Leitrim Daily

This week's guest is a previous winner of the Leitrim Person of the Year award, hailing from Drumshanbo Noel McPartland has played a large part in the development of the food hub from the premises he spend decades working with Bo Peep Jams and Lairds Foods.They chat about his experience of growing up in rural Ireland, making inroads in the food export in the middle east, far east and North America and dealing with the wonders of the communication technology in the 1970's and 1980's.Noel discusses his experience of being drafted into the US Army and almost getting dragged into the Cuban Missile Crisis a matter of weeks before his scheduled discharge after his two years of service.You can follow the show on www.leitrimdaily.com or by searching for 'Leitrim Daily' on Youtube or Spotify. Join the 'Leitrim Daily' Facebook group to get the latest episodes direct to your phone, ipad or computer.

This week's guest is former county librarian Seán Ó Súilleabháin drops in for a chat with Tommy about his life in the town having moved from this native Longford decades ago.They chat about his love of the Irish language and his work promoting the language in Ballinamore. They touch on his involvement with the promotion of gaelic games and specifically hurling as well as other cultural activities through scór.Tommy and Sean reminisce about their shared experiences threading the boards as part of the All Ireland winning Novelty Act with Sean O'Heslins.You can follow the show on www.leitrimdaily.com or by searching for 'Leitrim Daily' on Youtube or Spotify. Join the 'Leitrim Daily' Facebook group to get the latest episodes direct to your phone, ipad or computer.

This week's show focuses on the start of Leitrim's four intercounty adult sides with the Senior Footballers, Ladies and U20's starting their campaign after the Hurler's started their season with defeat in Mayo last weekend. We're joined by Leitrim manager Terry Hyland and former captain Gary Reynolds on this week's podcast episode.Co Hosts Derek Kelleher and Breifne Earley discuss the footballers chances in what is deemed to be a mismatch by most pundits on Castlebar on Sunday and what's required of this bunch of players to have the game judged a success from the Leitrim point of view.Terry Hyland drops in to chat about the preparations for the side, he discusses injuries and the absences from the panel. Hyland talks about the impact of rule changes, covid and lack of time on his side's planning for this Connacht Semi Final.He details his thoughts on where Leitrim need to focus in the medium to long term to be competitive on a consistent basis but wasn't to be drawn on his own medium to long term plans in the role.Within the county We take a look at the Masonite Football Leagues and former Leitrim captain Gary Reynolds joins us to discuss his Carrigallen sides draw in Gortletteragh on Saturday evening as they prepare for the start of the Smyth Monumentals Intermediate Football Championship in just a few weeks time.

He's one of Leitrim's most recognisable characters and here at Leitrim Daily we felt it was about time Tommy Moran had his own chat show as he approaches his 80th birthday. A former school teacher, chairman of Connacht GAA, long serving secretary of Leitrim GAA, formerly editor and current chairman of The Leitrim Guardian and veteran of countless drama productions amongst many other interests we felt he was the perfect person to share stories of interesting people around the county.We asked and he answered and starting today he's going to be inviting some of the people around the county to join him on this weekly show. You can follow the show on Youtube, Spotify or join our Facebook group to get the latest episodes direct to your phone, ipad or computer.Tommy's first guests are current Leitrim Person of the Year award winners Peter McHugh and Andy McGovern. The pair were nominated for the prestigious honour as part of their work for the Leitrim Association of People with Disabilities (LAPWD) over the years.Andy McGovern is a novelist who is the old living person with Motor Neurone Disease having been diagnosed with the disease in the 1970's. Peter McHugh suffered a stroke while working at his tractor on his farm and lost his left arm after falling and getting entangled with the tractor shaft. Both men have been hugely influential in the development of LAPWD.

