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Irish Examiner
7 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Tributes paid to Waterford cyclist who died on Tour de France trip
Tributes are being paid to a cyclist from Co Waterford who died in France on Monday. Tomás Walsh, 25, was a member of the Comeragh Cycling Club and had been in the country for the Tour de France. The club led the tributes, saying they are shattered by the news. "It is with great sadness that we have learned that our clubmate and friend young Tomás Walsh has lost his life in France," said a statement. "We're truly shattered by this news and extend our sincerest condolences to all his family and friends." Waterford-based bike shop Altitude said Tomás "was one of a golden group of talented cyclists who happened to converge through their membership of Comeragh Cycling Club" where "great friendships were formed". "His death is deeply felt by everyone here and we extend our deepest sympathy to Bernie and Frank and to Tomás' sisters and his family and friends." Local side Passage Hurling Club, where Tomás was a juvenile player, also expressed "deepest sympathies to his family and friends at this difficult time". It has been reported that Tomás was electrocuted in a Paris Metro station on Monday morning. Funeral details have yet to be announced.
The Journal
22-07-2025
- The Journal
Tributes paid to young cyclist who died suddenly in France
TRIBUTES HAVE BEEN paid to a young Co Waterford cyclist who died suddenly in France. Tomás Walsh, a member of the Comeragh Cycling Club, has been fondly remembered by his friends in the cycling community across the country. Tómas was in France to see today's Tour de France stage finish on Mount Ventoux. It's understood that he was electrocuted in a Paris Metro station on Monday morning. In a statement, Comeragh Cycling Club said it is 'shattered by the news' and extended its 'sincerest condolences to all his family and friends'. Advertisement Tomás has been described as a super kids both off and on the bike and as a credit to his parents. Condolences have been paid to the young cyclist from far and wide. A colleague of Tomás said he had the privilege of racing against him during underage years, and also hosting him at the Ras Mumhan a few years ago. Another person described him as a 'lovely young man'. In a statement to The Journal , a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs said it is aware of the case and is providing consular assistance. -With additional reporting from Diarmuid Pepper Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
Irish Times
13-07-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Tramore community rally around Albanian family facing deportation
Dozens of parents and children gathered under the hot July sunshine on Saturday morning in the seaside town of Tramore calling on the Minister for Justice not to deport an Albanian family and to grant them permission to remain on humanitarian grounds . Students from Tramore Educate Together national school, including classmates of Luna, the six-year-old daughter of the family, took part in the rally outside Ocean View Guest House, where the family has lived since they moved to Co Waterford in 2022. The family has been told they must return to Albania by the end of August or they will be removed from the State. Participants in Saturday's rally chanted 'deportation no way, we want our friends to stay' and held up posters with messages including 'trá mór, grá mór' and 'our friends belong here'. 'The fact that we're rallying support around a six-year-old is horrendous,' said parent and organiser Aoife O'Driscoll. 'Our kids are sitting around making posters to stop her being taken away. It's lovely but it's awful.' READ MORE Ms O'Driscoll launched a campaign for the family last week after discovering her child's classmate had received a deportation notice. Nearly all the parents in the 180-pupil school have since offered their support for the family, says Ms O'Driscoll. 'Luna's entire life is in Tramore, her friends are in Tramore. We saw her running out of school recently with Réalt na Seachtaine for the best Irish that week. She doesn't know any of this is happening.' Luna's mother, who requested not to be named, says the family was 'forced to leave' Albania in 2022 because of threats to their safety. They were particularly concerned for their daughter due to the risk of child trafficking, she said. 'We heard Ireland was safe and it was very far from Albania. I was sure that person looking for us would not find our family here,' she said. 