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A STORE in Ennis was held up by two men, one armed with a knife, on Saturday night last. The two men entered XL Stores in the Market in Ennis at around 8pm. One of them men threatened a staff member with a knife, demanding money while a second man stood at the door as a lookout.

Both men then escaped on foot with a sum of money taken from the cash register.

Shortly after the robbery gardaí on foot patrol noticed two men behaving suspiciously and gave chase. Following the chase one of the men was subsequently apprehended while the second man got away.

Gardaí arrested the man who was apprehended and he was teken into custody and will shortly appear in Limerick District Court.

The second man is still at large and gardaí in Ennis are appealing for help in tracking him down.

Anyone who saw anything suspicious around the Market area of Ennis on Saturday night around 8pm are requested to contact gardai in Ennis on 065-6848100. No-one was injured during the robbery.

* MEANWHILE there were a series of burglaries on Clare over the past week and gardaí are urging members of the public to be vigilant where stolen goods in particular might be offered for sale.

A bar and restaurant in Bunratty was broken into in the early hours of Monday morning.

Thieves entered the premises through a rear windown and disabled the alarm before removing a safe from the building. A silver or grey coloured vehicle was seen near the area.

Between 2.30am and 3am, also on Monday morning there was a breakin at the leisure centre in Tullyvaragga, with the rear door forced open to gain entry. A small amount of cash was taken, gardaí in Shannon are investigating both incidents which may be related.

In East Clare gardaí are investigating a number of criminal incidents over the course of the past week.

The home of an elderly woman was burgled and ransacked in Killaloe on Friday night last between 7.20pm and 10.55pm.

In Bodyke oil was stolen from a tank at a home in Ballydonaghane sometime between Tuesday and Saturday of last week.

Two strimmers and some batteries were stolen from a recycling centre in Scariff on Monday night last at around 8.20pm.

Four barrells of Guinness were stolen from two pubs last Tuesday, one from a pub on Tulla’s Main Street and three stolen from outside a pub in Kilkishen.

In West Clare gardai are looking into a number of thefts. In Ennistymon a house in Lavereen was broken into last Friday afternoon, thieves gaining access through the front door.

Items stolen included a red Honda power washer, Makita 9 inch and 6 inch angle grinders as well as deisel from a tank.

In Kilrush’s Vandeleur Woods a car was broken into last Friday night and a purse with cash in it was taken, along with an iPod and iPhone.

A 52 inch black Panasonic TV was stoeln from a house in Ballinagun, Cree during a burgalry that took place in the early hours of last Saturday morning.

Gardaí are also investigating damage to two headstones, which were vandalised in the New Shanakyle Graveyard in Kilrush over last weekend.

Last week there was a tractor stolen in Monreagh, Tubber.

The Massey Ferguson 165 was red and white in colour and brackets for the front loader were attached to this tractor. A W OMA N accused of stealing €400 froma primary school in Ennis is due to appear in court again tomorrow. Eva Makulova (32) with an address at 3Ardlea Close, Ennis is charged with entering Carrig Donn, Ennis on October 7 (2012) and taking the €2810. Ms Makulova has also been charged with the theft of €400 fromthe Holy Family Primary School on September 7 (2012). She is also charged the theft of perfume fromCassidy’s Pharmacy, O’Connell Street, Ennis on September 2 and 3. Garda BrídTroy gave evidence of arrest, charge and caution at Ennis District Court on Friday. Gardaí objected to bail, citing the seriousness of the alleged offences as one of the reasons. Solicitor Tara Godfrey said her client would be willing to abide by strict bail conditions. Judge Patrick Durcan refused bail. He remanded Ms Makulova in custody with consent to bail subject to the accused’s own bond of €1500 and an independent surety of €5000. Judge Durcan adjourned the case until October 24 for directions fromthe Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). Inspector Michael Gallagher told the court that DPP’s directions may not be ready by Wednesday. Judge Durcan said,“If bail is not taken up I would be conscious that the DPP’s directions are to be dealt with expeditiously.” A MA N has appeared in court charged with criminal damage at and Ennis estate earlier this month. Dylan Dinan (20), with an address at 6Water Park Court, Ennis is charged with damaging the windscreen and bodywork of a van at Maiville on October 11. Mr Dinan appeared at Ennis District Court onWednesday.The court heard that he gave no reply to charge after caution. Inspector TomKennedy said the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had not yet issued directions. He said the incident at Maiville was part of a “wider situation” in Ennis. He told the court that further people may face charges in relation to the incident. Judge Aeneas McCarthy approved bail subject to a number of conditions. Mr Dinan was ordered to stay away froma named family and area of Ennis. He was remanded on continuing bail to appear again at Ennis District Court on November 21 for DPP’s directions.

