International pop star Boy George, whose paternal family has strong connections with Thurles, Co. Tipperary has released a new song titled “We Will Dance Again”.
The Culture Club frontman; born George Alan O’Dowd in England, has spoken warmly about his Irish background. In a 2013 Hot Press interview, he said his father’s relatives were from Thurles, adding that his family visited Ireland regularly during his childhood.
George Alan O’Dowd – Boy George.
His new pop-reggae song was posted to X and Instagram under both its English title and the Hebrew title עוד נרקוד (Od Nirkod). Its central message supports Israel and Jewish communities following the Hamas-led attack of October 7th 2023.
The song refers particularly to the attack on the Nova music festival, where 344 civilians and 34 members of the security services were killed and 44 people were taken hostage. Its title adopts a phrase that became an expression of hope and resilience among Israelis following the massacre.
In the song, Boy George rejects allegations of genocide against Israel, characterises its military campaign as a response to the Hamas attack and declares: “I stand with the Jews.” He also criticises musicians and activists whom he believes have condemned Israel without adequately acknowledging the events of October 7th.
The release has generated sharply divided reactions. Supporters have praised Boy George for confronting antisemitism and remembering the Nova victims, while critics say the song disregards the enormous Palestinian death toll and the findings of UN inquiries concerning Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Israel rejects allegations that it has committed genocide.
Boy George is not Jewish but has frequently spoken about his affinity with Jewish people and his determination to support Jewish friends and communities. He has also said that this support does not mean he lacks compassion for Palestinians or agrees with everything happening in Israel.
For Thurles readers, the release carries an additional local point of interest; one of Britain’s most distinctive pop performers has openly identified the town as part of his extended O’Dowd family story.
Lyrics and Vocals: Written and performed by American singer-songwriter Neil Diamond(Neil Leslie Diamond).
Neil Diamond’s song,“I’ve Been This Way Before” is a reflective song about the recurring nature of human experience. The singer has most certainly known success, but also rejection, doubt, happiness and pain, and recognises that these emotional cycles will return. This realisation gives him resilience. Neither praise nor hardship is permanent, so he can accept both without being defined by either. His lyrics may also perhaps carry a spiritual meaning. References to having travelled this path before and encountering familiar souls again, can suggest reincarnation, an afterlife, or a deeper connection that survives death. Listeners commonly describe the song as spiritual and hopeful, particularly in relation to bereavement and reunion.
Neil Diamond.
Released on his 1974 album “Serenade”, “I’ve Been This Way Before” is a deeply contemplative song about resilience, spiritual recognition and the repeating patterns of life. Diamond’s narration arrives at a calm understanding; every experience passes, yet each may return in another form. The song perhaps invites us to face life’s changing fortunes with humility and hope, and perhaps to believe that the people and connections we once treasured are never entirely lost.
I’ve Been This Way Before.
I’ve Been This Way Before.
I’ve seen the light, And I’ve seen the flame, And I’ve been this way before, And I’m sure to be this way again. For I’ve been refused, And I’ve been regained, And I’ve seen your eyes before, And I’m sure to see your eyes again, Once again. For I’ve been released, And I’ve been regained, And I’ve sung my song before, And I’m sure to sing my song again. Once again. Some people got to laugh. Some people got to cry. Some people got to make it through, By never wondering why. Some people got to sing. Some people got to sigh. Some people they never see the light, Until the day they die, But I’ve been released, And I’ve been regained, And I’ve been this way before, And I’m sure to be this way again, Once again. One more time again. Just one more time.
Thurles, Co. Tipperary has apparently developed an innovative transport policy; to force enormous juggernauts through streets designed when the principal form of heavy traffic had four legs and ate hay.
Available to view on Mill Road, Thurles, one of two signs within metres of each other, originally warning of a dangerous junction and dangerous bends. Pic: G. Willoughby.
The predictable result can be seen in the accompanying, undeniable video shown hereunder; for months damaged signs, battered street furniture, demolished walls, uprooted and dinged bollards and not surprisingly yet another enormous bill waiting for the over-stretched ratepayer.
If the claim that 90% of signs are seriously damaged is to be stated as fact, Tipperary County Council should immediately conduct and publish a proper survey. What is already beyond dispute is that the council; not passing motorists or magical road-sign fairies, is totally responsible for maintaining signs on local and regional roads.
