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IRELAND’S original heritage tree is returning home to Ballyvaughan with an ambitious new project by locals to reintroduce the Ballyvaughan Seedling Apple into the locality.

The Ballyvaughan Apple Tree was one of the first local species of tree identified by Irish Seed Savers more than 20 years ago, when it was classified as Ireland’s first Heritage Tree.

A number of samples of the tree were recovered and propagated by the East Clare-based organisation and have since been planted in several locations all around Ireland.

Despite this, however, the number of Ballyvaughan Apple Trees has dwindled in North Clare.

To coincide with Heritage Week, a group of locals have begun a quest to reintroduce the Ballyvaughan Seedling Apple to Ballyvaughan. A number of trees will be planted at ceremonies at Ballyvaughan Church and Fanore National School this Thursday, and an information evening will take place afterwards at the Burren College of Art.

“There is still a small number of Ballyvaughan Apple Trees in the locality but their numbers are dwindling. There are a number of very old trees, but they are dying out, and there are also three trees at the national school which were planted eight or 10 years ago,” said Conor Fahy, organiser of the tree plant.

“Thanks to the work of the Seedsavers, these trees have now been planted all around Ireland so we want to make sure that the Ballyvaughan Apple Tree survives in the area and that there are more trees here than anywhere else in the country.”

The Ballyvaughan Apple Tree produces a good supply of apples which are ideal for cooking or cider-making. The trees need to be planted alongside other varieties of apple trees to aid in propagation.

The trees were first identified by an American tree expert who was visiting the area in the 1980s and it is still unclear where the first Ballyvaughan Seedling Apple Trees were discovered.

“The exact location of where the original trees were found remains a little controversial among local residents. As they say, time is a great storyteller, and some details have become slightly distorted and exaggerated,” said Clare Biodiversity Officer, Shane Casey.

“A more recent survey of the parish, carried out by the Ballyvaughan Development Committee, has uncovered several orchards, with the poten- tial for many more specimens of the Ballyvaughan Seedling Apple to be discovered, as well as interviews with some of the older members of the community.”

Lynne O’Keeffe-Lascar of Kinvara Sustainable Living and Eoin Keane of Irish Seed Savers will be on hand at the Burren College on Thursday evening to advise local people on how best to look after the trees.

Lynne has recently completed a similar project of mass tree planting in Kinvara, while eight members of the Ballyvaughan community will also attend a course at Irish Seed Savers to train them in apple tree maintenance.

PLANNING permission has been approved for the construction of new parish offices in Ennis.

St Flannan’s (Killaloe) Diocesan Trust had applied to Ennis Town Council for planning permission to demolish part of the Maria Assumpta Hall and to construct new parish offices with meeting rooms and ancillary facilities including site works and to carry out alterations to the retained portion of the Maria Assumpta Hall, Station Road, Ennis. The proposed developments are within the curtilage of the protected structures of Ss. Peter and Paul’s Cathedral and the Presbytery.

In granting permission, the council stated that the proposed development “would not seriously injure the amenities of the area or of the property in the vicinity and will be in accordance with the proper planning and sustainable development of the area.”

Planning permission was granted subject to a number of conditions :

The roof must be finished in natural quarry slate or natural slate effect to be dark grey, or blue black in colour. The colour of the ridge tile must also match the colour of the roof;

No changes are permitted to agreed window sizes or the agreed external wall finishes;

No floodlighting of the development is permitted while any stone facing shall be of local natural stone.

The council adds, “Prior to the commencement of the development, the developer shall submit to the planning authority for agreement, full details of construction and demolition waste management plan.”

The developer must provide details on how all materials will be removed from the site; proposals to mimimise the environmental impacts of the demolition work such as dust, noise and flying debris.

Adequate temporary car parking must be provided on the site for employees engaged in construction work. The council states that facilities must be in place to avoid the parking of vehicles on road fronting the site and in the interest of safety.

All surface water generated within the site boundaries must be collected and disposed of within the curtilage of the site. It is also a condition that no works shall take place to the existing front boundary wall onto Station Road without the prior approval of the planning authority.

In his report, Conservation Officer, Risteard Ua Cróinín stated, “The proposed new build elements appear to respect the existing buildings in scale and proportion and are considered appropriate in materials and design in the context of adjacent protected structures. This office does not intend to object to the proposed development.”

