The news that there will be no government funding for closed circuit TV for Donegal Town came just days after gardai had to draw batons to control a brawl on the Diamond. On Tuesday last, Minister Brian Lenihan approved monies of €2.75 million for nationwide community based CCTV - and Manorhamilton was the only town in the northwest to be granted funding.
But it seems the fault for not obtaining the necessary dosh might not lie entirely with the granting agency. Donegal Community Chamber, who submitted the application, were turned down on the grounds of a shortage of capital funding - and the date on which the application was submitted.

Pity, I was planning on collecting the footage and compiling it into a DVD. I had Hard Harry lined up to sell it in the pubs, as a compliment to his range of pornographic movies.

MORE than 400 angry residents held a silent vigil in the Diamond in Donegal town last Sunday morning to protest against a bitter seven-year rivalry between developers that locals claim is killing the town.

The protest flies in the face of other urban centres around the country, where ordinary residents’ groups often actively campaign against yet another new retail development, rather than lobby for more shops, apartments and car parks.

However, Donegal is crying out for commercial and residential construction to breathe life into a town that has been left behind by the Celtic Tiger.

For more than 40,000 people in the northwest, Donegal is the natural commercial hub and market centre and a designated "tier 2" area in the Retail Planning Strategy 2000.

But according to its mayor, Ernan McGettigan, the town is stagnating.

He says Donegal is still reeling from the recent loss of 650 jobs at Hospira and Magees. "Now the town is standing still. If something isn’t done to stop this madness, Donegal town will be dead as a commercial entity," he said.

While Letterkenny is the fastest-growing rural town in Europe, Donegal has been virtually undeveloped for nearly a decade.

Since 2001, ambitious plans for retail schemes capable of providing both jobs and a commercial kick-start have been stymied by objections to An Bord Pleanala - made by rival developers, or individuals with links to the owners of other potential development sites in the town.

In the latest twist in a long-running saga, local builders Michael Kelly Snr and Jnr were given permission by Donegal County Council to build a €40m mixed-use development near the centre.

The development proposal includes a major retail anchor tenant, a multi-screen cinema, business units, extra parking spaces, office suites, cafes and 52 apartments overlooking Donegal Bay.

Construction was due to begin by the end of the year and would have provided 50 jobs during construction and employment for another 150 people in the finished development. But the Sunday Independent has learned that An Bord Pleanala has received two detailed objections to the Kelly plan.

One is from rival London-based developer Danny Keeney, of Keeney Construction, who heads up a consortium that controls the old Magee factory in the town and who was recently granted permission for a €100m project on that site.

Mr Keeney’s firm has a history of objecting to other developments in Donegal town. Applications from Bennett Construction for a Dunnes Stores anchored development was objected to by Tesco (Ireland) with Keeney Construction Limited as an observer. Permission was refused.

Another application, for the construction of an Atlantic Homecare, was also refused by An Bord Pleanala. Keeney Construction Limited was the sole objector.

In another objection by Keeney Construction - to proposed altered ground gradients in and around the River Eske - the company expressed its desire to protect the freshwater-pearl mussel population and to "ensure that this animal can once again breed in the waters upstream from Donegal town".

The second objection to the latest Kelly plan for Donegal town centre is from a Portmarnock resident, Oliver Byrne, who has also objected in the past to other developments in Donegal town.

The Sunday Independent has learned that Mr Byrne has a connection with the principals behind other development lands in Donegal town.

The connection is this. A Kildare solicitor, John Reidy, holds a one-eighth share in development lands at Revlin outside Donegal town, along with Danny Keeney and others. John Reidy is also a director of Revlin Property Ltd.

John Reidy’s son, Barry Reidy, was a co-director of a company called Blueberry Cottons Ltd along with Oliver Byrne. Barry Reidy has also been a director of Revlin Property Ltd. Keeney Properties Ireland Ltd also holds a one-eighth share in the same lands at Revlin and also 15 ordinary shares, (an identical holding to John Reidy) in Revlin Property Ltd.

In an interview with the Sunday Independent, Danny Keeney, a former Donegal Emigrant of the Year and a self-made multimillionaire who started his career working on building sites in Germany, defended his right to object to planning permission.

"Over the past few years we in Keeney Construction have faced 25 objections to An Bord Pleanala against developments. I didn’t see any silent protests or meetings about that," he said, adding that his objection to the Kelly plan was extremely detailed and could be viewed online. He said that extra traffic congestion was the central reason for objecting. He admitted he was concerned that extra traffic could impact on the "integrity" of his proposed development on the Magee lands.

