Louth laughs started as a passion project for local comedian Shinanne Higgins and has gone from strength to strength since its inception last July in The Tipsy .
A Laois company has launched a cycle fundraiser for Ukraine with all money raised going to UNICEF. Workers at Abbeyleix business Ortus Managed IT and Cloud.
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The Irish tradition in the New York City Fire Department is undeniably rich. But it also must be said that stories of the FDNY inevitably tilt towards the male perspective, since the department has only been hiring females since the early 1980s, following a contentious court battle.
But in her absorbing and compelling first novel, Ashes of Fiery Weather, Kathleen Donohoe manages to tell a decades-spanning story of firefighters that also puts female characters at the forefront. There are wives and widows, yes, but also an Irish-born female firefighter. As much an Irish immigrant novel as it is an FDNY story, Ashes of a Fiery Weather – the title comes from the mournful Wallace Stevens poem “Our Stars Come from Ireland” – opens in 1983 at a Brooklyn funeral. Galway-born Norah O’Reilly is mourning the loss of her firefighter husband Sean, who was killed in the line of duty.