quite land with their other bands, such as their love for country-and-Irish music, which they celebrate with a spectral cover of Philomena Begley and Ray Lynam's The Whole Town Knows. 'I respect the phenomenon in country-and-Irish of dancing. People just want to dance, and the music facilitates that. It's a very lively and living culture,' Clinton says. 'Not every song would be to our taste. I guess the stuff that is closer maybe to older-style country. Philomena Begley is an amazing singer.' Country-and-Irish is a much bigger industry than is often appreciated. Poor Creature believe there's a secret history to be unpacked of the many labels and record studios it supported, across the Midlands and North. 'There was this wild scene up in the Border counties in the 1970s,' Dermody says, 'where there were loads and loads of small studios, just recording lots of this stuff.' Rural music doesn't have to be backwards looking, they say. 'It's interesting that country-and-Irish can be associated with conservatism,' Clinton says. 'But a lot of people when they went over to London, escaping a repressive Ireland at that time, they loved this music, where you could sing about divorce. There was a sort of liberation, maybe, in it for women.' Poor Creature were among the many artists who signed a statement supporting Kneecap after British police opened an investigation into allegations that the group displayed a Hizbullah flag on stage in London. If you speak out on Gaza and the slaughter there as Kneecap did, Poor Creature say – we're talking before the Irish rap trio's incendiary Glastonbury set – powerful forces will do their best to censor you, as happened with the attempt to remove the group from the festival bill. [ Glastonbury 2025: All that Kneecap and Bob Vylan outrage drowned out the air strike on the cafe birthday party Opens in new window ] 'You have to credit not just the bravery, right at the point where you're at the cusp of significant success, to risk losing that for speaking out against something that is self-evidently, obviously happening, but to then ... when you are by no means out of the woods … to dedicate the entire fee to Médecins Sans Frontières' – as Kneecap did after appearing at the Wide Awake festival in London – 'is an extraordinary statement of congruence with the words you are speaking. 'My concern, I suppose, is to see such a concerned and co-ordinated attack on a group of artists from such high-level machinery in the industry. There were people speaking out, writing letters, trying to get them deplatformed from bills.' Poor Creature are to tour the excellent All Smiles Tonight, which will also surely be in contention for the Choice Music Price, among other accolades. MacDiarmada is still taken aback by the high points of his musical career, including the Mercury nomination for Lankum and that band's headline performance at the 15,000-capacity In the Meadows festival in Dublin last year. 'I have to pause and take a moment because things can get normalised,' he says. 'So, yeah, hang on a second, take a breath and acknowledge how incredibly privileged this thing is that I get to do. 'If I was to tell myself 10 years ago that I would be doing this, I would be telling you, 'What the f**k are you talking about?' It's beyond what I would have expected in my wildest dreams.' All Smiles Now is released via River Lea Records . Poor Creature play Donegal Castle, as part of Earagail Arts Festival , on Friday, July 18th; the Duncairn, Belfast, on September 12th; and the Button Factory, Dublin, on November 27th
Irish Times
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Róisín Ingle: The c-word played a starring role in my Scrabble club's theatre outing
The Scrabble crew went on an outing to the Abbey Theatre the other night. This might be the most middle-class thing I've ever written except for the fact that later in this column I will be discussing how to boil quail eggs, and that obviously takes the ultimate prize. It's far from quail eggs I was reared but it's been a lifelong struggle to prove my working-class credentials having grown up in Sandymount, in the heart of the D-Fourtress as my Northsider children often remind me in mocking tones. Anyway, it was off to the Abbey in a limo for the Scrabble crew. (Only joking I cycled there on my new bike. I'm middle-class now.) We were all there for the opening night of the best play I have seen on an Irish stage in a very long time. The