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AT AROUND 6.30am on Friday morning John O’Connor grabbed his two children and ran upstairs to safety.

It was pitch dark, so all the young family knew for certain was that there was water waist high in their home.

The former Kilmurry Ibrickane footballer’s family were terrified, and unsure himself what had just happened, he called his next door neighbour Danny McCarthy.

It was only then that Danny realised that the sea had engulfed the homes along the coast road at Tromoroe Castle, Seafield. He waded through the water, which was now waist high on a man, and towards the next-door house. The whole of the downstairs of the house, which had just been fitted with a new extension, was under water.

“We didn’t know was the sea still coming because we were up to our waist because it was dark. It was frightening. It was terrifying for the children,” said Mr McCarthy.

“John, his wife and the children were up stairs and that is what saved them. This really, really was seri- ous.”

The men called the Kilkee Coast Guard, who brought a raft in the front door and took the children to safety.

“Since then I can’t sleep or nothing,” said a very upset Mr O’Connor, who has still not been able to return home as the sea continued to break on the back of his house, his gardens and the nearby field he had transformed into a football pitch for his children gone.

“The kids keep asking when will they go back into their house, I don’t know will we ever be able to go back in,” he added, the enormity of the situation hitting home.

Danny and his partner and daughter were also evacuated, and he remains hopeful the sand bags will safe some of the rooms from the flooding.

He praised the work of the Kilkee Coast Guard.

“They were here in half an hour. They gave us confidence and a sense of security,” he said.

The local community of Kilmurry Ibrickane has also rallied around offering sheltered to those displaced with the natural disaster.

UP TO 14 homes approximately two miles south of Quilty were evacuated during the early hours of Friday morning, as the sea engulfed their homes.

Families living in the coastline houses, some less than 10 years old, broke down yesterday (Monday), as they recalled how they may never again be able to return home so severe is the damage.

Older members of the Tromoroe Castle, Seafield, community whose homes were also flooded in the storm are reportedly terrified of going home again, as a section of land mass has been taken by the unforgiving sea.

This makes the properties very vulnerable according to construction worker Danny McCarthy who was one of the people evacuated.

“The water has gone into the houses and they are afraid of their lives that the sea will break and the ocean will go into them now. We are vulnerable now because the body on the land is gone, it is pulled out to sea and we are open,” he told The Clare People .

“We didn’t expect it,” he said add- ing that the majority of the homes were occupied at the time of the storm.

Debris from the sea continued to float around the rooms of some houses as neither the wind or the sea was ready to relent. There was a great sadness and anger in the community who felt that their plight had been overlooked over the past few days.

“Do you know the saddest thing about it? It felt like we were on our own. No publicity or anything, or no highlights at the amount of destruction created here,” he said.

“Fourteen houses have been affect- ed. Half of my land is gone,” said Mr McCarthy.

Half of the wall at the three and a half year old council water pumping system has also been eroded.

It will take thousands and perhaps millions to repair the physical damage the community maintain, but it will take much more than that to repair the psyche of a community now exposed to the whims of the sea.

Questions have also been raised regarding plans to reinforce the coastline as far back as 2011, if they had been carried out, would the damage have been so severe.

THE most tragic event of this weekend storms took place in Lahinch where a brand new playground, built using money raised locally over more than a decade, was virtually washed away overnight.

The playground, which has been open for less than two years, sustained massive damage during the storm which ripped up all the protective matting, collapsed walls and the creation of a six-foot deep crater.

The playground was yesterday described as a “war zone” by local woman and member of the Lahinch Playground Committee, Nicola Hartigan-Downes.

“It is devastating. We invested so much time and effort into this playground and it was just wiped out in 24 hours. We’re back to the drawing board now.

“It is like a war zone. It’s like someone came in and dropped a crater right on top of it. There is a whole on the ground that you could fit a six-foot man into, all of the rubber mats have been lifted, fences and the gate have been knock. A lot of the equipment seems to be okay, we haven’t had an assessor out to it yet, but hopefully it will be okay. But we don’t know.

“The Clare County Council bottle banks were washed from one side of the playground right through to the other; we’re not sure what damage that might have done. It’s total devastation, the whole of the ground has been lifted off the playground.

