Latest news with #MarkPattersonShow
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
New life for old fort as tower house transformed into community hub
The future of a formerly-at-risk 19th Century tower house has been secured with the successful transformation of Culmore Fort. Culmore Fort, in County Londonderry, has been restored for community use. It is set to accommodate youth mental health services and host meetings for a variety of sports, heritage and cultural organisations. Following years of planning and more than £265,000 in funding, the historic site in County Londonderry was converted for public use by the Culmore Community Partnership (CCP). The CCP's chairman, Neil Doherty, said the restoration will be a vital resource for the whole community. Speaking to BBC Radio Foyle's Mark Patterson Show, Mr Doherty said the Village Catalyst grant scheme — a collaborative initiative between the Department for Communities (DfC), the Architectural Heritage Fund (AHF), the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera) and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) — helped make this vision a reality. Additional support was also provided by The Honourable Irish Society, the Garfield Weston Foundation, and the Pilgrim Trust, he said. Mr Doherty told the programme that the fort at Culmore was held by the Crown until 1840 when it and its surrounding lands were sold to The Honourable Irish Society, who remain its owners. "For about 50 years, nobody had lived in it as the fort had been leased by Lough Foyle Yacht Club and was primarily a boat storage area, and it was becoming a wee bit derelict," he said. "We have been here now six months since the work started and it has been an unbelievable change. "The idea of taking a very old building that was out of use and changing it into something beautiful and somewhere that the community can use is fantastic." Ryan Byrne from We Build Ireland has helped carry out the restoration and modernisation works at the fort. "We were very fortunate to work with a very great architect in Mark Hackett who has been incredibly accommodating with the builders," he said. "Sometimes these old buildings get restricted by the design team. "You have to work with the building, because sometimes when you try to work against the building, that's when things can go wrong." Ryan said Mark's vision and sensitivity to the fort's historic character ensured that every decision they carried out respected the past while also bringing to life the modern state-of-the-art plans. Una Cooper, strategic manager of CCP, emphasised the significance of the fort's future role for the area. "It is no longer just a historical site," she said. "It's a safe, inclusive, space that will support young people, celebrate our culture and bring the community together. "We are incredibly proud of what this project represents." Northern Ireland Communities Minister Gordon Lyons welcomed the restoration of the historic fort and said it will be a huge benefit to the people of Culmore and surrounding areas. "We are seeing more and more communities applying to Village Catalyst (grant scheme) and I am pleased that my department is able to support projects where at-risk heritage properties are being revitalised and restored for the benefit of the local community," he said. Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister Andrew Muir said it was part-funded through his department's Tackling Rural Poverty and Social Isolation (TRPSI) Programme. "The programme tackles rural poverty and social isolation by refurbishing neglected community-owned historic buildings for locally identified uses which provide access to services and address core community needs," he said. "The provision of a multi-functional community facility in the Culmore area is a significant development and I'm delighted that this project will help support the local rural community for many years to come."
Irish Independent
21-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
Dublin to Derry flights ‘could resume by 2026' in boost to north-west region
Flights between City of Derry Airport (CoDA) and Dublin were cancelled in 2011. The airport is currently the least busy of three major airports in the north of Ireland. Recent air travel numbers from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) revealed the airport's summer quarter 2023 saw it welcome 48,000 travellers. The number is less than half the airport's strongest recorded quarter, when it saw close to 130,000 travellers in July-September 2011. Since that high point, the airport has faced the loss of routes like Ryanair's former Derry to Dublin flight, and the disruption of the global pandemic. Donegal TD Mr McConalogue told BBC News NI that talks to reinstate the Derry to Dublin route are ongoing. "The Irish government are committed to stepping this forward, have put a timeline in place as to how we can make this happen, and I have been liaising with the minister for transport and City of Derry management," he told BBC Radio Foyle's Mark Patterson Show. McConalogue said it been a commitment in the Government's programme for government and that it would move forward. He added that next month the transport Minister Darragh O'Brien will meet the airport management. McConalogue said the loss has "been a real disadvantage to Derry, Donegal, and the north-west region". In April, it was announced that direct flights between Derry and Heathrow will continue to be subsidised for two more years. It followed an announced by Stormont Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald of £4.626 million of funding from her department and Westminster's Department for Transport. It will ensure the continuation of flights between CoDA and Heathrow until March 31, 2027.
