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 Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States USA’s 31st Irish President Barack Obama and Queen Elizabeth II are likely to visit Ireland in late May or early June of 2011.
In the case of President Obama his visit is likely to coincide with other European engagements. “The end of May is likely,” said an official, familiar with discussions regarding Mr Obama’s forthcoming trip to Europe. Records unearthed by the Church of Ireland’s Rev. Canon Stephen Neill show beyond doubt that Mr Obama’s ancestors, on his mother’s side lived, worked, married and had children in the Moneygall area, situated on the border separating counties Tipperary and Offaly. It is expected that the president will wish to visit his ancestral home during this visit.
Mr Obama and his wife, US first lady Michelle Obama, will visit Britain on a state visit at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II, from May 24th to 26th. He will travel on to Deauville, France, for the G8 Summit on May 26th to 27th. Discussions within the US administration are now focused on whether Mr Obama should visit Ireland before London or after Deauville and the White House hope it is before the UK, visit according to US officials.
Neither the White House, the Irish Embassy in Washington nor indeed the US embassy in Dublin would confirm officially that a visit is likely in late May. Discussions about the trip appear not to have, so far, involved the Irish government, with the speculation that the US are waiting for Irish politics to be fully clarified over the coming week.
 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II The annual St Patrick’s Day pilgrimage to Washington will be one of the first acts of our new Taoiseach Enda Kenny and if the May expected visit materialises, a visit is likely to be announced at the White House during the St Patrick’s Day reception.
Democratic congressman Richard Neal, the former head of the Friends of Ireland in the House of Representatives, stated that a visit to Ireland would have obvious implications for Mr Obama’s re-election campaign.
Planning in relation to both visits is somewhat complicated by the fact that Irish President Mary McAleese has already issued an invitation to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, to visit Ireland, probably also in late May or June.
Regarding Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s II visit, there may be a reluctance on the part of the Irish government to take on two such important visits so close together, however these logistics are something that both governments will be anxious to negotiate.
Queen Elizabeth II, although she has never visited Thurles, has strong ancestral connections with the town and is a direct descendant of Viscount and Lady Thurles through their eldest son, the Duke of Ormond. The Duke’s daughter, Elizabeth, married Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl Chesterfield, and their daughter Elizabeth Stanhope married John Lyon, 4th Earl Strathmore. Six generations later in direct line was the 14th Earl Strathmore whose daughter, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon married the future King George VI; and these are the grandparents of Prince Charles. Thurles is therefore expected to be included as a stop off point in any proposed future visit.
Many of Queen Elizabeth’s ancestors are buried at St. Mary’s Church here in Thurles, including Lady Elizabeth Butler,(Elizabeth Poyntz, Acton, 1673.) from whom she inherited her christian name. Sophie Helen Rhys-Jones, wife of Prince Edward attended a funeral on behalf of the British Royal Family in November last, here in Upperchurch, Thurles, Co Tipperary.
Residents of nursing homes and some hospitals and hospices in the 43 constituencies have been casting their votes in advance of Friday’s General Election, since last Wednesday. Voting in a number of these institutions also took place on Saturday and will continue this week until today.
The final figures for older voters and hospital residents who have cast their votes will not be known until after the close of polling on election day, Friday, February 25th. Returning officers in each constituency have made make special arrangements to facilitate early voting in consultation with residential homes and hospitals. This is a practice that has been in place for many years and an estimated 8,000 nursing home and hospital residents are registered as special voters in the 43 constituencies.
Here in South Tipperary, 84 people voted on Wednesday and Thursday, while in North Tipperary 445 special voters were eligible to cast their vote which will conclude today.
Meanwhile Back At The Ranch In Tipperary North
Kate Bopp:
Independent Kate Bopp is screaming that allowance of over €40,000 a year for the life of the Dail is unacceptable, given that T.D’s are already paid €92,000 a year plus expenses and points out that Bord Snip Nua recommended the scrapping of the leaders allowance.
She states that all of the major parties are campaigning on cut backs to be made left right and centre, while at the same time not pushing for any substantial cuts in their own wages, expenses and allowances. If elected in North Tipperary Kate Bopp says she will refuse the Leaders Allowance and is calling on all other Independents to do the same. This patriotic financial gift to our nation (or final act of desperation for a vote) will no doubt drive the IMF from our shores and contribute greatly to our economic well being.
