YESTERYEARS: Tipperary Olympic athlete in training place storm

This week for our ‘Yesteryears’ column we amble back twenty years exactly to June 2003 and our edition dated June 21. Michael Heverin’s front page lead story related to a young Cashel man, Aidan Downey, who was representing Ireland in the Special Olympics that month in Dublin, but who had lost his place on a training course for people with special needs. Aidan, who at the time was attending the Moorehaven Centre in Tipperary Town, for people with disabilities, was a member of the Irish basketball team.
In August of that year, after the Special Olympics were over, 22-year-old Aidan was to be placed on a HSE work placement scheme, but his “devasted” parents, Paddy and Joan Downey, were standing over their claim that Aidan was totally unsuitable to enter the workforce.
Health board officials rejected the claim and said that Aidan was being placed on a supported work placement scheme which would be more appropriate to his needs.

We also reported on the front page the decision by the ESB to close their shop in Tipperary Town which was labelled as another setback for the town. Earlier that week the company had announced that 27 of their 81 stores nationwide were to close. Two full-time and a number of part-time workers in Tipperary’s case were to be affected by the announcement. The Mayor of Tipperary, Cllr Anna Tuohy-Halligan, said she was shocked, disappointed and outraged at the ESB’s decision.

Yesteryears: Slot machines destroying Clonmel and causing more trouble than drugs or drink

A 13-year-old girl who underwent a life-saving operation in America returned home to Cullen that week to celebrate the birthdays of her brother and sister, wrote Eamon Lacey. Aisling Riordan was given a warm welcome on her return from New York with her parents, Gerard and Margaret, after her successful six-hour operation on a rare brain-stem tumour. Aisling was delighted she would be able to celebrate the 10th birthday of brother James and the 15th birthday of sister Aine in the coming days.

We also reported that a last ditch effort to resolve the 11-week-old industrial dispute at Ronans Tannery (Clonmel) was taking place that week. After the mediation efforts of the Mayor, Cllr Niall Dennehy, had ended in failure, it was felt that if latest round failed then all avenues to resolve the dispute might have been used up.