A MOTHER of two convicted of a public order offence “flipped out” after her father was seriously injured during an incident at a roundabout in Ennis last weekend.

Angela Delaney (21) was fined € 300 at Ennis District Court on Wednesday. Ms Delaney with an address at Bay 10 Carrow Browne Halting Site, Galway, pleaded guilty to engaging in threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace or being reckless as to whether a breach of the peace may be occasioned.

The charge related to a disturbance at the Maid of Erin, Ennis on October 14. Ms Delaney has no previous convictions. Defence solicitor John Casey said his client “flipped out” after her father received serious injuries. He added, “When she saw what was happening, she joined in.”

Inspector Tom Kennedy told the court that the overall incident at the Maid of Erin was a serious matter.

He said the State had “some understanding” of Ms Delaney’s behaviour on the evening. Insp Kennedy said her father had been “very, very seriously injured.”

He said that while Ms Delaney was not involved directly in the feud, her public order offence was at the higher end of the scale. Judge Aeneas McCarthy imposed a € 300 fine.

TWO FEUDING Ennis families are giving the county town a bad reputation it does not deserve according to Clare’s senior member of An Garda siochana.

At Monday night’s meeting of the joint policing committeee in Kildysart Chief Supt John Kerins described as ‘appalling’ disturbances by feuding families in the town within the last forthnight but said the gardai were determined to get on top of the issue.

To date eight people have been arrested in connection to incidents at the Maid of Erin roundabout last Sunday night week during which a garda was injured.

The Chief Supt said that more arrests would be made in the coming weeks in connection to anti-social behaviour outside the Cathedral in Ennis following a recent wedding.

Crime statistics for the county so far this year show that most crimes figures are remaining steady or decreasing with the exception of weapons and explosive offences which had increased by 32 per cent.

This figure is in the main due to the Traveller fueds according to the Chief Superintendent.

Mayor of Clare Pat Daly told the same meeting these poeple have to be stopped:

“They are gurriers. I don’t the law is strong enough, I think it is time to get them out of the town of Ennis and locked up forever,” he said.

The garda chief agreed that the incidents reflect poorly on Ennis’s reputation despite the statistics proving otherwise:

“This gives the town a bad reputation it does not deserve.

“The statistics show that it is one of the most peaceful towns of its size in Ireland,” he told the public meeting.

Cllr Joe Cooney relayed how a person moved to Ennis from East Clare and bought a house.

Due to anti-social behaviour on the housing estate that person was forced to move back to East Clare, rent a house and continue to pay a mortage for a house he could no longer live in.

“ It is not good enough,” he said.

Chief Super Kerins assured Cllr Cooney that gardai would be issuing asbos (anti-social behavioural orders) to the culprits in the coming weeks and the issue would be brought before the courts.

He explained however that it was difficult for the gardai to deal with the issue as they cannot lawfully enter a private house unless a crime is being committed.

NEXT Monday will be a day to remember for a group of over 100 runners drawn from throughout the county who will take to the starting line of the Dublin City Marathon under the Clare Crusaders banner.

The athletes, who range in age from their 20s to their 60s, will be taking part in the gruelling 26-miles and 385-yard test as a fundraising exercise for the Clare Crusaders Clinic which was established by the late Howard Flannery.

This year will see the biggest ever number of Crusaders to take part in the marathon after local organis- ers set a target of having over 100 people clad in the distinctive orange Crusaders garb for the Bank Holiday Monday event which will have over 10,000 participants.

“We knew from the start that we wanted to bring in a lot of new people to the event this year,” says Ronan O’Reilly who, along with Siobhán O’Reilly, assumed responsibility for organising this year’s Clare Crusaders team.

“David Ghilardi came up with the idea of 100 people to take part in the marathon and we knew we had to go for it. Our motto became ‘Think Big, Believe Big, Act Big and the Results will be Big.’

“And it worked. The whole 100 drive gathered a life of its own. More and more people started showing up for the Saturday morning training sessions. We got calls from all over. The more people that joined, the more that wanted to join,” adds McMahon.

The 100 drive means that the Clare Crusaders group will be one of the largest taking part in what will be the 32nd annual Dublin City Marathon.

“How will we feel in Dublin, seeing 100-plus people in orange on the steps of Buswells Hotel for a photograph before the races, all willing to put it on the line for a great cause?” says McMahon.

“I think overwhelmed is the right word.”

