Category: News

TWO former Eire Óg players are helping spread the football gospel on the island of Taiwan. Cousins Ross Conlon and Brian Fitzpatrick, who are originally from the Tulla Road in Ennis, were both members of the Plate winning Taiwan Celts team at the 2011 Asian Gaelic Games.

Dozens of teams drawn from Irish expat communities across Asia gathered in South Korean for the event. And among them were Brian and Ross, who helped their team secure success in the competition’s second tier event.

Brian, who moved to the Taiwanese capital Taipei six months ago, recalls, “There’s only about 200 Irish people here. We’ve been training with them. They’ve been really helpful. We played in the Asian Games. The standard was really good. We played fairly well in Korea. We won the plate, which would’ve been the second competition. The top division was really good. Hong Kong and Singapore were in the final, Damian Barry (Ennis) was playing.”

A former student of Ennis CBS, St Flannan’s College and Limerick Institute of Technology, Brian moved to the Far East earlier this year in search of work. Having previously worked for Munstergroup Property and started a car auction business, Brian embarked on a new career in Taiwan, teaching English to local students.

He explains, “It would be an after school for Taiwanese kids. They go to Chinese school first and then us afterwards. It’s a long day. They are basically in school for about 12 hours everyday.”

Brian admits that making the move from Ireland to Taiwan was a little bit daunting. But the shock of adapting to a completely new country and culture was softened somewhat by the fact that Ross had swapped Ennis for Taipei, six years ago.

A fellow graduate of LIT and University of Limerick and former Éire Óg teammate, Ross currently works as a business development manager for electronics giant, Siemens.

Having secured a teaching post three months after arriving in Taiwan, Brian says he is glad to have made the move.

He says, “Taiwan is a great place to come to teach for a year. There are lots of teaching jobs for anyone with a Bachelor’s degree. It’s a really nice island with lots of lovely coastline for surfing and scenery and things like that. Taipei is a great city full of great nightlife and the locals are very friendly. The food is good and it’s pretty cheap. In terms of the economy, the country is flying too. A lot of the big companies here totally changed from manufacturing goods to information technology over last 10 or so years.”

While Taiwan’s economy is firing on all cylinders, in stark contrast to our own, the winter weather at least provides a reminder of home, particularly at Christmas.

Brian explains, “It’s cold, it’s mad cold over here at the moment. A bit like home. It’s really humid in the summer and it’s very hard to breathe but in winter the air would really cut through you. It’s really damp.”

He continues, “We had Christmas dinner with friends of ours, Taiwan ese people and expats. We spent it at a few different apartments in Taipei city. It was a bit unusual, being my first Christmas away but we made the most of it but you would miss family and friends alright.”

For Irish people far from home sports plays an important role in meeting people and making connections. It’s no different in Taipei. Apart from their involvement with the local GAA team, both men play soccer with Taipei City, a multinational side comprising Irish, South Americans a few English and a handful of locals.

After their success in the Asian games, the Celts are on the look out for new recruits.

Brian says, “If anyone is thinking of teaching abroad for a year and would consider moving here. We’ve lost a few of last year’s team so were recruiting for next season.”

For further information on the Taiwan Celts email mr.bfitz@gmail. com.

TO GO or not to go? That was the question that faced Clare’s President of Ireland, Dr Patrick Hillery in 1981 when, as head of State, he was invited to attend the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.

Thirty years on, one of his successors in Áras an Uachtaráin, President Mary McAleese, may have attended the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, but things were different in 1981.

It was the year of the hunger strikes and Anglo-Irish relations, as they were in 1981, led to a government decision that President Hillery should not attend the wedding.

The State papers from 1981 that were opened this week reveal that Dr Hillery, who as Minister for Foreign Affairs in the 1969-1973 government, was trenchant in his criticism of British policy in Northern Ireland, didn’t want to attend the wedding.

However, President Hillery’s stance, which was backed up by the Charles J Haughey-led Fianna Fáil government in 1981 and the Garret FitzGerald led Fine Gael/Labour coalition that also came to power that year, didn’t meet with universal approval.

The State papers show that Dr Hillery’s non-attendance at the wedding was taken up directly by an Irish priest, Fr PG O’Dea, who was based in Lancashire at the time. Fr O’Dea, who is still alive and now a retired monsignor, wrote directly to Áras an Uachtaráin to protest at the failure of President Hillery to accept an invitation to attend the wedding.

In deciding whether President Hillery should attend the royal wedding, a government memo noted that “whichever decision is taken will give rise to criticism”.

Some in the Taoiseach’s office, including assistant secretary Richard Stokes, advised in favour of compelling the president to attend, as staying away would “make a nonsense” of all progress in Anglo-Irish relations.