'No one wants to talk badly about their country of origin but Albania is not safe.' Albania is one of 15 jurisdictions designated as safe countries of origin by the State for the purposes of international protection applications. The family spent a few months in the Balseskin accommodation centre in Finglas, Dublin, before being transferred to Tramore in late 2022. Parents and students from Tramore Educate Together National School on calling on Saturday for an Albanian family not to be deported. Photograph: Aoife O'Driscoll They were refused permission to remain and were notified in April they had to leave Ireland by May 17th, 2025. They secured an extension until the end of August because Luna's younger brother, who was born in Ireland with complex medical needs and underwent surgery earlier this year, had a hospital appointment in July. The mother, who worked as an English-language teacher in Albania, works as a cleaner and her husband is in construction. The suspense of not knowing what will happen to her children 'is killing me', she says. 'I'm trying to be strong but there are days I feel I cannot breathe, you feel your time is ending. Sometimes I just want to give up but I have to go on for my children. It's not their fault that we had problems and were forced to leave Albania.' The Tramore Educate Together parents association contacted the Department of Justice on July 1st, saying its decision to deport the family 'knowingly put a child's life at risk'. The two-year-old 'requires complex care that will simply not be available to him should this family be deported', read the letter. The family have 'built a life' in Tramore and deporting them will 'inflict irreparable trauma on each of them', it said. An petition , signed by more than 500 people, calls on the Government to treat the family's situation with 'the nuanced, discerning approach that is required when human lives are at stake'. A Department of Justice spokesman said officials 'aim to process families in a holistic manner' but 'a child's immigration case is highly dependent on the status of their parents'. He added: 'Each child's circumstances are examined in detail before a deportation order is made and voluntary return is offered.' If families do not engage with gardaí and leave the State within a prescribed time frame, 'they can be arrested and detained in order to make the arrangements for their deportation,' he said, adding that 'children are never detained'. Enforced removals of children are only carried out 'as a measure of last resort when the family concerned has not removed themselves from the State as they are legally required to'. Some 106 people have been deported from Ireland on chartered flights so far this year, while 69 were removed on commercial airlines and another 30 people left unescorted. These included 106 Georgians, 36 Nigerians, 18 Brazilians, seven Algerians and five Albanians, according to Government data. Thirteen of those deported so far this year were children. Last week, Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan said he had no plans to cease the deportation of children. 'Any such policy would make Ireland an outlier in Europe and could encourage more people to come here with children, knowing that they could not be removed regardless of the outcome of their case,' he told the Dáil.
BreakingNews.ie
13-07-2025
- BreakingNews.ie
Funeral of man who died in Waterford collision to be held on Tuesday as man remanded on bail
A funeral service for a father-of-four who died in a road collision in Co Waterford last week is to be held on Tuesday. Michael O'Sullivan (55) of Cullencastle, Tramore, died last Friday at University Hospital Waterford (UHW) as a result of injuries he sustained when the motorbike he was travelling on collided with a jeep. Advertisement The collision occurred in Tramore at 7.35pm in the Cullencastle area of Tramore. Mr O'Sullivan's Requiem Mass will be held at 10am at The Church of the Holy Cross, Tramore. A private cremation will take place on Wednesday, July. He is survived by his wife Lillian, his son Nicholas, his daughters Fiona, Heather and Rebecca; and his treasured grandchildren Mya, Maisie, Dolly, Frankie, Gustav, James, Katie and Finn. The O'Sullivan family thanked all the emergency services, medical carers and all the staff in UHW in funeral details on Meanwhile, a 67-year-old man was remanded on bail, charged with alleged dangerous driving causing death in relation to last Wednesday's crash. John Fitzgibbon, with an address in New York City, appeared before a special sitting of Waterford District Court on Friday night. Judge John Cheatle set bail at €10,000 cash to be presented to the court on Tuesday. Bail was granted on the guarantee that both Mr Fitzgibbon's Irish and his American passports be handed into the court. Mr Fitzgibbon was also ordered to reside in Co Waterford until the conclusion of court proceedings.