Video courtesy of G. Willoughby. (Feel free to copy/share).
Local residents may know every turn in Thurles by instinct, by memory and generations of experience, but tourists, delivery drivers and other non locals do not. They depend on clear, visible signs to identify directions, restrictions and hazards.
Damaged or unreadable signage is therefore more than an embarrassment; it creates a genuine road-safety concern, particularly where unfamiliar drivers must make sudden decisions while navigating narrow, heavily trafficked streets. The Road Safety Authority expressly identifies regulatory, warning and information signs as essential guidance for tourists using Irish roads. Visitors should receive directions, not an unscheduled navigation exam, with a juggernaut approaching from the opposite direction.
For years, Thurles residents have heard about an Inner Relief Road and an Outer Bypass. The council’s 2024 – 2030 Local Area Plan still describes both as projects for which funding must be secured. The Inner Relief Road alone is intended to provide a 1.1-kilometre connection between the N62 and Mill Road, while the proposed bypass would link the N62, N75 and R498.
In 2025, only €100,000 was allocated to progress the Inner Relief Road’s detailed design. That is progress in the same sense that buying a doormat means your house is nearly built.
Mr Michael Lowry TD, Mr Alan Kelly TD and Mr Ryan O’Meara TD must now provide the public with something more useful than announcements, photographs and recycled assurances.
The evidence for action is already visible on the road. Official data published for the N62 at Turtulla records an average of 9,539 vehicle movements every day. More importantly, Tipperary County Council’s own Thurles Local Transport Plan concludes that the proposed road schemes would reduce total traffic in the town-centre core by approximately 20%, cut traffic crossing the River Suir bridge by more than 50%, and reduce town-centre heavy-goods traffic by approximately 50%.
The same plan states that roughly three-quarters of the predicted reduction would involve strategic traffic that neither begins nor ends its journey in Thurles. Vehicles presently passing through the town would use a suitable alternative route which presently does not exist. These are not speculative complaints, they are the council’s own measurements and modelling, providing compelling evidence that the relief road and bypass are necessary for safer streets, more reliable commercial access and a town centre that can perhaps function more effectively.
Thurles Needs Immediately:-
► A confirmed and fully funded delivery programme for the Inner Relief Road. ►A published timetable for the bypass. ► A professional audit of damaged signs and street furniture. ►A costed plan to prevent heavy vehicles repeatedly causing further damage. ►Clear public reporting of who sought funding, when it was sought and what response was received.
Thurles residents have waited long enough. They deserve proper engineering, funding and dates, not another series of ceremonial announcement that the announcement of a future announcement is progressing according to plan.
Rain has returned to Thurles this evening, Monday, July 27th 2026, after an unusually long dry spell.
Met Éireann’s provisional summer records show that much of County Tipperary experienced sustained dry conditions through the first three weeks of July, while the nearby Gurteen weather station had recorded a notably wet June. On the available evidence, the last proper measurable rain in the Thurles area appears to have fallen around June 30th, making this evening’s rainfall the first significant rain for almost four weeks.
“Singin’ In The Rain”.
Lyrics: American lyricist and a Hollywood film producer, the late Arthur Freed[Grossman](1894–1973). Vocals: American dancer, actor, singer, director and choreographer, the late Gene Kelly(Eugene Curran Kelly)(1912–1996) latter whose parents were both of second generation Irish decent. [Derry on his mother’s side (Harriet Catherine Curran), and possibly Co. Clare (but not conclusively) on his father’s side (James Patrick Joseph Kelly)]
Late GreatGene Kelly. (Eugene Curran Kelly)(1912–1996).
Few songs capture the pleasure of a rainy evening as perfectly as “Singin’ in the Rain,” famously performed by Gene Kelly in the 1952 musical film of the same name. First introduced decades earlier, the song became immortal through Kelly’s joyful performance as he dances along a rain-soaked street, splashing through puddles and turning an ordinary downpour into an expression of happiness and romance. The sequence remains one of the most recognisable moments in cinema history.
I’m singin’ in the rain, just singin’ in the rain, What a glorious feelin’, I’m happy again. I’m laughin’ at clouds so dark up above, The sun’s in my heart and I’m ready for love. Let the stormy clouds chase everyone from the place, Come on with the rain, I’ve a smile on my face. I walk down the lane with a happy refrain, Just singin’, singin’ in the rain.