An unnamed Taoiseach’s department official criticised the Department of Foreign Affairs’s “very inadequate” briefing document which posed questions rather than coming up with advice and supporting arguments.

“The Government have been very badly served by the Department of Foreign Affairs” whose tone indicates that it did not favour acceptance but it did not “advance any compelling argument”.

The foreign affairs brief said such an invitation from a friendly country should be accepted “unless there are compelling arguments against” it. It then refers to the ensuing “unfavourable comment” due to general feel- ings of dissatisfaction with the British government over the H-Blocks.

This argument could “hardly be described as a compelling reason”, the civil servant wrote, adding that most of the unfavourable comment would come from the Provisional IRA and H-block committee. He described as “naive” the assertion by foreign affairs that refusal “would not impair political dialogue with London”.

The British prime minister “would almost certainly regard a refusal as a rebuff” and it would be viewed by the “hostile British press” as presidential support for the hunger strikers.

In the end, the new Fine Gael-led coalition, it decided that the President should be advised not to attend and to send the ambassador in his place.

The reply to the palace was issued on the final day possible, June 26, with the excuse of the President’s “prior commitments”.

Meanwhile, in response to complaints from Fr PG O’Dea, Áras an Uachtaráin pointed out that Ireland had been represented at the wedding by the Irish ambassador in London.

IT’S been a blast, with some work, some rugby and plenty of playtime thrown in.

This parses Éanna Canavan’s ninemonth life experience since embarking on his Antipodean adventure with a friend.

In his native Doolin and beyond across the county, Canavan is best known for mounting a Facebook campaign to see a revival of the Lisdoonvarna Music Festival.

That campaign is still very much active, and if it happens you can be sure Canavan would be on the first flight back for the occasion, but for now there’s the festive atmosphere of downtown Syndey and greater Australasia to enjoy.

“It was at this time last year that a friend and I decided to go to Australia along with the thousands of other Irish people that are already here,” recalls Canavan.

“We actually arrived on March 25 so Christmas Day was an anniversary. The time has really flown since we got here and Christmas was always going to be very strange when it falls in the middle of summer.

“I have been doing a bit of travelling around Australia since I got here and managed to fit in eight days over in New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup, which was an amazing experience.

“Since October I have settled in Sydney working for a sales company. It’s a great lifestyle here even if the cost of living here is very high. There are quite a few people from Clare living in Australia so there is a bit of a community here, I can think of at least fifteen people from my area at home that are settling in well,” adds Canavan. As for Christmas on Bondi – he admits to having home thoughts from abroad, missing the craic of a different kind around North Clare, but only to a point as the contrasting conditions bring him to his senses. “In Christmas 2010 we were in the middle of one of the coldest winters in years with snow and ice and treacherous road conditions and it was minus ten,” he recalls. “To say that Christmas 2011 couldn’t be more different is putting it mildly. We started off with Christmas dinner on the roof of a friends house in Bondi in 30 degree heat followed by a trip to the beach for the afternoon; to say it was surreal would be an understatement. “Bondi beach was packed on Christmas Day and it was fairly easy to spot all the Irish people due to the white skin and the drunken antics! It was certainly a Christmas that I would never forget. “Then for New Year’s we headed into the city for the fireworks near the Opera House, something everyone in Sydney has to see. Another thing not to forget,” he adds.

CLARE TD and Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera was accused of showing “allegiance to the devil” when he expressed condolences to the German ambassador in Ireland on the death of Adolf Hitler.

State papers have revealed a well of anger at Mr de Valera, who represented the Clare constituency from 1917 to 1959, over his controversial decision to express condolences to ambassador Dr Eduard Hempel on the behalf of the Free State on May 2, 1945, two days after Hitler’s suicide.

The file on the controversy in the National Archives contains a number of letters sent in the immediate aftermath.

Angela D Walsh, with an address at East 44th Street, New York, writes to de Valera the day after: “I am horrified, ashamed, humiliated. You, who are the head of a Catholic coun- try, have now shown allegiance to a devil.”

Patrick O’Reilly wrote of de Valera to President Hyde from Stratfordon-Avon: “We feel ashamed to let people know we are of the blood of people who have such as man as their leader.”

The episode resurfaced in a letter dated January 22, 1970, when de Valera was President. Fr Kevin Keegan, writing from an address in France, said he had been watching a television documentary in which the famous Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal “said that you went to the German ambassador to express your sympathy when you heard that Hitler had committed suicide”.

“Needless to say I was astounded to hear such a statement. I would be very grateful to you if you inform me whether it is true or not.

