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A SEARCH is expected to resume today for a man missing from his home in Ennis since Saturday. Seamus Higgins (22) was last seen jumping a wall after leaving his house at Dun Na hInse on the Lahinch Road at around 3pm on Sat- urday. He was wearing jeans, new navy and white, laceless, Nike runners and a grey jumper. Members of Clare Civil Defence have carried out searches of the nearby Claureen river and riverbank area. Extensive searches have also taken place in Lees Road and in vacant houses and abandoned buildings in the town. That search is expected to be expanded around Ennis today (Tuesday). Gardaí in Ennis were notified within five hours of Mr Higgins’ disappearance on Saturday. They have asked for the public’s assistance in finding Mr Higgins. An appeal for information has also been issued through social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Gardaí have expressed concern for Mr Higgins. He left the house without his phone, wallet and passport. Mr Higgins’ foster mother, Tina Whelan, said she is concerned for Seamus’ well being. She said, “He just got up and left the house without saying a word which isn’t like Seamus. He would always say where he is going. One of the neighbours saw him hopping over a wall. His friends are very upset. I am upset. We just hope that he turns up.” Anyone who may have seen Seamus Higgins or who may have information as to his whereabouts is asked to contact Ennis Garda Station on 065 6848100.

A NEW tourism initiative aimed at opening up the five major ecclesiastical centres of Clare to more visitors gets underway at the weekend.

The Clare Pilgrim Way is a 21-day series of walks that move through Scattery Island, Kilfenora, Kilmacduagh, Inis Cealtra, and Killaloe.

The walks begin each morning at 10am on August 19 and 20. Each evening, the group will eat and sleep in Carron. The walk has been established by the Clare Pilgrim Way Group, who have looked at setting up Camino-style routes in Clare.

Group member Brian Mooney explained, “This walk will begin in Kilfenora on August 19 and travel via Noughaval, Cahermacnaughton, Kilcorney Valley and Mega to Carron. On August 20, it will follow the route St Colman himself took beginning at his well near Oughtmama and continuing over Turlough Hill and Slieve Carron mountain to his hermitage at Eagles’ Rock. The final day, August 21, the walk will begin at Colmcille’s Well in Glan and proceed via Tierneevin to Colman’s monastery at Kilmacduagh.

Brian continued, “When finally set up, the overall walk from Scattery back to Scattery will take 21 days. It is divided into two main sections: looking back and looking forward.

“The Irish were obsessed with linking everything back to their past; what Frank O’Connor describes as ‘the Backward Look’. So, it was important to them that, whatever Christianity brought, did not mean discarding their own original culture.

“But they were also deep into cosmology, probably as a result of the work done by the Druids in their observations of the night skies before them. For whatever reason, they looked on their knowledge of the cosmic system as vastly superior to anyone else’s. And, so they were fascinated by what one might call the Cosmic Christian tradition, God’s ultimate plan for the universe. This is the tradition that will be explored on the final part of the Clare Pilgrim Way, via the journey from Killaloe back to Scattery, where the main theme will be seeking greater insight into those mysterious words of Christ: ‘If I be lifted up, I will draw all things to myself’.”

THE dolphin human relationship in Clare may have got some bad publicity in recent weeks, but two striped dolphins are back swimming off the west coast of Clare thanks to a group of children.

The young heroes floated the two mammals, who had become beached on Thursday evening at the west end of Kilkee beach, before the emergency services has arrived.

The Kilkee unit of the Irish Coast Guard were dispatched to the beach following reports of the distressed dolphins trapped in shallow waters.

The unit had been on a training exercise nearby at the time.

The call out came at around 7.30pm but the coast guard arrived just in time to see the dolphin swim away, after it was helped out of shallow rock pools.

A spokesperson for the coast guard told The Clare People , “By the time we got there a few local lads had floated the dolphins back out. Apparently it happens regularly enough.”

Members of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group also arrived at the beach shortly after the rescue.

It is believed that there were as many as four dolphins in the area on the night in question.

The striped dolphin is more likely to become beached in shallow waters that the more confident bottlenose dolphin.

Dolphins are social, living in pods of up to a dozen individuals. In places with a high abundance of food, pods can merge temporarily, forming a superpod; such groupings may exceed 1,000 dolphins.

A SPECTACULAR new exhibition tracking the last 10 years of life in Ennistymon will be officially launched at the Courthouse Gallery in Ennistymon later this month. The exhibition, which is entitled “Ennistymon: Vanishing Heritage” is a photographic exhibition presented by The Old Ennistymon Society which is itself celebrating its twenty first year in 2013.

The exhibition will give a fascinating insight into now disappeared buildings, daily activities of the inhabitants, and long forgotten businesses and crafts – indeed everything that contributed to the rich tapestry of life in a north Clare market town.

The Old Ennistymon Society was founded with Michael Comber in 1992 with the mission statement of “Preserving the Past for the Future”.

