A round-up of today's other regional stories in brief
Wicklow man drowns in Spain
A 21-year-old Co Wicklow man has drowned while on holiday in Spain, the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed yesterday.
Nigel Keogh, from Baltinglass in Co Wicklow, died after getting into difficulty swimming in the sea in Alicante on Sunday morning. It is understood he had been holidaying with his girlfriend.
A spokesman said the Irish Embassy in Madrid was providing consular assistance to the dead man's family.
Minister highlights rape crisis funding
The launch of the annual report of the Galway Rape Crisis Centre, heard Frank Fahey, Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, state there had been an extra €7 million allocated to the Health Service Executive (HSE) in the last Budget to fund rape crisis centres, Women's Aid and the new sexual assault treatment units - an increase of 70 per cent.
For the first time, the Galway centre's annual report showed the service had a budget surplus of €5,000, compared with a shortfall of nearly €29,000 in 2005. Over one-third of the €420,000 budget came through fundraising.
Kerry native gets top council job
The new county manager in Kerry is the first native Kerry county manager appointed from council staff in more than 100 years of the history of the council, the monthly meeting of the local authority heard yesterday.
UCC graduate Tom Curran, who is in his mid-40s, had served as county engineer and as town manager of Killarney, and had previously worked as an engineer in Limerick and Louth local authorities.
Congratulating Mr Curran yesterday, Cllr Paul O'Donoghue (FF) said he was happy to see a Kerry man and a native of Cahersiveen being successful in the competition for the post.
Enya to receive honorary doctorate
Donegal musician and Grammy award winner Enya is to be conferred with an honorary doctorate at NUI Galway next month.
A former member of Clannad, Enya is among six individuals representing the worlds of business, philanthropy, justice, music and the arts who have been chosen for honorary doctorates by the university.
Also selected were Niall Fitzgerald, KBE, chairman of Reuters; chief justice Pius Langa, the first black chief justice of South Africa; American-Ireland fund director Bill Walsh; composer and musician Dr Jane O'Leary; and Nicholas Carolan, founder of the Irish Traditional Music Archive.
The awards ceremony takes place at the university on June 29th.
College clock to get its chimes back
The clock chimes in the tower at the national Catholic seminary, St Patrick's College, Maynooth, have been restored after more than 30 years of silence.
The tower, above the college chapel, was built to mark the centenary of St Patrick's College in 1895 and completed in 1903. The chimes for the clock in the tower were installed some time later by Msgr Edward Kissane when he was president at Maynooth (1942-1959). By the early 1970s the chimes had stopped working.