Category: News

FOR Dan Furey, set dancing was a way of life and a labour of love – something that will be celebrated once more in Labahsheeda this weekend when the 18th annual festival bearing his name will be staged.

“We would have been one of the first set dancing weekends around the country,” says Liam Woulfe of the organising committee, “and like last year, we’re holding the festival in the last weekend in August before the school holidays end.”

Dan Furey’s dedication to set dancing was legendary in Labasheeda and beyond, with his dedication in passing on the dances of the Labasheeda area over six decades winning him a permanent place in the history of traditional dancing in Ireland.

He is best remembered by dancers for having given us the Paris Set, and the Labasheeda Reel Set, and also some solo dances such as The Priest and His Boots, Single Time and the Gabhairin Buí.

“To bring the festival about each year, there is a lot of community effort. A lot people help out. This year’s festival will be opened by Fr Tom McGrath who spent over 40 years in Kenya as a missionary priest.

“Stephen McDonagh is a local his- torian who, along with Heritage officers from Clare County Council, will give a talk on the Battery Fortress in Kilkerrin – around now is the 200th anniversary of the erection of the Napoleonic fort.

“There is usually an impromptu céili at The Battery on Sunday morning, re-enacting the tradition of locals going there to dances hosted by the British soldiers based there. It’s a unique part of the festival and there’ll be a good crowd there, with people travelling through the fields to get to the point,” he adds.

JUST one day shy of 90 years to the day that Michael Collins was shot dead at Béal na mBláth, the woman that played a lead role in the Neil Jordan film that brought the lost leader of the Irish revolution to the silver screen made a whistle stop tour of the county capital of Ennis on Monday.

Forty-four year old Julia Roberts, who won an Oscar for her role in Erin Brockovich in 2000 and rose to stardom in Pretty Woman, played Kitty Kiernan in Michael Collins movie that was filmed in Ireland in 1996. Ms Roberts spent much or her time in Ennis in Tony Honan Antiques in Abbey Street in Ennis.

She has been holidaying in Ireland over the past week in the west of Ireland, with her husband Daniel Moder and their three children, Henry (5), twins Finn and Hazel (3).

THE life and times of Maeve Binchy are to be honoured in County Clare following the announcement of a new short story competition at this week’s Merriman Summer School in Lisdoonvarna.

The novelist, playwright and short story writer, who passed away on July 30 following a short illness, was a long-time supporter of the Merriman Summer School and had both visited and taken part in the event on numerous occasions.

The Merriman Short Story Competition will be run by the Merriman Summer School in conjunction with the Ennis Book Club Festival and the Irish Times .

With a first prize of € 1,000, it looks set to be one of the richest short story competitions taking place in Ireland next year.

The competition was announced by multi-Tony Award-winning director Garry Hynes of Druid Thea- tre in Lisdoonvarna on Sunday.

Speaking at the closing event of this year’s Summer School, Garry Hynes said that Maeve had given inspiration and confidence to many aspiring writers, and that this competition marked Maeve’s passing in a very appropriate way.

In 2005, Maeve Binchy wrote a special short story for the Brian Merriman bicentenary celebrations. The story, entitled ‘A Week in Summer’, was read by the author at that year’s Summer School in Lis- doonvarna and was recorded live. A limited edition of the story was subsequently published in CD and booklet form and Maeve donated the royalties from the US edition of this recording to the Cumann Merriman, while she also agreed that her donation be used to award a short story prize.

Entries for the competition must be original, unpublished and unbroadcast and should not be more than 2, 500 words in length. All entries must be set in Ireland. Stories may be written in Irish or the English language. The competition is confined to writers born in or living on the island of Ireland.

The closing date for entries is October 31, 2012. The winning story will be read at the 2013 Ennis Book Club Festival and will be published in the Irish Times .

Full rules for the competition will be published on September 15 on www.merriman.ie, www.ennisbookclubfestival.com and www. clarelibrary.ie.

ENNIS has been officially named as the European headquar ters for Microsemi, one of the county’s largest employers.

The Ennis plant, which employs 300 people, beat off competition from Microsemi plants in Wales and Bordeaux.

According to the company, the announcement “represents a significant endorsement of the work of the Ennis facility and its contribution to the wider Microsemi global network”.

The statement continued, “Ennis has been a world-class facility and a key contributor in the manufacturing processes of the company’s high reliability products, and is well-poised to contribute to Microsemi Cor poration’s planned expansion and growth strategy.”

Ennis faced competition from Microsemi plants in Wales and France. According to Richard Finn, Vice President of Microsemi Ireland, Ennis was always in a strong position to be chosen as the company’s European base of operations.

He said, “It was something we were working on for a while. 15 years ago this was the only site in Europe but we’ve acquired a lot of countries in the past four or five years. A lot of them are small micro-units in various different countries. We’ve ended up with a total of 15 different sites and 18 different legal entities in Europe. This is an effor t to consolidate some of that and organise it a bit differently. We have all these legal and HR functions, here, for across Europe.”

He continued, “We have a site with the greatest scale. We’ve moved a lot of things in here in the last five years. Everything has worked well. We’ve a good reputation of deliver- ing what we promised. That’s probably the main reason. We have about 300 people which is well up on what it was four or five years ago.”