“The playground is under water at the moment [Monday afternoon], so we don’t know what new damage has been done. All we can do is wait and see.”

The Lahinch Playground Committee held an emergency meeting last night and say they are determined to get the playground open again as soon as possible.

“We are moving on this straight away, we want the playground back up and running for the season. We had a lot of positive feedback from local businesses people and residents to say that they are behind us 100 per cent and they will be there with funding and manpower to help us out,” continued Nicola.

“We’re meeting tonight [Monday night], to see what the next step will be and we will we working on this straight away after that.”

THE number of people using the Western Rail Corridor which connects Ennis to both Limerick and Galway continues to drop.

Despite a number of initiatives designed to increase passenger numbers on the route, new figures show that fewer than 200,000 people used the route in the first 11 months of 2013.

Figures for the route, which was reopened at a cost € 106 million in 2010, show that only 197,780 line passenger journeys took place on the line between the beginning of January 2013 and December 1. This compares with almost 250,000 over the same period in 2012.

It is hoped that the introduction of online booking on the rail service will provide a significant boost to passengers in 2014. Nearly two years after the issue of online booking was first raised with the Iarnrod Eireann, online booking was introduce on the line last month.

Passenger numbers on the route have been growing on commuter routes such as Ennis/Limerick and Athenry/Galway in recent years and it is hoped that online booking may also help to promote business from Ennis, Sixmilebridge and Gort.

“We know this is something which our customers and the wider community have been anxious to see provided for some time,” said a spokesperson from Iarnród Éireann.

“Our fares from € 5.99 each way for adults and € 2.99 each way for children are extremely competitive, giving big savings to families at a time of year when every cent counts.”

A LUCKY young surfer has a miracle escape on Thursday evening after getting into difficulty in the waters off Lahinch, just as the storm began to hit.

The Doolin Unit of the Irish Coast Guard and the Irish Coast Guard Helicopter were tasked to investigate a report of someone in the water just after 5pm on Thursday evening. A search of the bay and shoreline revealed nothing and no surfers was reported missing as the storm began to touch ground after 6pm.

However, minutes after the search was stood down, a surfer was washed ashore on the promenade. The surfer was treated at the scene by coast guard and transported to hospital where he was treated for hypothermia.

“The sea washed him on the promenade and he was able to climb up the last bit himself. It was a pure miracle. He was very very lucky, his stars were certainly out that night,” said Matty Shannon of the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coast Guard.

“He had a few bumps and bruises but, considering what he come through, he was very very lucky.”

The Doolin Unit of the Irish Coast Guard responded to a large number of emergencies over the storm weekend. They assisted local fire services on Friday morning to help evacuate people from Lahinch. They also help the Irish Coast Guard with a number of evacuations in the Quilty area on Friday afternoon.

According to Matty, it is very rare to get two such powerful storms one after another.

“In 1991 we had a similar storm to this and before that there was something similar back in ‘63. I suppose every 20 or 30 years we get a storm like this, but not two of them in a row like we’ve just had,” he said.

UP TO 10 metres of the land bank of the five star Doonbeg Lodge and Golf Course was lost to the Atlantic Ocean during the weekend storm.

“We got a right bashing but we are living to tell the tale,” said General Manager Joe Russell, who was confident that the Greg Norman-designed golf course would be playable again by Thursday. The picturesque resort was at the mercy of the high winds gusting up to 120 kilometres an hour, but the superintendents at the course were confident that all damage could be repaired.

“We have lost some land back into the ocean, but we have 18 holes in play. It has thrown up a lot of debris from the ocean but that does not affect play,” said Mr Russell.

He said that a clean up is been planned for tomorrow (Wednesday) once the full damage has been assessed and the weather monitored.

The high tides have also taken a few metres of sand from the dunes, which will naturally repair themselves in time.

Mr Russell has warned however against walking over the dunes however as there is now a sheer drop on one side, almost like a cliff, which is extremely dangerous.

“A PIONEER of business, a visionary and a gentleman of the old style.”

