Dear Maura and Catholine,

CALGARY – I am so sorry to hear about the difficult decision you have had to come to. The new normal has been hurting a lot of businesses unfortunately.

Thank you both for all your years of service to the Irish/Celtic community at large.

You have made an absolutely tremendous impact on the Celtic community throughout western Canada and indeed much further afield and into Seattle as well.

The Celtic Connection has been a staple – the detailed articles, reviews of concerts and great journalism on different events in different places have always brought comfort.

Through The Celtic Connection, we knew there was always someone promoting the Celtic/Irish culture and that people everywhere are equally as proud to be Irish. I will miss that connectivity.

Hopefully, you can present some form of the newspaper via your website, although the challenges of that are probably quite technical and convoluted these days too.

At a personal level,  I have thoroughly enjoyed working closely with you both but especially with Catholine as she would always be the one to come up to Calgary.

You were always so amenable to publish any Consular and Embassy of Ireland highlights. Thank you both for your years of service.

The world is changing at a dramatic pace in many regards and sometimes we just have to accept it. Hopefully, some good will come out of all this.

 

Le Ghrá Mhor

Deirdre Halferty

Honorary Consul Ireland

Southern Alberta & Saskatchewan