Category: News

KILRUSH’S Music and Set Dancing Festival could be in doubt for next year, as it failed to receive any financial support from the Arts Council, but organisers are determined to make this year’s event one of the best ever. The festival, which replaced the Eigse Mrs Crotty festival five years ago, has new competitions added to its listing this year with a focus on encouraging young musicians.

Secretary of the group Anne Hayes said a new under 12-concertina competition will take place for the first time this year, as well as the traditional under-18 competition.

While the Kilrush Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann organised festival has encouraged musicians of all ages from all over Ireland to visit the town during the last five years, it is facing new challenges every time.

This year the direct funding from the Arts Council has been cut, resulting in the group working with € 3,000 less than last year. Determined volunteers have not been deterred by this or the fact they are also competing with other festivals and competitions.

As schools are opening earlier and earlier every year the national fleadh competition has been brought forward to accommodate school going partici- pants. As a result the Kilrush competition also had to be brought forward so as not to clash with the national competition. The West Clare music festival is now competing with the festival in Feakle and over laps with the Rose of Clare just out the road in Cooraclare-Cree. Despite all the hurdles the festival promises to be better than ever, opening tomorrow (Wednesday) with a Sessiun in the Teach Cheoil at 9pm.

The Singers Club will take place in the Haven Arms on Thursday August 8 at 10pm with_music, set dancing and Irish language classes on Friday from 10 am. A unique Musicial Boat Trip to Scattery Island will take place on Friday at 1pm, and an open air ceilí in Kilrush Town Square at 7pm followed by music sessions in the town bars from 10pm.

Classes will take place again on Saturday, as well as concertina competitions followed by open air dancing to Johnny Reidy Ceili Band at 2.30pm and a Gala Concert in the Teach Cheoil at 8pm.

On Sunday the final of the concertina competition is at noon with a monster open air music session at the Vandeleur Walled Gardens with Inis Cathaigh Comhaltas Branch. Open Air Ceili with the Five Counties Ceili Band in the square at 7p.m. with the closing sessions in the town’s bars at 10pm will bring the festival to a close.

CASH strapped parents in Clare who are facing back to school bills of more than € 700 per child are being forced to turn to moneylenders and charities such as the St Vincent de Paul in desperation.

The Clare Citizen Information Office surveyed stressed parents who sought their advice and assistance and discovered that the cost of one second level student starting school in Clare has reached almost € 800.

The € 200 Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance (BSFCA) grant is not taking the pressure off parents, said Clare’s Citizen Information Development Manager Paul Woulfe and he has raised concerns that the financial pressure is forcing people to turn to “legal and illegal money lenders in desperation”, who charge exorbitant interest rates and in the case of illegal money lenders can resort to threatening and abusive behaviour when collecting a debt.

Parents are also finding some sol- ace in organisations such as the St Vincent de Paul.

“It is easy to see how the costs add up. Shoes cost about € 250 because you need runners and sports shoes too, € 200 for school uniforms and tracksuits, books cost anything between € 200 and € 250 with miscellaneous classroom costs at least € 50.

“The voluntary contribution to schools is usually between € 100 to € 125,” explained Mr Woulfe.

The Citizen Information development manager said many parents find themselves in debt at the start of the school year, especially as the BSCFA and children’s allowance is reduced as costs increase. The cost of school tours and extra-curricular activities or tuition can also be very high.

“Though not compulsory, such activities are often essential with regard to social and educational inclusion,” said Mr Woulfe.

“Children from lower-income families are likely to benefit most and yet be most at risk of exclusion from costly extra-curricular activities and supports. Additionally, a child who has to opt out of school tours or outings is likely to experience social stigma,” he said.

“Evidence from MABS suggests that parents may opt to ensure that their children do continue to participate in extra-curricular activities, school tours etcetera, but that this brings with it the risk of deepening household poverty, which carries with it not only health risks associated with food and fuel poverty but also the stress of household indebtedness and social exclusion of the parents and family within the broader community or socio-economic context.”

“They have so many costs it is crippling and they face a great burden,” said Mr Woulfe.

Families on certain social welfare payments and some low income working families are this week applying for the back to school grant.

The grant for second level students is € 200 down from € 305, while € 100 is granted towards primary school children.

ONE of Ireland’s most acclaimed painters is eyeing a former barracks on the banks of the River Fergus as the location of a proposed new artistin-residence project.

Ennis man and award winning artist Mick O’Dea (RHA) is part of a local group proposing to convert old stables located near the Garda Station into an artist’s studio.

