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TUS Conferring Ceremony In TUS Gaelic Grounds, Nov. 9th & 10th, 2021.

The Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands Midwest (TUS) will host its first ever outdoor graduation ceremony at TUS Gaelic Grounds on tomorrow Tuesday and on Wednesday (November 9th and 10th, 2021).

During four ceremonies across two days 1,571 students will graduate from the Faculties of Engineering and the Built Environment; Limerick School of Art and Design; Applied Science and Technology and Faculty of Business and Humanities.

As many as 4,500 people will attend over the course of the graduations, with 1,200 students graduating in person, supported by family and friends, while a further 371 people will graduate virtually, with the historic ceremony streamed live on the TUS website, tus.ie.

The transformation of TUS Gaelic Grounds into the venue for the 2021 Conferring venue has taken weeks of preparation and teamwork between TUS and the GAA. Over five days, a special stage has been constructed and the Mackey Stand transformed into an open air arena.

President of TUS Professor Vincent Cunnane said the decision to move off campus for the first time to the TUS Gaelic Grounds was made to allow people gather together, as safely as possible.

Professor Cunnane said; “We wanted to bring the graduands together again, and we were not afraid to create a new precedent in order to make that happen safely. This is a unique class which has had an unprecedented experience of higher education. No graduating class in the history of Irish Higher Education has seen more changes and more uncertainty. Indeed, no other class has had to make the transition in the latter part of their studies from on-campus college life to a virtual one, but these graduands did.

“The very fact that the TUS graduations are taking place in a unique location is the product of a partnership between TUS and a community-based organisation, the GAA, with creative and critical thinking and a lot of hard work bringing the graduations to life. This is our ethic made real”, he continued.

Covid-19 Cases On Island Of Ireland Reach 4,189 Today.

The Department of Health has confirmed 3,161 new cases of Covid-19, over the past 24 hours, here in the Republic Of Ireland .

There remain 498 patients with the virus in hospital, an increase of 20 on yesterday’s reported figures. Of these 78 are in our intensive care units, an increase of 3, also based on yesterday’s figures.

More than 52,600 third booster doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered to people under 60 years, latter who are immunocompromised, the latest HSE figures confirm. It is estimated around 90,000 people in this group are due to get the booster dose.

Patients on hospital waiting lists within the Irish Republic, must now continue to wait, while the number of people in hospitals with Covid-19 remains high, the President of the Irish Medical Organisation, Dr Ina Kelly has confirmed. She stated that every bed that is taken up with Covid, is a bed denied to the nearly one million people suffering with other forms of illness on waiting lists.

In Northern Ireland, a further 1,028 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed, down from 1,035 cases recorded yesterday.
In all, a total of 284,231 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in Northern Ireland, since the pandemic began.

Today, there are 378 patients with Covid-19 in Northern hospitals, down from 380 confirmed on Friday. There are 44 Covid patients in intensive care units in northern hospitals up from 43 recorded on Friday.


Sadly, 11 more Covid-19-related deaths have been reported in Northern Ireland today, bringing the total number of deaths linked to Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic to 2,762.

Worldwide, total known Covid-19 cases have reached at least 250,049,045 in number, with the total death rate due to the disease standing at least at 5,052,494.

Please do continue to keep yourself and your family safe by regularly washing your hands and wearing a mask when appropriate.

Christmas When Shopping Remember That ‘Little Man’ In Thurles.


Now the court square’s just a set of streets,
That the people go round, but they seldom think
‘Bout the little man that built this town,
Before the big money shut ’em down
And killed the little man.


Remember in the weeks coming up to Christmas, when shopping, use locally owned businesses rather than foreign or nationally owned outfits; more money remains in your local community, because locally-owned businesses continue to purchase from other local businesses, service providers and farmers.

Often forgotten, is the fact that the unique character of the Thurles local community, is defined mostly by the businesses that reside here and same plays a factor in our overall satisfaction, with where we live as a community and the value placed on our homes or other properties.

Nationally, small local businesses are the largest employers of a labour force. On the jobs front, our Tipperary politicians of all parties, and our local councillors have lamentably and continuously, down through the years; let us down, in their direct actions taken without the consent of their electorate. They forget that the more jobs that exist here in our local community, the less people that are going to have to commute, which means more time and less traffic and pollution, something so far forgotten in discussions at COP26.

Let us all stop and think about the ‘Little Man’ and ‘Think Local’ when Christmas shopping here in Thurles; if at all possible.

Read the Lyric’s – Listen to the song and Support Thurles

Little Man

written by Singer / Songwriter Alan Jackson

I remember walkin’ ’round the court square sidewalk,
Lookin’ in windows at things I couldn’t want.
There’s Johnson’s Hardware and Morgan’s Jewellery
And the ol’ Lee King’s Apothecary.
They were the little man,
The little man.

I go back now and the stores are empty,
Except for an old coke sign, dated 1950.
Boarded up like they never existed,
Or renovated and called historic districts.
There goes the little man.
There goes the little man
.


