The Week: School Season, Paralympic Performance and Tributes to “Chunky”

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

The sun’s been shining on Carlow and Kilkenny and we all know what that really means; school’s back! And as the return to the classroom continues, we’ve been hearing from staff, students and more.

A legend of hurling in Kilkenny sadly died this week and many have been paying tribute to him while the Paralympics got underway and one athlete with local links has already had her outing.

The Heritage Minister, Carlow Kilkenny Green TD Malcolm Noonan, has been talking housing and we’ve been hearing too about an interesting exhibition.

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

School Season

Many schools saw a return to the classroom across the week, with more preparing to be back in the next few days.

Joe McKeown, President of the INTO, joined our Eimear Ní Bhraonáin on Monday’s KCLR Live to discuss the plans for the academic year ahead, touching on mask-wearing, vaccinations and more:

Principal of Carlow Educate Together Simon Lewis then spoke to our Sue Nunn on The Way It Is about the outstanding issues for teachers:

There’s mixed emotions too for students as a Deputy Head Girl at Presentation Secondary School in Kilkenny has been telling Sue on The Way It Is:

Some of the usual concerns are back, among them what to pack for lunches – but Sue got some advice from HSE Senior Dietician Aislinn Murphy on The Way It is:

 

Paralympics

The Paralympic Games are underway and local hopes rest with Kilkenny woman Mary Fitzgerald who goes in the shot put.

Tipperary native Rosemary Gaffney was in action this week, competing in equestrian dressage, but unfortunately her journey in Japan won’t be going any further.

Ahead of her arena appearance, friend and college at Teagasc Kildalton College Piltown, Crea English, told our Sue Nunn all about Rosemary:

9,000 Babies?

Local Artist Elizabeth Cope chatted to our Edward Hayden on The Saturday Show about her exhibition ‘9,000 Babies?’ which has been running in Shankill Castle in Paulstown.

Tributes to “Chunky”

One of the Kilkenny hurling greats sadly died this week and KCLR News let the wider community know (read that here).

Tributes were quick to flow, including on The Way It Is with Sue Nunn from some other well-known GAA men:

And the following morning on KCLR Live Eimear Ní Bhraonáin heard more about the star:

Housing and Heritage

Speaking to KCLR Live’s Eimear Ní Bhraonáin this week, Malcolm Noonan, Minister for Heritage and Electoral Reform, discussed the future of rural development and planning permission for one-off housing.

We heard too from Marian Dalton, Rural Development Chair of Carlow IFA and Jim Mulhall, Chair of Kilkenny IFA, on the importance for farming families to build housing close to the farm:

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.