Microsemi provides high reliable products for aerospace programmes and satellites. Components are specially tested at Microsemi Ennis to withstand the harsh environment in space.

The Ennis facility is the largest Microsemi operation outside of the US and the company is one of the largest employers in Clare.

The announcement was made last Tuesday at a celebration commemorating the company’s 20-year anniversary in Ireland, which was attended by several senior company executives including James J. Peterson, Microsemi’s President and Chief Executive Officer.

Mr Finn added, “It’s good to get it done. We’re in Ireland for 20 years, July 1992 this site was acqui red for what was then Unitrode. It coincides with that. We’ve had our Board of Directors over here for the past three or four days for some meetings. It’s good that they are over here to see what is going on. We’ve made a lot of improvements on the site over the last five or six years.”

ENNIS is well positioned to benefit from any future expansion plans by Microsemi.

That’s according to the IDA who have welcomed the announcement that Ennis has been chosen as the European headquarters for the US company.

Barry O’Leary, Chief Executive Officer of the IDA, said, “Microsemi is a growing company with ambitious plans and Ennis is wellpositioned to contribute to this growth.”

He added, “The contribution of the company to the local economy and community is highly significant, and it is gratifying to see the partnership strengthening with the announcement that Ennis is to become its European headquarters.

According to local Fine Gael TD, Joe Carey, the news that the Ennis facility will serve as the company’s European headquarters is “a real vote of confidence in this region, its workforce and the future of the mid-west”.

He added, “The company will have done their homework and will know that we have a vastly improved infrastructure network in the midwest, easy access to global markets and a skilled and dedicated workforce, all of which will help foster future growth and development.

“I welcome the fact that 50 jobs were created this year and look forward to more announcements on jobs in the future as the company continues to grow and develop and expand its range of products and activities in Ennis.”

A SENIOR executive of Microsemi in Ireland has said the company is considering expanding its operations in Ennis.

In light of Ennis being named Microsemi’s European headquarters, Vice President Richard Finn said operations at the plant could be increased further.

Ennis was selected as a base to consolidate many of Microsemi’s legal and human resources functions.

Microsemi also recently moved a new product line to Ennis, boosting the number of people employed by Microsemi in Clare to 300.

Mr Finn sees similar developments as crucial to the growth of the Ennis plant.

He explained, “Since January we’ve taken on 50. We’ve moved a product line out of Lawrence, Massachusetts, just 20 miles north of Boston, in January.

“We’re still hiring a few engineers and technicians. Hopefully it will continue to grow.”

Asked if the designation of Ennis as Microsemi’s European headquarters could aid expansion of the plant, Mr Finn said;

“Absolutely. My job is to find what the next thing is that we can move in here because we do squeeze some efficiencies in here and we do have economies of scale in what we do which is primarily the test and burn- ing of discreet semi-conductors, which is a fairly narrow field. But we’re the best in the world at what we do. If we can bolt on something else, then so much the better.”

Mr Finn said there was no shortage of skilled workers in the labour market.

He added, “Generally yes. We’ve had a great response.

“We advertised in January and got a great response. We got huge numbers.

“We got maybe 400 people for 30 jobs in terms of people applying. We interviewed about 100. There is no shortage of people looking for work or willing to do it.

There’s always going to be a scarcity in a specialised field.”

THE future of the Burren Farming for Conservation Project (BFCP) is one of the key goals outlined in the draft Burren Charter, which was published last week.

The project, which formed part of the pilot BurrenLIFE project last year, currently supports 266 Burren farmers to farm in a way that will protect the Burren natural limestone pavement, control pollution and prevent the encroachment of scrub.

According to Michael Davoran of Burren IFA, the way of life for the people of the Burren can be saved through this charter.

“This is ground-up management for the Burren. It is about preserving the way of life for the people at the Burren and that is not something that the farmers of the Burren can do by themselves.

“We need help, we all need to work together, that is what this charter is about,” he said.

“It started off with farmers working with the National Parks and Wildlife and that is to broaden out through the Heritage Council to the management of all aspects of the Burren.

“Everyone needs to have a voice in this – it is people in once-off houses, people who live in villages around the place, people who earn a living locally through the service industry and tourism. We all interact with each other and we all need to realise that,” said Mr Davoran.

Along with the preservation of the BFCP, the charter also advocated the development of a one-stop Burren shop and helpline to support and help farmers, as well as increasing the opportunities for local farmers in the areas of conservation, tourism and enterprise to help supplement farm income.

“This is the people of the Burren managing the Burren for the betterment of all. It is the people of the Burren asking themselves, what can we do for ourselves, instead of having something imposed from above,” said Mr Davoran.

“The Burren is managed by the farmer. The archeology, the geology, the flora and the fauna are all a product of the farming which has gone on for generations. ‘If we want people to continue to support us in projects like the Farming for Conservation Programme, the more people who are playing a role in managing the Burren – farming and non-farming bodies – the better.”