Mr Ua Cróinín states that the existing Maria Assumpta Hall, which dates back to the 1950s-60s, is “of little architectural or historic merit.” PREPARATIONS are well underway for the 68th annual Scariff Show, which will be held on Saturday, September 1, in the Showgrounds Scariff. With numerous exciting and entertaining events promised, including a range of horse classes from show/ working hunter pony classes, Connemara, show-jumping, sportsman classes, as well as a sheep section and a dog section. The highlight this year is the Yearling Filly All-Ireland Championship, jointly sponsored by Horse Sport Ireland and Scariff Show. But the Scariff Show is not just an event for farmers and horse breeders. There are contests for the best in home-baking, arts and crafts, roots and vegetables, flowers and amateur photography and numerous children’s competitions including the ever popular bonny baby competition. Due to the cancellation of shows this year – Scariff Show are delighted to accommodate the Irish Shows Association by hosting the All Ireland Gain Dog Food Championship in Scariff also. This year’s show sees the reintroduction of cattle classes, with exhibits from some of the leading dairy and beef herds in the country on display.

Scariff Show attributes its longevity to the fact that it is rooted in the community and all the committee work is done on a voluntary basis.

Scariff Show schedule is available to download from www.scariffshow. com.

Scariff Show is fortunate to always have been able to count on the support of business in the community for the last 68 years said a show spokesperson this week.

Closing date for entries is this weekend. Please contact Show Secretary Joanne Allen 087 366771 or visit our website www.scariffshow.com.

THE power and importance of the local media in giving a voice to people throughout the county was highlighted at the annual Merriman Summer School which was staged in Lisdoonvarna last week.

Ennis woman Fiona Stack, who is general manager of Radio Kerry, showcased the significance of the local media in her lecture to the 45th Merriman Summer School that had as its theme ‘Thriving at the Crossroads: Rural Ireland in a Globalised World’.

Ms Stack said that local media fulfilled an important part of community life in rural Ireland, because it has “always been more answerable, had to be more responsible, had a sense of being around for the long haul”.

“Local media provides access to groups and voices that would never make it onto the national radar,” said Ms Stack. “All local issues are discussed and debated more, whether its concerns over cutbacks, local authority meetings, changes planned in local development plans, public meetings, or attempts to attract industry or tourists,” she added.

“It provides an important connection for exiles, a daily link to home and a means by which even if you do have to go away you can still stay part of the conversation, and when you do come home you can slip straight back in. Those links abroad can be called on for practical networking purposes for the benefit of an area.

“For anybody that doubts it, rural Ireland still has energy, still has community spirit, still has laughter, still has a future and still has many many stories to tell,” she added.

Ms Stack was one of number of keynote speakers at the Merriman School, which was chaired by former Director General of RTÉ, Bob Collins.

RESCUE services in Kilkee had a busy afternoon on Saturday when two separate serious incidents took place in the village.

A woman in her 60s fell from the pier wall in the village just after 1pm on Saturday afternoon, while three divers also required urgent medical attention at the same time after a suspected case of the bends, also known as Decompression Sickness or Caisson Disease.

The woman, who was walking along Kilkee pier when the incident took place, is understood to have missed a step and fallen more than 10 feet to the rocky base of the pier. Her fall was partly broken by moss and seaweed at the pier base but she still sustained a number of broken bones in the incident as well as injuries to her head.

At the same time, three divers raised the alarm with the emergency services when they reported feeling sick after aborting a dive unexpectedly following a malfunction in their equipment.

Both the Kilkee Unit of the Irish Coast Guard and the Kilkee Marine Rescue Service responded to the incidents, while the HSE ambulance was also diverted to the scene.

The woman was treated at the scene but her injuries were serious enough to require the Shannon-based coast guard helicopter to be scrambled to Kilkee to airlift her to hospital in Galway.

The three divers, who were all members of a Limerick-based subaqua club, had returned to shore and changed out of their equipment when one reported feeling unwell. One of the divers had suffered an equipment malfunction and had been forced to resurface quickly.

For safety reasons, he was accompanied by two other divers while he resurfaced. Divers who are forced to resurface too quickly can suffer from the bends, because of the quick change in water pressure. This can lead to serious injury and even death and cause an embolism or a bleed in the brain.

All four injured parties were airlifted in the same helicopter to University College Hospital in Galway where they were treated for their injuries.

