Latest news with #Caherciveen
RTÉ News
10-08-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Peter Keane departs Clare hot seat after one season
Peter Keane has stepped down from managing the Clare senior football team after one season in charge. The Banner were again Munster runners-up this year under the Kerry man, losing the provincial final by 11 points to his native county, but were beaten by Down, Monaghan and Louth in their three All-Ireland SFC group stage fixtures. Clare only missed out on a place in the Allianz Football League Division 3 final on score difference. In a statement issued by the county, Keane said: "It is with regret that I am unable to commit to managing Clare Senior Footballers for the year ahead. "A combination of factors are influencing my decision, namely growing business demands, plus travel and time challenges. "I really enjoyed my time working with a great panel of footballers, whose commitment and dedication was first class. Their desire to be better footballers and play for their county at the highest level was exemplary. "They were both a privilege and a pleasure to train and work with, to manage, represent Clare, playing with pride and I wish them all the very best for the future". Keane added his "sincere thanks" for his management and backroom team for their "great work and commitment" as well as expressing gratitude for the "wonderful support" of the Clare County Board and Football Supporters Club. Clare GAA chair Kieran Keating said: "I know from discussing Clare football matters with Peter over the past year that his interest in our cause was genuine and his engagement with our players was always enthusiastic and forthright. "The logistics of his journey to Clare a number of times a week for the duration of the season proved difficult to manage alongside his business interests and personal/family commitments, and whilst we had sincerely hoped Peter could remain in the manager's role, we accept his decision with the grace he brought to the appointment. "We will now look to appoint a new manager and management team as soon as practicable to ensure we are prepared and ready for the 2026 season." The Caherciveen man was appointed in November, having previously managed Kerry from 2019-21, reaching the All-Ireland final in his first year in charge.
Irish Independent
17-07-2025
- Politics
- Irish Independent
Election fraudster works for Healy-Rae family firm, Minister told
A man in Kerry avoided a conviction for election fraud after he cast a vote in the local elections in June 2024 using a polling card, not in his name. Gardaí did not make enquiries as to who asked him to vote and who gave him the polling card. This polling card was registered to an address in Killarney and had been in a tractor along with several others and that one was 'missing' from the vehicle, a court was told. Fine Gael Senator Mike Kennelly said the case was 'worrying' as he outlined further details under privilege in the Seanad to a minister. "We had voter impersonation at Kenmare polling station at the local and European elections in June 2024 caught on CCTV. A Caherciveen man pleaded guilty but avoided a conviction for electoral fraud after he used a polling card, not in his name, that went missing from a vehicle,' he told Minister Christopher O'Sullivan. "It is even more extraordinary to learn, as every dog and divil in Kerry knows, that the defendant works for the Healy-Rae Plant Hire company. He was cited in court as a farmer and contractor, but his employer, the Healy-Rae firm, was unusually not identified, even though he has worked for them for years. "I called for a thorough investigation into the facts of the incident last week and we still need clarity about how this was quietly hushed up. It has made a mockery of our democracy. "There have been no answers as to how this man got the polling card before he drove 40 miles from his home to vote in another town. He did not acquire it himself, the court was told. So who exactly gave it to him? The electors of Kerry and indeed the rest of the country need to know,' he said. The Healy-Rae Plant Hire firm is run by the family of Kerry Independent TD Danny Healy-Rae. Healy-Rae Plant Hire is a third generation family business established by the late Jackie Healy-Rae TD and his brother Dan in 1956. Jackie's son Danny, now a TD, and his wife Eileen were the second generation to operate the business. ADVERTISEMENT Today, Healy-Rae Plant Hire is operated by Danny's sons, brothers Johnny and Dan Healy-Rae. Johnny Healy-Rae is a councillor for the Kenmare area. Danny is a brother of Junior Minister and Kerry TD Micheal Healy-Rae. The Junior Agriculture Minister's councillor son and ministerial press adviser, Jackie Healy-Rae Junior, was contacted to see if the minister had any comment to make on the matter. 