O’Dea believes the site is rich with potential and the project could attract the very best artists from around the world.

He says, “Ennis is one of the few towns in Ireland without a studio or even a proper exhibition space. There is one in Glór, but that’s more of an annex, its part of the building. Ennis doesn’t have a dedicated space. It would be an interesting thing to happen for the town.

O’Dea adds, “Those buildings and that area from Steele’s Rock down by the river are what makes the town, I think. Can you imagine if that was a car-park or if those buildings were gone? They are amazing buildings and you have these stories that go with that area. It’s a good opportunity to get artists into the middle of Ennis.” It has been suggested that some of the work produced by artists using the studio would be gifted to local museums or local authorities.

O’Dea is currently working on a proposal document for Ennis based on artist in residence schemes from around the world.

He says the cost of transforming the stables into a working studio would be “minimal”. O’Dea says Ennis should also exploit its twinning arrangements with other towns and cities to bring artists from around the world to the town.

“We’re twinned with enough of towns. There must be artists in these places who would relish coming to Ennis.”O’Dea was part of a group of local people including Fine Gael councillor Johnny Flynn who recently visited the buildings.

Cllr Flynn is hoping that the Office of Public Works (OPW), who are currently carrying out major flood relief works on the river, will repair slates and the guttering of the building while scaffolding is in the water.

He says the artist-in-residence project could be the next step in promoting cultural tourism through a so-called Abbey Quarter, based around the town’s historic Franciscan Abbey.

“You’re talking about the best in international talent. Anything that would bring more culture into the town would be great.”

Cllr Flynn is also proposing that the OPW develop walkways and cycle paths along the Fergus in order to connect Ennis and Clarecastle.

A NEW York woman who spat at a flight on attendant on a transatlantic flight has been ordered to pay a fine of € 500.

The captain of a Delta Airlines flight was forced to divert the plane to Shannon Airport last week after passenger Marianne Thatcher (30) became difficult and aggressive, Ennis District Court was told on Thursday.

Ms Thatcher, with an address at 1257 Park Avenue, Apartment 3, New York City, pleaded guilty to three charges arising out of a drink fuelled incident aboard a Delta Airlines flight in the early hours of August 1.

She pleaded guilty to engaging in behaviour likely to cause annoyance or offence to any person on board the aircraft; being intoxicated to such an extent that might endanger herself or persons on board; engaging in behaviour of threatening and or abusive nature with intent to provoke a breach of the peace.

All offences are contrary to the Air Navigation and Transport Act.

The court heard that Ms Thatcher came to the attention of flight attendants four hours into the flight from New York’s JKF Airport to Athens.

The court heard that Ms Thatcher was drinking wine and became abusive towards staff.

Inspector Tom Kennedy said flight attendants offered Ms Thatcher a glass of water and some food.

“Ms Thatcher reacted badly and effectively demanded more wine,” he added.

The court heard Ms Thatcher was brought to a vacant seat at the rear of the plane.

Insp Kennedy said she spat at a flight attendant after being asked to sit down. She was restrained using plastic handcuffs.

He added, “The State will say she was intoxicated. Her behaviour was very aggressive.”

He said the episode lasted 30 minutes.

A total of 270 passengers and 13 crew were on board at the time.

The court heard the captain made the decision to divert to Shannon when the plane was 250km off the Irish coast.

Ms Thatcher was met by gardai at Shannon Airport and placed into custody. She has no previous convictions.

The court heard Ms Thatcher, who holds dual American and Greek citizenship, comes from a respected family and studied liberal arts and ceramics in college.

She previously worked in a Paris art gallery but returned to New York to care for her sick father.

Defence solicitor Catriona Carmody said her client suffered from depression and developed problems with alcohol following her father’s death.

She said Ms Thatcher was “terrified” to be in court.

Ms Carmody said her client had a drink at the airport and a few more on the plane and doesn’t remember anything about the incident on the flight..

“She is incredibly embarrassed about what happened.

“She feels she has brought terrible shame on herself and her family,” Ms Carmody added.

Passing sentence, Judge Aeneas McCarthy said passengers had been very much inconvenienced by Ms Thatcher’s behaviour.

“This is a clearly a serious matter. This airplane had to be diverted,” he added.

He imposed a € 500 fine with one month to pay and 10 days in prison in default.

Ms Carmody said the fine would be paid within 24 hours.

Recognances were fixed in the event of an appeal.

