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RURAL shopkeepers are being urged to increase their security measures, after a shop in west Clare was targeted by shoplifters over the weekend.

A shop in Cree village was targeted on Sunday, when cash and cigarettes were stolen after a young sales assistant was distracted.

Two women went into the shop at around 6pm. One of the women distracted the sales assistant, while the other went behind the counter.

The shopkeeper then confronted the duo, but they denied doing anything wrong and quickly left the scene in a van that had been parked nearby.

Gardaí say they have obtained clear CCTV footage from the premises, which they hope will help to solve the crime.

The women are described as being in their late 30s and were around 5’ 7” or 5’ 8” in height. One had blonde hair with black streaks and wore a pink coat and black hat. She had a mark over her right eye.

The other woman wore a pink or red jacket and grey leggings with a red hat with white trim. It is believed that they are not local.

Gardaí say the amount of cash stolen was not substantial, but in the wake of similar incidents in Feakle and Flagmount in recent weeks, they are warning shop owners to ensure their security measures are adequate.

“This is most unusual. We looked at the adjoining counties but nothing of this nature seems to have occurred,” said the head of the Clare Garda Division, Chief Superintendent John Kerin.

“I would be confident enough that we would identify those involved from the CCTV,” he added.

He is advising shop owners to “keep small amounts of money in the till; keep it cleared regularly and have good CCTV that covers all areas of the shop”.

“Make sure you are not distracted,” he said.

Anyone with information on the Cree incident should contact Kilrush Garda Station on 065 9051017.

A NEW book, that for the first time attempts to record the history of Drumcliff cemetery, was officially launched in Ennis last week.

Complied by local men Larry Brennan and Eric Shaw, Dr umcliff Cemeter y – The Hidden Histor y of Ennis contains details of some 12,000 graves and 2,700 inscriptions to be found in the graveyard, which has been in use since the early 1800s.

Work on mapping the graveyard began three years ago and the project is a joint initiative between the Clare Roots Society and Ennis Tidy Towns. The process of documenting the extensive history of Drumcliff was undertaken by members of the Roots Society and pupils from Ennis National School between 2007 and 2008.

The book contains articles on the history of Drumcliff plus the biodiversity, flora and fauna, stone cuttings and ironwork within the cemetery. The book also guides readers through the historical graves in the cemetery from the cholera outbreaks of 1832 and 1849 to the Famine Grave, Paupers’ Burial Plot and the tragic drowning at Ballybeg Lake on the April 1, 1896.

According to co-author Larry Brennan, Drumcliff is an area of immense historical importance, “It’s one of the most unusual graveyards, not just in Clare but in Ireland in the sense that every event with regard to the historical background is recorded in Drumcliff, from cholera to famine, to the Carmody’s Hotel disaster, to plane crashes. I have brought people up there from England and America and they are amazed with the history. They look on it as a history trail that can be done, like you do the trail in Ennis, this is another trail that can add to tourism in Ennis.”

He describes Drumcliff as a “search engine”, the first place anyone should look if they are researching any as pect of the history of Ennis.

“Drumcliff is where you start. All the shopkeepers in town are buried up there. Some of them in the vaults. Paddy Con McMahon, where they are renovating Paddy Con’s Hall now. Everyone knows Paddy Con McMahon, but who was he? He was a builder. He was involved in the County Hospital. There is so much information that is hidden up there. But by the initial starting point from a gravestone, you can get a date, if you’re lucky you’ll get an obituary and you’ll find the history of the person then by simply going to the grave or back to the media. It’s a search engine for people who want to search their family or members of their family or historical events.”

Having started the process of recording the history of Drumcliff, Larry believes there are plenty more stories to be told. “It all depends on the angle. Do you do the teachers in Ennis, do you do the priests in Ennis. What do you do in Ennis? There are various things that can be done in Drumcliff. This is only the beginning. We would encourage other people now that might have time on their hands to take an element of Drumcliff to proceed to produce further booklets.”

HAVING closed the book on their latest research project, members of the Clare Roots Society are already putting the finishing touches to a new history of one of Ennis’ best known streets.

Speaking at a book launch in the Old Ground Hotel on Thursday night, local historian Larry Brennan said the society have pieced together a history of the people that have lived and worked on O’Connell Street.

Larry, who along with Eric Shaw complied Dr umcliff Cemeter y –The Hidden Histor y of Ennis , said the new project would be unveiled at a presentation in Ennis in the coming months.

