These are the contestants in the “Face of Tyrone” competition which I covered today Sunday 29th April.

Members of the cast of  who took part in a flash mob in Sainsbury’s Dungannon store this morning to promote their show “Make Mine A Musical”. It opens on Wednesday night May 2nd and runs until Saturday. This is Declan McGrath taking the lead in a song from the show. 70 members of The Craic Youth Theatre took part. Despite much poor publicity about Coalisland recently there are some great things happening in the town not least The Craic Theatre.

This is Cork stand up comedian Colm O’Regan outside the Black Box in Belfast where he performed his hilarious show “Dislike” A Facebook Guide to Crisis. We saw the show last August at the Edinburgh Festival and thought it was definitely worth a second look. We weren’t disappointed. It’s witty, insightful and above all very very funny. As well as stand up Colm is a writer and humorist and is currently working on his book “Isn’t it Well For You” The Irish Mammy. He also writes a weekly column for Cork’s largest news and lifestyle weekly ‘The Cork News‘, has a radio diary on Radio 1 on Sunday mornings as well as the BBC World Service. He’s a busy man! He also runs a monthly comedy show “Inn Jokes” on the third Wednesday of every month in the Patriots Inn Pub, Kilmainham, Dublin 8. You should follow Colm on Facebook and on Twitter (@irishmammies)

I have worked in Monaghan Town since May 2007. From the window at my desk I can see into the foyer of Monaghan County Museum. In those five years I’ve never visited the museum until today when I went to see a very good exhibition of press photos all of which are part of the AIB Photojournalism Competition 2011. Some great pictures in this exhibition. You can see them online at this link AIB Photojournalism Exhibition

This is a cell in The Crumlin Road Prison Belfast. It’s now a grade A listed building which dates back to 1843 when it was designed and built by Charles Lanyon. Lanyon also built Queens University, The Custom House and The Palm House Botanic Gardens among others.

For most people in Belfast and across the island of Ireland, Crumlin Road prison evokes memories of conflict. The link is very much justified with an estimated 25,000 people imprisoned there during its history, whether as a result of internment, or on remand of sentence as political prisoners. The use of Crumlin Road Gaol to house internees was not a new concept, with republicans interned between 1922 and 1924, and again in the 1940s and 1950s during the IRA’s border campaign.

In the gaol’s lifetime 17 men were executed by hanging, their bodies buried within the prison walls in unconsecrated ground. The only marker was the men’s initials, scratched into the wall against the year of execution.

Of the 17 executed between 1854 and 1961, 15 were for criminal murder, one semi-political and one, Tom Williams, for political action which resulted in the death of an RUC member. The execution of nineteen-year-old Williams on September 2, 1942, was the most emotive to be carried out in the history of the gaol, and was carried out by Thomas Pierrepoint. Pierrepoint was the most regular of the hangmen to appear in the gaol, carrying out six executions between 1928 and 1942, the last being Williams.

This is my nephew Caolan Corr who was awarded the minor player of the year by his club Derrytresk. He has also made the panel of the Tyrone minors. He comes from a very sporting family so as they say in this part of the world “he didn’t lick it off the ground!”

Day 113 World Book Night 2012 (Photo A Day 2012).

Tonight April 23rd 2012 is World Book Night. World Book Night, sees 20,000 volunteers in Ireland and the UK gift books within their community to spread the joy and love of reading to those who don’t regularly read. This is Brendan Madden in McKearney’s Butchers shop in the Moy county Tyrone reading from the New Selected Poems of Seamus Heaney at the event last year. Brendan and his two colleagues Raymond Quinn and Matthew Dynes all read a poem from the book. The celebration of World Book Night 2011 was organised by Pat Fearon and was a huge success. Sadly The Moy village lost it’s library during the past year due to government cut backs and I haven’t heard of a similar event this year.

Members of The Craic Youth Theatre Josh Cuddy, Jordan Trotter, Matty Donnelly, Sean O’Neill, Andrew Millar, Sarah Jane Nugent, Jamie Hughes and Lisa Ryan. They are part of a group of over 100 young people currently rehearsing a stage show called “Make Mine A Musical” which is a compilation of songs from West End musicals. The show runs from Wednesday 2nd to Saturday 5th May @ 8pm nightly. Coalisland has been in the media headlines recently for bad news stories about drugs and their affects. This is the more positive side to life to our town. I would urge everyone to come along and support and encourage them.

Derrytresk GFC held their annual dinner last night in The City Hotel Armagh. It was a celebration of the the most successful and eventful year in the club’s history. They won both the Tyrone county championship the Ulster championship and narrowly lost in the All Ireland championship. Because of events in the All Ireland semi final Derrytresk became the most famous junior club in the country. Guest of honour at the dinner was Peter Canavan who is widely recognised as the greatest footballer to play for Tyrone and was the first Tyrone man to lift the Sam Maguire Cup. He was being interviewed  by sports journalist Adrian Logan who was MC for the night.