Ballyhaunis Blog

The only nightclub in Ballyhaunis - The Monsoon.
Monsoon nightclub is on Clare Street just down the road from Mid West Radio and the Credit Union. It is open every Friday and Saturday night. Expect sticky carpets, loud music and drunken people.

The Monsoon Nightclub on Facebook has plenty of pictures that some people probably don’t even realise were taken.

Congratulations to Ballyhaunis schoolgirl Olwyn Murray - who won last night’s All Ireland Talent Show heat - and is now through to the semi final.
The judges put her in joint third place but the public vote was enough to give her the the win. A good performance - but she will probably have to do even better to win the contest.
See Olwyn singing live on the show here (22 minutes in) (only viewable until Feb 14th)

See more about Olwyn Murray here

Ballyhaunis Leaving Cert student - 16 year old Olwyn Murray is through to the next round of the RTE All Ireland Talent Show on 24th January 2010 at 6.30pm . The show will be coming LIVE from Dublin . Find details here of how to vote (available from Sunday at 6pm )
It is probably too late - but anyone can apply for free audience tickets by calling 01 4480500 or email audience@tyrone-productions.ie

Olwyn is one of 8 contestants left in from the West - and the only one from Co Mayo. She doesn’t seem to have got the online publicity going - not like some of the other contestants. The Leaving Cert is probably taking priority. Hopefully the publicity in the local papers and radio stations will work just as well for Olwyn.
She is up against a “novelty” gay band fronted by a gay cross dresser called Joanna - Joanna and the Lads. They seem to be getting some support from the Irish gay community. They are just taking the p**s really - but have got plenty of online publicity. A joke act really.

Her other rival is a “ballad” group called Na Fianna - doing old songs like “Black Velvet Band” - they will get the votes from Kilkenny and all the “Auld Ones ” - they are OK but you could hear stuff like that in dozens of pubs all over Ireland.
There isn’t much between these 3 acts according to the odds at Paddy Power.
Vote for Olwyn - to get some real talent into the Final .

Find details here of how to vote (available from Sunday at 6pm )

Olwyn started singing at an early age and her first performance was in in The Sound of Music when she played Gretl, the youngest of the Von Trapp children, when she was just 6 years old.
Olywn had some recent success in the Mayo Feis 2009 where she came first in 3 categories - classical vocalist (14 to 16 age category), senior soprano, senior musical . Olwyn was also awarded first place for the overall best classical vocalist in the competition.
Olywyn’s father - Adrian Murray is from Balla where Olwyn she can sometimes be found playing Gaelic football for St Mary’s GAA Club .
Olwyn’s mother Breda comes from Roscommon town, has three brothers who played football for the county in former years, Padraig, Sean and Liam McNeill.

Olwyn also won five gold medals in the individual section of the 2009 World Performing Arts Championship in Los Angeles.
She is also a member of a Ballina group called Realta which consists of 12 singers ranging in age from 13-26. They won the World Championship title in the group section this year in Los Angles.

Olwyn seems to be publicity shy - there seems to be no videos or even pictures of her available online. There is a Youtube channel - but there are no videos at the moment

See her singing in the All Ireland Talent Show Here (23 minutes in)

Scoil Iosa NS, Ballyhaunis will not be open today because of the snow.

Scoil Iosa, Ballyhaunis will re-open on Tuesday - after the cold spell seems to be over. For some reason the community school is staying closed for an extra day and opens on Wednesday. Hopefully the bus drivers will be able to get in OK.

Here are some of the schools opening dates after the “big freeze” - from Mid West Radio - looks like it’s in alphabetical order which is good

http://www.midwestradio.ie/school/index.html

After Minister Batt(y) O’Keefe announced he had changed his mind and it was up to the schools to decide if was OK to open - Ballyhaunis Community School have announced thay will be staying closed on Tuesday and will not open until Wednesday 13th Jan.

Won’t be long till the Mid Term break now !

Batt O’Keefe has seen sense at last and reversed his instruction to keep all schools closed until Thursday. He has said today that schools can now open if local management think it is safe to do so.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/okeeffe-to-allow-schools-to-reopen-tomorrow-441478.html

The majority of roads around here are safe - some are still icy but passable. It will be interesting to see if Ballyhaunis Community School will decide to open - hopefully they will?
Over in the UK - conditions are worse and some schools are closed - but the UK Education Secretary Ed Balls is encouraging schools to open and not focus on the negatives. He said schools need to “take a balanced view and not to overstate risks like slipping in the playground, or having slightly less supervision. The important thing to do is, if at all possible, open schools, get our children learning, stop the disruption for working parents..”

Most - if not all the schools in the Ballyhaunis area were due to open on January 7th - but are now all remaining closed until at least Thursday January 14th by order of the Dept. of Education.
All schools in Ireland have been instructed to close next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

While it is clear that some people in isolated houses will have problems getting out and about - this enforced schools closure is totally over the top . No other workplaces have been shut down - hospitals , shops , factories are all open - so why shut the schools?
Dangergous playgrounds could be fixed by having a few parents in to grit and remove the snow/ice.
I am sure most parents would rather have their children in school than at home. What about families where both parents work - what will they do? What if the weather is no better after Wednesday?
It is a farce.
With a bit of careful driving - the majority of people could get children to school - even in Ballyhaunis.
In Dublin - where most people probably live within walking distance of a school there is no need to shut schools.

Back in the summer of 2009 Ken Ring - the long term weather forecaster was doing the rounds on radio stations. His predictions for Winter 2009 / 2010 were pretty specific - but did he predict this long long cold spell?
This is some of what Ken Ring said back in September 2009 on local station Mid West Radio …

From 23rd nov - 26th nov it will be cold with frost and possibly snow.
There wil be a dry period from 9th to 23rd December with a cold spell around December 11th .
January 2010 will bring heavy rain from 14th-18th and a dry cold spell between January 20th and 31st 2010 .
Ken Ring said that he expected early February 2010 to be also be very cold . He predicted snow on March 2nd 2010 and even as late as April 14th.
He said warm weather will be back from late May early June 2010

Ken Ring’s forecast wasn’t totally innacurate I suppose - he did mention a cold spell from Dec 11th and he didn’t say when it would end! His forecast of heavy rain around 14th Jan might mean a temporary break in this cold weather we are having - but then he also predicted that early February 2010 would be very cold too!
On his web site he says ” The country is looking at an average-to-slightly-warmer winter” - so it looks like whatever Ken is using to predict the temperatures isn’t working too well. (but maybe Nov was warm and February may be warmer and that will bring the average temperatures up?)

Snow - on his website Ken Ring made this general snow forecast for Ireland in the Winter of 2009/2010 …

“Chances of snow in Tipperary are in the last few days of November, fourth weeks in January and February, the first week in March, and the second week in April. However, there is about a 4degC minimum difference between Tipperary and Northern Ireland, so the north will be affected more. Some northern parts may get some significant falls about the second and last weeks in Nov, and in December, snow in the north in the last few days. Then first and fourth weeks in both Feb and March, and the north may even get snow as late as the first week in May in some places.”

Again - it isn’t totally innacurate - he did mention snow in late December for some parts . The worrying bit - is his forecast of more snow in May !