“In the case of it being untrue, I will inform the French television immediately, asking them to make a public rectification,” the letter added.

The State papers also reveal that Mr de Valera considered lowering the Irish flag over Government buildings as a mark of respect following the death of Hitler, as had happened following the death of American President Franklin D Roosevelt two weeks earlier.

The whole affair led to a memorable joust over the airwaves between Mr de Valera and Winston Churchill. The British prime minister praised himself for having the “restraint and poise” in refraining from laying “a violent hand” on Ireland and said “we left the de Valera government to frolic with the Germans and later with the Japanese representatives to their heart’s content”.

However, in response three days later on Radio Éireann, de Valera had what his supporters and even some of his detractors described as his finest hour.

“I know the kind of response that I am expected to make,” he said. “I know the reply I would have given a quarter of a century ago.

“But I have deliberately decided that this is not the reply that I will make tonight. I shall strive not to be guilty of adding any fuel to the flames of hatred and passion, which, if continued to be fed, promise to burn up whatever is left by the war of decent human feeling in Europe,” he continued.

“Could he not find it in his heart the generosity to acknowledge that there is a small nation that stood alone, not for one year or two, but for several hundred years against aggression; that endured spoliations, famines, massacres in endless succession; that was clubbed so many times into insensibility, but that each time, on returning to consciousness, took up the fight anew; a small nation that could never be got to accept defeat and has never surrendered her soul,” he added.

IT GOES without saying that it’s a long way from Clare to Kazakhstan. And for Ray Flannery that distance and sense of enormous difference is dramatically brought to life every time he looks out his office window. Especially these days, in the depths of winter. The Ballyea man doesn’t work in one of Kazakhstan’s many large cities or towns. The office doesn’t overlook any smog-choked metropolis. It’s far away from all that. In fact, it’s far away from most things.

Work for Ray for the past few weeks has been a man made island somewhere in the Caspian Sea, about 80km off the coast of Kazakhstan.

Like many his age, it was the offer of a job that brought Ray to one of the harshest and most remote regions in the world. The Caspian Sea is home to the Kashagan Project a vast network of islands and rigs working on what is estimated to be one of the largest oil fields on the planet.

He explains, “They reckon it’s the biggest oil find of the past 30 years. There’s something like 4,500 people working for different companies. It’s a pretty big operation.”

Ray works on Island Delta as a field engineer for the Italian firm Tozzi. It’s a job he has done for different companies in various far-flung places of the world including Indonesia, Madagascar and Canada. Kazakhstan though is different. It’s harsh and very cold. He says, “Weather wise it’s -15º at the moment and a guy was telling me that it will go down to -30º in January. The Caspian Sea is frozen over so the boats can’t run. They had been using choppers to get to the mainland but now a bog fog has come in as well. They’re hoping it will clear so people can get back home for Christmas. The weather here is a big factor…It’s very harsh when you see the frozen sea and the mounds of snow.” The former St Flannan’s student realised just how remote Island D is when a colleague told him a story about unwanted visitors during last year’s big freeze.

“A guy who worked here last year was telling me that when it froze over a wolf actually walked out from the coastline and was headed towards the islands.

“They had to tranquilise it and Medivac (helicopter ambulance) it back to the mainland!”

Apart from the wolves there is a strong international presence among the workforce dotted around the various ships and islands of the Kashagan Project. But not too many Paddys, Ray says.

“It’s very multinational but at the moment there is a very small Irish presence.

We spoke in the run up to Christmas and Ray was hoping to speak by skype to his parents, brother and sister.

He says, “Christmas is just a regular day. It runs like clockwork. They run a pretty tight ship. We might get to eat the turkey!”

Apart from being grateful for the opportunity to work, Ray says the chance to travel to places like Kazakhstan has given him a new understanding about life away from home. “It’s given me a completely different perspective, the things you see and what people are born into.”

STATE Papers for 1981 that have been released under the 30-year rule have revealed how Shannon was plunged into the international limelight for all the wrong reasons, thanks to an entrepreneur who established a business in the Free Zone.

On May 2, 1981, it was revealed that the man, who hijacked an Aer Lingus flight to Heathrow because he wanted to know the Third Secret of Fatima, was Laurence Downey, a man who operated out of Shannon, touting himself as an international entrepreneur who would bring hundreds of jobs to mid-west region.

Downey – a former Cistercian monk, Olympic boxing trialist, sailor and Shannon Free Zone-based company director – came to Shannon in late 1979 and unveiled ambitious plans to develop among other things an Institute of Learning, a Shannon Co-Operative and a £10 million sports and recreational complex.