Local author Eddie Stack will officially launch “Ennistymon: Vanishing Heritage” on August 16 at 8pm and the exhibition will continue Sep- tember 12.

On Wednesday, August 21, at 8pm there will be a heritage discussion illustrated by the film “I Was Happy Here”, depicting many of the streets and buildings portrayed in the exhibition. On Thursday morning, August 22, at 11.30am there will be a town walk led by Frank Davis, Frances Madigan and John O’Loughlin.

A second exhibition entitled “Of Stones and Flowers” will run at the Red Couch Space in the gallery until September 12. The exhibition will include pen and ink iIllustrations and watercolours by Hilary Gilmore.

AN EAST Clare company is planning to treble its staffing numbers as it begins exporting its worldwidepatented rainwater recovery product to the United Kingdom.

Founder and director of Rainsavers Denis Sheehy said that the rain water recovery and optimisation company is in the early stages of drawing up plans to further export the unique product across Europe, North America and possibly worldwide.

The company based in Tuamgraney was set up two years ago by Mr Sheehy along with his brother-in-law Shane Kelly from Whitegate, after the former mechanical electronic engineer and newly qualified architect invented the product.

Mr Sheehy described his product: “It is essentially saving rain water from your roof and putting it back into your building as drinking water.

“It is gone from the old technology. There are quite a lot of companies out there doing rain water harvesting which is quite archaic technology, where the water is only really used for the toilets,” he said.

“We decided if you are going to look at rainwater at all you have to be able to optimise it. You have to be able to use it in the entirety of the house.

“We developed units that will click very easy on to your down pipes, pump the water away, filter the entire system and put it back into your house as drinking water standard. That way you can use it for your showers, sinks, hand basins, toilets, washing machines and for cooking,” he said.

“It is a hybrid system by way that when you have rain water the whole house is on rainwater and when your rainwater runs out it will automatically switch back on to the main system.”

Enterprise Ireland also believes in this new company as it is assisting in the plans to export the product.

“As part of the next five-year strategy, we are looking at the UK market this year and next year and to integrate ourselves into the UK market. Then we are looking at the European market in year three, and the US market then in year five,” said Mr Sheehy.

During the next two years the company intends to grow its staffing number from the current six members to “15 to 20 staff”.

With the onset of water charges, Rainsavers is already seeing an increase in domestic demand for its product, although the majority of its clients are still commercial.

To date a system has been fit for a chain of gyms in Limerick and Scarrif Community College.

The East Clare secondary school decreased its water usage from 12,000 litres a week to 3,000 litres a week.

The company is also in talks with a prominent national hairdresser business who want to use the rainwater for colouring, as colour as been found to react negatively with the chemicals in water.

Rainsavers system does not have any chlorine or chemicals and lime would not be a problem either according to the systems inventor.

“One of the main ethos with it was we had to have a system that was easy to fit on to any house, and the water had to be 100 per cent usable and we had to create as little interference with the existing house as possible. In theory if you sold your house you could take the system with you,” said Mr Sheehy.

The unit is approximately the size of an alarm or bell box, water is collected in a little tank that when it fills up the water is pumped away to another storage tank which can be build outside or in the attic of smaller houses, he explained.

CLARE farmers are being urged to be vigilant following a marked increase in cattle rustling in recent months – with fears now growing that an organised gang could be targeting farms in the county.

The latest incident, which took place on a farm in Quin earlier this month, saw more than € 10,000 worth of cattle being taken from the farm of Anthony Flannery in the early hours of the morning.

The raid specifically targeting high value animals, which the thieves would likely attempt to resell rather than slaughter.

However, in order to resell the animals the criminals would need to provide valid documentation and tags for the animals – which has led to a belief that they could be an organised operation rather than opportunist thieves.

According to Clare ICMSA chairman, Martin McMahon, a theft of animals at this time could be enough to put already stretched farmers out of business.

“The value of this stock to a farmer now is huge. After such a costly winter a lot of farmers have been trying to get cattle in shape so they could get as much money from them as they could. There are loans to banks and credit to be paid and a theft like this could put someone out of business,” he said.

“These people [the cattle rustler] would have to have a knowledge of farming and a way of disposing of these animals. If there is someone out there who is helping people to dispose of stolen animals then this is a very serious risk to farmers in Clare and something that needs to brought to an end quickly.

“The Guards and the Department of Agriculture needs to row in behind this quickly and bring an end to this situation. The paperwork needs to all add up, they need to have the right tags on their ears and they need to have the licence to dispose of these animals.

“If somebody is interfering with this then it is a very very serious crime.

“When they are caught then need to be severely dealt with.”

Gardaí in Ennis are currently investigating the incident which took place in the early ours of Friday, August 2. Among the cattle stolen was a six year old black Limousin cow, two other in-calf cows as well as an Aberdeen Angus.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Gardaí in Ennis on 065 6848100.