Who is Kate Bopp anyway, does anyone know her?
 Alan Kelly Alan Kelly
Labour’s Alan Kelly is being bullied and abused and claims there has been a sustained campaign against him from other rival candidates. Mr Kelly says there has been a litany of attacks through, of all places, the media, while over 300 of his election posters have gone missing. However, thankfully this leaves 49,700 posters still plastered on anything that stood still for five minutes around the constituency. Mr Kelly says the motivation behind the attacks is that if elected, he will have influence in the next Government for the North Tipperary region. Rival candidates don’t want change and so are trying to undermine his Labour Party campaign.
Trust me this is not true Mr Kelly, be positive, these posters were taken by your host of loyal fans who are going to be looking for autographs shortly, so stay out of the European Parliament for at least another month and have your pencil ready and sharpened.
Michael Lowry
A number of parents in North Tipperary have expressed their anger at a move to obtain votes by our Independent T.D Michael Lowry. No later than Friday last, school principal Mr Matthew Carr permitted letters in Oireachtas envelopes received from Deputy Lowry to be handed out to pupils, not eligible to vote at Borrisokane’s Community College.
The letter states that Michael Lowry made sure a new school for Borrisokane would become a reality, as part of his deal with the Coalition Government. Our Michael’s letter concludes by asking for a first preference vote in Friday’s election.
Believe it or believe it not, some ungrateful wretches of parents of pupils at the Community College have objected to what they see as their children being used as political pawns and fail to understand the crucial role Michael played ensuring that a new school would be built for their spoiled brats. True for Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, “It is my opinion that too much has been done for this people.”
By the way does anyone know what other major benefits Michael obtained for North Tipperary, in that special secret deal which allowed him to support Fianna Fail, as it set about promoting bankers, developers and the ultra greedy in our society, latter who destroyed this country. Maybe Maire Hoctor knows, but she is remaining very quite in her election campaigning.
Still, not to worry boys and girls there could be spot in Seanad Éireann if “push comes to shove”, if you understand my meaning.
So looking forward to this Friday and do please stop bullying the shy, retiring Alan Kelly, there are laws against that kind of behaviour.
Local Fine Gael TD, Noel Coonan, is calling on Fine Gael Party Leader Enda Kenny TD and Environment Spokesperson Phil Hogan TD to declare that monies allocated for national roadways over the next two years will instead be spent on fixing our obliterated county roads.
“I have called on the Party Leader to divert monies from national to county roads as a matter of urgency. The reasoning for this is simply that, throughout this canvassing trail, I have met countless constituents who are absolutely sick of the state of country roadways and I cannot blame them. There is a scourge of potholes littering country roads and the Celtic Tiger is definitely long gone and wasted by this Fianna Fáil-led Government,” said Deputy Coonan.
When Fine Gael was last in Government in 1994, we had to initiate a response to the problem of county roads at that stage and now in 2011 the county roads are even worse as a result of appalling neglect by this Fianna Fáil-led Government.
People living in rural areas are subjected to a Beirut blitz on our roads on a daily basis. Their cars are shook apart as they crawl through potholes and over uneven hazardous surfaces. My proposal is that funding earmarked for national roadways be diverted towards county roads to address the need of the rural community which has long been hammered by this defunct inefficient Government,” concluded the local Fine Gael TD.
Meanwhile, one of Fine Gael’s brightest minds, Leo Varadkar TD, has endorsed his colleague and local Deputy Noel Coonan as “an excellent TD who deserves to be re-elected in North Tipperary/South Offaly.”
The Frontbench Spokesperson gave an inspirational speech to a packed captivated audience at Deputy Coonan’s final campaign rally in Roscrea’s Muintir na Tire Hall last Friday night.
“I have seen Noel work hard since he was elected to Dáil Eireann in 2007 and there is no reason why your constituency will not have a Minister if you give Noel your No 1 and make him part of the new Government on March 9th,” said Deputy Varadkar to an excited and buzzing audience.
“In six days we go to the polls and we are potentially looking at a political earthquake,” continued the Dublin TD, “This is a chance for a transformational election to change Irish politics for good. If this happens we will prove within the first 100days that Fine Gael is different and we mean business.” The crowded hall then erupted in enthusiastic cheer.
