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ONE of Clare’s oldest traditional music festivals has been short listed for the prestigious IMRO Music Festival of the Year 2013 award.

The world famous Willie Clancy Summer School in Miltown Malbay is in a strong category that includes Electric Picnic, Other Voices, Music Trail, Body and Soul, Longitude, Life, Sea Sessions, Kilkenny Rhythm and Blues, Galway Arts Festival and the Temple Bar TradFest.

More than 8,500 members of IMRO (Irish Music Rights Organisation) nominated their favourite Irish venues and festivals for the awards.

The Best Live Music Festival of the Year will be announced at a special prize giving ceremony, which will take place on Tuesday, February 4.

There will also be a special Hot Press Readers Award presented at the event for Hot Press Best Live Music Venue, as voted by the general public, and by readers of Hot Press Magazine.

The award ceremony will take place at the IMRO HQ from 6.30pm to 9.00pm and will be presented by Paddy McKenna from RTÉ 2FM.

Live Performances on the night will include Kodaline, Gavin James and I Am The Cosmos.

The Willie Clancy Summer School said they are happy to be nominated in the category and are in “good company”.

The members are now just philosophically waiting “to see what happens”.

CLARE property prices have been hit harder than prices in any other county in Munster with the average asking price for a house in the county now 58.6 per cent below what they were at the height of the Celtic Tiger in 2007.

The prospect of a short-term recovery in the Clare property market also looks remote, as the rate at which the asking prices for Clare properties is also the highest in Munster.

According to new figures obtained from property sales website, Daft. ie, the average year-on-year asking price for a Clare stood at € 128,175, an 11 per cent on 2012 and a drop of almost 60 per cent when compared to the 2006 prices.

One-bedroom apartments in Clare was the worst performing category of any property type in the entire country last year with the average asking dropping to € 45,000, an 18.6 per cent drop on the 2012 average.

Indeed, each section of the property market in Clare recorded a significant drop in average asking prices in 2013. The average price of a two-bedroom terraced in the county now stands at € 57,000 – a 16.1 per cent drop on the previous years prices.

The were similar decreases recorded for three-bedroom semi- detached houses which recorded an 11.1 per cent decrease is asking prices in 2013 and now have an average asking price of € 86,000.

The average price of a detached, five-bedroom house was € 189,000 last year, representing a drop of 15.7 per cent since peak.

The best performing category of house in the county were four-bedroom bungalows, with an average price of € 175,000 representing a drop of just 8.7 per cent last year.

TWO drug barons targeted in a 25day undercover Garda operation in West Clare are understood to have fled the country.

Gardaí in Kilrush, in conjunction with the National Drugs Unit spent a total of 1,400 man-hours on the operation that spanned five-months from November 2012 through to the first quarter of 2013.

It emerged during the hearing of one of the minor “but essential cogs” in the drug sales operations, that the “principal players” were not before the court, as they are believed by gardaí to have fled the jurisdiction.

Superintendent Seamus Nolan told Kilrush District Court that Michael Burke with an address at 2 Fahy Road, Kilrush, “would not have been a principal player.”

The 27-year-old was pleading to charges relating to the under cover operation and other unrelated charges.

The court heard that he arranged the sale of € 100 of cannabis to undercover gardaí by phone before meeting them to carry out the sale at 80 Dun na Hinse, Ennis, on November 20, 2012.

He also sold a further € 50 worth of the drugs at the same address on November 22, 2012.

Garda Conor Flaherty said Mr Burke sourced the drugs and then handed them over.

“He was subsequently arrested and co-operated with gardaí,” said the Kilrush Garda.

On June 18, 2013 Mr Burke also admitted being in possession of 50 valium tablets for sale or supply contrary to Section 15 of Misuse of Drug Act 1977 and unlawfully impeding a Garda in the exercise of his duty.

In his evidence to the court Garda Flaherty said Mr Burke had the drugs concealed in a kitchen chair.

“He managed to get his hands on them and hid them,” said the garda adding that gardaí later found them on his person.

Solicitor for the defence Gearoid Williams said his client was detained to mend his ways. “He is trying to live a good life now,” he said.

In his summation Judge Patrick Durcan said; “The Garda authority decided a special target operation be set up in West Clare area to detect this illegal activity.”

