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ROMANCE was in the air in September as a Canadian dentist travelled more than 8,000 kilometres to track down the love of his life, a Clare woman he met for just two minutes in Ennistymon more than a year previous.

Dr Sandy Crocker from British Columbia put his life on hold for four weeks, as he took an extended break from work to travel Ireland in search of his red-haired Irish beauty.

The story which made international headlines told how the lovestruck dentist was in An Teach Bia in Ennistymon on July 9, 2011, when he noticed the woman who has captivated his thoughts for the last 14 months. He describes her as being in her mid- to late-20s with freckles and redish-brown hair. Sandy spoke to her briefly before she left the cafe, but realised too late that he might have met the love of his life.

“We were on our way to the Cliffs of Moher that morning and we stopped in Ennistymon to grab a bite to eat. She was eating and I didn’t want to interrupt her meal so I waited until I noticed her leaving and spoke to her. I asked her for directions to the Cliffs of Moher,” he told The Clare People yesterday.

“I was leaving Ireland a day later so, at first, I didn’t see the point in pursuing things more – but after she left I decided that I had to. So we paid our bill quickly and myself and my brother started looking for her. We searched the town for an hour or two and couldn’t find her, so we went to the Cliffs but later that evening we came back and looked for her again for another two hours. But there was no trace of her.”

A NUMBER of strategic sites in Clare were identified as being key to Nazi Germany’s plan to invade and occupy neutral Ireland during World War II, a new top-secret dossier has revealed this week.

The document, which went under the hammer at an auction in England in October for € 2,961 – almost four times the reserve price – was compiled by Nazi spies in Ireland and graphically illustrates that Clare would have been given a crucial part to play in any German war effort conducted from Ireland.

In all, seven Clare sites were singled out by Nazi intelligence as having a role to play in German’s invasion plans in a document that clearly showed that neutral Ireland and the constituency of Taoiseach Eamon de Valera was viewed of strategic importance by the fascist regime.

The detailed document, which includes maps and analysis of the Irish countryside compiled by Nazi spies, shows how under Operation Green/ Sealion, Hitler planned to overthrow the State and turn it into one of six regional hubs for Britain and Ireland.

Ardnacrusha Power Station – which had been constructed by the pride of German engineering, SiemensSchuckert in the 1920s, at the cost of £5.2m, and at that time the biggest hydro-electrical plant in Europe – was circled as being a vital component in the German rule in Ireland.

Other key Clare sites included former capital of Ireland Killaloe, probably because of Lough Derg’s potential to cater for flyingboats, while the key coastal areas targetted by the Nazi regime were the Cliffs of Moher and Blackhead/Ballvaughan area.

The document entitled Militärgeographische Angaben über Irland contains detailed maps and postcards, with a number of images of Ardnacrusha highlighting it importance to the state.

These key places were numbered by military officials before being plotted on a series of eight fold-out maps, which would have been used during ‘Operation Sealion’. However, on September 17, 1940, Hitler was forced to scrap Operation Sealion because of the Luftwaffe’s failure to gain air supremacy over England during the Battle of Britain.

The Nazi offensive never took place after the German defeat in the skies, but experts believe the book reveals what could have happened if the Nazi’s had conquered Britain.

HOUSE values in Clare have more than halved over the past five years as the unprecedented property price crash continues unabated in every corner of the county, The Clare People revealed in October.

This is one of the key statistics contained in a new report published early in the month, which claimed that the prices for houses across a range of sizes in the county have plummetted by just under 53 per cent since the peak of the property price boom back in 2006/2007.

The claim was made by Daft.ie in its latest House Price Report. The study for the third quarter of 2012 has shown the continued acceleration of the property crash in the county, even though it is running at a slower rate than the rest of the province apart from Limerick City.

The average price of a house in Clare in October was € 144, 524, which translated into at 52.9 per cent drop from the peak of € 306,845.