He says, “I had flagged it two years or three years with regard to the change of name. There is so much history in O’Connell Street right from the square up to Darcy’s Corner. The street does not go from the Height right up to the Cathedral. It goes from the Height up to Darcy’s. Darcy’s is the last house on O’Connell Street. There were guns taken at Darcy’s Corner. There is the story of the Old Ground Hotel, the jail. The first cinema in Ennis was the Town Hall. There is so much information out there on O’Connell Street that hopefully very shortly we can stimulate interest in it and bring it out. We’re nearly in the finished process. Its nearly there.”

Larry also has his eye on future projects, in particular a history of one of Ennis’ oldest areas, Steeles Terrace. He explains, “There is an amazing history of the 30 houses in Steele’s Terrace. There were known initially as the artisan dwellings. There were tradesmen and craftsmen living at the side. At the same time then you had the labourer’s cottages built down in St Flannan’s Terrace. You had two distinct developments going on in Ennis at the same time.”

Larry says more needs to be done to record the history of Ennis. He adds, “Only for the work of Sean Spellissy, the historian, and Ciarán Ó Mhurchadha and a few more, Ennis is lacking in information with regards to the people and the buildings. We’re fortunate in the past few years that online we have the baptismal records, we have the death records and we have the marriage records for Ennis. We have school records with Ennis National School. We have burial records with Drumcliff graveyard and Corrovorrin graveyard. We have an amount of information that we could actually do your family tree by sitting at your computer at home and have a fair amount of it done within an hour.”

ROADSTONE has declined to comment on increasing speculation that they are about to re-open a quarry, formally operated by the Whelan Group, on the Lahinch Road in Ennis.

In a statement to The Clare People yesterday, a spokesperson that that Roadstone had no official comment to make on the situation, but said that they were aware of the growing speculation linking them and the Ennis quarry.

In December of 2010 the High Court made to wind up five companies in the Whelan Group after the company directors withdrew a petition for court protection. The Clare People understands that a number of people, who have been out of work since the operations ceased at the quarry, have been contacted in recent days about the possibility of returning to work, but it is unclear how many jobs will be reinstated and who will be operating the facility.

The Whelan’s Group employed 120 people in five separate companies when the winding up order was issued in December of last year and the company directors said at the time that they “profoundly regretted” any job losses that would come about as a result.

Clare Fine Gael Senator Martin Conway (FG) yesterday welcomed any increase in employment in the area and said that Roadstone would make a success of the quarry if a deal is completed.

“Roadstone are a company with a great track record and a massive amount of experience in this area and if a deal can be done I have no doubt that they will make a great success of the venture,” the Fine Gael senator said.

“Every job is an important job and that area was hit particularly badly with the closure of the quarry. I would welcome any move that would allow the people effected by this to get back to work.”

The Whelan’s Group is a familyowned company which has been in operation in Clare for the past 40 years.

ALMOST 20,000 Clare households could face the prospect of shelling out as much as € 300 each to have their septic tanks examined following the implementation of EU legislation which is likely to become law in Ireland this September.

The new law would require every septic tank in the county to be examined by Clare County Council to determine if the tank meets with the new EU guidelines. It is understood that this examination would be carried out at the expense of the landowner themselves.

Should the septic fail to meet the standards required, improvements costing up to an estimated € 7,000 would be required – again with the home-owner responsible for meeting the cost of upgrading or replacing the septic tank.

A spokesperson from Clare County Council told The Clare People last week that the local authority were not in a position to comment on the issue until legislation had been passed by Government.

The local authority’s Director of Services for the Environment, David Timlin, did confirm that the number of Clare houses affected could be as high as 19,000.

“Until such time as any such legislation is published, I am not in a position to comment on the kind of regulatory regime that may be put in place. I will need to see what exactly the local authority’s responsibilities would be,” he said. “There are about 19,000 single-house treatment systems in Clare, mainly septic tanks.”

North West Area MEP, Marian Harkins (IND) hosted a public meeting on the subject in Ennis last Friday. “There is a huge inequity in requiring rural householders to pay an as yet undisclosed fee to inspect septic tanks which, if found deficient, could involve subsequent and significant additional costs for them,” she said.

“Bearing in mind that billions of Euro of exchequer and EU funding have been provided to supply a completely free sewerage service to urban dwellers, the least that rural dwellers should have is equally free service.

