Category: News

TEN KILRUSH citizens were recognised for their work in the community and honoured by Kilrush Town Council through the Cissie Roughan Civic Awards.

The awards scheme began in 1993 and honours the memory of the late Cissie Roughan a former member of Kilrush Town Council and the first woman elected to the council.

This year there was a range of nominees for the civic awards, drawn from a variety of areas including community, sporting and cultural.

One of the awards was presented posthumus to young father Flan Carmody.

Mr Carmody who died in September 2012 dedicated his life and energy to working for the community

He established the west Clare kidney support group in 1999 and raised more than € 250,000, having received a transplant himself in 1998.

Again following his young son’s accident he started to fundraise for the burns unit in Crumlin Hospital and as a Clare County Council employee he took great pride each year in winning the Tidy Towns Award.

Kilrush Care of the Aged were recognised for organizing day trips and a Christmas party for the elderly of the town.

Music teacher Peig Martin received acknowledgement for her great knowledge and passion for Irish Music and organizing a Ceol na Nog for students once a month in Teach Cheoil for students.

The council paid tribute to Margaret Purtill and Peggy Cahill who in 2012 decided to renovate the New Shanakyle Graveyard and set about fundraising € 20,000. They then carried out extensive work.

Matthew Kelly dedicated his time to organising training and trips for the youth of Kilrush to Croke Park and the Aviva Stadium

He also works tirelessly organising fundraising for clubs and trains the U16 Moneypoint A.F.C – all of which was recognised when he received his award.

Anne Hayes organised a Kilrush Music Session Group and travelled to Kilrush twice a week for training, while James McMahon was honoured for his involvement with Comhaltas in Kilrush since the 70s.

He joined the new reformed Inis Cathaigh Branch in 2006 and if very influential among young members.

Fionnuala Walsh swam the English Channel – the first Clare person to do so. This was a featthe council could not ignore as they presented the annual awards.

When Martin Cahill was presented his award it was said he deserved it “as he has over the years become the face of Kilrush and is affectionately know to all as granddad, Martin is loved by all that come across him and his infectious ways, good spirit and heart of gold as well as his ability to sing have been wowing the visiting tourist that come to Kilrush for many a year.”

Former Kilrush Town Councillor Jack Fennell was described as a “true Kilrush man that lives and breathes for his town” when he was presented with his award.

Mayor of Kilrush Mairead O’Brien (Ind) said, “The Cissie Roughan nominations are a way to enable ordinary people to acknowledge friends and neighbours for their good works. We have lots of people doing great things and it’s nice for the Town Council to provide the opportunity for public recognition of the valuable works and activities and involvements.

“The thanks and acknowledgement of the community are due to you all.”

POLICING in rural areas of the county affected by the latest raft of Garda station closures can be enhanced thanks to a new partnership approach between Clare Garda headquarters and new community groups.

That’s the message sounded out by Chief Superintendent of the Clare Garda Division, John Kerin, in the wake of the controversial Budget 2013 decision to call time of eight rural Garda stations in Clare as part of a nationwide cull of 80 outlets.

Superintendent Kerin told a public meeting in Inagh last week that the key to future policing in the eight locations that will lose their Garda sub-stations lay establishing “community fora” that would liaise with the Clare Garda Division.

I’m sending out that invitation to all communities affected by Garda station closures,” said Chief Superintendent Kerin, “that if they were willing to set up a community forum of five or six people affected by Garda station closures, the Gardaí would be willing to meet with them on a monthly basis. The superintendent in those areas will meet with them on a monthly basis – I would be willing to meet with them on a bi-monthly basis,” he added.

Following on the closure of Carrigaholt Station earlier this year, the latest round of swinging cuts of announced in the Budget means that stations in Quin, Inagh, Lahinch, Broadford, Mountshannon, Doonbeg, Kilmihil and Labasheeda are all facing the axe in the new year.

According to Chief Superintendent Kerin the closures can be the catalyst for a new type of working arrangement to emerge between communities and what will be a Garda Division split into a two-district service of Ennis and Kilrush.

“A lot of those areas affected don’t have joint-policing committees,” said Chief Superintendent Kerin, “and I would hope that they set up these fora that would be representative of all strands of society within the community. If we did that, we would know what issues were happening and we would be able to address them,” he added.

