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THE Kinvara Farmers market will continue trading in 2011, even if difficulties in obtaining a license to trade in the town’s square cannot be overcome. The future of the market had looked in jeopardy earlier this month due to ongoing delays in completing legislation to clarify the standing of markets hosted on public areas.

The market, which has proved a huge success since it was first set up in 2009, has up until now traded on private property at Johnson’s Garden but this area will be unavailable to traders next year. The market had originally been designed to trade in the Square in Kinvara but delays in drafting market legislation had forced them to take up residence in Johnson’s Garden.

With this legislation still some way off, the future of the market for 2011 had seemed in doubt. However, an innovative new approach by the market has secured the market’s future whether the market legislation is drafted in time or not. Last week, the Kinvara Farmers Market successfully secured a road closure license which allowed them to trade at the Square in Kinvara without the need for the farmers market license. A meeting of traders will now take place next month, where the various options available to the group will be outlined.

“I think we proved that a market can work well in the Square in Kinvara. Despite difficulties with the weather, we got great feedback from customers” said Antoinette Hensey of the Kinvara Farmers Market. “What we can do next year is apply for a road closure for every Friday morning during our trading season and that will allow us to trade each week. This would, we think, cost less that a license and we are not at present able to get a license so there is a solution to our problem. The market will be back next year, one way or the other.

“This is a very unusual route that we have taken and we think that it could be used by other markets who are in difficulty with the licensing regulations. There are lot of conditions to be met but, once you have achieved this, it is relatively straightforward.

“We need to have a stall-holders meeting to see what we will do for next year. There are many who believe that business will be better in the Square but there are other who have an emotional attachment to the space in Johnson’s – which might still be available to us for next year.”

Anyone who wishes to find out more about getting a road closure licence can contact Antoinette Hensey on 065 7078042.

PEOPLE with old sewing machines that are no longer in use are invited to donate them to a group in Shannon.

The Shannon Musical Society is gearing up for its spring production ‘The Pyjama Game’. The show, which will be the society’s 34th production, is based on a trade union dispute in a sewing machine factory.

This is the second time the society has staged this production, following a successful run in 1990.

The group will have its first meeting tomorrow, Wednesday, at the Shannon Knights Inn, where newcomers are invited to attend and meet several of the society’s existing members.

“We have a brilliant crew. Our committee are very young and enthusiastic,” said the PRO of the society, Mary Forde.

“We are trying to encourage new members to join. We have a lot of new people in the past few years but we need to keep adding,” she said.

The show is based on the Richard Bissells novel Seven And A Half Cents , which has been in existence for decades.

Given the show’s topic, she said that the hunt is on for sewing machines. “We would welcome anybody out there with old sewing machines to donate them,” said Ms Forde.

“This is a time for the long-standing members to meet up again after the very successful ‘Wedding Singer’. It’s also a great opportunity for new members to become involved in the society and to meet existing members and get acquainted with the organising and running of the society,” she added.

Carmel Griffin, who has been involved for several years, is the musical director, while Karen Barrett – who also features regularly in the shows – is the choreographer. Donal Cantwell from Dublin, who is involved for the first time, will be the producer.

Rehearsals will get underway on September 6, while the show will be staged at St Patrick’s Comprehensive School from February 12 to 18 next year.

Anyone wishing to get involved in the show should turn up at the Shannon Knights tomorrow, Wednesday, at 8pm, or phone 087 6270107.

A SECOND major climbing accident of the summer took place in North Clare this Saturday when a man had to be airlifted to safety after falling more than five metres at the Ailladee area, just north of Doolin.

The man, who is understood to be a Czech national living in Ireland, was “free climbing” with three others on Saturday evening when the accident took place.

Free climbing mean climbing without the use of ropes and is considered to be more dangerous than abseiling using ropes.

A 41-year-old man was airlifted to hospital after his climbing equipment apparently failed and he fell five metres from a cliff face, crushing several vertebrae in his back. The man was airlifted to by Rescue 115 to the University College Hospital in Galway.

Meanwhile, a passenger ferry ran aground in low tide in Doolin last week – forcing it’s crew and captain to remain on board for several hours until the tide changed again.

The Rose of Aran, which is operated by Aran Doolin Ferries, was arriving in Doolin to collect passengers before travelling to the Aran Islands when the incident took place.

The Doolin unit of the Irish Coast Guard assessed the vessel and concluded that it was neither in danger of capsizing or a pollution risk.

“The tides were very low last week and the ship ran aground. It is something that could happen any time at Doolin except for the skill of the skippers who are navigating in that shallow area,” said Matty Shannon of the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coastguard.

“The boat didn’t list and there was no immediate danger. This is the sort of thing that wouldn’t happen if there was a new pier in Doolin.”

CLARE’S heritage can become one of the key drivers in the local economy for much of the next decade, a leading local government official has said this week just as a new blueprint for the development and preservation of key environmental sites around the county was unveiled.