Deputy Coonan was in agreement with the Communications Spokesperson and was equally as inspiring when he said: “Tears of joy ran down the faces of Fine Gael supporters in 2007 when I was gratefully elected as your Fine Gael TD to Dáil Eireann after a tough battle. This election could be the most important election ever and there is no point in having Fine Gael in Government if we have no Fine Gael Deputy from North Tipperary/South Offaly there, to look after our area which has suffered years of neglect. I see people here tonight that I know are not associated with any political party and I ask you to lend me your vote on this occasion and give Fine Gael a chance.”
The local TD said North Tipperary has suffered huge job losses over the years but our strong farming industry offers a glimmer of hope. “Exports from the agricultural sector rocketed this year and we have a glorious opportunity here to become renowned leaders in exporters of quality food,” said the CAP Reform Spokesperson.
Deputy Coonan was loudly cheered when he said: “Fine Gael represents openness, decency and integrity. There will be no cover-ups or covert deals with Independent TDs. People will know where we are going and what we are doing at all times. This Government went for short term profits and turned their eyes towards the bondholders, developers and bankers. Let’s end this sickening cronyism by voting Fine Gael and we will be proud to call Ireland ‘a nation once again”.
Wrapping up the meeting, Deputy Mr Varadkar received a standing ovation when he said: “Enda is very different to Eamon Gilmore who flit flops on just about anything. Six weeks ago the Labour Party wanted to get the deficit down to 3% by 2014, but then came under pressure from Sinn Fein so they changed their mind on that. Last November they wanted 15,000 voluntary redundancies in the public service in one year and yet now they are saying they are doing 30,000 in four years. Last November the Labour Party was in favour of water metering and today they are opposed to it.
Michael Martin is a man who has spent 14 days on the backbenches and seems to have forgotten he was a Government Minister for the last 14 years and it’s important to remember that he was there when the HSE was set up, when FAS was wasting millions of euros and when Ireland lost its competitiveness.
In contrast, Leader Enda Kenny has stuck with his decisions, is strong under pressure, and in my opinion has won the last two television debates. He has exceeded expectations in this election,” concluded Deputy Varadkar.
Alan Kelly Fine Gael TD and Tipperary North/South Offaly Candidate, Noel Coonan, has sharply hit out at MEP Alan Kelly, latter currently still AWOL and on walk about from the real job, for which he was elected by the people of Munster at the last European elections. Eamonn Gilmore’s ‘bright little hope’ and ready ‘scare mongerer’ in the Tipperary North/South Offaly constituency is claiming, in a press release to Tipp FM this morning, that the Fine Gael Party and Fianna Fáil, if in office, will cut teacher numbers.
Mr Kelly is obviously retaliating today, having read this weeks Tipperary Star Newspaper, in which Deputy Maire Hoctor, whose Fianna Fáil party supporters, need a garda escort to enable them to go canvassing in Offaly, claims that the Labour party will close rural schools.
In this case, though it grieves me greatly to say it, Maire appears to be correct. Mr Kelly, who had the worst voting record in 2009 in Seanad Éireann, voting just nine times out of a possible 55, appears to never read the Irish Independent, which published recently a report by his party colleague Deputy Quinn, (latter the ‘would be’ Education Minister in any unlikely Labour government,) that he favoured amalgamating small rural schools, using the HSE’s hospital ‘Centres of Excellence’ recipe model, latter which has left North Tipperary without any real medical services.
Thurles Information today contacted Deputy Coonan regarding this report and the Deputy laughingly stated:
“The date for voting is getting ever so close and this is a desperate measure by Mr Alan Kelly, who is throwing about anything that he believes the public want to hear, instead of dealing honestly with the real problems facing the education sector. His claims are completely incorrect and are also hugely disappointing, coming as they do from an MEP, who has obviously not studied his homework. He should know at this stage that Fine Gael in power is in a position to credibly commit to an increase of 2,500 teachers from the 2010 levels by 2014 in order to maintain current pupil-teacher ratios.
The Labour MEP’s attacks on Fine Gael policy smacks of complete desperation and Alan Kelly’s untrue accusation further undermines his credibility, following his pledge to the people to serve as an MEP for five years, but backing away from this responsibility less than two years into his term of office.