STAFF at the Clare County Council recycling facility on the Gort Road in Ennis have been praised for their calm actions after a live grenade was discovered on site last Thursday morning.

The grenade, which is understood to date back to Civil War times, was discovered on the site on Thursday morning.

The explosive device was found among a stash of recyclable metal on the facility and is understood to have been live and a genuine explosion risk.

The supervisor at the facility alerted both the Gardaí and the Defense Forces to the find and Clare County Council closed the recycling centre for a number of hours of Thursday afternoon, while the grenade was being dealt with.

The Defense Force’s Army Bomb Disposal Unit were tasked to make safe the ordinance and arrived at the Gort Road Industrial Estate around 1.30pm on Thursday afternoon.

A small controlled explosion was carried out and the area was declared to be safe just after 2.15pm on Thursday afternoon. It is as yet unclear where the grenade came from and Gardaí in Ennis are investigating the incident.

Clare Green Party councillor Brian Meaney paid tribute to the calm ac- tions of the staff at the centre while a spokesperson from Clare County Council also apologised for any delays felt my members of the public as a result of the incident.

“We would like to thank the public for their patience during the interruption to services at Ennis Recycling Centre.

“We also want to acknowledge the assistance of An Garda Síochána,” said a spokesperson from Clare County Council.

This is the second time that Army Bomb Disposal Unit have been called to a suspect device in Clare in 2012. In January a controlled explosion was carried out on a suspicious device discovered on the strand at Lahinch Beach.

A four foot long metal canister, which was discover on the north end of the strand beside Lahinch Golf Course, was discovered by a walker on the beach just after 7pm on Saturday evening, January 7.

EUROMILLIONS winners Dolores McNamara could be set to make Killaloe her new home after a deal was concluded for the sale of Tinarana House over the weekend. A deal for the 270 acre property, which was sold for around € 13 million by Dr Paschal Carmody in 2006, was finalised late last week – with Dolores McNamara understood to be one of the bidders in the final shake-up.

The property was sold for around € 3.5 million, almost double the 2012 asking price but still nearly € 10 million less than was paid for it by development consortium Tinarana Ltd in 2006.

Local property agents GVM have remained tight lipped over the identity of the estates buyer. Once the transaction had done through details of the sale will be published on the newly established Property Price Register. The address of the property and the final sale price will be included on the register – but not the name of the buyer.

It is understood that Dolores McNamara has been on the lookout for a rural property to avoid excess media attention. She already owns nearby Lough Derg Hall, which was bought for € 1.7 million and where she has lived on-and-off since 2005.

Tinarana House has attracted a large number of interested bidders since it went on the market earlier in 2012. Bidders from Austria, Holland, Germany and Britain are understood to have been in the shake-up for the property, alongside the Euromillions winner.

Tinarana House itself includes 16 bedrooms and 15 bathrooms and was put on the market on the instructions of receivers PriceWaterhouse Coopers in June of this year.

While the € 3.5 million price tag is considerably less that the € 13 million paid in 2006, it is understood that the historic property needs restoration work which could total as much as € 1 million.

At the height of the property boom in 2006, Tinarana Ltd received planning permission from Clare County Council to construct a major hotel and leisure complex on the site – which also included an 18-hole championship golf course and equestrian holiday village.

An Taisce objected to the development and those objections were upheld by an Bord Pleanála in 2007.

Tinarana House was built by the Purdon family of England in the 1870s as a fishing and hunting lodge. The mansion comprises 14,467 square feet and sits on a small raise overlooking Lough Derg.

A BOYCOTT on all farmed salmon caught off the Irish coast has been called for in protest against plans by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) to license the creation of a large salmon fish farm off the Clare coast.

Environmental group Friends of the Irish Environment called for all of its followers to boycott Irish farmed salmon in the run up to Christmas. The call was made Thursday, hours before the Irish Wildlife Trust came out against the proposed fish farm.

It is as yet unclear what impact, if any, the boycott will have on farmed salmon producers in the run up to Christmas – the busiest time of the year for sales of salmon in Ireland.

According to Friends of the Irish Environment, the planned fish farm should not go ahead until the difficulty with sea lice on Irish fish farms has been resolved.