These latest figures. produced by Daft.ie economist Dr Paraic Kenna of NUI Galway. showed that there had been a quarterly fall of 4.8 per cent in the county’s house prices and a drop 19.5 per cent in the past year – this is the biggest year-on-year drop since that property crash started to kick in back in 2008.

Prices in Munster outside the cities fell by 6.8 per cent between June and September, the largest quarterly fall since the crash started.

In Munster, only Limerick County, Tipperary and Waterford City now have lower average houses prices than Clare.

Daft.ie also gave a breakdown of the new average asking prices of housing units in the county, which graphically illustrated the extent of the property crash over the past five years.

The asking price for a one and twobedroom units was € 83,000.

This figures rose to € 124,000 for a three-bedroomed house, € 191,000 for a four-bedroomed house and € 223,000 for a five-bedroomed house.

MAGIC mushrooms located in the Burren could hold the key to tackling world hunger in the coming years. Scientists have discovered that networks of microscopic fungi play a key role in aiding plants to extract and process nutrients from the soil, it emerged.

According to Dr Ray Woods of the British organisation Plantlife, intensive farming, fertiliser and human intrusion have destroyed these fungal networks across Europe, with the Burren’s wild grasslands now considered as a fungal “arc” for the future of European farming.

Studies showed that these tiny fungi can help plants to fight off disease and can even allow for the flow of nutrients from one plant to another over large distances.

“We are just starting to learn how vital these fungi are for growing crops. They are intimately connecting with well-known plants, such as hazel, using 50 or 60 different types of fungi to grow,” said Dr Woods.

“The wild flowers of the Burren are a perfect example of this. There are so many different plants and flowers there and none of them ever seem to dominate.

“In the Burren, you have one of the last unimpacted areas of grassland anywhere in the world. It is really one of the very few places in the world where research into fungal networks can still be done. It is an arc for these fungi.”

One of the most important abilities of these fungal networks is helping plants to extract nitrogen from the soil.

At present, virtually all world agriculture is built on the use of large amounts of industrialised nitrogen fertiliser, which is made using large amount of oil.

As global oil supplies continue to dwindle, the use of oil in producing fertiliser is considered by many to be the biggest challenge facing world agriculture in the next 50 years. This has prompted many people to examine the role that the intact Burren fungal networks could have on world agriculture.

“People are already coming to the Burren [to study the fungi] but it is difficult at times to know who is coming and what they are doing. You come across people from universities in Germany, Holland, Ireland and the UK in the Burren,” said Stephen Ward of the BurrenBeo Trust.

“If they are doing original research, then chances are they would contact an organisation like the BurrenBeo Trust because we can be helpful.”

STAFF shortages and overcrowding at Ennis General Hospital was once again in the headlines in April with ongoing cuts resulting in “dangerous conditions” for patients in the hospital.

One one day in early April one nurse was left alone to care for 22 acutely ill patients in the county hospital, while care assistants replaced nurses in vital areas of care. The under pressure staff are also dealing with overcrowding at the hospital, as 12 to 15 patients are regularly cared for over-night in the medical assessment unit.

Nursing staff have to be taken from other wards to care for patients in the unit, which was added as part of the hospital reconfiguration programme and is supposed to be closed at night. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Association described the situation as unacceptable stating “this level of care is dangerous for patients”.

Sources close to staff at the hospital told The Clare People in April that they are concerned for patients and frustrated that they do not have the time to care for patients the way they should and would like to.

INMO Industrial Relations Officer, Mary Fogarty explained there is an acute shortage of nursing staff at the Ennis hospital since the moratorium was put in place. This has been exacerbated by a number of retirements.

While the staffing freeze does not allow vacant nursing posts to be replaced, the HSE is employing care assistants through an agency at € 12 per hour in an attempt to fill the wid- ening staffing gap.

“We are very concerned about the standard of care across the system,” she told The Clare People .