Michael Burke became an essential cog in that very efficient machine the judge added.

“The drug barons are now living outside the country and have left a trail of destruction and addiction behind them,” he said.

“This would not operate unless there were retailers in the market who run the operation,” explained the judge, adding that Mr Burke fitted into the category.

Judge Durcan sentenced Mr Burke to three consecutive four-month sentences for the sale and supply of drugs and took a charge of drug possession into account.

He handed down a concurrent sentence of four months in prison for obstructing a garda.He suspended the year in prison for two years, telling the defendant “this is a belt and braces job.”

He also ordered that he be assisted by the probation services.

TWO KILRUSH pubic houses have been ordered to close and the publicans to pay fines for selling spirits on which no duty was paid.

Describing Michael Johnson of Johnson’s Bar, Henry Street, Kilrush as “the worst kind of publican” District Court Judge Patrick Durcan fined him € 4,000 and ordered him to close the pub for seven days from February 4.

“I do not accept he bought these bottles over the counter from someone he did not know and if he did he showed a level of irresponsibility,” he said at the hearing in Klirush on Tuesday.

Mr Johnson had pleaded guilty of having 14 litres of vodka on which appropriate rate of alcohol products tax had not been paid_ Contrary to Section 79 (2) &(7) of Finance Act 2003 as substituted by section 62 of the Finance Act 2005.

In evidence to the court Customs and Excise officer Chris Mulqueen outlined that he called to Johnson’s Bar, on June 20, 2013 and located the bottles of vodka for which no duty had been paid.

He took samples from a bottle of this vodka, tests confirmed that it was under strength and inconsistent with “Smirnoff vodka”. The sample recorded a 33.1 per cent volume as opposed to a 37 per cent volume.

The court heard that Michael Johnson had been running the bar and could not confirm where he got the vodka. He was asked for documents to confirm purchase but did not produce these documents.

Solicitor for the defence Patrick Moylan said his client had paid € 144 for 12 bottles of vodka.

He told the court that if Mr Johnson could identify the seller he would, and that it was not unusual for people to turn up and the pub to sell alcohol.

He said Mr Johnson told him the pub is due to close at the end of February.

Mr Moylan said his client was a good publican and had never been in court before.

Judge Durcan said, “Mr Johnson bought drink from someone he doesn’t know, the quality he knew nothing about and he shelled that out to his customers.”

“In my view, he is the worst kind of publican you can find and not someone who in my view should be authorised to hold a publican’s licence.

“Any publican not knowing the source of alcohol and then dishes it out to their customers – don’t tell the court that he has been a good publican,” he added.

The district court judge said he sympathized with the licensing trade as it was “under extreme pressure.”

He said it was important that customers had faith in their publican however, and it was important that other law-abiding publicans were not put at a disadvantage.

In a separate, but in the words of Michael Linnane, prosecuting for the revenue commissioners, “similar case” the judge fined David Bond of Sheananigans Public House, Frances Street, Kilrush € 2, 500.

He ordered that the public house be closed for two days.

Mr Bond pleaded guilty to not paying the appropriate duty on 10 Litres of spirits.

Customs officer John Grehan gave evidence of finding what he described as “counterfeit vodka” in Shenanigan’s Bar on May 31, 2013.

He said Mr Bond “made frank admissions. He told us where he got it and co-operated fully. He has no previous convictions.”

Solicitor for Mr Bond, said his client was “shocked when he discovered the alcohol was not genuine”.

Mr Linnane informed the court that the maximum fine in cases like these was a fine of € 5,000, which could be mitigated to no less than € 2,500. There is also a mandatory closure order in respect of this, which had to be a minimum of two days, but no more than seven days.

THE traditional Fianna Fáil church gate collection could soon be a thing of the past with a proposal to ban the collection to be discussed at the next meeting of the party’s Financial Committee.

Over the last number of years grass roots members in Clare have contributed more through the church gate collection than members in any other county in Ireland. Indeed the party netted in excess of € 17,000 from church gate collections in Clare in 2012, compared to just € 20 collected in Dublin and € 185,000 collected in Ireland as a whole.

Church gate collections have become a divisive subject in the Fianna Fáil party in recent years with urban members viewing them as old fashioned and outdated while members from more rural constituencies view them as a good source of revenue.

