Other regional news in brief
Polish national rescued after cliff accident
A Polish national rescued after a 20ft cliff fall in Co Sligo was said to be stable yesterday following the 6am accident on Saturday.
The 30-year-old was still in Sligo General Hospital after being lifted to safety on a spinal board lowered by a Coast Guard helicopter to paramedics in a lifeboat.
The accident happened at Mullaghmore after a freak gust of wind caused the man to lose his footing at the cliff edge while fishing. He fell on to rocks and then tumbled into the water. Two friends raised the alert. Ambulance personnel from Sligo town, unable to access the victim via the cliffs, were taken to the scene on the Bundoran lifeboat and administered first aid to the man, who was conscious.
He was treated in hospital for back injuries but was not thought to have suffered any serious spinal damage.
Meanwhile, yesterday, a 25-year-old man who fell from a cliff in Co Clare raised the alarm by using his mobile phone to call his mother. The incident occurred at Quilty at around 7.45am when he was returning from a night out and fell almost 10m from a cliff on to rocks below.
He was airlifted to University College Hospital Galway where he was being treated last night. It is understood he sustained back injuries which are not believed to be life-threatening.
Man completes Valentia swim
A 50-YEAR-OLD man became the first person to swim around Valentia Island in Co Kerry shortly before midnight on Saturday.
Ned Denison, a native of Vermont, living near Cork city, took just under nine hours to complete the 17 mile swim through treacherous currents and strong seas.
Up to 300 people staged a welcome party and large crowds also saw him off. The swim was in aid of local charity, Cunamh Iveragh, who hope to build a residential special needs centre.
Mr Denison began at Knightstown and swam the island in a clockwise direction. At first he was just 10ft from shore swimming into the tide. However, later he was up to a mile out, but he noticed people walking the shoreline or sitting on deck chairs, or on the bridge at Portmagee, watching him.
The circuit took him eight hours and 52 minutes. He had expected it to take just six hours, but the seas were rough. His swim has now been recorded by the Irish Long Distance Swimming Association.
Councillor urges more junkets
Councillors should not only travel abroad more often on junkets but they should also do so in greater sartorial style, according to the new chairman of Mayo County Council.
Cllr Joe Mellett says study trips abroad, which are often maligned in the media as a waste of taxpayers' money, should be encouraged, not frowned upon. The Swinford based representative's only concern about the trips is that councillors are not always as smartly attired as they should be.
He has proposed that local authority members wear distinguishing blazers with crests when travelling to foreign locations.
Cllr Mellett dislikes the word "junket", preferring to call the trips "fact-finding missions".
In one of his first speeches after his installation as chairman of the 31-member authority, Cllr Mellett said more, not less trips out of Ireland were necessary for councillors "to keep up with new ideas and modern technology". Trips abroad by members of Mayo County Council in recent years have included excursions to the United States, Argentina, Austria, Italy, Denmark and Sweden. Last September, the council came in for some criticism for sending more than 20 elected representatives to study landslide prevention programmes in Austria.