“While care staff have a vital role to play they cannot replace nurses. They do not have the education or experience,” she said.

Ms Fogarty was also critical of the reconfiguration process that took 25 beds out of Ennis General Hospital without having replacement infrastructure in place.

“This is a very inefficient way of managing,” she said.

A FULL-SCALE murder investigation began in Clare following the death of a man shot during a wedding celebration.

The victim, who was nRobert Sheehan of Pineview Gardens, Moyross, Limerick, received numerous shots to the head and body while he stood outside the Bunratty Castle Hotel on a September Sunday morning.

He died later at the Mid Western Regional Hospital, Limerick.

The 21-year-old was attending a family wedding in the County Clare hotel, and had left briefly for a ciga rette break.

At approximately 3.40am, at least one gunman approached him and shot him a number of times. The culprit was then driven away in a dark saloon-type car.

Gardaí have confirmed that they are examining a “short type fire arm” found near the scene.

It is understood that detectives are following a number of lines of enquiry, including a link to a large row in Moyross in July during which two men were stabbed.

Two men in their 20s were arrested in Cork later on Sunday morning in connection with the Bunratty incident.

The late Mr Sheehan had come into contact with Gardaí previously. He was sentenced to two years detention in October 2007, after he pleaded guilty to recklessly endangering the lives of Gavin and Milly Murray.

He admitted acting as a look-out as two other men petrol bombed a car in which the four and six-year-old were sitting.

THREE Junior Certificate students from Ennis were hailed as heroines by Clare Civil Defence chief Liam Griffin after their quick thinking helped save the life of a woman who got into difficulty after going into the River Fergus to retrieve her dog.

Rice College students Ellen McMahon (15), Aisling O’Sullivan (15) and Eve Copley (15) came to the rescue of a woman, who hasn’t been identified, who was out walking her dog one June evening near Steele’s Rock in the Lifford area the town.

“The three of us were walking past at about 7.15pm, having been up town for something to eat after our Business Studies exam,” revealed Ms McMahon. “When we were passing, the woman was standing behind the wall and the dog was on the steps at Steele’s Rock. We walked on a bit and, when we looked back, the dog was being dragged downstream and the woman had moved to the steps and was calling him.

“Then she went in after the dog and was taken away by the flow of the water down towards the FBD offices. She was very tired because she had swum out to get the dog and the current was so strong there was no way she would have been able to swim back to the steps,” she added.

The three students quickly raced back to get the lifebuoy that’s located near Steele’s Rock and came to the aid of the woman, who was getting into difficulty.

“She had a hold of the dog and we raced up got the lifebuoy and threw it in to her and slowly dragged her in. We didn’t get her name because, after being soaked to the skin, she got a drive home from a passing motorist,” revealed Ms McMahon.

“Their quick thinking helped save that woman’s life,” Clare Civil Defence chief Liam Griffin told The Clare People . “It just shows the importance of lifebuoys,” he added, “because sometimes they get vandalised and the people who do that can cost a life. Luckily in this case, it was there and the girls were able to use it and come to the rescue of the woman.”

DIPLOMATIC efforts are being made to get the Princess Royal – better known as Princess Anne – to visit Loophead Lighthouse in 2013, as part of the Clare contribution to ‘The Gathering’ initiative that aims to bring 300,000 extra tourists into Ireland. The Clare People learned in August that Clare County Council, local West Clare representative, Cllr Gabriel Keating (FG) and Deputy Pat Breen (FG) were spearheading this campaign after the Princess Royal wrote to the local authority in praise of the groundbreaking tourist initiative that has operated at Clare’s most westerly point over the past two summer seasons.

Princess Anne’s correspondence was sparked by a letter she received from Clare County Council last month, with Director of Service, Ger Dollard revealing “We wrote to Princess Anne and told her about Loophead and its success. We did this because Princess Anne is a pharologist, which is someone who takes a special interest in lighthouses and she was invited to come to Loophead,” added Mr Dollard. The Clare People has seen Princess Anne’s reply, which was written on her behalf by her private secretary, Captain Nick Wright. In the letter, Captain Wright said Princess Anne “was glad to hear that the opening of Loophead Lighthouse was an outstanding success”.