These were just some of the quotes used this week to describe Michael Lynch Snr who passed away early on Monday morning aged 85. The Newhall native owned, built and operated the iconic West County Hotel for a number of decades and was known throughout Clare and beyond for his business acumen.

Affectionately known as ‘Mickey’ Lynch, he opened the West County Hotel back in the late sixties originally as a twenty bedroom hotel with a restaurant, bar and grill room. Then Minister from Clare Dr Paddy Hillery cut the ribbon on the original West County Hotel on March 15th 1968.

The first manager of The West County was John Madden, who moved from the Gresham Hotel in Dublin to take over the operation of Clare’s newest hotel. He recalls Mickey Lynch as wonderful to work for, a man of enthusiasm, vision and generosity:

“Mickey Lynch was a man of great ideas, a true visionary. He built and grew The West County. He did that with flair, enthusiasm and he was wonderful to work for,” recalled John this week.

“He never went away anywhere without coming back with new ideas for The West County. Mickey really was ahead of his time. Anytime we spoke about the need for additions, like the function room or more bedrooms, something that might attract tour operators, Mickey would get straight to work and deliver whatever was necessary to grow the business.

“The function room was a perfect example. Once he was convinced of the need for it, it went up in no time. Before we knew it we had over a thousand people coming to our hotel weekly for functions, dress dances, dinners and shows. People came from all over Munster to attend events in the West, Mickey was the instigator of all that,” remembers John.

Mickey Lynch was also remembered this week as a proud Clareman, good to his community and generous to a fault. As John Madden pointed out, he was very supportive of his native county and its people.

“If a local organisation was in need, Mickey was first in line to give. He was generous with both his time and his money. He was also very good to his employees. And I suppose one of the qualities I most remember was Mickey’s ability to have a good dis- cussion, disagreement even, then five minutes later we moved on, it was forgotten about. I learnt a lot from Mickey Lynch,” John told The Clare People. Mickey Lynch originally was a builder and set up Lynch’s Joinery across the road from where the West County is now situated. Michael Lynch Limited is now fifty seven years in business and over that time has employed many hundreds of Clare people from all over the county in the various family enterprises.

One of Mickey Lynch’s oldest friends Pakie Tuohy from Tiermaclane in Ballyea remembered Mickey Lynch this week as a business man with the common touch:

“Mickey was a gentleman of the old style. He was a very visible presence in the West County and a wonderful host. Always generous, Mickey was great company, he knew everyone and everyone knew him. It was always ‘hail fellow, well met’ with Mickey,” Pakie recalled this week, going on to emphasise the impact the newly opened West County had on Ennis in the late sixties, seventies and eighties.

“It should be remembered Mickey really brought entertainment back to Ennis with The West County. From dinner dances to music in the bar on Saturday nights, the hotel very quickly became a focal point for gatherings. Always a well run establishment, we had many great nights there and Mickey was on hand for all of them. He really was ahead of his time,” Pakie fondly remembered.

Michael Lynch is survived by his wife Chrissie, sons Seamus and Michael Jnr, daughters Geraldine, Colette, Martina, Annette, sons and daughters in-law and a host of grandchildren. He will be reposing at the family home on the Clare Road, Ennis, on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the house private on Thursday morning. Funeral Mass for Michael Lynch will take place on Thursday at 1pm at the Cathedral in Ennis, following by burial in Drumcliffe.

TODAY (Tuesday) is the fifth day that six families remain isolated from the rest of the county, as part of the Loop Head Peninsula has been rendered an island.

The storm on Friday morning saw the small rural area of Kilcredaun segregated from the rest of West Clare as water gushed in from Rhinevilla. An estimated 300 acres of land is currently under seawater.

The area famed for its lighthouse and Irish school could remain dis- connected for some time with the people marooned on the “island” still unsure as to when the waters will recede enough to let them access the rest of the county.

Pat Gavin, the postmaster in Carrigaholt Post Office, is one of the people unable to leave the area and as a result the local post office must remain closed.

“God knows when we will get off here,” he told The Clare People .

The West Clare man had been able to get to the village of Carrigaholt for a brief while on Friday with the assistance of a neighbour with a trac- tor.

