2022 News in Review: Looking back at the main stories from June

7th June 2022

Louth County Council held a special one item agenda Council meeting in the beginning of June , to consider the conferring of a civic honour on 2022 IBA World Light-welterweight champion, Amy Broadhurst.

Amy and members of her family watched on from the public gallery in the Council Chamber in County Hall Dundalk, as members voted unanimously to confer the honour on Dundalk's new world champion.

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The jury at the inquest into the deaths of four Irish Coast Guard aircrew, including Captain Mark Duffy from Dundalk, in the Rescue 116 helicopter crash recorded verdicts of accidental death.

The jury of eight returned the verdict following some three hours of deliberations.

Independent Louth Councillor, Paddy Mc Quillan called on Louth County Council to work with all Drug Service Providers in the north east to explore the possibility of setting up a residential detox centre for the area.

Cllr McQuillan said that: “I first proposed this back in 2012 but I was informed by the HSE at the time that there was not a need for one in our area as the existing centres around the country were more than able to cope with the demand.

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Clogherhead and Kilkeel RNLI came to the aid of a vessel that ran aground close to Narrow Water Castle.

The volunteer lifeboat crews launched their inshore and all-weather lifeboats at 3.30pm on Tuesday (24 May) following a report that a vessel had ran aground on a falling tide earlier in the day close to Narrow Water Castle.

14th June 2022

Dundalk saw some improvement in the levels of littering in the town but just missed out on achieving a Clean status in the Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) litter survey.

An Taisce, who carry out the surveys on behalf of IBAL, deemed Dundalk “Moderately Littered”, placing it 27th out of 40 town and cities surveyed.

Councillor Kevin Meenan was elected Cathaoirleach of Dundalk Municipal District at the annual meeting which took place in the Chamber of Dundalk Town Hall in June.

The first task for Cllr Kevin Meenan in his newly elected role as Cathaoirleach of Dundalk Municipal District, was to welcome Cllr Sean Kelly to the role of Leas Cathaoirleach.

It was a momentous day for the family of the late Joan Brady, well known around Dundalk for her yearly participation in the Women’s Mini Marathon, as they collected her 40th medal on the 40th anniversary of the event in June.

Joan had completed all previous 39 marathons, including two virtual ones held during Covid, and was preparing for her 40th when she sadly passed away in March this year at the age of 83.

21st June 2022

"Kill your speed, not a child", was the plea from the large number of people from the Bellurgan community who gathered in June, to hold a protest against the high speed of traffic and the lack of adequate traffic calming measures on the Dundalk to Carlingford R173 road which goes through the busy north Louth neighbourhood.

Firefighters rushed to a major blaze on the premises of the Oxigen plant on Coe's Road in Dundalk on an evening in June.

Thick black smoke was seen billowing from a building off the bypass in the town centre just before 6.30pm.

It is believed the fire occurred in the bin processing area of the site causing significant damage.

Louth County Council's annual meeting took place at the County Hall in Dundalk in June.,

Following a roll call vote, Cllr Conor Keelan was elected to the role of Cathaoirleach for the upcoming year with Cllr McKevitt being elected by the members to the role of Leas Cathaoirleach.

28th June

Manganese reacting with the iron in the cast iron pipes was causing the discolouration of water in Dundalk and surrounding areas, councillors heard at the Louth County Council June meeting.

Several councillors spoke on the issue at the monthly meeting, telling members that it was an issue, not just in the town of Dundalk, but also in surrounding areas in north Louth.

There were calls at the meeting for representatives from Irish Water to be called in to speak to councillors on the matter, either to a county meeting or to a municipal meeting.