'Healy-Rae Plant Hire is not us. Healy-Rae Plant Hire is Johnny and Danny. But I don't know the accuracy of what was said. We'd have to look into it,' the minister's spokesman said. Earlier this month, Kenmare District Court was told that no enquires were made by gardaí regarding the involvement of others parties with Sgt Chris Manton saying the man had not been questioned in this regard. David Moriarty (29) of Kilmackerin, Cahersiveen, came before the court on July 4 charged with 'fraudulently putting in a ballot box a paper other than a ballot paper you were authorised by law to put in' contrary to section 138 of the Election Act. The court had previously accepted jurisdiction allowing for the case to be heard at the District Court. Judge David Waters described it as a very 'serious' matter on several occasions during the hearing. He also queried several times the involvement of other person/s in the incident. Sgt Chris Manton told the court that at the local elections on June 7, 2024 the presiding officer received a report that a male had voted using a polling card belong to another person. CCTV was obtained and Mr Moriarty was identified. Mr Moriarty who was represented by solicitor Brendan Ahern said his client accepted the offence and had pleaded guilty at an early stage. He said he did not wish to lessen the crime but he said it was only one vote therefore it did not effect the election. Judge Waters said it was serious matter and he queried as to where Mr Moriarty obtained the polling card. "He was given by somebody and asked to vote for that candidate and he did so,' explained Mr Ahern who said he not want to reveal the name in court but he said he had provided it to gardaí. However, it later emerged the name of that person was 'unknown' and that Mr Moriarty had never been questioned about this incident and never asked about the involvement of anyone else. Sgt Manton said the polling card was taken from another person without their knowledge. Mr Ahern said it was not Mr Moriarty who took the card. Mr Ahern said his client was at a 'low ebb' at the time after a long-term relationship broke up and this 'clouded his judgement' . The court heard he is a famer and a machine driver in full-time employment. Judge Waters said mitigating factors outlined might be suitable for a public order offence but not for this. Mr Ahern said his client was not politically affiliated and was not doing this to try and get anyone elected but he conceded 'he did what he did'. "He hasn't had a full night's sleep since,' said Mr Ahern adding that it has caused him stress and anxiety. Mr Ahern said he had found it difficult to advise Mr Moriarty given the unique case and said he had advised him to bring €500 to court but he wasn't sure for what end. He said the Kerry man believed he may be going to prison for it before he came to court. Judge Waters said he would be going to prison if he had contested the case and was found guilty. He said if Mr Moriarty had previous conviction, particularly for any crime involved dishonesty, this too would have been a factor and that the only question would have been whether or not to suspend a jail sentence. However, the court was told he had no previous offences and he had pleaded guilty. Judge Waters again queried the involvement of other parties in this case. He said he agreed that the case could be heard in district court after he queried whether it was wide-spread but had heard it was only one vote. However, he said this concern was that 'other parties may be involved and may be more guilty.' He said he said others or another individual decided to do this and a 'vulnerable person was urged to do it' Sgt Manton said who else was involved was 'unknown' Judge Waters said that if Mr Moriarty 'is going to conspire to shield a person' he would take a certain view. Mr Ahern said Mr Moriarty was not questioned about the incident so he was never asked who the other parties may be. Sgt Manton conceded that this was the case saying he had not been questioned. "He was never given the opportunity to name the person/s,' said Judge Waters. Sgt Manton said a file had been sent to the DPP regarding the polling card which had been registered to an address in Killarney and that the father of the person to whom the polling card belonged had this card and others in a tractor on his land and this card was 'missing'. The person, who the polling card belonged to had not been to Kenmare, the court was told. Mr Ahern said his client would co-operate with any future investigation but does not want to name names now. Judge Waters said he was in the mind to adjourn the case to October for more money to be brought to court. Mr Ahern asked for the case to be left stand for a short while. He said Mr Moriarty would provide another €500 and a total of €1,000 was put before the court which Judge Waters directed be paid to Little Blue Heroes charity. He said it was with 'some reservation' he would not give Mr Moriarty a conviction for the offence as he said there was a certain element to it. Sgt Manton said there was a certain 'patsy' element associated with it.