With the huge number of games on the calendar at the moment we’ve an equally busy show this weekend as the Ladies deal with their League Final disappointment, our hurlers get their season up and running and the club season progresses steady with the Masonite Leagues.Former Connacht Champion Aidan Rooney (1:22) joins Breifne Earley to work through the last week including Sligo’s defeat to Mayo, Leitrim’s opponents in the upcoming Connacht Championship semi final before previewing Leitrim's chances in that game.Maeve Quinn (13:43) joins the conversation to look back at the LIDL Ladies Football League Division 4 Final defeat to Louth and where Leitrim go from here with the Championship starting with a home clash with Fermanagh in the coming weeks. We also hear after match reaction from Leitrim Ladies captain Clare Owens (20:36) and manager Hugh Donnelly (23:50).Leitrim Hurling manager Olcan Conway (32:36) speaks to Breifne ahead of his side’s opening Nickey Rackard Cup clash with Mayo this Saturday in MacHale Park, Castlebar. He discusses the injury situation at the moment in the squad and the competition format and what’s required for Leitrim to reach a Semi Final spot and ensure survival at this grade.Within the county the Masonite Football Leagues continue and we catch up with Conor Sheridan (41:46) of Melvin Gaels and Niall Woods (52:19) of Gortletteragh after their wins last weekend over Leitrim Gaels and Allen Gaels in the top two divisions of the competition.Aidan and Breifne finish the show with a look at the fixtures (63:29) for next weekend across the sports within the county's leagues and the hurlers and U20 footballers.

The Book Club @ Leitrim Daily is in session for June 2021. Our Book Club panel met once again to share their thoughts on their latest selection, the multiple award winning debut novel from Douglas Stuart, ’Shuggie Bain’.The club’s host Mary Blake is joined by retired librarian Hilda King, Orlagh Kelly of The Reading Room Bookshop in Carrick on Shannon and Michael Geoghegan to work their way through this first full length novel from the winner of The Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award.This will be the last episode of the Book Club for this season as the panel take a summer break. You can get all books covered in the series from The Reading Room Bookshop in Carrick on Shannon. Contact Orlagh at 071 9671580. You’ll even get 10% off the book when you mention the Book Club @ Leitrim Daily.About ‘Shuggie Bain' by Douglas Stuart.It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life. She dreams of greater things: a house with its own front door and a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect, but false, teeth). But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and soon she and her three children find themselves trapped in a decimated mining town. As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest.Shuggie is different. Fastidious and fussy, he shares his mother’s sense of snobbish propriety. The miners’ children pick on him and adults condemn him as no’ right. But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place.Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain lays bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride. A counterpart to the privileged Thatcher-era London of Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty, it also recalls the work of Édouard Louis, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, a blistering debut by a brilliant writer with a powerful and important story to tell.

We're looking back at the end of our county sides disappointing campaigns in the National Football League and Hurling Leagues in recent weeks while we catch up with the Ladies Football team preparing for their Semi Final showdown with Limerick on Sunday. Aidan Rooney (2:30) takes a look back at some of the lessons learned from the winless route through Division 4 of the National Football League last month and where our senior side are currently ahead of a crunch Connacht Senior Championship Semi Final clash in just four weeks time.We catch up with Leitrim Ladies (16:59) footballers Carla LeGuen (21:25), Charlene Tyrell (21:52) & Ailbhe Clancy (23:01) as they take on Limerick in the Semi Final of Division 4 of the Lidl National Ladies Football League on Sunday afternoon.County Board secretary Declan Bohan (36:24) joins us to outline the format for the Masonite Football Leagues which kick off in a week's time for ten clubs with the remainder joining the action the following weekend.Finally Daniel Beck (46:20), the captain of the reigning Championship holders Mohill, joins Aidan and Breifne to discuss the format of the league and the general excitement of players to just be back in action with a recharged battery after the longest off season break most will have had in their careers. This podcast is produced by FinalWhistle / Leitrim Daily in association with Leitrim GAA. Please support www.leitrimsupportersclub.ie & www.winawedding.ie which are two current fundraisers to help with the costs of running county teams at all levels.

It's been a rough weekend for most of Leitrim Gaelic Games with national league defeats for the county senior footballers and hurlers although the Ladies footballers did manage to put some sunshine with an eight point victory on Sunday afternoon.This week's co-host Colin Regan (1:01) takes a look back at the National Football League defeat with Breifne Earley.Leitrim manager Terry Hyland (3:02) joins the show to reflect on his side's reversal at the hands of Mickey Harte's Louth side in Carrick on Sunday afternoon. He talks about his experience of the game, what went wrong and the route from here for a side who saw their interest in the promotion hunt ended with that defeat.One of the few bright spots was the return to action of Ryan O'Rourke (15:42) and we hear his thoughts after his return to the playing pitch after a long injury layoff.Maeve Quinn (17:42) drops in to chat about the Ladies fine performance and big win over Louth in Ballinamore in their first League game of the season as they reversed a defeat to the same opposition last season as they pick up last season's efforts to get promotion from Division 4 which was cut short by the pandemic restrictions.We also hear from Leitrim Captain Clare Owens (23:12) & Manager Hugh Donnelly (25:36) after the game.Finally Colin and Breifne chat to Games Development Administrator Stephen McGurrin (41:25) about the roll out of the Turas programme across 16 of the counties clubs with over 400 youth coaches taking the first steps on their coach education journey.Colin finished with a look forward (56:22) to the weekend's National Football League clash with Antrim and taking the positives from the current situation.