However, Downey’s plans for Shannon were too good to be true – he had a string of dodgy business dealings in his native Australia, among them the disappearance of £40,000 from a trust fund.

Downey then re-emerged into the limelight when he walked into the cockpit of an Aer Lingus flight, threatening to cause an explosion by setting fire to his petrol-soaked clothes, unless he was taken to Teheran and that the Third Secret of Fatima be released by Pope John Paul II and published in Irish newspapers.

Captain Foyle suggested that they fly to Le Touquet because of a shortage of fuel, with the captain announcing, “Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to land in London but there is a man in the cabin who wants us to go on to Le Touquet.”

The end of the highjack ordeal for the 108 passengers and crew of five came at Le Touquet when crack French commando forces moved in and stormed the plane when it was on the runway. Downey was arrested while passengers spoke about the drama. “He must have been very dis- turbed,” said one passenger. “I asked the stewardess if we were being hijacked and she said yes,” commented another. “It wasn’t scary because we knew almost from the start that he wasn’t from a terrorist organisation. He said something about wanting to tell people in Ireland that the Virgin Mary had a sister and that there were two of them.”

PRESSURE is mounting on Clare County Council to alter the County Development Plan to prevent fracking from taking place in the Clare Basin in west Clare.

Members of the Clare Fracking Concerned group will address next Monday’s January meeting of the local authority when the councillors will vote on Gabriel Keating’s (FG) motion to formalise their opposition to the controversial practice.

A series of anti-fracking meetings will also take place in West Clare in the coming weeks as momentum begins to gather behind Clare Fracking Concerned.

According to Cillian Murphy of the Loop Head Tourism Group and Clare Fracking Concerned, the process could seriously pollute the ground water not just at the fracking site, but all over West Clare.

“Around 99.5 per cent of the mixture which is pumped underground is chemical free. But that still leaves 0.5 per cent chemicals and, when you consider that they are talking about pumping millions and million of tonnes of this mixture, it amounts to an awful lot of chemicals,” said Murphy. “The geology in the area is already quite fractured and brittle, and water already passes readily through the rocks, so if there was a problem it wouldn’t just be in one area, it would be in all the ground water in West Clare.

“We are trying to give people a knowledge base for them to make their own minds up. We are not trying to force our opinions on anyone. But we would hope that when people see the facts and make up their minds, that they would contact their local councillor and tell them that they do not want fracking taking place in West Clare.”

Should Clare County Council come out against the practice taking place in West Clare, it does not prohibit the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources from granting permission to begin fracking. UK-based company Enegi Oil secured an initial exploration licence from the Government to undertake a number of fracking-related tests in the Clare Basic earlier this year.

“We would hope that the council will come out against fracking in Clare and if they do we would hope that they could make an amendment to the County Development Plan which says that. That would at least give us some legal basis or protection,” continued Murphy. “From our research, any jobs that come out of this are very short term. There is a certain amount of employment in the construction phase but that is very short term. The work after that is very technical and can be done by a very small number of people brought in from outside.”

Clare Fracking Concerned will host meetings at the Lighthouse Inn in Kilbaha on January 6, Murphy Black’s Butter Market Café on January 7, Kenny’s Bar, Lahinch, on January 8, Kildysart Hall on January 20 and Fanny O’Dea’s in Lissycasey on January 26.

PRESIDENT Patrick Hillery became the most potent symbol of Irish government opposition to the South African apartheid regime in 1981, State Papers released this week under the 30-year rule have revealed.

Head of State, Dr Hillery was the expression of a stand off between Taoiseach Charles Haughey and the Irish Rugby Football Union over the controversial tour of South Africa made by the Irish team in 1981.

Opposition to the tour emerged early in the year, with a memo from the Department of Foreign Affairs “I wonder if we should consider an intervention by the Taoiseach at an opportune moment,” adding that while it was “an exceptional step” it might persuade the IRFU against going ahead with the tour or at the very least would show to international opinion that the Irish Government had done all in its power to stop it.

Then it was Haughey that threw down the gauntlet to the IRFU, saying that he did not want to the tour to go ahead “in any way”, with President Hillery emerging as the visible demonstration of this opposition.

As public protests against the rugby tour mounted, then Taoiseach Charles Haughey wrote a strongly worded letter to the IRFU saying he was worried about the growing international reaction to the tour, and its potential repercussions for Ireland and Irish interests overseas.

He wrote that in view of the seriousness of the matter, which directly concerned national interests, he wished personally as head of the government to convey the full implications of the situation. But the IRFU ignored the unprecedented appeal and went ahead with the tour.

However, backing for the Government stance came from President Hillery.