THE lack of a dedicated helicopter landing pad in Kilkee is putting lives at risk by delaying how quickly injured people can be airlifted to hospital. At present, the most suitable place for the Shannon-based Irish Coast Guard helicopter to land is at the first tee of Kilkee Golf Course, which must be cleared in full before a rescue operation can take place. A site for a dedicated helicopter landing pad was identified by locals more than 10 years ago but nothing has been done in the meantime to make the site a workable option. Following a number of high-profile accidents in the locality in recent weeks, Manuel di Lucia of the Kilkee Marine Rescue Service, believes that the site, which is in public ownership, could be made ready to receive emergency helicopter traffic for as little as € 30,000. “I don’t think that it’s good enough that here in the Kilkee area, where we have had some very serious incidents over the last couple of weeks, yet we don’t have a designated landing pad,” he said. “This wouldn’t cost a lot of money at all. For as little as € 30,000, they could put together a very workable landing pad which would not interfere with overhead wires and houses. “I think we need to invite the chief pilot from the Shannon-based coast guard helicopter, someone from the coast guard and someone from the Department of Transport down to meet with someone from Clare County Council to assess the site and see if it still fits the needs of the modern rescue helicopters. “This site would be closer to the rescue centre in Kilkee and it would be much easier to get there, so it would speed up the time it takes to get an injured person to hospital.”

THE recession is hitting Clare couples hard with the a marked increase in the number or people getting divorced and separated in recent years. The number of divorces granted to couples in Clare grew by 40.8 per cent last year – the largest year-onyear increase since divorce was made legal in Ireland in 1996.

According to new figures for the county released by the Central Statistic Office (CSO) 69 divorces were granted to Clare couples last year with a further 66 application for di- vorce being made.

According to Paul Woulfe of the Ennis branch of the Citizens Information Service, these figures are the tip of the iceberg, with many Clare people seeking judicial separations – because they cannot afford the cost of an official divorce.

“There are many more people going down the route of a negotiated separation rather than going for a divorce. We get a lot of people coming into us because their marriages have broken up and the cannot afford the cost of a solicitor,” he told The Clare People.

“People come to us and they don’t realise that there are other option to having a full divorce, but there are. Of course there are many other couples who have been cohabiting for years and have a family – these people do not need a divorce at all and would not show up on the statistics.

“When a marriage or a relationship breaks up people have a lot of questions. A lot of them either don’t realise that you can get a separation agreement or a judicial separation and they will give you the same protections as a divorce. Really, the main difference for a divorce is that it allows the party’s involved to remarry – but a person can always get a judicial separation and then apply for a full divorce down the line at some stage.”

Meanwhile, just one annulment of marriage has been granted in Clare over the last five years. A total of five application of annulment have been made in the county since 2007, with only one being granted. An annulment is a declaration that a marriage was deemed never to be valid and is declared on rare occasions – such as when one of the people involved is found already to be legally married.

Anyone who wishes to contact the Clare Citizen’s Information Service for can call 0761 075260.

FOR Dan Furey, set dancing was a way of life and a labour of love – something that will be celebrated once more in Labahsheeda this weekend when the 18th annual festival bearing his name will be staged.

“We would have been one of the first set dancing weekends around the country,” says Liam Woulfe of the organising committee, “and like last year, we’re holding the festival in the last weekend in August before the school holidays end.”

Dan Furey’s dedication to set dancing was legendary in Labasheeda and beyond, with his dedication in passing on the dances of the Labasheeda area over six decades winning him a permanent place in the history of traditional dancing in Ireland.

He is best remembered by dancers for having given us the Paris Set, and the Labasheeda Reel Set, and also some solo dances such as The Priest and His Boots, Single Time and the Gabhairin Buí.

“To bring the festival about each year, there is a lot of community effort. A lot people help out. This year’s festival will be opened by Fr Tom McGrath who spent over 40 years in Kenya as a missionary priest.

“Stephen McDonagh is a local his- torian who, along with Heritage officers from Clare County Council, will give a talk on the Battery Fortress in Kilkerrin – around now is the 200th anniversary of the erection of the Napoleonic fort.

“There is usually an impromptu céili at The Battery on Sunday morning, re-enacting the tradition of locals going there to dances hosted by the British soldiers based there. It’s a unique part of the festival and there’ll be a good crowd there, with people travelling through the fields to get to the point,” he adds.

DESPITE the torrential rain, students from North Clare were in high spirits when they collected their Leaving Certificate results last Wednesday.

While each of the local secondary schools reported good results, the cream of the crop for 2012 was at the CBS in Ennistymon, where two students achieved six A1 grades and the maximum 625 points.

Lawrence Egan and James Cotter, who are both from the Ennistymon area received the full six A1s in the exam.

Both students have applied for engineering courses in university.

“Everyone was very happy and very relieved with the results. There were a few people in honours maths who were a bit concerned but they all came through it well,” said Anne Tuohy from CBS in Ennistymon.

“The bonus points are definitely attracting more people [to maths]. I just hope that it doesn’t distort the points too much for people who didn’t do honours maths. I think it will be a few years before we know for sure what it is doing to the points system.