The Book Club @ Leitrim Daily is in session for May 2021. Our Book Club panel met once again to share their thoughts on their latest selection, the best selling memoir from Hadley Freeman ’House of Glass’.The club’s host Mary Blake is joined by retired librarian Hilda King, Orlagh Kelly of The Reading Room Bookshop in Carrick on Shannon and Michael Geoghegan to work their way through this first full length novel from the winner of The Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award.We also find our which book has been selected for this month to be discussed in the next episode of The Book Club @ Leitrim Daily in June.You can get all books covered in the series from The Reading Room Bookshop in Carrick on Shannon. Although closed due to covid restrictions they are facilitating an order and collect / postal service on all purchases. Contact Orlagh at 071 9671580. You’ll even get 10% off the book when you mention the Book Club @ Leitrim Daily.About 'House of Glass' by Hadley FreemanAfter her grandmother died, Hadley Freeman travelled to her apartment to try and make sense of a woman she’d never really known. Sala Glass was a European expat in America – defiantly clinging to her French influences, famously reserved, fashionable to the end – yet to Hadley much of her life remained a mystery. Sala’s experience of surviving one of the most tumultuous periods in modern history was never spoken about.When Hadley found a shoebox filled with her grandmother’s treasured belongings, it started a decade-long quest to find out their haunting significance and to dig deep into the extraordinary lives of Sala and her three brothers. The search takes Hadley from Picasso’s archives in Paris to a secret room in a farmhouse in Auvergne to Long Island and to Auschwitz.By piecing together letters, photos and an unpublished memoir, Hadley brings to life the full story of the Glass siblings for the first time: Alex’s past as a fashion couturier and friend of Dior and Chagall; trusting and brave Jacques, a fierce patriot for his adopted country; and the brilliant Henri who hid in occupied France – each of them made extraordinary bids for survival during the Second World War. And alongside her great-uncles’ extraordinary acts of courage in Vichy France, Hadley discovers her grandmother’s equally heroic but more private form of female self-sacrifice.A moving memoir following the Glass siblings throughout the course of the twentieth-century as they each make their own bid for survival, House of Glass explores assimilation, identity and home – issues that are deeply relevant today.Book Club Selection for June 2021: Shuggie Bain by Douglas StuartIt is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life. She dreams of greater things: a house with its own front door and a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect, but false, teeth). But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and soon she and her three children find themselves trapped in a decimated mining town. As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest.Shuggie is different. Fastidious and fussy, he shares his mother’s sense of snobbish propriety. The miners' children pick on him and adults condemn him as no’ right. But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place.Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain lays bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride. A counterpart to the privileged Thatcher-era London of Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty, it also recalls the work of Édouard Louis, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, a blistering debut by a brilliant writer with a powerful and important...