He added, “All visits overseas, including of course to the Republic of Ireland, are co-ordinated by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. As such, there are no plans at present for the Princess to visit. Should matters change, we shall bear your kind invitation in mind.”

Now, the campaign to bring Princess Anne to the lighthouse is being taken up by Deputy Pat Breen, on behalf of Loophead-based councillor, Gabriel Keating.

Through his chairmanship of the Dáil Foreign Affairs committee, Deputy Breen is to approach British Ambassador to Ireland, Dominick Chilcott about beginning the diplomatic process of extending an official invitation for Princess Anne to come to Ireland.

“Enda Kenny officially opened the lighthouse to start this year’s tourist season at Loophead on May 18,” said Cllr Gabriel Keating, “and the aim is to have Princess Anne to do the same in 2013 when we have ‘The Gathering’, because she has taken an interest in what we are doing with the lighthouse,” he added.

THE 500 year-old body of a Clare teenager discovered in April is helping to paint a clear picture of what life was like for the people of Ireland during one of the most violent periods in the country’s history.

Carbon dating of human remains, discovered in a cave on Moneen Mountain, just outside Ballyvaughan, has revealed that the dead person was between 14 and 16 years of age, and was severally malnutritioned.

According to Dr Marion Dowd of IT Sligo, the evidence suggests that the youth crawled into the cave and died, rather than being placed in the cave after death. This suggests that Moneen Mountain was being used as a refuge or meeting place for poor Clare people at this time.

This period, around the time of the Tudor conquest of Ireland, was one of the bloodiest times in Irish history.

“At this time in Ireland, there was religious persecution, a lot of warfare, Gaelic people are being dispossessed of their land and there are lots of famines.

“But to find the remains of one of these individuals and to see, first hand, the evidence of what was going on is very interesting,” said Dr Dowd. “Another mystery is why the remains were in the cave and not in a burial ground – because there were a number of official burial grounds quite close to the cave. It seems that this young person went into the cave, crawled into a small recess in the cave wall and died there.

“This person may have been completely on his own and died in the cave or there may have been a few people hiding out there.”

The excavation also revealed evidence which suggests that Moneen Mountain may have been a significant place for Bronze Age people.

“The other material dates back to 1,000 BC. We discovered a large quantity of broken-up pots and a deer antler. There is something quite unusual about this also, it does not look like a refuge, there was no-one living inside the cave at the time, and we know that the pots were weathered outside,” continued Marion.

PRESIDENT of Ireland, Michael D Higgins did not call himself a Clare man during his first official presidential visit to the county in June, but his brother and sister both agreed it was safe to consider him “one of our own”.

Ireland’s first citizen, who spent his formative years, from the age of five to 19, living in his parental home of Ballycar, Newmarket-onFergus, would not describe himself as a Clare man but a man with many associations with different counties.

“Yes, indeed, I associate myself with Clare. There are many origins I have that are very simply understood,” he said.

“My father and my grandfather and my greatgrandfather have been associated with County Clare since time immemorial. I am glad to say in the 1901 census, in the townland of Ballycar, there are four families of Higgins. And once again, as a result of my brother’s [John] activities and his sons, there are four families in Ballycar again.”

The President explained that his mother came from an area near Charleville in Cork and her family continue to live there.

A former TD for Galway West, he described how the city accepted him as a migrant and its mayor twice.

“Galway is where my own fam- ily have been born and rared,” he added.

While the president maintained his life experiences have been made up of many counties, including the city of Limerick where he was born, all have a common thread of both rural and urban life. It is these experiences that have formed the ninth President of Ireland, who admited that coming back to Clare as the country’s first citizen was like coming home.