The papers today have photographs of Bishop Eamon Casey arriving home to Ireland after 14 years in exile. The 78 year old Bishop will take up residence in the Galway parish of Shanaish.

Good to see one of our regular readers Declan Green is home on a visit from Boston.

The local radio today has news of the closure of the girl’s secondary school at Kylemore Abbey in August 2010. A fall off in vocations is cited as the reason.

Louise reached the last six in the You’re a Star TV show last night when she sung one of her own songs titled Starstruck. Hope she tells you how she feels on her website www.loisekilleen.com and she will probably have the relevant clip of the show added by now.

Some deaths over the weekend. Jeremiah Lanigan, Clonmel, father of Marie Donegan, who taught with her husband Mike and Mary Kelly in Shannonbridge, died on Saturday.

Gerry was a regular visitor to Shannonbridge when Michael and Marie lived here.

A well known ESB manager ,Bob Magee, from Portarlington has passed away.

May they rest in peace.

The river level has eased back to 2.95 Metres this morning after a rain free week.

Last year the lowest summer level was 2.2 Metres.

Offaly footballers beat Cork yesterday in the NFL match in Tullamore.

In rugby Ireland beat Italy 26 – 16 in their first match of the Six Nations tournament.

England beat Wales and Scotland beat the French team who were fancied to win out the event.

Whether it is the rugby match or the tempting cheap flights by Ryan Air and others but there has been a good number of Italians visiting in Clonmacnois in recent days.

Good to hear that the pet food factory at Edgewordstown has partially reopened with some 147 workers starting this morning. The remainder of the factory that was damaged by fire is presently being examined.

Good to see our priest Father O’Hanlon is visiting the parish in Kenya where he worked for many years. A new church has been built and he plans to attend the opening ceremony.