The Book Club @ Leitrim Daily is in session for April 2021. Our Book Club panel met once again to share their thoughts on their latest selection, the debut novel from Cork auther Danielle McLaughlin ’The Art of Falling’.The club’s host Mary Blake is joined by retired librarian Hilda King, Orlagh Kelly of The Reading Room Bookshop in Carrick on Shannon and this month's guest Michael Geoghegan from Aughacashel to work their way through this first full length novel from the winner of The Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award.We also find our which book has been selected for this month to be discussed in the next episode of The Book Club @ Leitrim Daily in April.You can get all books covered in the series from The Reading Room Bookshop in Carrick on Shannon. Although closed due to covid restrictions they are facilitating an order and collect / postal service on all purchases. Contact Orlagh at 071 9671580. You’ll even get 10% off the book when you mention the Book Club @ Leitrim Daily.About 'The Art of Falling' by Danielle McLaughlinNessa McCormack's marriage is coming back together again after her husband's affair. She is excited to be in charge of a retrospective art exhibition for a beloved artist, the renowned late sculptor Robert Locke. But the arrival of two enigmatic outsiders imperils both her personal and professional worlds: A chance encounter with an old friend threatens to expose a betrayal Nessa thought she had long put behind her; and at work, an odd woman comes forward with a mysterious connection to Robert Locke's life and his most famous work, the Chalk Sculpture.As Nessa finds the past intruding on the present, she realizes she must decide what is the truth, whether she can continue to live with a lie, and what the consequences might be were she to fully unravel the mysteries in both the life of Robert Locke and her own. In this gripping and wonderfully written debut, Danielle McLaughlin reveals profound truths about love, power, and the secrets that define us.Book Club Selection for May 2021: House of Glass by Hadley BrennanAfter her grandmother died, Hadley Freeman travelled to her apartment to try and make sense of a woman she’d never really known. Sala Glass was a European expat in America – defiantly clinging to her French influences, famously reserved, fashionable to the end – yet to Hadley much of her life remained a mystery. Sala’s experience of surviving one of the most tumultuous periods in modern history was never spoken about.When Hadley found a shoebox filled with her grandmother’s treasured belongings, it started a decade-long quest to find out their haunting significance and to dig deep into the extraordinary lives of Sala and her three brothers. The search takes Hadley from Picasso’s archives in Paris to a secret room in a farmhouse in Auvergne to Long Island and to Auschwitz.By piecing together letters, photos and an unpublished memoir, Hadley brings to life the full story of the Glass siblings for the first time: Alex’s past as a fashion couturier and friend of Dior and Chagall; trusting and brave Jacques, a fierce patriot for his adopted country; and the brilliant Henri who hid in occupied France – each of them made extraordinary bids for survival during the Second World War. And alongside her great-uncles’ extraordinary acts of courage in Vichy France, Hadley discovers her grandmother’s equally heroic but more private form of female self-sacrifice.A moving memoir following the Glass siblings throughout the course of the twentieth-century as they each make their own bid for survival, House of Glass explores assimilation, identity and home – issues that are deeply relevant today.

The Book Club @ Leitrim Daily is in session for February 2021. Our Book Club panel met once again to share their thoughts on the latest selection, number one best seller and Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year ’Strange Flowers’, from Booker nominated Irish writer Donal Ryan.The club’s host Mary Blake is joined by retired librarian Hilda King, Orlagh Kelly of The Reading Room Bookshop in Carrick on Shannon and special guest Rosemarie Donnelly of Blaney Bookworms in Castleblaney, Monaghan to work their way through this poetic and lyrical bitter sweet multi-generational family drama set in Tipperary in the 1970's.We also find our which book has been selected for this month to be discussed in the next episode of The Book Club @ Leitrim Daily in April.You can get all books covered in the series from The Reading Room Bookshop in Carrick on Shannon. Although closed due to covid restrictions they are facilitating an order and collect / postal service on all purchases. Contact Orlagh at 071 9671580. You’ll even get 10% off the book when you mention the Book Club @ Leitrim Daily.About ’Strange Flowers’ by Donal RyanIn 1973 Moll Gladney goes missing from the Tipperary hillside where she was born. Slowly her parents, Paddy and Kit, begin to accept that she’s gone forever. But she returns, changed, and with a few surprises for her family and neighbours.Nothing is ever the same again for the Gladneys, who learn that fate cares little for duty, that life rarely conforms to expectation, that God can’t be relied upon to heed any prayer.A story of exile and return, of loss and discovery, of retreat from grief and the saving power of love. Book Club Selection for April 2021: 'The Art of Falling' by Danielle McLaughlinNessa McCormack's marriage is coming back together again after her husband's affair. She is excited to be in charge of a retrospective art exhibition for a beloved artist, the renowned late sculptor Robert Locke. But the arrival of two enigmatic outsiders imperils both her personal and professional worlds: A chance encounter with an old friend threatens to expose a betrayal Nessa thought she had long put behind her; and at work, an odd woman comes forward with a mysterious connection to Robert Locke's life and his most famous work, the Chalk Sculpture.As Nessa finds the past intruding on the present, she realizes she must decide what is the truth, whether she can continue to live with a lie, and what the consequences might be were she to fully unravel the mysteries in both the life of Robert Locke and her own. In this gripping and wonderfully written debut, Danielle McLaughlin reveals profound truths about love, power, and the secrets that define us.