BBC News
01-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Jennifer Johnston: A 'literary giant' and Dublin-born Derry girl
The award-winning Irish novelist and playwright Jennifer Johnston, who died aged 95 on Tuesday, was born in Dublin but adopted Londonderry as her Booker-nominated author moved to Derry in the 1970s and would remain there for more than 40 lived with her second husband David Gilliland in Brook Hall, an imposing 18th Century demesne on the Culmore Road, overlooking the River eldest son, Patrick Smyth, told BBC News NI her life in Derry was a whole new chapter and she "embraced its cultural life". Among her new friends were Brian and Anne Friel, John and Pat Hume, Denis Bradley - the former priest who acted as a secret "backchannel" between the IRA and the government - and "half the taxi drivers of the city", he said."She revelled in her work with the arts council and school and public readings, and took great pride in her visits to prisoners in the Maze."Her writing, notably Shadows on our Skin, reflected a deep commitment to cross-community reconciliation."Patrick said she passed on to her children a love of life, of curiosity, of fun, a need to challenge and a love of books."She once told an interviewer about her own childhood: 'We read real books, right from the age of four up to 17. We also read history books. But it always seemed to me that history books were written by people who were trying to explain some enormous mess that we'd all got into but were never going to be able to explain. Whereas novelists can explain things in their own way. That's why it's so important that children read.'"That is how we hope she will be remembered," he said. House was a sanctuary David Gilliland's son Philip said the couple entertained at Brook Hall."There was nearly always somebody else at the kitchen table," he said. "They sought out anybody who they thought was interesting and who thought their own thoughts; people from the literary world and not."He said that, when she married his father and moved to Derry she "made his home her home"."I would say it's where the bulk of her work was written. The house was something of a sanctuary from what was going on in the real world in Derry at that time," he said Brook Hall lent itself to being both a tranquil study, and at other times - particularly holiday times - the "perfect place for large and lively gatherings of the two families".However, as Shadows on our Skins shows - she was "far from immune from what was going on in the real world"."Because she didn't drive, she struck up great relationships with Derry's taxi-men, who were universally kind to her."They will miss her, too, like the rest of us." 'Thoroughly involved' Close friend Mary Murphy described her as having a deep love for the city and its people, being happy to call the place home for so told BBC Radio Foyle's Mark Patterson Show that an "evening with Jennifer would have you going from being stimulated intellectually and philosophically one minute and the next, you would be bent over laughing". Johnston was known for exploring themes like Anglo-Irish identity and the novel Shadows on Our Skin - set in Derry in the 1970s - was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in followed Joe Logan, who grew up in the Bogside, navigating teenage life against a backdrop of bombs and bullets and was later made into a film, with local boy Macrea Clarke as Many Miles to Babylon?, the story of an unlikely friendship between two boys from different social backgrounds during World War One, remains a set text for English literature students. Jennifer Prudence Johnston was born in 1930 and lived variously in Donnybrook - the family home - Paris, London, Derry and Dún father was the famous playwright and war correspondent Denis Johnston and her mother was the acclaimed actress Shelah met her first husband Ian Smyth, who was a fellow student at Trinity College Dublin in the 1940s, and they lived in London, where they had four after her divorce, she married lawyer David Gilliland, with whom she lived in Derry, before eventually moving back to Dublin. A big house and two massive dogs BBC presenter Marie-Louise Kerr, who interviewed Johnston, had a memorable experience when she went down to meet her at Brook Hall in the 1990s. "This was all pre-mobile phones, so I arranged a time with her, and I drove down this extraordinary windy driveway to a house at the bottom which was overlooking the Foyle," Kerr said. "When I got there, all I could see were these two massive dogs - and I mean massive - I was so terrified. "I saw Jennifer come to the door and she shouted: 'They're fine, they're only babies - come in,' so I had to trust her. It was genuinely a trust walk, because they certainly didn't look like babies to me." Kerr said Jennifer, despite being incredibly proud of her roots in Dublin, developed a deep love for her adopted home city. Kerr believes she wrote Shadows on Our Skin "for Derry". "Derry was her home for so many years and she wrote so many of her novels in her study overlooking the River Foyle. "It had a huge place in her imagination, as well as being her physical place." 'Led the way for many women' Derry bookstore owner Jenni Doherty said Johnston was "a formidable spirit" and "led the way for many women in writing, in wit and worth"."She took no prisoners and was sharp and witty," she said. Johnston's signature proudly adorns the Legenderry writers' chair, which bears the names of many celebrated prestigious authors who have visited Jenni's bookshop. 'Commemoration of Jennifer's life' Jennifer Johnston is survived by her children Patrick, Sarah, Lucy and Malachi, her grandchildren Sam Daniels and Attikos Lemos Smyth, her brother Micheal and half-brother Rory.A private family cremation will take place on Saturday and there will be a public commemoration of her life at 14:00 in the public theatre (exam hall) of Trinity College Dublin.