ACADEMICS, students and oil companies from all over the world have begun to travel to the Clare coast to get an up-close glimpse of Clare’s rare “sand volcanoes”.

A large number of these rare volcanoes, which were formed more than 300 million years ago, have been preserved along the Clare coastline but are incredible rare elsewhere in the world.

The sand volcanoes are created when large amounts of sand and mud are released in a short space of time, such as at the mouth of a large river.

When a large amount of material is deposited, water can become trapped between layers of sediment.

Eventually this water is forced upwards, bringing with it sand and mud which flows to the surface and deposits material in a cone shape, similar to a volcano.

These structures are sometimes turned to stone when large amounts of pressure are applied to them and, in very rare instances, they can become exposed again.

The Clare coast from Doolin down to Loop Head has one of the highest instances of preserved sand volcanoes in the world.

“People in the geology community have been aware of these in Clare for a while, especially people in the oil companies who come here to study them and how they might impact on oil exploration,” said Dr Eamon Doyle of the Burren and Cliffs of Moher Geopark.

“There is only a number of these in Clare but they are quite rare worldwide. These things are still forming in different places in the world, like the Mississippi Delta, but to get them preserved like this is very rare.

“There is a stretch from Doolin right down to Loop Head where they are at a number of different locations. They formed when Clare was much further south – close to the equator – and the Clare coast would have been very far underwater.

“Since then, we have been moving slowly north and there has been an uplift as well as a certain amount of erosion. “It is this rare set of circumstances which has made and preserved these sand volcanoes in Clare.” Groups come from all over the world to view the sand volcanoes. Dr Doyle visited a number of sand volcanoes along the Clare coast with two of Ireland’s leading experts on the subject, Professor Pat Shannon and Peter Houghton from UCD, last week.

THE full recognition of the Mol an Óige Steiner National School in Ennistymon is once again unclear, despite it appearing a mere formality a year ago.

The school, which has been Clare’s fastest growing primary school in recent years, has complied with a number of conditions laid down by the Department of Education over the last four years.

However, it has emerged that officials from the department wrote to the school’s board of management seeking written assurances in relation to the “curricular objectives” of the school.

It has also emerged that a number of extra reports concerning the school have been commissioned by the department – and neither the school nor its patron body were aware of the extra reports being commissioned or been allowed to view or respond to them.

The school’s board of management wrote to the Minister for Education, Ruairí Quinn (LAB), earlier this month, highlighting the extra “secret” reports and requesting that some progress be made on the issue as soon as possible.

“We now request on behalf of the children, their parents and the staff of our school, in accordance with the process agreed between the Department and our Patron Body, that the process moves to the next step whereby the parents, the Board and the Patron Body may make their submissions to you, the minister, so that you may then move towards granting our school permanent recognition,” said the statement.

A deputation from the school met with officials from the Department of Education in Dublin last week. However, it is as yet unclear if any concrete progress was made at this meeting.

Mol An Óige began with just seven students in 2005 and has grown to 124 students over the last seven years.

The school secured Lifeways Ireland as a patron a number of years ago.

PROSPECTIVE home owners in East Clare can shelve the idea of buy- ing a small family home and instead pick up an entire housing estate, for just € 400,000. The partially finished estate, which is located less than a five-minute walk from the centre of Killaloe, contains two completely finished show houses, 14 houses which require some work, two in shell condition and nine at the foundation stage. Taken all together, the guide price values the estate at just under € 15,000 per house. But that’s not all, the sale also includes a second 6.3 acre site where planning permission had previously been granted for 50 houses. The entire 10-acre property is being offered to the market jointly by Harry Brann and Savills of Cork. Speaking to The Clare People yesterday, Denis O’Donoghue of Savills said there has been a lot of interest in the site since it came on the market last Wednesday. “The interest levels have been really really high, both locally and from all over Ireland. We haven’t got a serious offer yet but we have a large number of people coming to take a look at the estate over the next two weeks,” he said. “The estate is located right in the village of Killaloe. It is about a twominute walk to the river and you’d would certainly be in the middle of the village after a five-minute walk. This really is a unique opportunity for someone. “The notion of owning an entire housing estate of houses in a location like Killaloe for this price really is something that has captured people’s imaginations.” All development contributions have been paid on the estate and phase one works also have access to mains services, which would facilitate a quick completion for that section of the project.

THE loss of the Aer Rianta International to the Dublin Airport Authority is a further nail in the coffin of Shannon International Airport.

That is according to the former Director of ARI, Liam Skelly, who believes that the Shannon-grown business would provide essential financial support to the ailing airport.