The Book Club @ Leitrim Daily is in session for February 2021. Our Book Club panel met once again to share their thoughts on the latest selection, international bestseller ’Such A Fun Age’ by Kiley Reid. The club’s host Mary Blake is joined by retired librarian Hilda King, Orlagh Kelly of The Reading Room Bookshop in Carrick on Shannon to work their way through this story about race & privilege. We also find our which book has been selected for this month to be discussed in the next episode of The Book Club @ Leitrim Daily in March. You can get all books covered in the series from The Reading Room Bookshop in Carrick on Shannon. Although closed due to covid restrictions they are facilitating an order and collect / postal service on all purchases. Contact Orlagh at 071 9671580. You’ll even get 10% off the book when you mention the Book Club @ Leitrim Daily. About ’Such A Fun Age’ When Emira is apprehended at a supermarket for ‘kidnapping’ the white child she’s actually babysitting, it sets off an explosive chain of events. Her employer Alix, a feminist blogger with the best of intentions, resolves to make things right. But Emira herself is aimless, broke and wary of Alix’s desire to help. When a surprising connection emerges between the two women, it sends them on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know – about themselves, each other, and the messy dynamics of privilege.

The Book Club @ Leitrim Daily is back. Despite the coronavirus restrictions our Book Club panel were eager to share their thoughts on the latest episode of our series with ’Travelling in a Strange Land’ by award winning Irish author David Park. The club's host Mary Blake is joined by retired librarian Hilda King, Orlagh Kelly of The Reading Room Bookshop in Carrick on Shannon and the thoughts of author Kevin McManus are also included in the show. We also find our which book has been selected for this month to be discussed in the next episode of The Book Club @ Leitrim Daily on the second weekend of February. You can get all books covered in the series from The Reading Room Bookshop in Carrick on Shannon. Although closed due to covid restrictions they are facilitating an order and collect / postal service on all purchases. Contact Orlagh at 071 9671580. You’ll even get 10% off the book when you mention the Book Club @ Leitrim Daily. About ’Travelling in a Strange Land’ WINNER OF THE KERRY GROUP IRISH BOOK AWARDS Set in a frozen winter landscape, the new novel from the prize-winning, acclaimed author David Park is a psychologically astute, expertly crafted portrait of a father's inner life and a family in crisis I am entering the frozen land, although to which country it belongs I cannot say. The world is shrouded in snow. Transport has ground to a halt. Tom must venture out into a transformed and treacherous landscape to collect his son, sick and stranded in student lodgings. But on this solitary drive from Belfast to Sunderland, Tom will be drawn into another journey, one without map or guide, and is forced to chart pathways of family history haunted by memory and clouded in regret. Written in spare, crystalline prose by one of the most important voices in contemporary Irish writing, Travelling in a Strange Land is a work of exquisite loss and transformative grace. It is a novel about fathers and sons, grief, memory, family and love; about the gulfs that lie between us and those we love, and the wrong turns that we take on our way to find them.

The Book Club @ Leitrim Daily is back. Despite the coronavirus restrictions our Book Club panel were eager to share their thoughts on the second episode of our series with '10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World’ by Turkish writer Elif Shafak. The club host Mary Blake is joined by retired librarian Hilda King, Orlagh Kelly of The Reading Room Bookshop in Carrick on Shannon and the thoughts of author Kevin McManus are also included in the show. We also find our which book has been selected for this month to be discussed in the next episode of The Book Club @ Leitrim Daily on the second weekend of January and it’s very different to this choice. You can get all books covered in the series from The Reading Room Bookshop in Carrick on Shannon. Although closed due to covid restrictions they are facilitating an order and collect / postal service on all purchases. Contact Orlagh at 071 9671580. You’ll even get 10% off the book when you mention the Book Club @ Leitrim Daily. About '10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World' 'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore...' For Leila, each minute after her death recalls a sensuous memory: spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the birth of a yearned-for son; bubbling vats of lemon and sugar to wax women's legs while men are at prayer; the cardamom coffee she shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each fading memory brings back the friends she made in her bittersweet life - friends who are now desperately trying to find her . . .

Today the lovely Eleanor Shanley was in the Leitrim Daily studio with Mary Blake for a conversation about her career in music and her new album. The two ladies had a chat about her childhood origins in music, being her own first concert promoter and her brand new album 'Cancion de Amor' recorded with classical guitarist John Feeley. She talks about her varied career and memories with working with some of Ireland's great's including De Danann, Ronnie Drew & Charlie McGettigan amongst many, many others. On this episode of the show Eleanor also shared two gorgeous songs for us from the new album 'Cancion de Amor' that is just out and available from her website at: https://www.eleanorshanley.ie/