“Rural dwellers provide their own sewerage treatment at their own expense, and repair it at no cost to the state or local authorities.

“It is regrettable that the two parties of government, Fine Gael and Labour, have decided that rural dwellers will pay while their urban counterparts will not.”

CLARE is one of eight counties in the State to have experienced a drop in unemployment figures over the past year, a new statistic report on employment has revealed.

However, the drop of just 86 people who are claiming some sort of unemployment benefit has been attributed to an increase in those turning to emigration when finding themselves out of work.

The Central Statistics Office has confirmed that the numbers of people claiming unemployment benefit in the county has dropped from 10,796 in July last year to 10,708 12 months later.

But behind these figures, there has been a dramatic increase in the numbers of people who are unemployed in the county over the past month – with the figure of 10,708 for the end of July representing an increase of 223 within a four-week period.

And the unemployment figures for the end of July represent the highest in the county since February of this year when the Live Register numbers in the county stood at 10,814.

Figures released by the Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed (INOU) show that for the first from February to May this year there was a progressive drop in the numbers of people on the Live Register.

Figures for January 2011 were 10,833, a jump of 264 on the previous month, but by May this had dropped by 547 to 10,286.

For the months of February, March, April and May, Live Register figures had decreased by 69, 191, 204 and 133 – a slide which represented an overall drop of five per cent.

The biggest drop experienced in the county over the past 12 months was experienced in September 2010, when Live Register numbers decreased by 681 from 10,720 to 10,117.

The INOU figures for the county show that there are nearly double the amount of men out of work when compared to women.

The figures, taken from Live Reg ister figures up until June of this year, have revealed that there are 6, 598 men without work, while the figure for women stands at 3887.

Clare is one of three west of Ireland counties to have experienced a drop in unemployment numbers in the last 12 months – the others are Galway (down 183) and Limerick (down 791).

MORE than two decades after the beginning of bitter fight to construct an interpretive centre at Mullaghmore in the South Burren, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has established its first tourism base to serve the world famous national park.

Up until last month the Burren was the only one of Ireland’s six national park’s not to be served by either a information point or an interpretive centre operated by the NPWS. That all changed two week ago when three Burren guides were employed by the NPWS to offer tourism advice and free walking tours from a base in Corofin.

Plans to construct a controvertial interpretive centre at Mullaghmore, which was to be built the Office of Public Works (OPW) and managed by the NPWS, were abandoned in 2000, after a nine-year legal battle to decide planning permission for the site. The new NPWS facility is currently operating from a section of the Clare Heritage and Genealogy Centre in Corofin and poses none of the environmental threats which prompted the campaign against the Mullaghmore Centre.

According to head guide Sheila Murphy, visitor numbers to the facility have been good throughout its first two weeks in operation, with an encouraging number of visitors and local people using the service.

“We have six national parks in Ireland and the Burren National Park is the only one that hasn’t has an information point or an interpretive centre and this is the first year that we have an information point available to the public,” she said. “It is nice to have a place that both locals and tourist can come in and get information and have that service available to them. A lot of the shops in the village and the locality are often asked for information about the Burren and the National Park and they have nowhere really to direct them to.

“I think that this is a complementary development to the Burren Centre in Kilfenora. At the moment we are just an information point but there are plans to have more interpretation in the centre in the future. The Burren is a big area and everyone want to work together to promote it.

“We have three guides in the centre and we can organise free walks on demand if people come in and ask for that and we will also host a free walk every Sunday, which is more aimed at families. It’s a free service and open to anyone who want to use it.”

The new NPWS information point will continue, seven days a week, until the end of September but plans are already in place to run the service for the entire summer season in 2012.

The information point is open from Monday to Friday from 9.30 to 6pm and on Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 6pm.

A TRAINED legal professional, who launched her own business after losing her job in an Ennis legal practice in December, is one of 50 people who have already signed up to take part in Ireland’s first Open Fair event which will take place in Ennis later this month.

The organisers of the Open Fair say that 50 of their 100 stalls have already been taken and are urging budding Clare business people to contact them as soon as possible to reserve a place.

The event, which is the brainchild of general election candidate Jim Connolly, is aimed at start-up businesses and aims to show Clare people that there is a future for new indigenous businesses in the county.

Ennis businesswoman Niamh O’Brien opened her own clothing business in Lifford earlier this year after she lost her job in a local legal firm.