Irish Times
31-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Inside Ireland's music festival industry: `You can haemorrhage money very quickly'
Summer is on the minds of Will Rolfe and James Aiken – the summer of 2026, that is. 'We already have some headliners confirmed,' says Rolfe, promoter, curator and creative director of Pod Festivals. 'Just when everyone is getting excited for this year, we're starting to get excited for next year. You really don't get to enjoy it in the moment.' The 2025 festival season has nevertheless shaped up nicely for Pod and Aiken Promotions , its owner since 2023, and the mood is upbeat in advance of this weekend's Forbidden Fruit at Royal Hospital Kilmainham, in the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art. 'It's the longest-running music festival in Dublin city centre,' says James Aiken, a Pod booker, company director and third-generation concert promoter. (His late grandfather Jim founded Aiken.) READ MORE 'A portion of the audience will go because it's the June bank holiday weekend, but there is also a large portion who we have to engage every year with the right line-up,' he says. As we talk, in mid-May, Rolfe can 'nearly touch-wood guarantee' that the 15,000-capacity Forbidden Fruit will sell out, while Pod's big camping event, All Together Now , shifted its final tickets in March – encouragingly, this is the earliest it has sold out since 2019. The three-day, four-night festival – which takes place at the Curraghmore Estate, in Co Waterford, on the August bank-holiday weekend – did this while increasing its capacity to 30,000, up from 25,000 in 2024. It took 'a little bit of time' for people to flock back to festivals like this one after the pandemic, says Rolfe, but the restart is now in full swing. Across a broad spectrum of events, the Irish music-festival scene of 2025 is defined by vibrancy and resilience. For the generations who can't afford a home, going to festivals is part of their revenge for the way life has treated them The promoters and experts I speak to stress that financial risk is always involved and identify pinch points for smaller operators, in particular. Some events fell by the wayside in the wake of Covid, as costs rocketed and disposable incomes shrank. The sector appears in good nick by international standards, however, and continues to be buoyed by ever more experienced promoters, more deeply ingrained demand and a relatively fresh flush of big-name Irish artists. 'We're world champions at going to festivals,' says Michael Murphy, a music-industry veteran who now lectures at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Dún Laoghaire. When Denis Desmond, the founder of MCD Productions , 'went professional' in 1981, promoting Thin Lizzy at the first Slane Castle concert – with U2 'famously down the bill' – a switch was flicked, Murphy says. Today, Desmond's Gaiety Investments co-owns LN-Gaiety Holdings, which is a joint venture with the global behemoth Live Nation . LN-Gaiety Holdings in turn owns MCD and Festival Republic, the operator of Ireland's biggest festival: Electric Picnic. This means that while Aiken is a significant player in an Irish context, it's small compared with Live Nation. Select festivals – including the now 80,000-capacity Electric Picnic and the British music mecca Glastonbury – have such established brands that they will sell out before announcing a single name. For the rest, the line-up is critical to their survival, says Murphy. 'If you get the content wrong you could go out of business.' [ How to have a number one album, from U2 to The Beatles: An Irish expert shares his music industry experience Opens in new window ] He draws a distinction between civic-minded, community-based festivals and the for-profit kind. As an 'old punk' he can remember the 'prehistoric times' when there was simply no sponsorship of music gigs. Once festivalgoing became a rite of passage, however, it was inevitable that alcohol companies would rush to associate their brands with moments of collective freedom and elation. Economic dysfunction has, in a way, actually boosted the live-events industry. 'For the generations who can't afford a home, going to festivals is part of their revenge for the way life has treated them,' says Murphy. Other factors have helped 'brilliant boutique festivals' flourish alongside the megaevents. Not everybody wants to be corralled on to an alcohol sponsor's patch – they want freedom from the corporate element, too. The age range of festivalgoers has also widened, as people now in their 60s were able to acquire an outdoor-gig habit in their 20s in a way that previous generations couldn't. This demographic expansion is reflected in both the type of events being staged and their sponsors. The 'family music festival' Kaleidoscope , for instance, is officially 'Kaleidoscope presented by Glenveagh' Properties. The home builder's backing is 'essential to our growth', says Shell Holden, director of marketing at the events agency Fuel , which manages it alongside Festival Republic , Live Nation and MCD. Kaleidoscope, held at Russborough House in Blessington, Co Wicklow, is built to prioritise accessibility and convenience, with baby-changing areas, dedicated sensory and quiet spaces, a family cooking zone and a campsite quiet-time curfew. We are, in other words, a long way from Oxegen. Intergenerational custom also swells attendances at the Big Day Out , a one-day, 15,000-capacity 'pop and nostalgia' festival at TUS Gaelic Grounds in Limerick. The CWB -promoted event will be headlined this August by the boy band Blue. Ticket-buyers who lived through the pop era of the 1990s and early 2000s bring their children, nieces and nephews – and, thanks to the music-recycling capabilities of platforms such as TikTok, they aren't dragging them, either. 