The county’s Heritage Officer, Congella McGuire, has told The Clare People that the county’s rich heritage has a crucial part to play in aiding Clare’s economic recovery through the creation of new visitor attractions and amenities around the locally built environment.

“The arts get a lot of kudos in terms of national recovery, but heritage is the basis for all that,” said Ms McGuire at the launch of County Clare Heritage Plan in the Vandeleur Walled Garden in Kilrush on Monday.

“Heritage is the base product, if you want to put it in crude terms. Heritage is going to be part of the national recovery and Clare can very much play its part in that.

“The Heritage Council has that message.

“By protecting our heritage, raising awareness of it and giving an authentic experience to people about our heritage, there is great scope going forward for the Clare economy,” added Ms McGuire.

Recent developments such as the opening of the Loophead Lighthouse and a number of walking trails in West and North Clare such the Kilkee Walk and Cliffs of Moher Walk have been held by the environment section of Clare County Council as the local authority’s commitment opening up heritage to as many people as possible.

“The idea is to try and make more sites accessible,” said Ms McGuire, “and this involves partnership going forward.

“If we are involved in a project we work with people who have a vested interest and expertise.

“We have an initiative in Lough Derg to link trails connecting all around the lake.

“This will involve connnected with county council colleagues in North Tipperary and Galway.

“These are ongoing initiatives that we are trying to develop. It’s all about better access to trails and sites, better access to heritage and better interpretation of heritage. One of the challenges for the future would be funding.

“We have to go after funding and avail of funding as it arises.

“We have to this much more than we did in the past and keep standards high,” she added.

A CLARE third-level student will be used by the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) to contest a judicial review against changes made to the way in which third-level grants are calculated.

USI president Gary Redmond confirmed to The Clare People yesterday that the case of a north Clare student, Medb Hensey, will be used to challenge new Department of Education legislation which increases the distance from a university that a student can be considered “adjacent”.

Under the new rules, which come into effect this September, Medb’s grant will be significantly cut because, even though she lives outside Ballyvaughan, she is considered to live beside NUI, Galway. The case will appear in the high court on October 7.

“Medb is being used as part of this test case. We know this won’t help Medb or other students this year but it might help her, or other students in the same position, down the line.

“We did try to impress on the judge how important the timing of the case was, with students going back to college,” said Gary Redmond, President of the Union of the Student in Ireland.

“This has placed a lot of students in severe financial difficulty and I know that many students, especially from rural areas, may have difficulty going back to college.

“The rationale behind this is that public transport has improved but if you look at a situation like Medb’s, there is no way that she can get to college using public transport each day.”

Medb is planning to take up a year’s study abroad this September and, according to her mother Antoinette, they have managed to save enough money for Medb to study abroad this September.

“USI sent an engineer out to measure the distance and we are 39km from Galway by the shortest direct route,” she said.

“This won’t be of any benefit to Medb this year but we are hopeful that USI may win this case; we will have to wait and see.

“She is going to Malta anyway. We have both been working hard to ensure that we have enough to get her there. We were both determined that that would happen.”

THE people of Clare will be given the opportunity to invest in the largest renewable energy project ever undertaken in Ireland through a local share issue being offered by the West Clare Renewable Energy (WCRE).

The co-op style company, which is made up of more than 30 local landowners, was yesterday granted planning permission to build a € 200 million wind farm in Mount Callan. According to company spokesperson Padraig Howard, the company has already been contacted by a number of international investment companies looking to bankroll the project but WCRE have decided to fund construction locally, as much as possible, by issuing a “local share” which would allow the people of West Clare to buy a stake in the company.

“We are very strongly of the opinion that we do not want to sell on the project to outside investors. We started this so that we could create jobs and as a resource for the wider community in west Clare,” he said.

“There will be debt on the project and we will be borrowing from investment funds and banks to get this off the ground but there will also be the chance for people to invest. We are hoping to put out a share offer for the local community and the wider community in west Clare that can buy into the project if they wish. If that happens then that will be absolutely fantastic, because that means that the return from the project will be shared among the wider community in west Clare.”

Construction work on the giant wind farm cannot begin until a connection to the national grid can be secured – something which could hold up the wind farm for up to five years.

“The next step is securing an offer of a grid connection from Airgrid and the Commission for Energy Regulation. That is a very slow and cumbersome process at the moment and we will have to wait for a number of years,” continued Padraig.

“The new government has promised to reform this process and speed it up – especially for projects who have a certain scale, have strong wind resources and are close to an existing grid connection – we tick all three of those boxes. So we are hopeful that we can get over the grid connection difficulty as quickly as possible.

“Without a firm grid connection offer we can only guess when we can start the process. But today is still a day to savour – we now know that this will go ahead sooner than later. We are anxious that this go ahead ASAP but we have been patient in the planning of this and we will continue to be patient.”

Mr Howard also thanked all the people of west Clare who had backed the project and also invited anyone who might have been against the planning permission being granted to further engagement on the progress of the wind farm.