Cave by Kevin Barry is the bleakest of black comedies starring Aaron Monaghan , Judith Roddy and Tommy Tiernan . I say 'best play' but I see the Guardian only gave it three stars (the feckin' eejits) and Donald Clarke (who I usually trust) only gave it four . I am no critic, only a mere punter, but it's a full five stars from me and if I could give it a few extra I would. The Cave, directed superbly by Caitríona McLaughlin , is about the McRae brothers Archie and Bopper. They are two depressed, homeless, middle-aged, loquacious lads who are living in a cave on Zion Hill in Co Sligo . They are obsessed with an international soap star and her Irish boyfriend. Rural broadband being what it is, and Zion Hill being a dead zone, they don't have much by way of wifi coverage and they mainly live on stuff they've stolen from the nearest Lidl. Also, a 'ban garda' called Helen is on their case in a serious way. I want to be entertained in the theatre. Properly entertained. I want to be moved. To tears. To laughter. And it doesn't happen very often except when I am in the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre , where it's mostly musicals, which have a higher hit rate for all round entertainment in my experience. But this play? Boys oh boys, this play is the thing. Barry's way with words is a source of national pride and to hear his words thrown around the stage of our national theatre, from the mouths of such extraordinary performers, is exhilarating. READ MORE The c-word is used a lot in The Cave. More times, perhaps, than it has ever been uttered on that storied Abbey stage. No need for calls to Liveline - because the oldest word for female genitals in the English language, though long mired in misogyny, has been somewhat reclaimed in recent years. For a start it's no longer just a noun but an adjective, with The Oxford English Dictionary adding c**ty and c**tish to its pages in 2014. In some quarters, especially on the drag scene, it's now the highest of compliments. Playwright Barry's use of the word is not always complimentary but is always rich in language terms. I managed to get a copy of the script and there are nine mentions of the c-word or c-word-based derivatives. Helen the garda says it first referring to the 'c**ten Butlins sign'. Later she refers to 'the c**tology' that goes on around the Sligo town below the hill. At another point Bopper is upset about a celebrity who he describes as only a 'c**t from the grass o' two cows outside Durrow in Co Offaly'. Helen then refers to the McRae brothers as 'c**tologists'. Bopper another time talks about his one-time love of yoga, revealing that he was at the cat-and-cow pose 'like a c**t on fire', by which he means he was passionate about the pose. In another scene, Helen bemoans the trajectory of her Garda career: 'The c**ts took one look at me and they said, away!' Bopper is writing a country song: 'Oh the Bopper he walked by night ... had his fill o' the Sligo c**ts'. Later he discusses his fears, one of them being that he might die inside the Roscommon border 'coz the c**ts wouldn't throw a shovel o'dirt over you'. Bopper at another point tries to quieten Archie by saying: 'Shut the f**k up you f**ken c**t ya!' And that's all nine uses of the word in the best play I've seen at the Abbey since The Train for you now. Rest assured, there is an awful lot more to it than that. It made me laugh. And think. And, when I read the script, I cried. I can't stop thinking about Archie and Bopper and Helen. [ Curse words around the world have something in common (we swear) Opens in new window ] A few days after the Abbey, the Scrabble crew cycled over to my house from the Southside, by Luke Kelly's head, along our lovely Royal Canal Greenway, for the latest session of our tournament. There's a lot of canape one-upmanship going on in these Scrabble evenings. A certain person has started serving quail eggs dipped in cumin salt so there was nothing for it but to have a go. A medium quail's egg, it turns out, only needs three minutes to boil. It turned out some other Scrabble club members, people with much stronger critic credentials, held different views on The Cave. They felt it trivialised mental health issues and lacked political edge. Someone said the audience laughed too much. At which point, as though Barry himself was giving his verdict on all that, one player revealed the C-bomb nestling innocently in his rack. It's a valid Scrabble word.