Sunday night and Monday’s waves however have now washed away that road and any access to the six families.

“We are an island surrounded by the sea,” said Mr Gavin.

“We are left cut off. You can imagine no fuel, no food. Except my neighbour coming up on Friday to bring me out of here for half a day to open the post office [we could not have left]. We are a good community. The post office was flooded on Friday and all the community turned up to clean it. We’ll come back bigger and better than ever,” he said.

However while Mr Gavin is marooned on the island with his neighbours, the post office in Carrigaholt flooded again yesterday morning (Monday).

“I don’t know what we will do when we get out, I am not sure what state it will be in.”

He explained that the homes still have electricity and he feels lucky that his freezer has food for now.

He in angered however that political promises made by the present Government to carry out work along the peninsula were not carried out.

THE face of Whitestrand beach in Miltown Malbay could be changed forever as the weekends storm ripped away a 50-year-old sea wall and washed large sections of the beach and nearby land into the sea.

According to local landowner Noel Shannon, the beach and surrounding areas have been left devastated after this once-in-a-hundred-year storm.

“It is absolute devastation up here at the moment. The sea wall has been washed away and caravans have been hit and damaged. Most of the sea front at the Whitestrand has been wash away and the rest is covered with rocks. I was just there this minute [Monday morning] and the place is a disaster,” he said.

“The biggest issue is the concrete sea wall, which has been just swept away. I’ve never seen anything like it. That was was holding the sea back; it’s been there for 40 or 50 years.

“There has been a lot of attention for other areas, and rightly so, but the Whitestrand is a very popular spot for young swimmers and for lifeguard training and it needs to be looked at and given some attention.”

Mr Shannon, who operated the nearby Whitestrand Caravan Park, and says that he has lost a considerable amount of the land to the storm – with massive waves simply washing sections of land into the sea.

“There is a lot of ground lost to the sea and there is an awful lot of work that needs to be to done to get the Whitestrand up and going for the tourism season. Parts of my land are no longer there anymore, they have washed into the sea,” he said.

“The council [Clare County Council] were out to us over the weekend but there is not a lot can be done until the storm blows over.”

MONITORING of sections of the River Fergus described, as a “concern” will continue in Ennis after the town was spared the worst affects of flooding.

Water levels peaked in the river on Saturday after heavy rainfall on St Stephen’s Day sparked fears of a repeat of the widespread flooding that hit the town in December 2009.

On that occasion residential areas and parts of the town centre suffered major flood damage when the river burst its banks.

Ennis Town Council says that while river levels were “significant” in recent weeks, they were below those recorded during flood events in 1999 and 2009.

Senior executive engineer with Ennis Town Council, Eamon O’Dea explained, “If we have no heavy rainfall over the next two to three days, it will drop off. The Fergus peaked two days ago, but if you look at levels in Ballyalla Lake, it is slowly starting to decline.”

However the council, working alongside Clare County Council and the Office of Public Works are implementing precautionary flood measures along the lower section of the Fergus, below Knox’s Bridge.

“The Ennis area is at a precautionary level. We are implementing measures such as over-pumping at different locations on the lower River Fergus. We have one or two areas of concern along the lower section,” Mr O’Dea said.

Spring tides did result in brief flooding on a section of the old N18 road in Clarecastle on Friday morning.

Work on phase two of the Ennis Flood Relief Scheme between Bank Place Bridge and Doora Bridge is ongoing at locations around Ennis.

It is anticipated that when completed, the works will lead to the protec- tion of 849 residential and 425 nonresidential properties on completion.

Defences including enhanced river walls, pumping stations and new drainage systems are included in the project, which is aimed at protecting Ennis against a 100-year flood event.

Works carried out during phase one at Mill Road and Woodquay are credited with preventing widespread flooding of Ennis town centre in 2009.

Though it is thought the works so far prevented major flooding in the town centre, the exact areas to have directly benefited from the improved defences will not be known until the scheme is certified as completed by the OPW.

Under the latest scheme of works, new ramps and walls are to be constructed at the two entrances to Clare Mart, while a new wall is to be constructed at the rear of properties between Aldi and Clonroad.