News Review of the Year: January to April

The year 2025 didn't get off to a healthy start with flu and other viruses overwhelming local hospitals, leading to calls by trade unionists and public representatives for the full restoration of A&E services at Our Lady's Hospital Navan.

The unions and local TDs demanded an immediate upgrade of and investment in the Navan hospital as facilities across the country reached capacity due to a surge in flu and respiratory illnesses.

Locally, 18 patients were on trolleys in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda in the first few days of the year, while four were waiting for a bed in Our Lady's Hospital in Navan.

On the other hand, there was great celebration and joy in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital on New Year's Day as the first babies of 2025 came into the world.

Baby Arran John was the first baby to greet 2025 at the Drogheda hospital, born to mother Naomi Chelimo from Navan at 3.44am weighing 3.7kg.

Among the newest arrivals was baby Archie Milo Daithi Rafferty, born to mother Jessie Rafferty from Navan, at 4.51am weighing in at 2.69kg.

Next of the New Year babies, was Luke Moriarty McGill born to mother, Siobhan Moriarty from Bohermeen. Luke arrived at 5.25am weighing in at 3.14kg.

In Navan the 'On the Great Wide Open' sculpture on the Kells Road roundabout was put into storage in January in preparation for construction work on the junction .

As work continued on the LDR4 link road that would cross the River Blackwater linking North Navan to the Navan-Kells road, the roundabout was to be replaced with a signal controlled junction.

Meath County Council confirmed that when the junction was complete, the sculpture would re-erected in close proximity to the junction.

There was a stormy start to the year as thousands of Meath households were left in the dark after Storm Éowyn, with many left without power for more than a week.

Elderly people reliant on electricity for oxygen supplies and medical monitoring equipment were among 4,500 homes and premises without power in the aftermath of the unprecedented storm that wreaked havoc across the country.

Community response centres were set up throughout the county to support those affected by the severe weather event by providing essential services such as device charging, hot meals, water, Wi-Fi and showers.

February

Meath's newest TDs Deputy Gillian Toole and Aisling Dempsey had a baptism of fire coming under attack over gender balance and speaking rights in the Dail.

Independent Meath East TD Gillian Toole, who had learned she and her Regional Technical Group colleagues would not get speaking rights, was accused by Deputy Darren O'Rourke of being hypocritical in the extreme over her claims that the opposition were trying to silence her voice.

Meath West's first female TD, Deputy Aisling Dempsey came under fire for comments she made about gender balance in the new cabinet when she said calls for strict gender balance had gone “too far”.

There was an air of sadness in Navan as Gardai concluded an extensive search of a local house as part of their investigation into the disappearance of Elizabeth Clarke in 2013.

The grim four day search followed the upgrading of the case of the missing mother of two to a murder inquiry.

A mini digger carried out considerable excavation works in the back garden of the property and a drone was deployed to take pictures and analyse the topography of the back garden.

Mother-of-two Elizabeth was 24 when she was last seen in Navan in late 2013.

An Bord Pleanala confirmed an oral hearing into the proposed Slane Bypass and Public Realm Scheme woud take place on 3rd April.

After more than 20 years of campaigning, the proposed bypass would take heavy traffic away from the notoriously dangerous Slane Bridge and steep descent in the village, where 23 people have died in road traffic accidents.

The newly opened state of the art East Meath Civic Centre was described as “a flagship development that will demonstrate the future potential for the area”.

The €10.1 million facility included a public library, beach management and community services to people.

The new 950 square metre four-storey landmark building situated on the beachfront was solely funded by Meath County Council and included separate adult and children's libraries, a lifeguard station, beach management area and a beach wheelchair service, changing rooms and meeting rooms.

March

Suicide intervention and bereavement support charity SOSAD announced that it is to close their messaging service due to a lack of funding.

The organisation had been struggling in recent months with a lack of resources and an increased demand on their services, including in Meath.

Their messaging service which costs €4,000 a month to run was set to close on Tuesday 4th March.

A school place crisis loomed in Dunshaughlin as demand exceeded the number of primary school places available.

Ciara Whelan, principal of St Seachnaill's National School said they had to turn away 30 applicants this year.

"We are totally oversubscribed. In previous years, we might have had five or six on a waiting list when places were given out, but this year we have 30,” she said.

A Navan surgeon was devastated by the deaths of his sister's four children as Israel continued its air strikes on Gaza .

Mahmoud Abumarzouq, an orthopaedic surgeon living in Navan with his wife and family was heartbroken at the deaths of his sister's two sons and two daughters.

His sister Sheham was in intensive care with injuries from the blast. Her daughter, Noor who gave birth to her first baby, a little girl called Yaqout, just three days earlier was among the dead. Shahem's other daughter Dina and sons Mohamed (16) and Rafat (15) were all killed in the overnight attack.

Security was tight around Slane Castle as top-secret filming on RTE's 'The Traitors Ireland' was taking place there.

Head of documentaries and series at RTÉ, Gráinne McAleer, said that they were delighted to have been given access to "one of the country's most iconic castles" for the series.

"Slane has been an ideal production base - the castle is suitably imposing, and the Boyne Valley makes for a stunning backdrop," she said.

April

A MASSIVE mixed-use development which would provide 322 new homes, a public park, neighbourhood centre and community centre on lands at Farganstown, Navan, was given the green light by council planners.

Albert Developments was granted a seven-year planning permission for phase 1B of the Boyne Village large-scale residential development on lands at Farganstown, Ballymacon and Athlumney.

The first phase of Boyne Village, which is accessed from the new Thomas Hodgett Road, just off the Kentstown Road, was already under construction.

Plans by Meath County Council to develop a playground on the Fairgreen in Longwood village proved highly controversial with several residents in the vicinity objecting to the location, amid concerns over heritage, anti-social behaviour, litter and traffic.

At the same time, with funding in place to build the playground at this site, families who have been looking for the amenity to serve the growing village for well over a decade were anxious that the playground proceed without delay.

Councillors voted to locate the facility at the Garda station end of the green, with footpaths extended to serve the development.

Proposals to provide accommodation for International Protection applicants at the old HSE headquarters in Kells were scrapped in April.

The owners of the building informed the Kells area councillors that they had decided not to proceed with the proposal and had instructed their legal team to cease all applications to the local authority and the Department for the provision of any such accommodation service.

The building had until the previous few months accommodated around 70 Ukrainian refugees.

More than twenty years after plans to expand Navan's town centre into the triangle of land between the Trim Road, Carriage Road and the Dan Shaw Road first emerged, it appeared that development could finally progress on the valuable land parcel that was also set to accommodate the new central train station for the town.

Back in the early 2000's with the land earmarked for town centre expansion and as a site for the new train station but the economic crash that ensued put any plans for development in that area on hold and the planning permissions expired.

Planning permission was granted to demolish 13 warehouses and the site was cleared in April.