Review of the Year: October

The Kilkenny People launched a new Eco Page to explore topics related to climate change, sustainability and the Green economy. It’s first edition looked at solar PV panels which were described as ‘better than money in the bank’ by Roert Goss of Pinergy and the newly-formed South-East Energy Agency working across Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford and Waterford to make the  four counties a magnet for low carbon, energy efficient and sustainable enterprise.

Health issues remained to the fore when Mary Cody reported that a patient was left waiting for an ambulance for over an hour following a road collision in Kilkenny City earlier in October. As the man was only  only a kilometre away from St Luke’s Hospital, it raised questions about the efficiency and local TD John McGuinness criticised the National Ambulance Service (NAS) describing it as ‘not fit for purpose’.

We met the impressive Bowden sisters who were planning to undertake an epic Everest climb to fundraise for Multiple System Atrophy, the disease which had killed their mother, Kitty Bowden the previous month. She had endured the illness for 20 years and Julie Anne and Marie saw the Everest trek not only as a fundraising effort but also as a tribute to her incredible spirit. 

Kilkenny continued to display its sense of civic pride as local communities teamed up for the first county-wide clean up. Christened ‘Let’s Team Up to Clean Up’, it saw 50 registered groups brave heavy rain to pick up litter and plant bulbs which will flower next spring. It is hoped that the work will help Kilkenny to retain its gold medal in the Tidy Towns competition.

October also saw the best of Kilkenny spirit with 2500 runners taking part in the Great Pink Run in Kilkenny Castle Park.  The event was to raise funds to help support pioneering research into metastatic disease and saw the park awash in a sea of bright pink. 

Another medical good news story was the final arrival of an MRI scanner in St Luke’s General Hospital. The state of the art technology was installed with the help of the Friends of St Lukes who donated €250,000 for the purchases of the €1 million equipment. 

The end of the month saw the return of Savour from October 28- 31 for the first time since 2019. It was a huge success with the festival back to its full pre-pandemic culinary glory but the weather was mixed for all the cookery demos, food markets and related dining events.