He believes it was unfair to hand over the ARI to a profitable Dublin Airport when Shannon is struggling for survival.

“Aer Rianta International was always known as a Shannon operation,” said Mr Skelly.

The former ARI Director said that Shannon Airport had been “fiddled” out of up to € 400 million in the last decade as it did not get its fair share of ARI profits and sale of assets.

Aer Rianta was set up in Shannon at a time when the three main airports in Ireland – Shannon, Cork and Dublin – were run by independent boards.

It began with the first ever dutyfree and a mail-order department. It was through the airport’s association with Aeroflot that the fuel farms were set up during the fuel crisis of the 1970s.

The Shannon-based Aer Rianta then put in a successful bid to open the first duty-free in Russia at Moscow airport, before expanding to airports all over Russia.

In the 1980s, ARI bought the Great Southern Hotel Group and later invested £30 million in Birmingham Airport.

Mr Skelly believers that the sales of those assets – the Great Southern Hotel Group for € 265 million and the Birmingham Airport shares in 2006 for € 325 million – were not divided evenly between the airports and Shannon did not get its much needed share.

Instead, the money went to the DAA, which was managing the three airports.

“That went to build terminal two in Dublin,” he said.

“A lot of stuff that belonged to Shannon went to Dublin and there was no one on the streets protesting. It went to an airport in profit and this airport was abandoned down in the west of Ireland,” he said.

“Sometimes I get really sad that a vibrant airport has fallen into absolutely nothing at the moment,” he said.

MORE Travellers live in Ennis than any other town in Munster, while the county capital ranks as third nationally among towns when it comes to being home to members of the Travelling community.

These are just two statistics in the seventh bulletin report from the 2011 National Census of Population entitled ‘Religion, Ethnicity and Irish Travellers – Ethnic and Cultural Background in Ireland’ that presents a profile of the various religions in Ireland along with more detailed results on ethnicity and Irish Travellers.

The report, which was published on Thursday last, shows that there are now 533 Travellers living in Ennis – the highest number of any town in the province and third in Ireland behind Tuam which is home to 669 Travellers and Navan which has a Traveller population of 625.

Irish Traveller households have a significantly lower home ownership rate than the general population with one in five (20.2 per cent) households owning their home compared with 69.7 per cent for the gen- eral population.

The average number of rooms in Irish Traveller households was 4.3, compared with an average of 5.5 rooms for all private households in 2011.

Almost one in three Traveller households (30.3 per cent) with a total of 886 persons who were living in mobile or temporary accommodation had no sewerage facilities in 2011.

As a whole, the county has a Traveller population of 855. A breakdown of these census returns show that there are 203 private households among the county’s Traveller population, while there are 789 permanent housing units and 23 temporary housing units in the county.

The census returns show that there are many ethnic groups living in the county, which is evidence of the way a multicultural society has developed in Clare over the past number of decades.

There are 1, 332 people in the county that the Central Statistics Office have classified as being of an African/Black background, 1, 267 of a Chinese/Asian background, 1,025 of a mixed background and 9, 574 of a non-Irish white background.

DESPITE no submissions from people to the public meeting before it began, the people of Kilr ush showed an interest in the policing of their town with a larger than average crowd turning out for the Public Joint Policing Committee meeting.

Kil rush Town Clerk John Cor ry described the attendance as a “dra- matic increase” on previous meetings, with more than 20 members of the public showing thei r concer n.

Many people spoke up during the 90-minute meeting, with the majority stating they were afraid to report criminal activity to Gardaí for fear of reprisal. One man even queried the statistics presented by the superintendent.

“I think they paint a rosy picture. I don’t think ever ything is reported,” he said.

“It is not nice to wal k the street at night because you feel unsafe and that is for a man. It must be worse for a woman,” he added.

One woman raised issues about people being afraid in thei r own home, and being too afraid to tell the Gardaí.

“I know someone who is very lucky to be alive. I am afraid in my home. I don’t blame ye, I blame the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. I blame the minister because he closed down all the stations and ye can’t be everywhere, covering everywhere. Ye can’t be in two places at once,” she said.

Supt Gerr y Wall encouraged people to call the Gardaí and report incidents immediately, even if it has to be anonymously.

“I can give you every reassurance that any information we get we act upon,” he said.

The superintendent also explained he has more resources available to him at peak “crime times”, and was managing the manpower accordingly.

“There could be a day and the (Kilr ush) car could be out of town and a take a few minutes to get there, but we will get there as quickly as possible,” he said.

He said it was essential that people reported crime to the Gardaí even if they are slow to give thei r name.

“If people hold back we will never make progress,” he said.