Search Takes Place For Missing Youghal Woman

Gardai have concluded searches for a missing woman in Youghal today.

Gardai along with soldiers, the coast guards and members of the Irish Search Dogs Organisation took part in search of disappeared forty five year old woman Tina Satchwell.

Members of the Garda Water Unit also carried out dives close to the shore in Youghal Harbour.

Ms. Satchwell went missing from her home in Grattan Street in the East Cork town on March 20.

Searches were also carried out at the Golf Links road where a section of the road was closed off during the operation.

Gardai have said that they are following over 200 lines of inquiry.

Ms. Satchwell is originally from Fermoy in North Cork is described as five foot six in height and of medium build with shoulder length hair and having blue eyes. It is understood that she moved to Youghal two years ago.  

She was reported missing by her husband on March 24, four days after he arrived home to find her missing after he had gone on a shopping trip in Dungarvan.

Anyone with any information on her disappearance is being asked to contact Midleton Garda Station on (021) 4621550.

It has not been confirmed if the search will resume tomorrow.

Hogan to referee All-Ireland Hurling Final

Fergal Horgan will be in charge of proceedings in this years All-Ireland Hurling Final between Waterford and Galway after the GAA confirmed today that he will be this years referee.

Horgan will become the first Munster referee to take charge on All-Ireland Final day since Waterford’s Michael Wadding was the man in the middle when he took charge of the 2010 final between Tipperary and Kilkenny.

It is the third time that the Knockavilla Kickham’s Clubman has taken charge of an All-Ireland Final, but his first in the senior grade. Previous to this years final he was also the man in the middle for the 2014 All-Ireland Minor Final and Intermediate Final twelve months later.

He has taken charge of a number of big games this year including the Munster Final Clash between Cork and Clare and the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Club final between Cuala and Ballyhea.

However he will be most remembered for his most recent inter county game that he refereed as he sent Waterford’s Tadgh de Búrca off against Wexford in the new Pairc Ui Chaoimh following a consultation with his linesman.

He is the first Tipperary referee to take control of the biggest game of hurling of the year since Seamus Roche was the man in the middle in 2005 when Cork beat Galway 1-21 to 1-16.

Cork’s Colm Lyons is the standby referee and linesman while Paud O’Dwyer will run the other line. Limerick’s Johnny Murphy will be the fourth official.

Kilkenny Referee Sean Cleere will be the man in the middle for the minor game between Galway and Cork.

The Tipperary man’s other experience of being in Croke Park on All-Ireland Final day was 21 years ago when he played in goal for the Tipperary Minor team when Tipperary beat Galway 2-14 to 2-12. The captain of that Tipperary team will William Maher, who was appointed a selector with the Waterford Senior hurling team in 2013 after Derek McGrath was first appointed as manager. Previous to this he helped guide Tipperary to win the All-Ireland Minor Final twelve months earlier.

Mount Melleray Abbey Has A New Leader

The Cistercian Community in Mount Melleray has a new Abbot.

Dom Richard Purcell was recently elected as the community’s leader after he filled the same position at Mount Saint Joseph Abbey in Roscrea in County Tipperary, a position he held from 2009, serving first for six years and then on his reappointment in June 2015.

Dom Richard is a native of Rathgar in Dublin, he received his first abbatial blessing from the them Bishop of Killaloe Most Reverend Willie Walsh.  

The new abbot at Mount Melleray entered Mount St Joseph Abbey in 1997, having completed a degree in music and French at UCD.

Dom Richard previously studied Music, French and Italian at UCD. He completed Philosophy studies at Maynooth and Theology studies in Oxford.

On completion of his studies in Oxford, he returned to Saint Joseph’s where he took up the position of bursar. He was ordained in 2007 and became Prior of the Community while retaining the title of bursar.

The Constitution of the Cistercian Congregation does not allow a monk to become an Abbot until he is thirty five years of age and is seven professed.

When he was first elected as Abbot at Saint Joseph’s he failed to reach the requirements to take up the position. 

However after he was voted as Abbot in the North Tipperary Monastery proceedings were suspended while the necessary dispensations were sought from Rome.

Cardinal Rode the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Like and Societies of Apostolic Life issued the dispensation for Dom Purcell to Dom Eamon Fitzgerald, himself a former Abbot of the Mount Melleray Abbey.

The monastery at Mount Melleray was founded on 30 May 1832 at Scrahan on land owned by Sir Richard Keane in Cappoquin by a colony of Irish and English monks, expelled from the abbey of Melleray after the French Revolution of 1830, and who had come to Ireland under the leadership of Fr. Vincent de Paul Ryan. It was called Mount Melleray in memory of the motherhouse. On the feast of St. Bernard, 1833, the foundation stone of the new monastery was blessed by the Most Rev. William Abraham, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore.

Two Injured In Dungarvan Stabbing Incident

Two people, were brought to University Hospital Waterford in the early hours of the morning to be treated for non-life threatening Injuries following a stabbing incident in Dungarvan.

The Emergency services were called to the scene in the Thompson Lane area off the town, an area between the towns Main Street and the Quay.

The scene of the incident was examined and investigations are on-going.

One person has been arrested by Gardai and was brought to Dungarvan Garda Station for questioning.

Gardaí are appealing for anyone with information to contact them.

Gardai in Dungarvan have appealed for anyone with information to contact them in Dungarvan on 058 48600, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111 or at any Garda Station.

€15,000 of Public Money on Entertainment

Independent TD for Waterford John Halligan is one of five TD’s that form the Independent Alliance Group in Dáil Éireann spent more than €15,000 of public money on entertainment in 2016 it has been announced.