“Overall we are very happy with the results, especially with the two students who achieved six A1s. That was a fantastic result for both – they have their full 600 points and the 25 bonus honours maths points to spare. We had a lot of very solid results along with that so they are all very pleased.”

There was also a great performance from the students at the Ennistymon Vocational School, where Ciaran Roche from Liscannor was the top points earner on 550 points.

“We are very happy with all of our students. Everyone got on really well, especially in higher level math and in Irish,” said Elizabeth Flanaghan from Ennistymon Vocational School.

“The number of people taking higher level math definitely increased this year since the bonus points were introduced. The students were definitely attracted by the extra points on offer.”

There was also a series of very good results at Scoil Mhuire in Ennistymon, where principal Seosaimhin Ui Dhomhnallain congratulated the students for all their hard work.

“It is wonderful to see the girls’ hard work rewarded. They were a wonderful group of co-operative, hard-working girls, who made a very valuable contribution to all areas of school life,” she said.

“The parents, students and teaching staff of Scoil Mhuire are to be congratulated on their splendid re sults, for their support and hard work throughout the girls’ school years and I wish them all the very best in the next stage of their lives,” was the principal’s final words.

HE died 210 years ago, but renowned Ennis poet Thomas Dermody has been brought back from obscurity thanks to the work of University of Limerick academic Dr Michael Griffin, which was celebrated at the Merriman Summer School on Friday.

The Romantic-era poet, who was Clare’s answer to Robert Burns in the destructive lifestyle that he led and his literary genius, had his work republished and launched at the Merriman Summer School.

A critical edition of the Selected Wr itings of Ennis poet Thoma s Der mody (1775-1802), edited and introduced by Dr Michael Griffin of the School of Languages, Literature, Culture and Communication, and published by Field Day, was formally launched at the Royal Spa Hotel, Lisdoonvarna.

“He was much admired in his own time by leading figures in the political and literary cultures of Dublin and London for his prodigious tal- ents in poetry,” says Dr Griffin. “He published his first volume of verse in 1789 at the age of 14, but Dermody was also infamous for his selfdestructive lifestyle and he died in London at just the age of 27,” adds Dr Griffin.

According to Professor Seamus Deane, Dermody “is now seen in a more chastened spirit as a figure who flits uncertainly between Robert Burns and Thomas Moore, the great exemplars of those in whom a romantic nationalism and a liberal politics were key ingredients in the production of the new poetry”.

Professor Deane also said that the edition of his Selected Writings, edited by Dr Griffin, “defines his achievements and status with an unprecedented authority and precision”.

Dermody’s biographer James Grant Raymond said of him, “There is scarcely a style of composition in which he did not excel. The descriptive, the ludicrous, the didactic, the sublime — each, when occasion required, he treated with skill, with acute remark, imposing humour, profound reflection and lofty magnificence.”

In addition to a volume of verse published when he was 17, Dermody also published a pamphlet on the French Revolution in 1793, ‘The Rights of Justice or Rational Liberty’.

In 1806, James Grant Raymond published the ‘Life of Thomas Dermody, interspersed with pieces of original poetry’. He then went on, in 1807, to publish ‘The Harp of Erin, or the Poetical Works of the late Thomas Dermody’.

A NEW form of decentralisation was on the table for discussion in Lisdoonvarna over the weekend, as Fianna Fáil spokesman on Agriculture, Food and Community Affairs, Éamon Ó Cuív, called for a reintroduction of the much maligned policy of his former government.

Deputy Ó Cuiv was speaking at the final major panel discussion of the Merriman Summer School alongside MEP Mairéad Mc Guinness at the Pavillion Theatre on Saturday evening. The theme of the discussion was ‘On the Land’ and Ó Cuiv suggested a new targeted form of decentralising as a means of invigorating rural areas.

The outspoken former Fianna Fáil deputy leader said that decentralisation could be carried out again on a more organised and incremental fashion over a longer period.

“I believe that the current Government should continue with a targeted programme of decentralisation,” he said. “Unfortunately, urban areas tend to be socially segregated and, in my view, that is a great ill in our society. Having grown up in Dublin and come to live in Cornamona, I have come to appreciate the strength of community life,” he said.

Speaking at the same event, MEP McGuinness said there was more to rural Ireland than septic tanks and turf-cutting rows. “In a globalised world, there is no room for a mentality of ‘they are for us or they are against us’,” she said.

The Director of this year’s Summer School, Chairman of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, Bob Collins, said this year’s summer school is about the very future of rural Ireland.

“In current economic conditions, where the easy optimism of a few short years ago has evaporated and where the enduring presence of institutions that have supported rural communities for almost two centuries can no longer be taken for granted, there is much on which to reflect,” he said.