THE number of planning applications received by Clare County Council during the first half of this year was down 25 per cent on the previous year.

The latest edition of the National Housing Construction Index shows that Clare has the fifth highest percentage drop in planning applications this year.

The number of houses that commenced building this year was also slightly down on last year with a drop of four per cent.

A spokesperson for links2plans, the company that issued the figures said, “Even though Clare only has a marginal drop in its commencements this year, the new figures on the significant drop in planning applications suggests that we may expect to see a significant drop in planning commencements in the near future.”

There were 179 housing planning applications lodged with Clare County Council in 2012, and this dropped by 45 to 134 this year.

The number of commencements dropped from 113 to 109.

“Compared to Clare, the outlook is positive for particular pockets around the country which are experiencing an increase in commencements and applications,” said the Managing Director of Link2Plans, Danny O’Shea.

“The Link2Plans team have seen significant changes in activity throughout the country which in part can be explained by the weather conditions in the first few months of 2013. There are however clear signs that the growth in residential construction activity is being felt in Dublin and other counties are still some way back. It will be interesting to see if the dry weather experienced throughout June and July will see the next edition of the index, register an increase in project commencements.”

IT WAS birthday celebration on the double for the newly-crowned Rose of Clare this weekend, as she was named the over all winner of the contest on the eve of her 23rd birthday.

Una Dowling who represented Kildare at the 34th annual CooraclareCree contest beat off strong competition from 16 other contestants from all over Clare, Australia and England, hours before her birthday.

The Kildare woman has strong Cooraclare-Cree heritage as her mother Eileen Chambers comes from Dromelihy.

Una, the daughter of Eileen and Christy Dowling, grew up in Castledermot, Kildare.

She is a third year student at Mater Dei Institute of Education, where she studies English and religion.

Una wasn’t the only festival success on Friday night, as local man Pat McMahon was named Overall Escort following a vote by all the roses.

The popular engineer won them over with his quick wit and charm, and no doubt with tales of his charity work with the Niall Mellon Trust.

AN EAST Clare manufacturing company has begun lobbying the Government to provide grant assistance for water conservation in domestic homes next year when the home insulation grants finish.

RainSavers, a Tuamgraney company that builds and installs the world’s only rain water recovery units that pumps water of drinking quality back into the home, believes that the system will not only save householders on their water charges but will also take pressure off local authority water supplies.

Denis Sheehy, Director of RainSavers, said, with the onset of domestic water charges next year, he feels now is the time for Government to make such a commitment.

“It actually benefits county councils massively because at the moment the councils’ municipal water supplies are over stretched. What has happened is housing has increased drastically but the infrastructure to provide water to houses hasn’t.

“We believe that if the county council would consider grant aiding rainwater recovery within urban areas then there would be an enormous reduction on the municipal supply systems, thus allowing the present infrastructure to return within optimum operating capacity and reducing the cost on local authorities,” he said.

He said the system, which retails at approximately € 4, 500 would also benefit the householder and pay for itself in four years. “Of a standard 2,000 square foot house with four people occupancy, one of our systems would supply enough water for that house for the year. What the house would only be using is the standard charge and their free water usage, they should not be going above that at all in a year,” he said.

NORTH Clare commuters using the proposed Ballyvaughan Bay Hop ferry service to Galway could end up making massive savings on their weekly commuting bill.

The service, which will launch on a trail basis on September 2, will offer weekly commuter tickets to and from Galway for just over € 40. These tickets, which will be offered to commuters using a promotion code during the trail, match the regular commuter ticket cost under the Government’s tax saver commuter scheme, which could be accessed should the service be made permanent.

This would result in large savings for Burren commuters compared to the weekly petrol bill to and from Galway – while the service also offers to reduce the commute time by as much as two hours every day.

“We have had a handful of tickets sold already which is good considering we are three weeks before the trial starts. There is a lot of support from locals – both people who want to use the service themselves and people offering discounts to tourists coming over from Galway,” said or- ganiser, Gwen Ryan.

“A lot of local shops are offering discounts to people who show their tickets, for example Burren Bikes are offering a special rate for people who travel over on the boat and want to rent a bike for the day.

“I started this project in order to give myself and other commuters a reliable service from the Burren into Galway. Our weekly commuter ticket will cost € 80 but we have also launched an early bird ticket on the trial which will mimic the savings which would be made by commuters under the tax saver scheme if this was to become a full time service. That would roughly half the price of the weekly ticket.”

This Ballyvaughan Bay Hop trial will every day excluding Sunday from September 2 to 13 and an official launch will take place on August 25. Liam O’Brien, of O’Brien Line will operate the service on behalf of the community in a 12 passenger hard-cabin rib.

The Burren and Cliffs of Moher Geopark is supporting this Ballyvaughan Bay Hop trial service with financial assistance from the TransTourism Project.

Tickets are on sale from www.ballyvaughanbayhop.org