Labour is a high tax party and, unlike Fine Gael, does not have any credible plan to fix the economy. Fine Gael is determined to protect vital front line services in the public sector, especially those provided by teachers in rural schools, and I think Mr Kelly would be better placed wasting his energy on formulating just one original policy of his own.
We in Fine Gael will cut spending levels across all Departments in order to protect the quality of the educational experience received by our children. We will not increase class sizes and to achieve this objective we will work with education partners to seek further efficiencies in work practices, in line with the Croke Park Agreement, and to devolve more power to school principals and teachers to make tight budgets go further.
Meanwhile, Fine Gael scored highest overall when it came to proposals for political reform according to the academic group, Reformcard, who examined proposals under five headings: Oireachtas, Electoral, Open Government, Public Sector and Local Government Reform and marked each party’s plans out of 100 marks.
Fine Gael was ahead on the group’s ratings for political reform plans with an overall score of 73 out of 100. Labour followed on 68, Fianna Fáil on 58, the Green Party on 53 while Sinn Féin was on a low 26 on the scoreboard.
Fine Gael pledges to open all government data, protect whistleblowers, make public sector budgets more accountable and appoint a minister of Public Service reform, greatly impressed this group.
Continue reading Alan Kelly MEP ‘Desperate’ States Coonan
 Dr Martin Mansergh Fianna Fáil Minister of State Dr Martin Mansergh looks set to lose his Dáil seat in Tipperary South, according to an Irish Times /Ipsos MRBI constituency poll.
The poll also shows Mattie ‘The Deer Hunter,‘ McGrath, a former Fianna Fáil TD, who turned Independent in an effort to improve his chances in the upcoming General Election, will be in a battle for the final seat in the three-seat constituency with Labour Party senator Phil Prendergast.
While I have no sympathy for ‘Deer Hunter‘ McGrath – “If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.“- Quote from St. Francis of Assisi, and I have not voted for Fianna Fáil, since I cannot remember when, but I feel that for Dr Martin Mansergh to loose his seat as a public representative, would be a backward step for South Tipperary and Ireland.
To be rational and fair-minded this Tipperary-born Irish and Commonwealth historian has made a huge contribution to this island of ours, take a look at his record to date.
- Elected to Seanad Éireann on the Agricultural Panel after nomination by the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association, 2002.
- Prior to appointment as Minister of State, member of the Excel Heritage Board, Tipperary and trustee of Cashel Bolton Library.
- Involved in the expansion of Overseas Development Assistance since 1992.
- Argued the merits of Fianna Fáil adopting the national minimum wage during the 2002 election.
- Promoted economic and tax strategy, including the introduction of tax credits.
- Argued the merits of reinstating the full Christmas bonus to Social Welfare recipients.
- Argued the merits of future public transport investment.
- Promoted historical and cultural projects, like the Pearse family home, the Irish College in Paris, the Boyne battle site, and Cathedral restorations.
- Member of the Delegation and of the official Steering Group for the Good Friday Agreement negotiations.
- Was Northern Ireland Advisor to three Taoisigh and leaders of Fianna Fáil over 21 years, 1981-2002.
- Conducted discussions with IRSP prior to INLA ceasefire and responsible for dialogue with Sinn Féin leadership and with Church intermediaries, including those in touch with Unionist and Loyalist leaderships, prior to first and second IRA ceasefires.
- He worked on the text of what subsequently became known as Hume-Adams and in expanded form the Downing Street Declaration.
- He was winner with Fr. Reid and Rev Roy Magee of the Tipperary Peace Prize.
He is also ‘cheaper to run,‘ than Mattie McGrath and uses public transport to get about. South Tipp Fianna Fail TD and play actor Mattie McGrath, between the 2007 General Election and September 2009, collected over €161,500, in expenses while Minister of State Martin Mansergh claimed a mere €73,272 during the same period.
Let us not “throw out the baby with the bath water” here, in our haste to rid this country of Fianna Fáil, we need persons of proven academic ability in the Dáil, even if they are in opposition and even Mattie will acknowledge that Mansergh has “bought and sold a banbh at a fair.”
I am still searching for Mattie McGrath’s major contribution to National Politics and as for Labour Senator Phil Prendergast of Clonmel, who attended only 18 out of 55 votes in Seanad Éireann in 2009, enough said.
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