Author: niamhmurray

On Tuesday 7^th March, the Garage Theatre in Monaghan hosted the premier of a new short film about peatlands, carbon and climate staring John Sharpson, well known as Múinteoir John from the RTE schools’ hub.  Magic under Monaghan is a short film for young people, but with a universal reach, exploring links between our peatlands and wetlands heritage, and climate change action. Filmed on Sliabh Beagh, Monaghan’s only expanse of blanket bog habitat, it demonstrates both the beauty of the area and the crucial role peatlands play for our planetary health.

The creation and production of Magic Under Monaghan has been funded through Monaghan’s Creative Ireland programme and was led by the Heritage Office in the council.

The production team at Macalla was spearhead by talented producer Sharon Newman. Magic Under Monaghan is energetically presented by John Sharpson, well-known as TV school’s hub Múinteoir John, soon to be better known as a bog buddie, with his two animated friends Pete and Fen.

Cllr. Sean Conlon, Cathaoirleach of Monaghan County Council who attended and spoke at the launch explained “how by preserving and restoring peatlands, nature can help keep stores of greenhouse gases in the peat, and the mosses can continue to absorb carbon dioxide from the air.  With EU funding, Monaghan County Council has started restoration work and has put in well over a thousand peat dams to block drains in the blanket bog on Sliabh Beagh over the last few years.”

The Chief Executive of Monaghan County Council, Patricia Monahan, noted the wetland advocacy work done through the Heritage Office over several years and noted that, “Over a decade ago, the Heritage Office examined the ecosystem benefits deriving from six types of wetlands in the county, and at that stage the carbon store in Slaibh Beagh was estimated to be worth €50million.  This was a conservative figure at the time.  One can only imagine how much more this would be now, using the sophisticated methods for assessment currently available.”

Ms. Monahan also referred to the new climate action team that is being created in the council and the recruitment of a Biodiversity Officer which is underway at present.

The chair of the County Monaghan Heritage Forum, Cllr. Aoife McCooey noted how the forum had been anticipating the launch of the film, having been privy to an early cut at a forum meeting. She made the point that “as a teacher myself, I know how important climate and biodiversity action issues are for young people.  But I’m also very aware that these issues are not of their making and that it’s the organisations like Monaghan County Council who must lead the way in ensuring sustainable decisions are made for all generations.”

Cllr. McCooey thanked the continued partnership between Monaghan County Council and the Heritage Council, which enables best practice and technical expertise to be widely shared across the country.

John Sharpson, presenter and Sharon Newman, producer attended the launch and stayed to speak with attendees afterwards.  John spoke about how much he enjoyed filming on Sliabh Beagh and getting into the many characters he plays in Magic Under Monaghan, and the learning curve about peatlands and climate he found himself on.  He hoped that the film would be shown widely and resonate with audiences.

The Heritage Officer, with Monaghan County Council, Shirley Clerkin complimented the production team on the quality of the film and John for his energetic, and charismatic performance.  “Magic Under Monaghan is irreverent and informative, educational and entertaining. It’s set here but is widely applicable to anywhere with bogs and fens.  It is crucial that we restore peatlands to ensure that they continue to store carbon, and that their carbon sequestration function can work effectively.  Peatland restoration one of the nature-based solutions for the climate crisis”.

The Monaghan County Council Heritage Office will be distributing the film to schools, and to any group who wishes to show it in their venue over the next few weeks.

WATCH HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru5YBcifvDQ

If you want to get in touch with the heritage office, please contact heritage@monaghancoco.ie

 

The town of Carrickmacross expects a large attendance at this year’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade which takes place on Friday, 17^th March at 3pm.

The day kicks off at 11:00am with the raising of the flag at the Courthouse, Carrickmacross which will be accompanied by music from the Stedfast Shoes Brass Band – all are welcome to attend. Carrickmacross Comhaltas Branch are performing live traditional music from the viewing stage on Main Street at 2:30pm which is sure to warm up the crowd!

The Parade will take its usual route, commencing at the junction of the Donaghmoyne and Dundalk Roads, up through Farney Street, down Main Street and finishing at the bottom of the town at the Courthouse. Parade participants are asked to assemble on the Dundalk Road from 2:30pm.

The Carrickmacross St. Patrick’s Day Parade is one of the best Parade’s around with many colourful floats and fantastic marching bands.  There are prizes awarded to the winners and runners-up of the “Best Float” and the “Best Band” on the day, and this year it could be you! Prizes have been kindly sponsored by ERA Tobin Estate Agents; Gifts N Things; Hand Footwear and Carrickmacross Credit Union.