“The initiative contradicts the moratorium on fish farms agreed under the National Development Plan’s Irish Seafood National Program 2007 to 2013,” said a spokesperson.

“This ruled that no increase in pro- duction would take place until the sea lice issue had been addressed. A recent report from Inland Fisheries Ireland showed that in fact mortalities from wild salmon from farmed salmon sea lice have now reached 39 per cent of the returning wild salmon.”

The proposed fish farm has been hugely controvertial since details of the proposal first emerged more than six weeks ago. It has two State agencies – Bord Iascaigh Mhara and the Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) in direct conflict.

BIM claim that the farm could creat as many as 500 jobs in the locality while the IFI believe that a more realistic jobs target would be less that 50, while it also believes that pollution created by the farm could threaten inland fishery resources in North Clare and South Galway.

Irish Wildlife Trust confirmed on Thursday that they have made a submission to the Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney (FG) outlining their opposition to the project. Minister Coveney will decide in the new year if BIM can allow groups to tender for the license to create a fish farm off the Fanore coast.

A MAN of the people, a legend in his own lifetime, one of the greatest ballad singers Ireland has ever produced, a historian, a storyteller, a farmer and a hurler.

All were used to describe the late Robbie McMahon – the King of Spancil Hill responsible for making the song of the same name famous – who passed away last Thursday after a short illness.

The tributes were led by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann chief, Labhrás Ó Murchú, who gave the graveside oration at his funeral and described McMahon as “a giant of traditional Irish culture, whose legacy will live on for future generations in his songs”.

These words were echoed by his many friends – in his native parish of Clooney, around Clare and beyond as huge numbers attended the removal of his remains on Saturday evening last and his funeral on Sunday afternoon.

“His legacy will be the historical events that he has recorded through his own songs,” says Frank Whelan of the Clare branch of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, who was one of the driving forces behind the 2010 documentary on McMahon’s life entitled ‘Last Night as I was Dreaming’.

“He was much more than a singer, he was a social historian, because all his songs were stories,” added Mr Whelan. “The one thing about Robbie was that King or pauper – they were all equal,” says Mike Duggan, in whose pub in Spancil Hill that McMahon played host to a monthly singing session that became known throughout Ireland and beyond as ‘ Robbie’s First Fr ida y’. “It was his magnetism, it was his wonderful personality,” continues Duggan. “Thousands of people have come to ‘Robbie’s First Fr ida y’ over the years. No dignitary was too big, no person was too small for Robbie.”

THREE thugs broke into a West Clare home late on Sunday night last, terrorising two elderly sisters and demanding money. The trio broke down the door of the rural farmhouse in Kildymo, Bansha near the seaside town of Kilkee be- tween 10.30pm and 11.30pm and entered the premises where the women had lived all of their lives. A frightening ordeal then began for the two ladies in their eighties as the robbers ripped the phone from the wall and demanded money from them. There was very little money in the house and the thugs eventually got away with a small amount of cash from the old age pensioners purses. The three who had targeted two vulnerable older women in their own home covered their faces during the robbery. It is not known how long the frightening ordeal continued for, but the two ladies were left very shocked after the late night experience. They are recovering in a nursing home since. The farmhouse, described as being left in a state after the event, is situated close to Bansha graveyard along a minor but busy rural road. One neighbour told The Clare People that while the sisters lived a very simple life on their family farm, opting to live with out modern comforts such as electricity, central heating and running water, they were very popular and well known locally. “People locally are shocked and many are very frightened after this,” he said. Gardaí in the Kilrush district are leading the investigation into the late night robbery. They have appealed to anyone who may have seen anything on the night of Sunday, December 9, or have any other information to contact the Garda Station in Kilkee or Kilrush.

CARERS from all over Clare took to the streets of Ennis on Friday, following an impromptu meeting through Facebook, to raise their concerns about budgetary cuts to the Respite Care Allowance.

Among the 40 to 50 people that took part in the protest were parents of young children with disabilities, older parents of adults with special needs and full-time carers of the elderly.

All had one clear message – the cut to the respite grant was the last cut they could even contemplate bearing on top of all the previous hardships they had endured in previous budgets.

One of the organisers, Niamh Daly (pictured above), said the protest organised in Dublin by the Carers Association was an indication at how upset people were but, as most carers cannot travel to protest, the carers of Clare decided to have their say on their own streets.

