IrelandMorning Briefing

Your top stories on Wednesday: Journalist and campaigner Nell McCafferty dies; New Zealand’s Keely O’Grady crowned Rose of Tralee

Here are the stories you need to start your day including: GAA club buys 5-acre grounds in south Dublin for €1m; fears bodies of Mike Lynch and others may be trapped in yacht

Rose of Tralee 2024: New Zealand's Keely O'Grady celebrates under fireworks last night. Photograph: Domnick Walsh
Nell McCafferty: journalist and feminist campaigner dies aged 80

Journalist, author and trailblazing feminist Nell McCafferty has died. She was 80. Her family confirmed her death this morning at a nursing home in Co Donegal. McCafferty was born in Derry in 1944 to Hugh and Lily McCafferty and grew up in the Bogside. She was among the early cohorts of Catholics admitted to Queens University in Belfast, where she studied arts and got involved in civil rights politics. She spent time teaching briefly before beginning her journalism career in The Irish Times.

‘I can’t really put it into words. I’m shaking so much’

Amid tears, cheers and waggling eyebrows from its host Dáithí Ó Sé, New Zealand’s Keely O’Grady has been named the 2024 International Rose of Tralee at the end of this year’s Rose of Tralee festival in Co Kerry.

“I can’t really put it into words. I’m shaking so much right now,” says O’Grady, a 21-year-old fourth-year student at the University of Canterbury, who is taking a degree in speech and language therapy. “What I’m most looking forward to is doing this for my country as an International Rose. We’ve only had two New Zealand Roses. It means a lot to me.”

News in Ireland

  • Teacher shortage forces schools to scramble to fill gaps: “Principals joke with each other that this time of year is like The Hunger Games,” says Paula Mulhall as she continues preparations for new school year at Sandymount Park Educate Together in Dublin.
  • Israeli arms companies can bid for Irish drones contract: Israeli arms manufacturers will be permitted to bid on a contract to supply drones to the Irish Army, despite Government “reservations” over previous purchases of military equipment from the country.
  • GAA club pays €1m for five-acre playing fields in south Dublin: A south Dublin GAA club is paying €1 million for playing fields in one of the city’s most sought-after areas that have been conservatively valued at €10.5 million if they were zoned for residential housing.
  • Girl (12) hospitalised with head injury after masked gang attacks house in Charleville: A 12-year-old girl has been hospitalised with a serious head injury following an attack on a house in north Cork on Monday.
  • Weather forecast: Wednesday will be breezy and mostly cloudy with outbreaks of rain and drizzle spreading eastwards across mainly the northern half of the country through the morning. A band of heavier rain and strong winds will move in along the west coast later in the evening and will coincide with very high tides, which may result in coastal flooding and wave overtopping. Highest temperatures of 14 to 18 degrees. Tonight will be wet and windy for a time tonight as outbreaks of rain, heavy at times, spreads from the west accompanied by strong and gusty southerly winds, with gales in western and northwestern coastal parts. Lowest temperatures of 11 to 14 degrees.
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