“I could see that work had been fizzling out over the last two years and just before Christmas it was time for me to go. I was always very creative and artistic and that was something that I had left behind when I went to study law. I bought a dress a couple of years in a very fancy shop and I knew myself that I could have made the dress myself,” she told The Clare People .

“I bought myself a couple of books on sewing and I was away in a hack after that. I started on some alterations at the beginning, as my bread and butter, but I like to do the creative side of it so that is what I do now. I like to reuse clothes as much as I can, so I’m always ripping up shirts and making dresses out of them that sort of idea.

“It’s a struggle at the moment but I am still going and events like this Open Fair are great to help me get my name out there and show people what I can do. The idea of being able to network with people in a similar situation to me and just to get the products out there is a great benefit to me.”

The Open Fair will take place in the West County Hotel in Ennis on August 28.

The West County have offered the space for the Open Fair free of charge and also have a number of outside stalls available should the hall become full.

“BUT generally I think it is to do with the place that that we are living, the expectations that we have for life and how things – like the recession – are affecting that,” said ACCORD counselling manager Stephen Cummins.

“Things like the recession have put people under a lot of pressure – not just financial pressure but also time pressure if someone is out there trying to make ends meet or save a business.

“A lot of times, couples who had been working hard through the good years have found that they have been thrown back together, with one or both losing their job. If people are in each other’s faces more often than they had been before, that can be a very awkward situation for them – something that can take a bit of getting used to.”

A total of 12 local relationship counsellors are employed at the ACCORD office on Harmony Row in Ennis. The service is open to all couples – both married and unmarried – who feel that their relationship would benefit from some professional help.

Besides the effects of the recession, distrust brought about by one partner’s activities online is the fastest growing cause of marital instability, according to ACCORD. With many people unemployed and finding themselves with spare time and the widespread availiblity of broadband enabling people to browse online, the temptations here can cause unrest, says Stephen.

“People can be attracted into it quite innocently but the danger is that it can take over your life. It can be very innocent – people going online to buy things without really realising that they cannot afford it, for example.

“The problem is when this becomes a secret compulsion, and a wife or husband is not aware that their spouse is going online and spending money,” continued Stephen.

Recent reports nationally suggest that online gambling and addictions to internet pornography are having detrimental effects on marriages – most likely, says Stephen, because couples do not discuss their problems.

“Communication is the real key. Real communication can help a couple to deal with an awful lot of other difficulties. But if you can’t communicate properly together, how can you deal with other issues? People can take each other for granted – but they just need to realise that no one has the perfect marriage and everybody needs to work at it,” he added.

ACCORD is the largest relationship counselling agency in Ireland. Their Ennis offices can be contacted on 065 6824297.

THE areas of children’s rights and children’s education will dominate discussion at the 2011 Merriman Summer School, which begins in Lisdoonvarna next week.

Directed this year by Prof Nóirín Hayes of DIT, an expert in early childood education and children’s rights, it will address issues relating to Irish childhood past and present and consider a vision for the future. ‘Changing Irish Childhoods’ is the title and the school will run from August 17-21.

The school will be opened in the Pavillion Theatre, Lisdoonvarna by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Frances Fitzgerald TD. Speakers and panellists include Fintan O’Toole, Mary O’ Rourke, Joseph Dunne, Maria Corbett, Carl O’Brien, Fergus Ryan, Sheila Greene, Dympna Devine, Brian O’Neill, and Siobhán Parkinson. The closing lecture will be given by the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Michael D Higgins. Topics will range from exploring the boundaries between childhood and adulthood, to children and the new media.

There will be daily lunchtime poetry readings during Cúirt an Mheán Lae, with one of Ireland’s most distinguished poets, Eavan Boland, reading on August 18, followed by readings by Gabriel Rosenstock and Peter Sirr.

Morning seminars in Irish and English delivered by a range of experts will deal with subjects as diverse as Naonrai Gaelacha, assisited immigration to New Zealand for workhouse girls in the 1870s and debutantes in 18th-century Limerick.

A special session on youth mental health and well-being will include a presentation on a collaborative project by artist Seamus McGuinness and psychiatrist Kevin Malone, and a dramatic presentation from Jigsaw, a Youth Mental Health group from Galway.

There will be walking tours of Lisdoonvarna, book launches and, of course, the perennially popular Club Merriman in the evenings.

Full details of the programme, including information on the morning seminars, as well as information on the speakers, registration and accommodation are on www.merriman.ie.