Many rural communities are battling to stay positive and promote new initiatives, writes Niall Garvey. 

Treating Gardaí as ‘blue collar workers’, pardon the cliché, is despicable. While sneaking pay cuts in the back door is downright insulting.

Winners of Overall Best Garden in Cork, Muintir Na Tíre

The community protection scheme that helped track a suspected child abductor last week is still relying on local people to fund it out of their own pockets.

Many people are concerned about media reports “that the future of one-person garda stations nationwide hangs in the balance.”

Gardaí are weeks away from approving measures to combat rural crime despite growing fears over a renewed spate of attacks on elderly people.

A major mover behind the Tipperary International Peace Prize has been honoured by his “own people” with a Person of the Year award.

A man tried to intimidate a former president of Muintir na Tíre by presenting him with a fake “photograph” of the community leader with a semi-naked young girl.

A judge has ordered that a psychological report be prepared on a 57-year-old Tipperary man who pleaded guilty to the attempted coercion of the former president of Muintir na Tíre, Martin Quinn.

ANOTHER rural post office is under threat, and it’s ours in Bansha, Co Tipperary, the cradle parish of Muintir na Tire.

AN awards ceremony is to be launched later this year to acknowledge the work of volunteers and community groups in Co Cork.

THE community development movement Muintir na Tíre has never been as relevant as it is today in helping vulnerable and isolated members of society.

Three volunteer groups have teamed up to provide a helpline for older people who are house-bound by the current ice and snow and who need a volunteer to bring them essential supplies.

President Mary McAleese will mark 25 years of Community Alert today with a visit to Tipperary town.

THREE robbers beat a pensioner because they didn’t believe she had handed them her entire savings.

THREE robbers beat a pensioner because they didn’t believe she had handed them her entire savings.

A PRESTIGIOUS dresden figurine manufacturing company in Co Limerick is to close with the loss of about 15 jobs.

A SYSTEMATIC public assault is needed to tackle the growing problem of child poverty, according to Barnardos chief executive Fergus Finlay.

THE expected closure of rural post offices will sound the death knell for many communities, Muintir Na Tíre president Margaret O’Doherty has warned.

A PILOT project, believed to be the first in Ireland, was launched in West Cork yesterday aimed at providing 30,000 people with special cards which will contain contact numbers for close relatives or friends in case a person is involved in an accident or medical emergency.

A PINT of porter cost one shilling and four pence around the time Bansha Show was founded in south Tipperary 50 years ago.

AN aggressive rural development organisation with a strong emphasis on village development is urgently needed.

PROPERLY planned social housing will bring life to local communities and help banish their image of problems with vandalism, drugs and alcohol, a housing group said yesterday.

SADLY, despite the excellent community alert scheme run by Muintir na Tíre, elderly people living in remote areas can sometimes slip through the net of communal vigilance.

THE public acknowledgement of the contribution of Dermot Weld to Irish sport, at the annual Canon Hayes Sports Awards in Tipperary, was entirely appropriate.

More than one thousand post offices around the country are to become agents for AIB in a new initiative announced today.