After Haughey was succeeded as Taoiseach by Garret Fitzgerald, the Government advised President Hillery not to attend a subsequent rugby match between Ireland and Australia in November in Lansdowne Road, a decision the President fully supported and he didn’t attend the international.

It represented the only time that a Head of State snubbed an international sporting fixture because of a political disagreement.

CLARE has produced three presidents in Eamon de Valera, Dr Paddy Hillery and Michael D Higgins, but the county can now lay claim to a fourth thanks to the links between Mary McAleese and the Poor Clares Convent in Ennis.

The former president’s association with the Poor Clares has been revealed this week, with abbess of the convent, Sr Gabriel, revealing that Mrs McAleese “came in and lived like one of us”.

Speaking publicly for the first time on the former president’s links with the Poor Clares during her 14 years in Áras an Uachtaráin, Sr Gabriel revealed that the association was fostered in her inaugural year in office when she was introduced to members of the Poor Clare order by local solicitor, Michael Houlihan.

“On her way out on that visit, she asked ‘Could I possibly come back here for a retreat?’,” said Sr Gabriel. “We thought, ‘oh gosh, what will this mean?’ We were exercised and giving her the time and space she wanted. And she asked ‘can I join your recreation at tea time?’.”

So began an association that saw President McAleese spend three or four days with the Poor Clares in Ennis every year.

“President McAleese has been great. She has been such an inspira- tion to us. She comes in, no mobile phone, no nothing, she relinquishes everything. President McAleese would be washing your dishes and you’re embarrassed, thinking ‘The President of Ireland is washing my dishes!’

“In a way, this was the only place she was Mary McAleese. She wasn’t the President, she could just be Mary and feed her own inner life to recharge herself for her duties. She is just so ordinary, so real— that is why the world took to her. And the stories from her — press a button and you would have story after story,” added Sr Gabriel.

“She is just one of us when she is here,” said Sr Regina. “She would arrive in a lovely designer trouser suit and she would go up to her room and she would be back down in her Dunnes Stores best for the time here. She does appreciate our life here and understands it,” she added.

“Her time here has been very enriching for us as well,” said Sr Bernadette. “She would be walking around the garden saying her rosary, be at Adoration reading her Bible. She is a wonderful woman.”

The Poor Clares monastery was established in Ennis in October 1958 and the enclosed order’s Golden Anniversary celebrations were launched by President McAleese in 2008, while a photograph of the former President now hangs in the monastery.

HIGH vacancy rates, distance and a fear that the uniqueness of Ennis will be distorted are among the main reasons highlighted by town centre businesses in their opposition to a proposed retail development.

Michael Lynch Ltd is seeking planning permission to build on a fivehectare site on the Clare Road/Tobertascáin. The application was the subject of a Freedom of Information request from Ennis Town Council.

Businesses in Ennis, many of whom have been strongly opposed to the project, have reiterated their concerns in a number of submissions to the council.

Traders in Parnell Street state that the development would not be in the “town’s best interest”. The submission continues, “While we recognise and welcome competition, it is vital that the current core retail sector in the town be maintained as this is one of Ennis’ unique selling points.

“At present in Parnell Street there are 12 vacant commercial premises in our street,” they state. “We feel if this development were to go ahead, it would compound an already existing problem. We, the business community, are at present struggling to keep our doors open and maintain jobs in these challenging times. We need your support.”

According to the proprietors of Food Heaven in the Market, the proposed development “will significantly detract from the viability of the existing town centre retail area”.

The submission states, “The proposed retail centre is located almost 1km from the town centre and this is too great a distance to encourage pedestrians to visit the town centre on completing their purchases.”

They add, “The level of vacancy rates and under trading in the existing town centre retail sector is at present at crisis levels and can only be exacerbated by this proposal. It seems astonishing that this proposal could be seriously contemplated at a time of unprecedented economic distress locally and nationally.”

In their submission, the O’Connell Street Trader’s association state, “The proposed development would significantly detract from the viability of the existing town centre retail area. There is already an over provision both of convenience and comparison retailing in Ennis at present.”

In their submission, members of the Abbey Street Trader’s Association assert that the development of a large out-of-town retail development would “distort the uniqueness of the town”. They continue, “To allow this development to go ahead is akin to welcoming a factory ship into our waters which essentially will hoover up all forms of business life and decimate the very water it sailed in.”

According to Specsavers, Ennis, “There are at least three other sites which are more suitable for provision for new retail development and which are closer to the town centre and which would bestow some benefit to the town centre.

“We are not opposed to a reasonable level of additional retail space in Ennis but feel the priority should be given to a location which will provide synergy and interaction with the existing town centre.”