The Week: Closure of a Kilkenny City attraction, County Carlow wedding monies and more

You’re reading The Week on KCLR, highlighting some of the stories you may have missed on-air and online.

We had a huge reaction to the announcement of the closure of Kilkenny City’s second most popular tourist attraction with the ripple effect felt across the local community while in County Carlow, a story unfolded of monies paid to young women getting married in Bagenalstown.

As we head for the easing of Covid restrictions, special arts events are in the planning for both counties as part of the new, nationwide programme Brightening Air.

Sex education in Catholic schools – there’s a wide range of views on that.

And, with the recent fires battled locally, we hear how one author survived serious scenes in Greece.

As always, you can join our news team across the day, seven days a week, read the stories on kclr96fm.com and scoreline.ie or take us with you on the KCLR app.

Smithwick’s Experience

There was a lot of surprise locally when we announced on Thursday evening that Diageo had decided to shut the doors of the Smithwick’s Experience in Kilkenny City. (Read that here).

On Friday morning then, Kilkenny Mayor John Coonan didn’t hold back – see his comments here.

While KCLR Live had a wealth of contributors having their say, including a member of the Smithwick family, former Chamber head Donie Butler, Chair of Kilkenny Tourism Ciaran Conroy and Council Chair Andrew McGuinness with input too from Minister of State Malcolm Noonan – listen back to some of those here and here:

The topic was also touched on by the show’s weekly The Panel slot which featured Sinn Féin TD Kathleen Funchion, Kilkenny Fine Gael Councillor David Fitzgerald and KCLR Political Correspondent Sean Defoe:

And it seems it’s not the only outlet to be closing locally, but where one door closes others often open – more on that here

It’s all happening as we’re heading for a reopening of the country – more on that here with reaction here and here

Let’s Talk About Sex … and Education

A new relationships and sex education programme for Catholic primary schools was under the microscope on KCLR Live this week.

Developed by the Irish Bishops’ Conference, show guests focused on the content of Flourish which includes describing puberty as “a gift from God”.

Our Eimear Ní Bhraonáin was joined by Paddy Monaghan, Policy Officer with Education Equality, Joe McKeown who is the new President of the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) and Jane Donnelly, the Human Right’s Officer with Atheist Ireland …

Brightening Air

Exciting news this week with the announcement that Carlow and Kilkenny are among a number of areas to host events this June as part of the new Brightening Air.

Read how we revealed the information and what you can enjoy locally here.

Edward Hayden was then joined on The Way It Is by Kilkenny man Naoise Nunn of Schweppe Curtis Nunn who are involved with the Arts Council initiative:

Wedding Wonders

So much has changed in the past year for those planning to get married. On KCLR Live, our Eimear Ní Bhraonáin spoke with wedding planning guru Peter Kelly, aka Franc, about how Irish couples are handling the emotional roller-coaster of planning and what to expect as restrictions ease and we also heard from Cllr. Will Paton who has just been married.

And, along similar lines, an interesting story revealed itself on the programme. Pauline Byrne told of how she received a £25 payment from a Bagenalstown fund 45 years ago when she got married …

More stories similar to Pauline’s followed. Eileen Darcy told of how she was refused the grant and Paddy Kiely recalled the Daniel McGrath Trust being paid out.

The show team is also digging deeper asking listeners if they remember whether people in Lorum were offered a grant of £100 from a separate Church of Ireland trust for attending religious services and for their “respectability”.

Listen to those here:

As the Smoke Clears

We’ve had plenty of dealings with fire unfortunately locally and across the country recently, including at the beginning of the week – details here which led to an announcement by Minister of State Malcolm Noonan here

On The Saturday Show Edward Hayden spoke to author Zoe Holohan of ‘As The Smoke Clears’ which is an inspiring true story of love, loss and a fight for survival:

Catch Up

There’s plenty more from across the week here on KCLR.

You’ll find our news stories here while regular key features from programmes covering a range of topics, including travel, fitness, health care, as well as repeats of our talk shows and more can be found in our Catch Up section.

Best of all, you can read and listen to everything in the KCLR app.