Now the court square’s just a set of streets,
That the people go round, but they seldom think
‘Bout the little man that built this town,
Before the big money shut ’em down
And killed the little man.
Oh the little man
.
He pumped your gas and he cleaned your glass.
And one cold rainy night he fixed your flat.
The new store came, where you do it yourself,
You buy a lotto ticket and food off the shelf.
Forget the little man.
Forget about that little man.

He hung on there for a few more years,
But he couldn’t sell slurpees
And he wouldn’t sell beer.
Now the bank rents the station
To a man down the road
And they sell velvet Elvis and second-hand clothes.
There goes little man.
There goes another little man.

Now the court square’s just a set of streets
That the people go ’round, but they seldom think
‘Bout the little man that built this town,
Before the big money shut ’em down
And killed the little man.
Oh the little man.

Now the stores are lined up in a concrete strip.
You can buy the whole world in just one trip,
And save a penny ’cause it’s jumbo size
They don’t even realize
They’re killin’ the little man.
Oh the little man.

Now the court square’s just a set of streets
That the people go round, but they seldom think
‘Bout the little man that built this town,
Before the big money shut ’em down.
And killed the little man.
Oh the little man.

It wasn’t long ago when I was a child
An old black man came with his mule and his plough.
He broke the ground where we grew our garden
Back before we’d all forgotten
About the little man.
The little man.
Long live the little man.
God bless the little man.

END

Three Wooden Crosses

Three Wooden Crosses on the Highway
Composed by Kim Edwin Williams & Doug Johnson

A farmer and a teacher, a hooker and a preacher,
Ridin’ on a midnight bus bound for Mexico.
One’s headed for vacation, one for higher education,
An’ two of them were searchin’ for lost souls.
That driver never ever saw the stop sign.
An’ eighteen wheelers can’t stop on a dime.

There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway,
Why there’s not four of them, Heaven only knows.
I guess it’s not what you take when you leave this world behind you,
It’s what you leave behind you when you go.

That farmer left a harvest, a home and eighty acres,
The faith an’ love for growin’ things in his young son’s heart.
An’ that teacher left her wisdom in the minds of lots of children:
Did her best to give ’em all a better start.
An’ that preacher whispered: “Can’t you see the Promised Land?”
As he laid his blood-stained bible in that hooker’s hand.

There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway,
Why there’s not four of them, Heaven only knows.
I guess it’s not what you take when you leave this world behind you,
It’s what you leave behind you when you go.

That’s the story that our preacher told last Sunday.
As he held that blood-stained bible up,
For all of us to see.
He said: “Bless the farmer, and the teacher, an’ the preacher;
“Who gave this Bible to my mamma,
“Who read it to me.”

There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway,
Why there’s not four of them, now I guess we know.
It’s not what you take when you leave this world behind you,
It’s what you leave behind you when you go.

There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway.

Mikey Ryan Calls For Government To Insulate His House.

“Well Mikey any news”, said I, as Mikey Ryan and myself wended our way through the continuous maize of plastic road fencing on Liberty Square, Thurles, in an effort to find the front door of The Arch Bar.

The Arch Bar, Liberty Square, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.


“Not so much as a morsel happening locally, all’s quiet,” replied Mikey.

“I suppose all the talk at the moment, everywhere, is focused on Cop26 in Scotland; global warming, and the cutting of greenhouse gas emissions by insulating 500,000 homes by 2030, said I.

“Too right you are”, said Mikey, “I have been calling for this government to insulate my house for years. Only last night Juicy Lucy, you know the one with the big you know what’s”, he gesticulated, in a curvilinear motion, chest high; “that’s living next door to me”

“I do of course” said I, “sure everyone knows the lovely Lucy”.

“Well she was talking over the fence to her-indoors last night”, said Mikey. Last year, the wife was telling me, she replaced all the windows in her house with that expensive double-glazed energy efficient variety, and this morning, she got a call from the contractor who installed them.
“It seems”, said Mikey, “he was complaining that the installation work, which had been fully completed a whole year ago, hadn’t been yet paid for”, said Mikey. “Hellloooo” she supposedly said, “just because I’m good looking doesn’t mean that I am totally stupid”, continued Mikey.

“I don’t believe it”, said I

“True as God”, said Mikey “she, told him in no uncertain terms, just what his fast talking sales guy had told her last year”.

“What was that”, said I.

“From what I can gather”, said Mikey, “she claims that he told her that; and I quote:- “In just ONE YEAR these windows will pay for themselves.”

“Helllooooo? The year is now up”, Lucy supposedly told the contractor”, that’s according to Mikey, “and now you expect to be paid twice. She swears there was only silence followed by fast heavy breathing at the other end of the phone, so she finally just hung up and he never called her back; she reckons he felt like a right eejit”, continued Mikey.

“Two Paddy and a drop of water Pat”, said I, “when you’re ready please; faith Mikey tonight you can feel winter temperatures approaching, you would want your house insulated”.