This year we have a sensory friendly space located at The Market House, Carrickmacross. We hope that this will help to ensure that all families will be able to enjoy the festivities. It is envisioned that the sensory friendly space will act as a calm area for those with additional needs who may feel overwhelmed by the noise and/or crowd during the parade. It is important to note that any potential room user must be supervised by their own parent/guardian/carer. The room can facilitate a maximum of 4 users at any one time and will be open from 2:30pm to 4:30pm.

 

 

 

The Council has succeeded in putting a new all-county community text alert scheme in place, and I am now in a position to give you the full details of how the scheme will operate, both from the perspective of the text alert groups, and from the perspective of the general public, as subscribers to the service.

To briefly recap, you will remember that Komeer, the service provider who sent out the scheme’s messages for the last 3 ½ years, exited the marketplace at the end of 2022, and we had to seek an alternative provider.  Key in our selection was that the new provider could offer a service as close to the one people were used to receiving as possible.  We also managed to retain the ability to sub-divide the county into local areas, so that people could sign up to receive messages from their local area.

The new service will be a bringing together of the Community Alerts service (which sent out messages from the Gardai and from community alert groups)  and Monaghan County Council’s text alert service (which sends out messages about road closures, flooding, weather warnings etc).

The new service will be called ‘Monaghan Alerts’, and will be hosted on Monaghan County Council’s website.  The direct link to the registration/ login page is:

http://alerts.monaghancoco.ie.

Apply for Monaghan Alerts – 2023

People register with Monaghan Alerts,  then they will be asked to check the box(es) of the alert services they wish to subscribe to.  The services they can select from are:

• Council Alerts
• Weather Alerts
• Garda/ Community Alerts

When they register, their phone number becomes their username,  and they set a password.    They can then come back in to their account at any time to change their settings, and opt in/ out of the services they wish to receive.

Over time, new services may be added, such as community notices.  Subscribers will be notified by message that there is a new service available, and they can then go in and add it to their ‘opt in’ list if they wish to start receiving those alerts also.

Subscribers can still opt to receive their messages by text, email or app.   The app is called ‘Monaghan Alerts’ and will be available for download from apple and google stores from Wednesday 1^st March.

As before, the service is completely free to the public.

Apply For Monaghan Alerts 2023

Gardai will send out messages by logging in to the website using a special garda username and password.  There they will have three options:

• Send message to group co-ordinators (we are asking you to confirm a person in your group to be that liaison with the Gardai.  They will receive messages from time to time from the Gardai about national campaigns, events etc, which your group may then wish to promote locally).
• Send message to a business group (for example the traders in a particular town. This could be useful if there was a gang in town targeting retailers)
• Send crime alert message. Within this option, they then must tick the areas that they wish the message to go out to.  If they wish the message to go out to the whole county,  they will need to tick all 25 boxes.  (we hope this will cut down on the amount of local messages being sent countywide, which really annoyed a lot of subscribers)

 

From you, the Community Alert Group’s perspective, the service remains the same.  Monaghan County Council will continue to underwrite the cost of the service.  We will also undertake all the statutory obligations around data protection.

When we reviewed the former scheme last summer, we noticed very few of you were using the function which allowed you to send messages out to your local subscribers.  To make the process easier for you with the new scheme, we have completely removed the need to familiarise yourself with the new system. All you need to do if you want to send out a message is send an email to us with your message, giving the name of the area(s) you want to send the message out to.  See separate page with instructions on this.

 

There are four things that I wish to highlight about the new system:

• To help the Gardai target their alerts, the county has been split into areas. The areas have been developed taking in a number of factors, including the communities that people identify with, the road networks that criminals may use and that the Gardai may need to get an alert out along, and the electoral division boundaries.  In some areas, this may mean that two or more community alert groups are included in one community area.  It’s not an exact science, and we may need to review the areas at some stage, but for the moment let’s see how they work, take notes and be ready to discuss the pro’s and con’s at the review.
• Subscribers can only select ONE area when they join up. On the old system, they could join as many groups/areas as they liked.  There didn’t seem to be any real benefit to this, and it added greatly to the cost of running the service, so that’s been removed.   Again, we can discuss it at review if it is missed by many.
• Because people can only subscribe to one area, sub-areas with a town have been removed.  This affects three residential areas of Monaghan town.  We are working on a solution to this which we will develop with the groups concerned.
• Messages can ONLY be 160 characters in length, as this is the length of a standard text message. We cannot send photos etc on the new system. Instead, a link to further information can be sent. Try to keep the link short though!!