THE NUMBER of people signing on the live register in Clare has risen for the second straight month with 9,849 people signing on in the county in July.

This second straight rise comes after an extended period of good news on the live register – with the number signing on in May of this year at its lowest level in almost five years.

This last two months have come as a blow to the county – with hopes having been high that an end to the recession might have been in sight, although seasonal facts may have affected the figures.

The recent increase has been driven largely by increase in the Ennis area where the numbers signing on have risen by almost 250 people since May. Over the same period however, the numbers in the Ennistymon area have continued to drop. A total 1,404 people signed on in Ennistymon in July, the lowest number since June of 2009.

It is unclear whether this two-speed live register in the county is being driven by an increase in employment in the North Clare area as a possible result of a recovery in the tourism industry or by prolonged emigration from the area.

CLIFFS of Moher Visitor Experience is t he thi rd most popular fee-payi ng tourist att raction in the count r y, sur passed only by t he Guinness Store House and Dublin Zoo.

Fáilte Ireland, the national tour- ism aut hority, published its listing of Ireland’s top visitor att ractions for 2012 and the iconic Clare tourist att raction is among t he list of top fee-charging att ractions growing by eight per cent to 873,988.

Bunrat ty Castle and Fol k Park, wit h 286, 270 visitors, was up four per cent, according to the figures released dur ing the week.

Fiona Monaghan, Fáilte Ireland’s Head of Operations, said, “This list always makes fascinating reading, but it’s also a good reminder of the huge range of visitor att ractions that we have in Ireland. People visit this countr y for many reasons, but they always expect a high st andard of things to see and do, which is why we see Cliffs of Moher Visitor Experience and the Bunratt y Castle and Fol k Park make t he list.

“Our visitor att ractions are a big par t of the tourism offering and with the increase in visitor numbers to Ireland, it is no sur prise that our top att ractions have also enjoyed a busy year. I have no doubt that t he recent good weather will have encouraged many Irish people to get out and about and discover what is on t hei r doorstep – next year we may be quoting even bigger numbers.

“Tourism is in a good place compared to five years ago but we can’t become complacent,” she added.

There were no Clare destinations on the list of Top 10 Free Tourist Att ractions.

AFTER more than two decades of local campaigning and action, construction work on a new state-of-theart rescue centre for the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coast Guard will being later this week.

The new € 2 million centre, which is expected to be operational by the summer of 2014, will revolutionise the way in which the Doolin Unit can operate – and may, in time, save lives.

Even though the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coast Guard is one of the busiest coast guard units in the country, it does not currently have the ability to store all of its equipment at the current site at Doolin Pier.

This means that important equipment has to be stored at different locations around North Clare, meaning making rescue operations more complicated. The new facilities will include a garage area for the storage of boats, equipment and transport as well as changing facilities and an operations room.

“Ultimately this will make our work more efficient because we will be able to keep everything in the one place. The team will all have one place to assemble; there will be no confusion over where different teams should go in an emergency,” said Mattie Shannon of the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coastguard earlier this year. “Also, when you put a piece of equipment down you will where it is going to be when you need it again. That was a big problem. We had to store so much equipment in so many different places that it was very difficult to keep track of everything.

“This is going to make our job a lot more easy and they will make us better able to save leaves. We will be able to assemble at the one place and leave as a block.”

The news was welcomed yesterday by Clare Senator, Martin Conway (FG).

“The building in which the volunteers have worked in for the last 20 years was not fit for purpose and I have no doubt that the new facility will greatly assist the volunteers in their tireless work on behalf of the community, carrying out search, rescue and recovery operations off the coast of County Clare,” he said.

A CLARE woman is proposing to go where no woman has ever gone before – into Clare county council chambers as a Fianna Fáil county councillor.

Clare Colleran Molloy is aware however that her biggest challenge is to first get through the hotly-contested Fianna Fáil convention for the Ennis Electoral Area.

At least 15 people are expected to contest the convention for the new constituency, and it is very likely she could be the only woman in this contest, especially if former independent candidate Rita McInerny opts to contest the West Clare Fianna Fáil convention.

The Quin woman is a complete novice when it comes to elected politics, but has worked with community and charitable organisations.

A barrister by profession, she has also helped to run a restaurant with her husband Tony Molloy, formerly of Tony’s Fashions, Ennis, in her hometown of Quin.

The Clare woman spent a number of years living and working in Florida, returning home in 2002, and selling her American home and moving back on a permanent basis in 2007.