The Independent Alliance is chaired by Senator Feargal Quinn was founded in January 2015 by five Independent TDs Michael Fitzmaurice, Tom Fleming, John Halligan, Finian McGrath and Shane Ross.

Sean Canney, John Halligan, Finian McGrath, Kevin (Boxer) Moran and Shane Ross are the current TD’s in the group.

The figure of €15,000 is contained in the latest report for the Standards in Public Office Commission on public spending for 2016.

The report states that the majority of the spending was on events for TD’s staff and on catering for events in their constituencies.

The report also shows that Independent TD’s spent over €63,000 last year getting specialist and technical advice to help them in parliamentary work.

None of the political parties in the Oireachtas are reported as spending on entertainment. Parties in the Oireachtas are funded under different rules when it comes to spending on entertainment.

The report states that over €8 Million was spent by politicians and political parties of public funds in 2016.

Relic of Indian Saint to Visit Waterford

A relic of Saint (Mother) Teresa of Calcutta is to visit Waterford.

The Knights of Columbanus recently received the relic from the Sisters of Charity and it is currently touring Ireland and will visit the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Waterford City on Thursday July 20, arriving at 7-30pm and will leave for a visit to the Cathedral in Enniscorthy on Saturday July 22 at 4pm, arriving at the Co Wexford venue at 7-30pm that same evening.

The relic, a muslin cloth bearing the blood of Saint Teresa encased in a cross has been touring Ireland since June 8, starting at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh, and has since made its way down the West Coast of Ireland into Munster taking in parts of Leinster before arriving in Waterford.

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born in Skopje in Macedonia on August 26 1910, she was the youngest child of Nikolle and Dranafile Bojaxhiu. Her father, who was involved in Albanian-community politics in Macedonia, died in 1919 when she was eight years old. She left home in 1928 to join the Sisters of Loreto in Rathfarnham in Dublin where she learned to speak English with the view of becoming a missionary.

In 1929 she moved to India where she began to work with the poor and the needy. After she arrived she began her novitiate where she learnt Bengali  and taught in a nearby school near her convent. She took her first religious vows in May 1931, and chose to be named after Therese de Lisieux

She took her solemn vows in May 1937 while she was a teacher at a Loreto convent school in eastern Calcutta. She served there for nearly twenty years.

Although she enjoyed teaching at the school, she was increasingly disturbed by the poverty surrounding her in Calcutta.

She began missionary work with the poor in 1948. She founded a school in Motijhil, Kolkata, before she began tending to the poor and hungry. At the beginning of 1949 Teresa was joined in her effort by a group of young women, and she laid the foundation for a new religious community helping the "poorest among the poor".

In October 1950, Teresa received Vatican permission to form the diocesan congregation which would become the Missionaries of Charity which she founded in 1959 and quickly became throughout the world as Mother Teresa. Just over sixty years later her order had over 4,500 Religious Sisters working in 133 Countries across the world.

In 1979, Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace". She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet for laureates, asking that its $192,000 cost be given to the poor in India.

In March 1997 Teresa resigned as head of the Missionaries of Charity, and she died on 5 months later at the age of 87 and was canonised by Pope Francis in Rome in September 2016, becoming Saint Teresa of Calcutta.

According to a biography, during her early years Teresa was fascinated by stories of the lives of missionaries and by the age of 12, she was convinced that she should commit herself to religious life.

By 1997 the 13-member Calcutta congregation had grown to more than 4,000 sisters who managed orphanages, AIDS hospices and charity centres worldwide, caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless and victims of floods, epidemics and famine.

Hundreds March For Cardiac Care in the South East

Hundreds of people from across the South East have protested outside the gates of Leinster House over what they claim are inadequate cardiac facilities in the south east, and have called for improved facilities at University Hospital Waterford.

Many people in the South East region have called for 24/7 cardiac care at the hospital but to date, both the Government and the HSE have failed to respond.

The Unit at University Hospital Waterford is open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm and those that suffer a heart attack outside of these hours is transferred to Cork University Hospital or to Hospital’s in Dublin.

Two weeks ago, Thomas Power, a County Waterford man got a heart attack on a Sunday and was being transferred to CUH in an ambulance, died on route outside Dungarvan despite best efforts to revive him.

Campaigners have said that if facilities were available in Waterford he would have survived.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said at Leaders Questions in the Dáil today that  the sister of Mr Power spoke to a number of politicians today and gave a heart-rending account of the devastation his death had caused.

Mr Martin said a report in 2012, which was accepted by the HSE, had recommended a second cath laboratory for Waterford University Hospital but it never happened.

The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar expressed his sympathy to the family of Mr Power but said he could not comment on individual cases.

The Taoiseach who has Dungarvan connesctions pointed out that additional hours had been provided to the cath lab and that extra money had been invested by the HSE. A tender had also been issued by the executive for a mobile cath lab for the area.

 

Hundreds of people staged a vigil outside University Hospital Waterford on recently calling for 24-hour cardiac care for the region.

Health Minister Simon Harris said last month that he is open to a further review on the issue of cath labs in the South East.

“I commissioned an independent clinical review in relation to the cath lab situation in Waterford the minister said.

“I followed the recommendations in full, in terms of the allocation of additional resources, and I’m now putting in place a mobile cath lab.

“As Minister, I’ll always stand by clinical recommendations. I am open, though, after the improvements that Professor Herity has made, of taking course to have a further review on the issue,” he said.