 

Due to data protection legislation, we have been unable to migrate the database of subscribers over from Komeer to the new service, so we will be undertaking a promotional campaign to inform former Komeer subscribers that they need to re-register.

If you wish to help promote the new scheme in your area, we will provide you with posters and subscription forms.  We are also happy to attend meetings and help people to download the app.   If you are given any completed forms, please forward them on to me and I will ensure that they are uploaded on to the database and that the paper form is disposed of in accordance with our data protection procedures.

The new expanded Monaghan Alerts service will go live on Monday 27^th February, and will be launched at the Joint Policing Committee meeting on Tuesday afternoon.   We would love if you could join us for the launch, which will include a full demonstration of the new scheme.  Please find details below.

If you have any questions about the new service, please feel free to contact me on 086 838 6905 or clambe@monaghancoco.ie .  you can also reach me on the new email address, communityalerts@monaghancoco.ie

 

 

Call or text 087 7190351 to book a high-speed broadband availability check for your home or business.

Slots available from the 27^th of February until the 10^th of March

Monaghan County Council, Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), and Department for Infrastructure (DFI) are developing a scheme to replace the Ballynacarry Bridge and realign a portion of the N53/A37 road.

This project is focused on providing a safer passageway over the river Fane on the route between Castleblayney in Co. Monaghan and Cullaville in Co. Armagh

The current road alignment on the departure and approach to the bridge raises safety issues due to the bend on the road and the current sight lines. The bridge itself is an old masonry arch bridge that was constructed in 1835. The existing carriageway and parapets at the bridge location are substandard and collision records show a high number of impacts at the bridge.

The new alignment and the new bridge will allow vehicles to cross over the river Fane in a safer manner and will remove any sharp bends from the route. The cross-section of the realigned road and bridge will have enough space capacity to allow for future active travel to be developed in the area.

The existing road and bridge will still be in place and there will be a junction from the new route that will allow for a landowner or private dwelling access.

Arup have been appointed by Monaghan County Council to deliver the N53/A37 Ballynacarry Bridge Replacement Scheme from Phase 1 Concept and Feasibility stage through to Phase 5 Enabling of Procurement following the Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) Project Management Guidelines.

The Project is currently at Phase 2 Options Selection. The purpose of Phase 2 is to develop and investigate the various route options for the project and to identify suitable structural bridge forms for the crossing of the river Fane.

Public Consultation outlines an important part of advancing the design process toward the development of route options and allows for the involvement of the public in identifying key constraints.

A Public Consultation will be held to inform stakeholders of the proposed Ballynacarry bridge replacement scheme and route options. This Consultation is planned for the 2nd of March & the 3rd of March.  The consultation is being held at an in-person public consultation with all the displayed documents being made available online at https://monaghan.ie/roadtransport/major-projects/

 

Locations and dates for the two in-person events are as follows:

Public Consultation Event 1: 2nd March 2023, 16:00-20:00 Culloville Blues GAC, 1 Corrasmoo Rd, Crossmaglen, Newry BT35 9JF, United Kingdom

Public Consultation Event 2: 3rd March 2023, 16:00-20.00 The Enterprise Centre Dublin Rd, Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan, A75WF72

 

Alternatively, hardcopies of brochures and comment sheets are available for collection from the following offices (addresses below) or call +353 47 30597 to request a copy by post or email N53A37Ballynacarry@arup.com.

Monaghan County Council

Second Floor

M-Tek II Building,

Monaghan

H18 YH59

 

Comment sheets can be submitted via email to N53A37Ballynacarry@arup.com or by post to one of the following addresses:

Arup, 50 Ringsend Road, Dublin, D04 T6X0, or

Arup, Bedford House, 16-22 Bedford Street, Belfast, BT2 7FD

The closing date for submissions is 5 pm on 20th March 2023.

Monaghan County Council and the Department of Infrastructure (NI) value the opinion of the community on the project and welcome comments from the public and interested parties.

 

This Fund is Closed for Applications

Monaghan County Council is committed to supporting local communities to promote, enhance and develop their local area and increase social inclusion activity.

Please note a maximum of one application can be made under each heading, therefore a maximum of two applications in total may be made by any individual group.

Guidelines on criteria and application forms for the Funding Schemes 2023 may be obtained:

• By downloading the forms or applying online.
• By email to comenv23@monaghancoco.ie
• By contacting Environmental Services on 042 – 9661240 for Environmental Funding Scheme
• By contacting Community Development on 047 – 73750 for Community Development Scheme

 

CLOSING DATE FOR RECEIPT OF APPLICATIONS IS 4pm THURSDAY 16^th MARCH 2023

LATE APPLICATIONS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.