Great forecast for Ireland

There was a bright outlook for tourism in Ireland when Kirsty McCabe, weathergirl on Britain’s morning show GMTV dropped into Clones, Co Monaghan, to trace her ancestral links with Ireland. Kirsty was making a film, to be broadcast on GMTV, about her search for her family roots: a search that eventually brought her to Ireland where Fáilte Ireland facilitated her work.

During her travels in Ireland Kirsty made her way to Monaghan where she perused local records and met up with the writer Eugene McCabe, who provided extensive knowledge on the history of the McCabe’s. Fáilte Ireland’s Trade Marketing Executive, Rory Mathews, who facilitated Kirsty’s visit said: “GMTV is one of Britain’s top morning programmes, regularly attracting five million viewers each morning on ITV. Kirsty’s visit will provide a terrific platform to showcase Ireland and Monaghan to the UK market and provide a boost for promoting Ireland to the all important UK market, especially the ever growing Irish Ancestry Tracing sector.”

---

A glass act

Pictured at the launch of Strangest Genius: The Stained Glass of Harry Clarke, in the Harry Clarke Room of Bewley’s Café, Grafton Street, is Sunniva Clarke- Sheridan, granddaughter of Harry Clarke (1889 - 1931). Bewley’s Café contains six decorative windows, some of the finest examples of Clarke’s work, designed by the artist in 1927 for the opening of the café.

The new book captures the entire collection of Harry Clarke’s stained glass, from across the world. Regarded as the finest in his field, and one of Ireland’s greatest artists, Clarke is renowned for his combination of technique and raw imagination and, in this comprehensive work, the authors convey a graphic sense of the majesty and scale of his achievement. Strangest Genius, published by The History Press Ireland, was released on May 1 and is available in all good bookshops and at www.thehistorypress.ie.

---

Daughters are doing it

Three current students on the BSc International Hospitality Management in DIT Cathal Brugha Street (Sinead Delaney, Fiona Moriarty and Emer Mulcahy) have created a piece of history. They are participating in a college attended by their mothers in the seventies, who said history didn’t repeat itself. Their mothers Mary Delaney (formerly Hackett), Mary Moriarty (formerly Flanagan) and Mary Mulcahy (Formerly Corr) attended Cathal Brugha Street when it was the Dublin College of Catering.

Also in the picture are Neil Andrews Head of Department of Hospitality, Dr. Sheila Flanagan, Head of School of Hospitality Management and Tourism and Lucy Horan, Programme Tutor and Lecturer.