Thurles Information

This excellent short film, hereunder, entitled “Just Saying,” produced by Kennedy Films Ltd & written/directed by Dave Tynan, could easily be Thurles town on any given night, on any given day, in any given week, in 2012.

Sydney, London & Canada have also swallowed up our youth & our mates, latter in their need to find some kind of honest employment. Some recent emigrants raised the fare to return home to the Cathedral Town this Christmas, many did not, but all who did have chosen, for financial reasons only, to return to a foreign land. Like the comment stated in this film, here in our beloved County Tipperary, for our emigrants there were ten reasons to go & one thousand tiny reasons to stay.

Last week we received a prompt reply from Minister for Transport, Tourism & Sport Mr Leo Varadkar regarding our request (Open Letter) for the return of “Tipperary Related Artefacts,” currently used to the benefit of Dublin’s economy, & much to the detriment of home spun Tourism, The Gathering, Adult Unemployment and Youth Emigration in North Tipperary, much of the latter real talent presently boosting foreign economies having been already subsidised by an over burdened Irish Taxpayer.

We also wish to acknowledge communications from Noel Coonan TD, confirming that he has also forwarded correspondence to the Minister on this matter. Similar correspondence sent to Alan Kelly TD has, as yet, not received a reply.

Minister Varadkar has informed us that this matter has now been forwarded to Minister for Arts, Heritage & The Gaeltacht, for his attention & his direct reply.

We welcome An Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s statement yesterday that individual Government Ministers will now be invited, at a special Cabinet meeting, to explain how each government department will begin to create much needed jobs. We agree with An Taoiseach who stated that the drive for employment should not be left solely to just one government department, namely “Jobs Minister,” Mr Richard Bruton.

A report on the success by Mr Kenny’s previous initiatives, in attempting to create 100,000 jobs by 2016, will now be published in February and will show the success, if any, achieved over the past 12 months. This jobs meeting is expected to take place in the latter half of this month & will now focus on small and medium enterprises and local domestic economies.

Possibly the most welcome news however came via The Tipperary Star newspaper, dated December 27th last (Page 6), which reports that some local County Councillors e.g. Seamus Hanafin, Pauline Coonan & James Ryan have come out to fully support this idea.

The ideal plan, if agreed, would be to place these Tipperary related artefacts in the North Tipperary towns of Nenagh, Roscrea & Thurles, encouraging tourists to interlink with these three towns and away from the coastal gateways to Ireland, as an initial pilot project. These artefacts would be placed under the care of Tipperary County Council & would be positioned as stated in Nenagh (Nenagh Castle), Roscrea (Damer House or the now defunct Roscrea Court House) and in Thurles (The Source Exhibition Hall or St Mary’s Famine Museum).

In the words of one Tipperary man, US President Barak Obama, “Is féidir linn” / Yes we can, but only if our community leaders, like Government Politicians, County Councillors, Urban District Councillors, Chambers of Commerce etc. show a willingness to support such a venture.

Tourism is Co Tipperary’s only hope to gain real employment opportunities during 2013 and boost our dwindling local domestic economies.

Let’s, at least, publicly debate this issue & begin to change the way we do business, let’s build “The Wheel” we spoke about in our original open letter.

We only seek what rightly belongs to us.