News review of 2022 - March

The invasion of Ukraine began on February 24. For most of us, Covid was the most dramatic time of our lives – but that paled beside the start of the Russian assault on Ukraine.

In our first edition in the month of March, Ukrainian nationals living in this area spoke of their concerns for their families at home, while we were also able to report that collections were taking place across Westmeath to provide humanitarian aid for transportation to the Ukrainian border, where hundreds of thousands of refugees were streaming into other countries to escape the war.

An American research team revealed that it was using high-quality drone footage to facilitate in-depth study of the lands surrounding Fore, Kilbixy and Kilmacahill, near Rathaspick, all locations known to have monastic and/or castle ruins.

Eleven Westmeath schools came together in March, with Mullingar Arts Centre stage schools and youth theatre students and some local musicians, to perform a choral celebration arranged by Maedhbh Hughes.

Plans were announced by the county council for the development of Castlepollard. It announced it was seeking the views of the public on the revamp of the Market House on the town square, and on the development of a town park, to go beside the library.

It was the end of an era at the cathedral when Phil Irwin retired from her role as manager of the shop, which she had established 22 years earlier on behalf of the parish.

A surprise announcement in March was that a UK/Irish consortium had selected a 25-acre site in the Lough Sheever Corporate Park in Mullingar as the location for a film and television studio campus – which, if given the green light, would be the largest facility in Europe.

Other announcements that came that same week came courtesy of Minister for Education Norma Foley during a visit to Mullingar. Minister Foley revealed her approval for multi-million euro building projects at Mullingar Community College and St Finian’s College. The Community College project is to be the development of six new general classrooms, science labs, science prep areas, art rooms, technology prep rooms, and a music room, while at St Finian’s the main building is to be refurbished and extended – and in the grounds a new building is being erected to accommodate the community of St Mary’s Special School in Delvin.

Author Patricia Gibney celebrated the sale of the two millionth copy of her Lottie Parker books, and on the business front, all in the one week, three local firms announced that they had bought into the UK market.

The Mullingar firm Writech Fire Group announced it had bought the firm Compco Fire Systems, Britain’s largest private fire-engineering company, while Mergon, headquartered in Castlepollard, announced the acquisition of Weltonhurst Ltd, a UK-based supplier of technical blow-moulded components.

The Mullingar drinks-canning firm Bevcraft announced that it acquired the UK firm Them That Can, a mobile canning business – what one might call “a canny move”!

Fire broke out at the Wallace Waste Solutions plant at the Clonmore Industrial Estate in Mullingar in March. Proprietor Michael Wallace was filmed on his digger, in the blaze, shifting material in a desperate – but successful – bid to stop the fire spreading, and the business opened as normal the next day.

The stories from Ukraine kept coming, and people responded generously to the pleas for help: among those who travelled to Poland to deliver donated items from this country to help the refugees were courier Colm Smullen and also Rory McCauley from Castlepollard and Longford man Enda Manning, who drove over a truck containing supplies collected by the Whitehall Community Group.

Mullingar Chamber of Commerce, which had organised a ‘Spotlight Ball’ for March, opted to defer the event on account of the Ukraine war and the suffering it had brought to millions of people, and the resulting humanitarian crisis and inflation crisis.

The Covid-delayed golden jubilee of the Schola Cantorum music school at St Finian’s College was marked with a gala concert at the St Patrick’s College Chapel in Maynooth in March. The actual jubilee fell in October 2020, when restrictions were in place. As part of the celebration, Gerard Lillis, director of the Schola, was presented with a Benemerenti Medal from the Pope.

What was described as a “substantial” leak occurred on The Royal Canal at The Downs. In March, work crews had to create a temporary dam so machinery could be driven from one side of the waterway to the other to facilitate the repairs.

Westmeath county councillors hotly debated the cost of heating homes after Cllr Paddy Hill pleaded at a meeting of the council that a letter be sent that very day to government asking that it allow the re-opening of bogs for turf-cutting as an emergency measure in response to the soaring cost of fuel resulting from the war in Ukraine. Opposition came from just one councillor, the Green Party member, Cllr Hazel Smyth.

Westmeath’s two ministers represented this country abroad for St Patrick’s Dy. Minister Peter Burke travelled to the Far East, packing in a phenomenal 28 different engagements in Tokyo and Seoul over the five days. Minister Robert Troy visited India, and met representatives of companies in Mumbai and New Delhi looking at expanding into Ireland, and attend the opening of ‘Ireland House’ in Mumbai.

The craic and colour that arose from the celebration of St Patrick’s Day in various parts of Westmeath was shared with our readers in nine pages of photographs.

Another page of photographs was dedicated to the Delvin Friendship Club, who in March celebrated the 25th anniversary of their foundation.

Ballynacargy welcomed the reopening of its Country Markets following the two years of closure brought about by Covid.

Proving there’s nothing wrong with his memory, U2’s bassist, Adam Clayton confirmed during an interview with Niall Breslin for his ‘Where Is My Mind’ podcast that he recalled U2 being “fecked off the stage” when the band played Bagnall’s in 1978, long before they made it big.

It, he said, and Ballina were two places in which “The U2 Band” received a less-than-positive response as they started their musical careers.