The 42
29-06-2025
- Sport
- The 42
Kerry have been cut tight to the bone, relying on a great player to get past Armagh
IN THE WEE hours of the morning after their 2022 All-Ireland final win, one Kerry friend of this column was more looking through rather than drinking out of a half empty glass. Amid giddy talk of one fallen blue dynasty begetting a new green and gold one, he offered up a more sober perspective of what the future would hold for the newly crowned All-Ireland champions with a measure that would be easily if uncomfortably understood by every Kerry person. 'I will tell you now, if David Clifford ends up with the same All-Ireland medal haul as Maurice Fitzgerald, he will do well,' he suggested, albeit to some derision. With every passing year, what was once seen as a modest molehill to clamber takes on the look of an ever steeper hill to scale. Maurice Fitzgerald ended with two, which is still twice as many as Clifford, but the disparity feels even greater than that. The Caherciveen maestro won his medals at the end of a career that once only offered – or, perhaps, more likely threatened – a legacy as the best player from the county not to win a Celtic Cross, inflating their worth in the process. Clifford, somehow an even more illuminating talent, won his one early enough in his career to invite the prospect of having several others for show, which if it does not come to pass will only have a deflationary impact on those who measure worth by numbers. And the real fear in Kerry today as they head to Croke Park to take on the All-Ireland champions Armagh is that the only counting they will have to do is to simply count out another year. Advertisement That stark? Pretty much so. Others who make their living out of counting think so too; Kerry the standout favourites at the start of the summer are the very obvious 6/4 underdogs this afternoon, and given that the market factors in tradition when pricing the Kingdom, the price based purely on form is even bigger than that. Kerry's hope is that with their backs pressed against the wall, they will find something deep that will deliver a performance that will give them a real chance. Perhaps, one on a scale of what they managed in the first half of the 2022 semi-final against Dublin, but which exhausted them to the point that they spent most of the second half, fighting on the ropes and gasping for air. The good news for them is finding that should not take a lot of searching, given that it is Armagh they face. It's hardly no coincidence that Kerry's best performance of a patchy season was in the penultimate round league game in Tralee when last year's semi-final defeat to the Orchard County was on their mind, as they racked up a 10-point win playing with such fire that Kieran McGeeney opined afterwards that his players were 'bullied' off the pitch. Mind, they were played off it too. But it is hard to ignore the truth in that old line that if revenge is all that you have got going, it is best to dig two graves, including one for yourself. The Limerick hurlers found that out this summer when in expunging last year's semi-final loss to Cork, they vaporised the Rebels with the perfect display in a group game, the result of which did not really matter and after that found that their capacity to be the best versions of their great selves had been drained empty. It is not that Kerry will have been sated by a league win, but the price for it has left them in significant debt as two minutes from the end of that game, the mood of their season had already coloured a shade darker when Diarmuid O'Connor went to ground clutching his shoulder. He had added further to his citation that evening as the game's top midfielder during the spring with another dominant performance, assisting for three points but even more importantly freeing up Joe O'Connor to thrive in a half-forward line alongside Paudie Clifford, with the prospect of Sean O'Shea still to come back. It was the lack of physicality in that line in particular which Armagh had so pointedly exploited in last year's semi-final, and it felt prior to O'Connor's injury – one despite efforts to rehabilitate has haunted the player – Kerry had constructed a fix. But no longer as O'Connor's absence compounded by ongoing fitness concerns about Paudie Clifford – who is named to start today on the bench – and with Joe O'Connor likely to have to put his shoulder to the wheel in a deeper role, Kerry may well return to Croke Park today as an angrier team than 12 months ago, but hardly as a better one. And that's not just because of bad luck; in a condensed season and in a new game far more demanding of players, injuries are a fact of life which every one has to factor in, but only the strongest and deepest can do so well. A group like Armagh, for instance, who for large swathes of the season have been without key players such as Aaron McKay, Aidan Forker, Niall Grimley, Oisin O'Neill and Rian O'Neill among others, but have continued to evolve and become better, not least because of what the likes of Ethan Rafferty, Ross McQuillan, Darragh McMullan and a rejuvenated Jarly Óg Burns has brought to them. That is why Armagh, a team deemed by many to be one-off champions, have the feel of a back-to-back championship winning team. And it is why Kerry look like pretty much what they are; a team cut hopelessly tight to the bone with a great player rolling a boulder up a sheer hill face. Where the only counting doing business is the number of times it rolls back down. ***** Check out the latest episode of The42′s GAA Weekly podcast here
Irish Examiner
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Donie O'Sullivan wins Emmy — but ‘still no South Kerry Championships'
Senior CNN correspondent and proud Caherciveen man Donie O'Sullivan has won an Emmy for outstanding new coverage. O'Sullivan was recognised for his work on the three-part documentary MisInfoNation which was broadcast as part of The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper during the US election coverage. He led the reporting in three hour-long CNN specials. Celebrating the win, O'Sullivan posted a photo on Instagram with the caption: 'Won an Emmy!!! (Still no South Kerry Championships).' The South Kerry man has been working with CNN since 2016 and rose to international prominence for his reporting during the 2021 US Capitol attack. His work has covered the impact of social media on politics and in 2022 his own Twitter account was among several journalists' accounts that were suspended after covering the social media site's owner Elon Musk, who accused O'Sullivan of violating Twitter's policy on doxing. O'Sullivan was previously nominated for News Emmy awards in 2020, 2021 and 2024. Read More Jeff Bezos alters Venice wedding plans after threat of inflatable crocodiles