A Fianna Fáil spokesperson confirmed to The Clare People yesterday that the party’s high brass would examine scrapping the collection in the coming weeks.

“The matter hasn’t yet been referred to the Finance Committee. The committee meets every quarter and it will come up at the next meeting of the committee,” he said yesterday.

The spokesperson also described the proposal to ban church gate col- lections as a complex issue and declined to give a figure for the total raised by the party in Clare in 2013.

County Clare contributed almost 10 per cent of the total raised by Fianna Fáil from church gate collections in 2012.

This was an increase on the € 16, 536 raised by the party in 2011, but represent a significant drop on the amount raised in Clare while the party was still in government.

Clare has been a consistent cashcow for Fianna Fáil with € 21,727 being raised in 2010 and € 23,594 in 2009.

A complete ban on all church gate collections in Clare received cross party support when it was suggested by Ennis Cllr Tony Mulqueen (FG) late last year.

“All of the main political parties are now funded by the State. If the State is contributing millions towards the operations of political parties, I don’t see why they need to hold collections in front of churches anymore,” said Cllr Mulqueen.

“We seem to have an industry in collecting money in this country. As it stands at the moment, political parties receive State funding based on the number of seats that they win in elections.

“It seems a fair system and I received support from all parties when I suggested a ban on collections – including Fianna Fáil.” TODAY Th a n kfu lly a d ry day, su n n y b u t bre e zy a n d c h illy, ta m ps 7c .

IRISH folk star, Luka Bloom, has joined a host of Clare’s finest musicians to record a single to help raise money for the Lahinch Playground Rescue Fund.

The playground, which was completed just three years ago, was devastated by Storm Catherine, which ripped away most of the ground works and cause damaged estimated to be well in excess of € 100,000.

The song, ‘Seaweed in Ennistymon’ was written by local musician Darragh McGlynn as he listened to the storm from his sea front property in Lahinch.

“I live by the sea front in Lahinch and we were getting trashed by every high tide. I worked on the song right through the storm and it was pretty much finished by Sunday night,” said Darragh.

“On Monday night, I went to a session in Cooley’s in Ennistymon and played it there. Everybody loved it, they were singing the song back to me before I had finished it. Within a week it was recorded and the rest is history.

“It was great to get Luka Bloom involved. He was a big fan of the song – he was all over it once he heard it. He played guitar and sang with me on the chorus and we were all really happy in the way that it turned out.”

Alongside Luka and Darragh, the song also features some of the vest of Clare musicians including Yvonne Casey, Quintan Cooper, Jon O’Connell and Adam Shiparo.

The song is currently available to download from I-Tunes for a cost of 99 cents. Darragh and Luka Bloom will perform the song at the Lahinch Christmas Frolics which will take place at Lahinch Seaworld this Saturday. Proceeds from the song will be donated to the Lahinch Playground Rescue Fund.

It was confirmed last week that the damage done to the Lahinch Playground by the recent storm will not be covered by insurance. The playground was sealed off to the public for 10 days amid fears that the ground works in the area might be unstable.

The Lahinch Playground Rescue Fund committee have launched a number of fundraising drives locally in recent days including a Wellington Collection Campaign as well as asking people to purchase sponsored bricks.

A special account for donations has been set up at account number 02334222, sort code 93-51-58. For more info search for “Lahinch Playground Project” on Facebook.

THE St Stephen’s night storm was responsible for 61 per cent of all of the Christmas callouts for Clare’s Fire and Rescue Service.

As many as 70 of the 115 incidents attended by the emergency services between December 20, 2013, and January 3, 2014, involved falling trees on the night of December 26, at a cost of approximately € 60,000 to the Fire Service.

Meanwhile, non-weather related callouts – 45, were down across the county for a fourth successive year.

The call-out figures for the period were less than those recorded during the corresponding periods in 2010, 2011 and 2012 when the Fire Service was mobilised to 81, 64 and 48 incidents respectively.

This Christmas, six of the callouts related to house fires with a further six call-outs involving chimney fires, while fire-fighters also attended 14 road-based incidents, foor agricultural building fires, three storage building fires and five false alarm.

The busiest station this Christmas was Ennis, attending to 61 of the calls, followed by Shannon who attended 23.

