FORGET California! For Ireland’s heavyweight finest will be battling for the ultimate strongman title at Bangor’s Muscle Beach championship this weekend. For the second year the Irish Strength Expo - Bangor’s Muscle Beach championship will make a welcome return to North Down’s gold coast. Over 100 heavyweight competitors are expected to flex their muscles and steel their…
Rafts, crafts, ice cream and laughs
THE sun was shining and the crowds came to town on Saturday for fun and games at the 10th annual Lifeboat Day, part of Donaghadee’s Festival Fortnight. The queues to see inside the lighthouse and the All-Weather Lifeboat, Saxon, formed before noon. The occasional heavy shower failed to deter the raft racers and the rowers…
Race to finish new hospice
NORTHERN Ireland Hospice and Northern Ireland Children’s Hospice held a special roadshow event last month in Bangor Golf Club to update North Down and Ards supporters on current Hospice care services and on the Somerton Hospice rebuild progress. Bangor Golf Club ladies branch and local man Ian Simpson took this opportunity to present NI Hospice…
Rates revamp hits business
HUNDREDS of our businesses saw their rates bills shoot up by several thousand pounds this year. The government recently changed the way business rates are worked out, basing them on property values in 2013 instead of old 2003 figures. As a result more than 1,500 North Down business owners found their rates bills had changed…
Top docs in awe of a ‘Bionic Man’
BLIND and paralysed bionic man Mark Pollock, who is battling incredible odds to master Space Age technology in a bid to help himself and others to walk again, has been given a rare honour by Ireland’s most eminent doctors. The 39 year old from Holywood has been boldly exploring the frontiers of spinal injury recovery…
Seeds of overgrown weeds ‘sown at Stormont’
A POLITICAL path needs to be found through the forests of grass and weeds that are growing up around north Down’s footpaths, roadside verges and central reservations, it has been claimed this week. The latest councillor to try to fight his way through the undergrowth of bureaucracy he feels surrounds the problem is Groomsport independent…
Road safety campaign gears up to stop Crawfordsburn ‘tragedy’
A NEW drive has been launched to finally improve safety on the busy road in and out of one of North Down’s leafiest suburbs, Crawfordsburn, before ‘a tragedy’ occurs. Villagers and drivers alike are fast becoming fed up with what is becoming one of the most criticised stretches of road anywhere in north Down. Now…
Daredevils’ charity abseil in memory of Christopher
FOUR local daredevils have raised an impressive £3,500 for FASA by abseiling down Ireland’s tallest building - the Obel Tower. Bangor woman Karen Malone organised the charity abseil followed by a fundraising evening at the Bryansburn Inn, in memory of her 27 year old son Christopher who took his own life last year. Karen was joined by…