“Carers cannot all get to Dublin but, at the end of the day, we have to have our voice heard,” she said.

Many more Clare carers were unable to attend the protest as the people they care for are house-bound and therefore could not come to Ennis.

It is not just the cut to the respite grant, however, that is affecting Clare’s carers. Family carers, providing unpaid care to family members and loved ones, have been seri- ously affected through the number of cumulative cuts, including the cut to the Household Benefit Package, increases to the prescription charge from 50 cent to € 1.50, the new carbon tax on fuel and the drug payment scheme threshold increase from € 132 to € 144.

The Carers Association said it was extremely disappointed with the level of reduction of over 19 per cent in the respite grant paid to over 77,000 family carers, 20,000 of whom receive no other support from the State for providing full-time care for a family member from their own resources.

The grant is designed to be used by carers to buy in home care or pay for residential respite care for the cared-for person in order to give the carer a much needed break from their caring role.

However, The Clare People has learnt that many carers are using this grant to pay for necessary therapies and services for those they are caring for.

A TEENAGE actress with very strong North Clare connections has had her big international television break playing the role of an abducted girl in a drama reminiscent of the Madeleine McCann disappearance.

Fourteen-year-old Lauryn Canny, whose mother Nicola comes from Corofin, has been wowing audiences all over Europe with her performance in the four-part mini-series Amber.

The series, which has been commissioned by RTÉ but has yet to be broadcast, has been shown in a number of countries across Europe and as far afield as Australia. The drama tells the story of Dublin teenager Amber Bailey and the attempts made by her family and friends to find her.

Lauryn is currently in Morocco where she is shooting her first feature film alongside Juliette Binoche.

“That was her breakthrough role. It was commissioned by RTÉ but they haven’t shown it yet. She always wanted to be an actress. She never went to stage schools or anything like that but just because of her personality people always said that she was going to end up on the stage,” said Lauryn’s mother, Nicola.

“She absolutely loves it. She’s trying to find the balance between doing this and keeping up with school work as well. But her dream is to be a professional actor and do this for a living. She flew off to Morocco on Friday to be in a film with Juliet Binoche entitled 1,000 Times a Night . Lauryn is actually playing one of the lead roles – she is playing Juliet Binoche’s daughter. U2 drummer Larry Mullen is also in the film.”

Along with their Corofin connections, the Cannys also have a number of relations in the Shannon area.

“We come to Clare a good bit. We celebrated Lauryn getting the role down with my nan in Corofin, Lauryn’s great-grandmother. We found out that she got the role on Friday night and we all headed off to Clare for a big family night on the Saturday,” continued Nicola.

CLARE Green Party councillor, Brian Meaney has suggested that the Clare County Development Plan be changed to allow for fracking to take place, but only if it undertaken by a member of the local community.

The suggestion was made at last night’s December meeting of Clare County Council following a motion by the Green Party councillor concerning the status of a ban on fracking, which was asked for by the elected members of Clare County Council earlier this year.

In response to this motion, Ger Dollard, Director of Services with Clare County Council, said that it was not within the legal remit covered by the County Development Plan to place an outright ban on any activity – or any “crude exclusionary policy”.

Cllr Meaney then suggested that instead of introducing a ban on fracking, the council could take a “more creative” approach to the issue and change the County Development Plan to allow for fracking, but only by Clare people.

“We really don’t have a lot of power to change our own County Development Plan in order to reflect the needs of the elected members,” said Cllr Meaney.

“There is an awful lot going on with the energy companies. They are building up a reasonable expectation that they are going to be able to exploit this gas. The EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] and the European Commission still have not taken a proper look at whether this can be extracted properly. We still don’t know how people are going to be affected by this most intrusive of activities.”

In his response, Mr Dollard also said that there was no “hesitancy” from Clare County Council to deal with the fracking situation in the Clare Basin.

“The council will keep the matter under review and monitor progress at national level on the assessment of the issues and report back to the elected members in due curse,” he said.

“The council can be assured that there is no hesitancy on the part of the planning authority but any proposal must accord with law and be based on any national guidance on the issue.”

After successful test in West Clare, UK based company Enegi Oil confirmed last week that it intends to apply for a fracking license from the Department of energy next year.