“This was one of the busiest periods experienced by Clare County Fire and Rescue Service since the serious flooding which affected Clare in November 2009,” explained Adrian Kelly, Chief Fire Officer.

“The extremely windy conditions late on St Stephen’s Day and in the early hours of December 27 brought down a lot of trees throughout the county leading to some roads being blocked. Furthermore, other roads were impassable for a time due to flooding brought about by heavy rain. Due to the assistance of members of the public, together with staff from Clare Local Authorities, we were able to deal quickly with these incidents so as to ensure any disruption was minimised,” he said.

AER Lingus passengers planning to fly from Shannon Airport to Boston have been forced to cancel or postpone their flights as the new schedule has been delayed yet again.

The New Year round transatlantic schedule was initially to begin yesterday (Monday), but the new flights have now been delayed until February 4, leaving customers high and dry.

The options being offered to disappointed passengers by the airline in clude changing travel to a later date or flying with Aer Lingus from Dublin to Boston, with ground transportation being provided between Shannon and Dublin.

Alternatively, customers may choose to cancel their travel plans, and receive a full refund.

The airline has attributed the delay to an “unforeseen scheduling delay” with the delivery of a new B757 aircraft.

At first the plan for the ShannonBoston flight was held up for one week with a new start date of January 26 announced.

That was postponed again yesterday by just over another week.

Last July the airline announced that it was to begin a year round daily schedule to Boston and New York, having cut back on the winter schedule in 2011 due to losses.

The new service to begin in February will use two Boeing 757 aircrafts, which will be smaller than the Airbus 330 aircraft currently in use. However the number of flights to Boston will increase to five times a week from next month and will reach seven days a week in March. During the summer months 12 flights a week will travel to the US from Shannon, compared to seven last year.

A TEENAGER has pleaded guilty to the robbery of a 73-year-old woman in Shannon.

The 16-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, entered the guilty plea after being arraigned at Ennis Circuit Criminal Court yesterday (Monday).

He admits stealing the woman’s handbag, which contained € 40 at the time. The charge relates to an incident at Tullyvarraga, Shannon, in July 2012.

Jurisdiction of the case was declined in the District Court after Judge Patrick Durcan heard details of the robbery.

The court heard woman was walking on the footpath when the accused came up behind her and grabbed the bag.

A Detective Garda gave evidence the victim gave chase but in doing so, fell and broke her pelvis.

A 17-year-old boy has already pleaded guilty to handling stolen property arising out of the same circumstances.

In court yesterday, Counsel for the 16 year old, Elaine Houlihan requested a probation report be prepared in respect of her client.

She said the court was required to seek probation reports where juveniles are concerned.

She said reporting restrictions also applied given her client’s age.

Judge Carol Moran asked if would have to consider the imposition of a prison sentence in respect of the robbery charge.

Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Stephen Coughlan BL, said, “When you hear the evidence in the case you may consider a prison sentence.”

Counsel for the 17-year-old boy, Pat Whyms said his client was charged with a handling offence.

He said there was no evidence linking the boy to the original robbery.

He said the court would not have to consider a prison sentence in respect of his client.

Judge Moran adjourned the cases for sentence to March 3.

He directed a probation report be prepared in respect of the 16-yearold boy.

THE ban on cutting turf on two east Clare bogs has been lifted following the publication of a new National Peatlands Strategy – but the much contested ban on cutting at the Tullaher Lough and Bog in West Clare still remains.

Restriction turf cutting will now be allowed on a total of 45 bogs, including two in east Clare, which had been deemed to be Natural Heritage Areas by the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.

The situation at the Tullaher Lough and Bog in less clear however, as it is classified as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and a bad on turf cutting will remain in force – for the time being at least.

The National Peatlands Strategy also included a biodiversity for the Doonbeg Bog. The bog received poor ranks in term of its Habitat Quality and Ecological Diversity, receiving an D and E grade respectively.

These negative marks could work in local turf cutters favour as the bog could now be seen as a site of lesser ecological importance and less become less important to protect.

The new National Peatlands Strategy plan is pending European approval, but local turf cutting campaigners are hopeful that it may herald the beginning of a u-turn in government policy towards raised bogs and lead to the lifting of restriction at Tullaher.