"An Bord Pleanala is an independent body and will make its decision based on sound planning," he added.

"There is another detailed objection. It is not just us who are objecting," he added. Asked if he knew the other objector, Oliver Byrne, Mr Keeney said: "I do not know him."

Mr Byrne did not return phone calls.

Meanwhile, Ernan McGettigan says local people are fed up to the back teeth with delay after delay in getting retail developments off the ground.

"Not a brick has been laid in seven years. It is a scandal that an entire town is dying on its feet. Donegal town will be left behind while Ballyshannon and Dungloe thrive and Letterkenny thrives. We are fighting for the life of this town," he added.

A Donegal town butcher has claimed unprecedented success in a national sausage-making competition.

McGettigan’s butchers in Donegal Town won the supreme champion sausage award in Portlaoise this week for it’s rhubard and ginger offering

McGettigan’s also won bronze in the traditional butcher’s section for it’s polish sausage.

This is the third time in six years that the Donegal Town business has won the prestigious supreme champion at the Associated Craft Butchers of Ireland event.

Co-proprietor, Ernan McGettigan said it will give the shop’s products a huge amount of exposure at high-profile food festivals.

Now I know where to buy my sausages in Donegal Town. 

A county councillor has expressed rage at the state of an illegal halting camp abandoned by relatives of road traffic victim Teresa Ward just days after her funeral.
Several caravans and two cars were torched on the site behind the hospital on Upper Main Street, Donegal Town.
Wooden fencing and huts erected by the council for use by traveller families when it was a legitimate temporary halting site were also damaged in the blaze.
“It’s like Iraq, just one great bomb-site,” said Cllr Jonathan Kennedy.
“They left a right mess. It’s pure ignorance.”
Teresa Ward and members of her family stayed temporarily on the site before moving to Derry several weeks ago.
The 22-year-old mother of four small children died in the early hours of last Monday week when a jeep went off the road and overturned a number of times in a field three kilometres south of Ballybofey.
Her husband Patrick and three of their children who were travelling with them received critical but not life-threatening injuries.
They were returning to Derry after visiting relatives at the Donegal Town site.
It’s a traveller tradition to burn the caravan home of a departed member of the community.
It’s unclear why the caravans at the Donegal Town site were burned.
Mrs McDonagh no longer lived there at the time of her death.

I’m not sure if Cllr Jonathan Kennedy was ever in Iraq, but I’d say it hardly compares. He is a fireman though so I’m sure he’s seen his fair share of burnt out caravans.

Travellers: Gypsies, knackers, tinkers, pikies; whatever you want to call them, they don’t do themselves any favours. In my personal opinion they have no respect for anyone else. I hope they don’t come back.

Hopefully we’ll get more and more facilities. 

Michael Kelly has been granted planning permission by Donegal County Council for a mixed use town centre development on the Main Street carpark in Donegal Town which will consist of a substantial retail space, cafes, 52 apartments, office space, a three-screen cinema and more than 500 carparking spaces.

Mr Kelly said that if his company is given the green light to begin work in four weeks time, the project could be complete by the end of 2009 with up to 60 jobs being created during the construction phase.

Michael Kelly said the land was purchased by his company in July of 2005 from Donegal County Council and he hopes to work side by side with other developers in the area.

A video clip of Donegal students brawling on a school playing pitch has been circulating on mobile phones around the town in recent days. It features pupils wearing Abbey Vocational School uniforms fighting on the school’s all-weather pitch, and outside SuperValu Shopping Centre in Donegal town. Somebody appears to have put effort and time into editing footage of four different fights into a single 50-second film. It opens with a group of teenage boys surrounding two lads who start fighting. Several of the animated onlookers are holding mobile phones with the obvious intention of recording the action. The protagonists trade blows as their classmates egg them on, before the scene switches to the car park outside the Glebe Shopping Centre. It’s not just boys either: the clip also includes footage of two girls kicking and punching each other, tearing at each other’s hair and generally acting in a manner not usually expected of young women. The Abbey Vocational School principal Emmanuel McCormack said his school had a good reputation and hoped that such behaviour by a small number of pupils would not ruin that. “Obviously, any fighting we come across we take action and the pupils are suspended,” he said. “We are appalled, but we take a common sense approach and supervise the best we can. I would hope that the reason the video clip ends after 50 seconds is that a member of staff came along and put a stop to the fighting.” Mr McCormack said fights were not a regular occurrence at the AVS but he acknowledged they happen, and said it was worrying that mobile phones were used to film them. “We have a big area to cover but we’re doing our best with supervision,” he added.