A NEW constitution has been drafted for the people of the Burren – a document which, it is hoped, will help preserve the environment and way of life of the area for future generations. After more than two years of consultation with the local people, the first draft of the Burren Charter was released last week. The charter contains a set of aims for all sections of the community involved in the area and the hope is that the entire local population will sign up to uphold it.

The draft document was compiled by the BurrenBeo Trust, The Burren Farming for Conservation Group, Burren Connect, Burren IFA and both Clare and Galway County Councils.

“This has been developed through contact with the local community and it is about the people who live here deciding what they want for the future and what they can do to make this happen,” said Áine Bird of the Burrenbeo Trust.

“This is a draft charter at the moment and a lot of research has gone into it. But it is still a working document and we really want to the local people to get stuck into the document and tell us if they think we are going in the right direction.

“We need to get the community’s input into this and for them to tell us if we are going in the right direction with this or not.”

It is unclear at present whether members of the general public in the Burren will be asked to physically sign up to the Burren Charter once it is completed but the charter will have no legal standing.

“We are already working on different projects that have come about through the work already done on the charter.

“One of these is a community festival for the Burren which will take place in October and should be a great event but we are also working on a series of recordings of the farm- ing tradition with the Cuimhneamh an Chláir,” said Áine. “We are also looking at creating a one-stop-shop resource centre for the people of the Burren and also an audit of the heritage courses which are available in the Burren to see is there a gap in the market. This isn’t just a book exercise, things are going to happen ot of this.”

Anyone who wants to comment on the Burren Charter can download it at Burrenbeo.com or in the North Clare libraries.

CLARE will now have two respesentatives at this year’s Rose of Tralee Festival – and both of them will be named Flanagan.

Despite Clare Rose, Orla McDonagh, not making it through to this year’s final, the county will be represented by London Rose, Nóra Ní Fhlannagáin, who hails from Corofin, and also the New Zealand Rose, Alana Marshall, whose family comes from Ennis.

Alana, whose great-great-grandfather, Michael Flanagan, left Ennis for New Zealand in 1864, was among 15 overseas Roses who gathered in Dublin yesterday to be presented with a certificate of her Irish heritage.

Sporting the Clare jersey, Alana was presented with her certificate by leading Kerryman, Dick Spring. The Certificate of Irish Heritage is a Government document, signed by the Tánaiste, Eamon Gilmore, as an official recognition of a person’s Irish ancestry by the Government of Ireland.

“From a young age, I was very aware and proud of my Flanagan Irish connection. My parents took me to Clare when I was 11 and I returned again when I was 18, during my gap year.

“I felt an amazing sense of belonging and felt so at home. I am delighted to honour my ancestors and the sacrifices they made through the Certificate of Irish Heritage,” she said yesterday.

Each Certificate of Irish Heritage is a personal record of the recipient’s Irish roots, showing the name of their Irish ancestor and the town or parish in Ireland from which they came.

It is as yet unclear whether Clare’s two Flanagan representatives are in any way related to each other but they will be able to assess their family histories when the Rose of Tralee festival gets underway later this week.

Nóra Ní Fhlannagáin is an Oxfordbased PHd student but her roots are very much in County Clare, with her father, John Flanagan, living on the main street in Corofin and a collection of cousins and friends all over the county.

Indeed, Nóra even has a connection to this year’s Clare Rose as her uncle, Tom Flanagan, is a next-door neighbour of Orla McDonagh in Clouna.

ONE million euro has been donated to the Diocese of Killaloe to promote vocations and to help fund the training of new priests in the diocese.

The money was a bequest to the diocese in the will of an unknown local person, on the condition that it only be used to promote new priests entering the ministry.

The cash windfall was yesterday described by diocesan spokesperson, Fr Brendan Quinlivan, as a sign of “new hope” for vocations in the diocese.

The Killaloe diocese currently has one person studying to become a priest, while a number of other men are currently considering entering formal studies.

“This is a sign of great hope for the diocese. The person who made this donation must have been someone whose life was greatly impacted on by the priesthood,” said Fr Quinlivan.

“The money will be used for the promotion of vocations and also to help fund the studies of anyone from the diocese who decides to study to become a priest. Between accommodation and the cost of studies it can cost between € 15,000 and € 20,000 a year for a person to train to become a priest and this could take between five and seven years.”

According to Fr Quinlivan, the type of people who decide to join the priesthood these days are very different from the people who joined in the past. New entrants are generally older, and must undertake psychological testing as well as a period of deep reflection before they are allowed to begin their studies.

“We had two ordinations in the parish this year, we currently have one person in studies and we have a number of people who have expressed an interest in becoming a priest and are currently in a period of discernment,” continued Fr Quinlivan.

“It is different from how it was in my day when people came straight from school. These days we are finding a lot of older men, who have lived through the Celtic Tiger and have come to the conclusion that there is something different out there for them.

“Many of these people may have to give up jobs to begin their studies so it is a total change of life for them.”

The diocese will receive the € 1 million in three different payments over three years. Pic kin g u p to wa rd s th e we e ke n d bu t e a rly in d ic a t io n s a re n o t gre a t , m o re c lo u d wit h o n ly spo ra d ic su n sh in e .