Irish Independent
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Irish Independent
Letters: Social and affordable housing is the only way forward for Ireland
All such initiatives to date have contained significant benefits for developers, landlords and landowners, and all have failed to make even a dent in the crisis. The excessive faith in financial incentives is a serious mistake, usually made by diehard, free-market ideologues, and we can see the long shadow of their handiwork in our failures in the provision of all social goods. When asked to explain this latest initiative, the minister's reply was the usual 'supply is the problem'. The solution is to offer even more incentives to private entities operating in the sector. But surely under-supply is a symptom of the real problem: government policy that outsources the provision of all housing to the market. The expectation that the 'market' would partner with the Government to help close the yawning gap between supply and demand is, at best, delusional. First-year students of economics know that the market thrives when demand outstrips supply. It is beyond naive to believe that those who are gaining significantly from the current imbalance would contribute in any meaningful way to changing things. So long as the Governments insists on treating the symptom, the problem will not only persist but worsen. The real solution is for the Government to focus all its resources on the provision of social and affordable housing. Jim O'Sullivan, Rathedmond, Co Sligo US is now sliding towards a dictatorship, but not enough is said about it As I viewed the video footage of US Democratic senator Alex Padilla being forced to the ground and handcuffed by security guards at a news conference, I was appalled. It happened after the senator tried to ask US homeland secretary Kristi Noem about the Trump administration policy in targeting immigrants. ADVERTISEMENT California governor Gavin Newsom is correct in describing the incident as 'outrageous, dictatorial and shameful'. This is scary stuff. It's beyond the pale that a sitting US senator should be treated in such an abominable fashion. I am aware this was a news conference, but in this instance I believe the senator had every right to call for an end to the violence on the streets of Los Angeles. The reality here is that if people around the world decide to stay silent, the US won't survive. It appears to me America is on the edge of dictatorship. This is why powerful voices across institutions, from politics to academia and religion, must speak out. John O'Brien, Clonmel, Co Tipperary Compassion is not a sign of weakness, and Geldof was right to call out Musk I found myself unexpectedly cheering Bob Geldof's tirade against Elon Musk and others who seem to regard empathy as some sort of evolutionary glitch ('Geldof brands Musk a sociopathic loser in tirade against UK and American leaders' – June 13). It's a relief to see someone remind our leaders – at full volume – that compassion isn't weakness. When he calls Musk a 'ketamine-crazed fool' from a London stage and still raises nearly a million pounds for the world's poorest people, it's hard not to clap along. Enda Cullen, Tullysaran Road, Armagh 'Soccer-style' shootouts in hurling miss the point of the real beautiful game The Munster Hurling Championship has always been a gem in the sporting calendar. I have attended finals going back to the early 1970s. I fully understand that in the event of a draw it is unfair to ask amateurs with club commitments to group together for a replay. But hurling has many alternatives to a penalty shootout. Frankly, a coin toss would be better. The penalty system emanates from soccer, and hurling in no way replicates the scoring system. There are other options, such as sudden death, as we see in hockey. Or we could have a diverse system that would replicate true hurling skills. We could have a one-point penalty, followed by one-point frees from various angles and distances – including sideline cuts. The shootout could keep going from greater distances. It would offer the greatest range of skills. Gerard Walsh, Ontario, Canada Iran needs regime change, but Israeli bombs are not the way to bring this about Once again Benjamin Netanyahu has shown he will do what he wants, whenever he wants, regardless of consequences. Having lived and worked in Iran, I fully agree that a change of government is needed in the interests of the Iranian people. There are ways to achieve this, but not by Israel bombing the country. However, seemingly having a 'free hand' to deal with the Palestine issue, Netanyahu clearly feels he can turn his attention elsewhere in pursuit of his 'objectives' while the free world continues to stand by. Michael Moriarty, Rochestown, Co Cork I'll keep this one short, as I have height of respect for relationships and tall tales Reading Tanya Sweeney's article about women who insist on dating tall men (June 12) reminded me of the woman who ended her relationship with a much taller man who had cheated on her. On reflection, she consoled herself with the belief that it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved a tall. Tom Gilsenan, Beaumont, Dublin 9 We should all cherish our amazing seas, while at the same time keeping safe Kathy Donaghy's article ('My brush with death shows importance of staying safe when taking to the water', June 7) reminded me of how macho and brave I thought I was as I enjoyed swimming in the sea my younger days. I congratulate Kathy on her excellent piece. It has taken me many years to learn that while we should relish 'the fantastic benefits and joy of the water', as she puts it, the sea must be given the respect it deserves, no matter how beautiful it is. The importance of staying safe when taking to the water can never be overstated.