At the time she saw a lot wrong with politics in Ireland.

“While Fianna Fáil was in my blood I saw a lot of problems when I came home. I remember a news report from the time saying the Government was surprised with the surplus and did not know what to do with it, and thought this was bad forward planning,” she said.

She told The Clare People that she felt that the time was now right for her to begin a political career, aware that more female voices need to be heard in the council chambers and the Dáil.

She has returned to the law library and she and her husband are in the process of selling the restaurant, allowing her more time to the law and a possible political career.

“Fianna Fáil is on its knees and needs new blood,” she said.

For the first time ever the convention will be run on a one person one vote selection process, which Ms Colleran Molloy believes may be an advantage to her in the two month run up to the convention.

“It allows me as a new comer to ruffle some feathers,” she said.

There has never been a female Fianna Fáil county councillor in Clare and the party fielded just on female candidate in the last county council elections – Michelle Moroney in the Ennistymon Electoral Area.

FREE Legal Aid Centres (FLAC) in Clare reported a marked decrease in the number of people requiring free legal assistance with financial matters.

According to the legal rights group’s annual report for 2012 there has been more than a 49 per cent drop in legal enquiries relating to credit and debit issues in Clare on the previous year.

The human rights organisation, which promotes equal access to justice and has a base at the Citizen Information Offices in Ennis, Kilrush and Shannon, also reported that the majority of its work for a second year in succession is in the area of family law.

As many as 36.9 per cent of the calls to the FLAC in Clare related to family issues, making up 167 of the 445 enquiries – the same number as last year.

There was a 26 per cent drop in the number of people requiring employment legal advice, even though it made up 11.2 per cent of all enquiries.

There was also a significant drop 28 per cent – recorded in the number of people with consumer law ques- tions, with a 15.5 per cent drop in property and land questions and a 16.7 per cent drop in immigration and refuge calls – a drop of six calls to five.

In total the queries to the three centres were down 8.5 per cent on 2011, from 497 to 455 inquiries.

The number of people enquiring about negligence and personal injury had increased by 27.6 per cent in 2012 to 37, while enquiries relating to wills, succession and probate went up 25 per cent to 40.

Questions about neighbour disputes and client solicitor relations went up from 11 to 16 and three to five re- spectively.

Enquiries relating to civil matters went up 40 per cent from 15 to 21.

In a statement the FLAC said there is not only a fundamental need in Irish society for accessible legal information and advice for individuals, but also for fairer systems that allow people to access their rights across a wide range of issues.

Director general Noeline Blackwell added, “2012 was a milestone year for FLAC where, after years of campaigning to reform personal debt law, we finally saw the passage of personal insolvency legislation, its many flaws notwithstanding.”

MORE than 40 council houses are to be made liveable again, as almost a half a million euro is invested in the project.

Clare County Council’s 2013 Housing Works Programme got an extra € 700,000 boost and the funding is being invested in improving the local housing stock.

The 42 vacant Clare council houses will not only be returned to use as a result of the investment, but the work will also contribute to local employment.

The funding will be targeted at improving the energy efficiency and comfort levels of the council’s social housing stock, returning council houses to use and providing grant aid for the adaption of houses for older people and people with a disability.

A specific allocation of € 198,490 was set aside under the jobs stimulus investment programme for energy efficiency retrofitting of social housing stock.

Mayor of Clare, Cllr Joe Arkins, highlighted the new employment opportunities that will be provided for numerous private contractors in the county by the effective doubling of Clare’s 2013 allocation.

“The energy retrofitting measures for 2013 will target 250 older houses in the council’s stock which lack adequate insulation and draught proofing. The works will, in addition to providing an economic boost, considerably improve the comfort levels for our tenants.”

Meanwhile, the Chairperson of the Housing SPC, Cllr Patricia McCarthy welcomed the provision of additional funding of € 400,000 euro to carry out necessary works to return vacant houses to stock.

“This budget provision will see contracts being issued in respect of approximately 42 vacant units around the county in the current year. This, she stated, is particularly welcome at a time when our recently completed housing needs assessment identified 1,671 applicants in need of housing,” she said.

The housing adaptation grants scheme also received a welcome boost with an additional allocation of € 81,456 to bring the total available for the year to € 1.55 million.

The council’s director of Housing Services, Bernadette Kinsella, said, “This ambitious work programme presents a significant challenge for the council. However, I believe the Housing Department’s highly motivated technical and administrative team will ensure the effective delivery of this programme.”