Dancing in the rain, I’m happy again.
I’m singin’ and dancin’ in the rain. I’m dancin’ and singin’ in the rain.
One Council Restores History While Another Erases It – The Loss of Thurles’s Famine Double Ditch.
The decision by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to spend approximately €660,000plus VAT restoring a historic ha-ha wall in Marlay Park (latter a sunken landscape boundary that uses a hidden trench and a vertical retaining wall), has understandably generated debate. The 197-metre structure, believed to date from the early nineteenth century, was designed to separate landscaped gardens from grazing animals without interrupting views across the estate. Much of its original locally sourced granite survived beneath vegetation, but the wall had fallen into disrepair. Restoration required specialist conservation work, dismantling and rebuilding sections of dry-stone wall, repairing the ditch and incorporating drainage infrastructure. The original contract was valued at €625,398 excluding VAT, with the final estimate rising to €660,374 following delays, unsuitable ground material, severe weather and difficulties obtaining appropriate stone.
Local construction professionals and taxpayers are entitled to question whether that represents value for money. Public bodies must explain how costs are calculated, why projects exceed their initial budgets and whether procurement arrangements adequately protect the public purse. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has already faced criticism over the €753,528 cost of works at an entrance to Deerpark in Mount Merrion. That project is frequently described as the construction of “14 steps”, although the council says it also included a wheelchair-accessible ramp, retaining walls, granite paving, seating, landscaping, pedestrian crossings, road resurfacing, drainage, traffic-signal equipment and other public-realm works. The criticism of these costs is legitimate. Nevertheless, one important fact should not be forgotten: Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council recognised that an historic structure was worth preserving.
That approach stands in painful contrast to what happened in Thurles.
The Thurles Great Famine Double Ditch was regarded locally as a rare surviving famine-era landscape feature. Local historical accounts date its construction accurately to 1846 and associate it with relief work provided to men and boys during the Great Famine. Rather than representing the landscaped elegance of a wealthy Dublin estate, this Double Ditch recalled hunger, poverty and the desperate struggle of local families to survive. It was not simply an old embankment. It was a physical connection with one of the darkest periods in Irish history. For generations, the route was also described locally as a public walkway and Mass path. Campaigners argued that it formed part of the social history of Thurles and should have been incorporated into a protected heritage trail.
Despite repeated warnings, the entire section of the Double Ditch was cleared in March 2022 supported by local councillors, as part of works connected with as yet a non existent, only proposed Thurles inner relief road. Contemporary photographs and local reporting showed mature vegetation being removed and the historic landscape feature being levelled by machinery.
Historic Thurles Double Ditch Eradicated in 2022. Pic. G.Willoughby.
Once such a structure is destroyed, it cannot truly be recreated. A replica might reproduce its approximate appearance, but it cannot restore the original stones, soil, boundaries and physical connection with the people who constructed it during the Great Famine.
This is the real loss suffered by Thurles. Tipperary County Council regularly speaks about protecting heritage and connecting communities with their past. Yet the treatment of the Double Ditch demonstrates the gulf that can exist between heritage policies and decisions taken on the ground. Roads and development are necessary, but heritage protection does not require a complete rejection of progress. It requires imagination, consultation and a willingness to examine alternative designs before destruction becomes inevitable.
The contrast between the two councils is striking. In Dublin, hundreds of thousands of euro are being spent restoring an aristocratic landscape feature. In Thurles, a structure associated with ordinary people surviving the Great Famine was treated as totally expendable. The Marlay Park bill deserves detailed scrutiny. So does every major publicly funded project. But the principle of conserving historic structures should be welcomed.
Led by the denials of elected councillors; mainly Mr Michaél Lowry (Non Party), Mr Sean Ryan (FF) and Mr Seamus Hanafin (FF), together with senior council officials, through wilful ignorance, self-deception, blind persistence and despite knowing better oversaw this reckless destruction. Thus the tragedy in Thurles is that the debate never reached the question of restoration costs.
The Double Ditch was not protected long enough for restoration to become an option. Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council may reasonably be criticised for excessive costs. Tipperary County Council should be criticised for allowing irreplaceable local history to be destroyed.
One council appears willing to spend too much preserving history. The other did too little before all of that history was totally eradicated and lost forever.
Neither approach represents good stewardship of public money or public heritage, and the waste continues without the consent of the Irish taxpayer.
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