LIMERICK City Council’s 2011 environmental grants to local communities have been increased thanks to sponsorship by a charitable foundation.

BILLIONAIRE gambler JP McManus is funding a clean-up of a huge boarded-up area of Limerick city which has fallen victim to the economic collapse.

FOOTBALL’S coming home for Limerick FC who are set to return to the Markets Field after an absence of some 30 years.

LIMERICK soccer is set to return to its old home at the Markets Field following a substantial charitable donation.

IN response to Gerry Boland’s letter (Dec 8) entitled “Scandalous food practice turns my stomach“, while I do not want to enter a much-heated debate, usually fanned by extremist animal right campaigners (who are usually also followed by more sensible people), I would nonetheless like to clarify a few points.

THE charitable foundation set up by Limerick millionaire JP McManus has given €250,000 to the Special Olympics, which take place in Limerick from June 9 to June 13.

ACCORDING to the latest report of the European Food Safety Authority, 83% of chickens entering Irish slaughterhouses are infected with campylobacter, a major source of gastroenteritis in humans. This is the highest figure in Europe after Malta and Spain. As if this isn’t bad enough, a staggering 98.3% were infected after slaughtering.

WHILE at university in Texas during the mid-1960s and early 1970s there was very little news about Ireland either on television or in the newspapers.

WHILE Eamon de Valera was dreaming of comely maidens dancing at the crossroads, young boys were being flogged and buggered by a sordid assortment of perverted clergy and depraved Christian Brothers.

THE JP McManus Scholarship Awards went international last night with two of the eight recipients having been born in Poland and Togo.

The creator of cult TV puppet ’Bosco’ today won a prestigious RTE short story competition.

HOORAY for Gerry Boland whose letter (December 18) exposed the horrible truth about the production of foie gras.

ALL this month, in the lead-up to Christmas, people who wouldn’t dream of eating foie gras between January and November find it on a festive menu and, keen to try something ‘posh’, send in their order.

I WAS intrigued by the letter from Gerry Boland (September 11) in support of the Green Party’s opposition to hunting.

BLOODSPORTS enthusiasts, and in particular the Ward Union Hunt in Co Meath, have been making an unholy show of themselves on the airwaves recently.

IN all the radio and television commentary on bird flu and in the many dozens of articles I have read on the subject, nowhere have I come across a single reference to the ethics of how the modern factory farmed bird is bred, raised and slaughtered.

OR those who do not give any value to a hen’s life, there was much to laugh at in reports of a truck shedding its load of 6,500 hens in Co Cavan (Irish Examiner, December 16).

IN his letter headlined ‘Suffering chickens not good for our health’ (Irish Examiner, November 30), Gerry Boland wrote of the plight of 50 billion chickens worldwide cramped up in windowless sheds and beset by disease.

NOT that many years ago, foie gras was an expensive delicacy that was beyond the financial means of most people. Today, foie gras appears on menus throughout the country, and is on sale in many food outlets

IT may well be that a bird-related flu is heading our way, but even if it doesn’t become the pandemic we are all being advised to prepare for, we can at least learn about the Chinese chicken industry — something that wouldn’t be headline news otherwise.

THERE are many ways to skin a cat, and now it seems there are also many ways to kill a pig. We need not be surprised, though we may allow ourselves to experience a certain degree of shock and disgust.

MR JUSTICE Kevin O’Higgins concluded that Portmarnock golf club “is not a discriminating club under the terms of the Equal Status Act 2000, because it falls within an exception provided for in that act”.

ONE hears a lot about evil these days: the axis of evil, the evils of pornography, paedophilia, contract killings, etc.

MEAT factories are cutting the price they pay sheep farmers for lamb. This, we are told, is forcing sheep farmers out of business.

FOR decades, global economic policy has dictated that vast areas of the developing world’s agricultural land be used for ‘cash crops’.

SEALS are intelligent creatures. Pigs, too. Seals feel pain. Pigs, too. Seals are free to swim freely (when they're not being slaughtered), to hunt, to procreate naturally, to fully express their 'sealness.'

TOMORROW, the annual World Vegetarian Day fair takes place in Dublin. According to the British vegetarian society, approximately three million people there are vegetarian.

SEVERAL issues relating to animal welfare and animal rights have been in the news recently, among them the exposure of the notorious puppy farms, the ongoing campaign to ban live farm animal exports, and a more recent campaign to end the exportation of horses for slaughter abroad.

The Kemmy Business School (KBS) at the University of Limerick has announced its first business advisory board.

THE European Parliament’s vote recently to impose more stringent controls on live exports is to be welcomed, if only because any improvement in the welfare of farm animals is better than none.

AMID the feelings of warmth and generosity and the frenzy that is so much a feature of Christmas, we should spare a thought for the animals and birds sacrificed in astronomical numbers for our festive pleasure.

WHAT a beautiful time of year. Such idyllic scenes of pastoral tranquillity in the countryside, as cows and sheep lazily graze the lush meadows.