'Nostalgic acts can have a resurgence,' says Paul Boland, one of CWB's founders. His company aims to bring more national-scale events to the midwest region. But building 'from the bottom up' is not without its challenges. 'You can haemorrhage money very quickly,' he says. Events are promoted 'subject to licence', which requires some nerve-holding. Insurance for extreme weather has also become harder to obtain since Brexit, while the splintering of social-media usage has complicated marketing efforts. Boland is keen for the live-events industry to be taken seriously as the employment generator and sustainable economic contributor that it is. 'It brings confidence to a region as well,' he says. 'We take the attitude of The Cranberries: If everyone else is doing it, why can't we?' What Murphy calls the 'DIY aspect to Irish music promotion' will also be in evidence this summer at Orlagh House, a converted monastery in the foothills of the Dublin mountains – and, crucially, only five minutes from the M50. This is where the promoter Úna Molloy, of the agency Touring Pirate , hopes to attract 'a more grown-up' audience to Hibernacle on the first weekend in July. 'Send the 16-year-olds to Longitude and come and have premium pints at Hibernacle,' she suggests. The festival has a full bar, a 'secret stage' that pops up between acts and a raft of Irish artists on the line-up, including Villagers, who will headline on the Saturday night. Its capacity is a genuinely boutique 800. [ Electric Picnic 2025: More acts added to line-up as capacity increases again Opens in new window ] Molloy says she wants to make the experience 'a little bit magical' – and flexible, too, for the contingent with responsibilities and/or babysitters to pay. Weekend-pass wristbands can be swapped, so 'a pal or partner' can go one of the nights. Hibernacle has no sponsorship, no funding. 'It's just me,' says Molloy. Like Boland, she cites the need to keep prices contained, but it's not easy. The ticketing service Eventbrite adds a 12 per cent booking fee, and, before she can pay anyone, 3 per cent of the ticket price goes to the Irish Music Rights Organisation, in royalties; 13.5 per cent of it will be VAT. Smaller venues and promoters at the grassroots have 'really struggled' since the temporary 9 per cent VAT rate expired in September 2023, Molloy says. Indeed, in Britain, where the sector has suffered a high volume of casualties, the Association of Independent Festivals has campaigned for a time-limited 5 per cent rate. Molloy is keeping her fingers crossed. 'If people don't buy tickets for this, it's going to take me a while to claw my way back from it. But I don't think 800 tickets is beyond the beyonds.' The impact of public funding on Irish festivals deserves to be amplified, according to Angela Dorgan, chief executive of First Music Contact , the Arts Council-funded resource organisation for musicians. 'I know it's not very sexy to talk about it, but acts like Fontaines DC and CMAT had early tours supported by Culture Ireland ,' she says, referring to the State promotion agency. The 'tons' of background work going on includes Ireland Music Week, the First Music Contact-run October showcase that places up-and-coming Irish artists in front of international bookers. 'We're seeing a lot of Irish bands being booked for European festivals, which means they can tour,' she says. Nothing can replace 'eyeball to eyeball' contact between artists and audiences, Dorgan believes, but she cautions that the ecosystem will unravel if it becomes unviable for musicians. 'There are festivals that pay security staff, sound engineers, everyone, but the fee for the artist is an afterthought. We need to keep an eye on the fairness of that. You can't sell tickets for an empty stage.' With the flow of international superstar acts slowing down – 'really bad for Ireland,' says Murphy – the viability of Irish festivals is likely to become ever more intertwined with the general health of Irish music. Making a profit from festivals remains a high-wire act. 'You need to be in and around a sell-out. In the whole of the music industry, from concerts to festivals, the margins are extremely tight. So you need to be at 90 per cent, 95 per cent,' says Rolfe of Pod, which was founded by the late promoter John Reynolds. Not all major artists are chasing the biggest paydays. 'Some of them want to do something different, something curated, something with a little bit more soul. The economics change if there are fewer of those artists available.' June sees the second outing for Pod and Aiken's 10,000-capacity In the Meadows , which will have Iggy Pop as its headliner and co-curator. The one-day festival – which, like Forbidden Fruit, takes over Royal Hospital Kilmainham – exemplifies some of the trends predicted to shape the future festival landscape. It's a city venue, it's 'not just about the headliner' and it targets a 'slightly older' audience. 'Brand identity is going to become more and more important over the next five to 10 years. Sticking headliners on a festival bill and saying, 'That's it,' isn't going to be enough,' says Aiken. Beyond the music, minimum audience expectations for food and drink, wellness and accommodation have all increased even since the first All Together Now, in 2018, Rolfe says. He thinks that Ireland's size has prevented festivals here from becoming too genre-specific, too specialised, and that this makes for more interesting events. Bringing together people from different backgrounds 'who are into completely different things' is part of the joy of festivals, he says. 'That's an important thing in the world at the moment.' The business, as Murphy adds, is bigger than the sum of its revenues – and that's worth cherishing.
