Category: News

CLARE poet, storyteller and author Eddie Stack will publish a book based on the people, music and stories of Doolin later this year.

The Ennistymon born author has been working on compiling The Doolin Book for more then a decade and will include extracts of interviews with some of the town’s most legendary past residents.

One of the highlight of the book will be an extensive interview with Micho Russell conducted by Stack before his death in 1994.

In this rare interview, Micho talks about his time growing up in Doolin as well as how he and his brothers learned their music and songs in the area.

“Doolin is one the few places in Ireland where all the strands of Irish traditional arts survived until relatively recently,” said Stack.

“This book is about these arts; the music, the singing, the dancing and the storytelling. It’s about the artists, the environment which fostered them and the legacy they left for younger musicians and singers.

“It is based on my local knowledge, research, archival materials as well as field recordings of the Doolin tradition bearers from the 1970s and early ‘80s.”

Eddie also hopes to produce an “enhanced ebook” version of The Doo- lin Book , which will have embedded video and audio and be programmed for use with the iPad.

Besides the Russell brothers, the book will also focus on Doolin’s other famous musical family – the Killougherys.

A section of the book will examine the music of John and Paddy Killoughery, renowned local musicians who had a long association with traditional Irish house dancing.

They were cohorts of the Russell brothers and played together at house dances and sessions for over fifty years – until the practice was stopped by the local parish priest.

The book will also focus on Paddy Pharaic Mhichil Shannon, who was the last native Irish speaker to live in the region. In an interview Paddy remembers the old storytellers, dancing masters and musicians of the area as well as talking about the decline of the Irish language in the area.

Doolin’s long tradition of storytelling will also feature in the book with extracts recorded by the Irish Folklore Commission in the 1920s with Stiofáin Uí hEalaoire, Johnny Carún, Seán O’Caolaí, Liam Ó Duilleáin and Seán MacMathúna.

Also featured is an interview with storyteller Paddy Sherlock broadcast on the BBC by Seamus Ennis in the 1950s.

For more information search for The Doolin Book on Facebook.

PLANNING and preparation is “systematic and effective” at a second-level school in Shannon, while assessment practices are of a high standard.

A report in relation to St Caimin’s Community School in Shannon noted that the school has good lines of communication with students.

The report presents the findings of an evaluation of the quality of learning and teaching. It has been just published by the Department of Education and Skills, after an inspection was carried out at the school in November.

“The overall quality of learning and teaching in the lessons observed was good,” noted the report.

“With the support of senior management, a dedicated and effective team of teachers works closely with colleagues to promote inclusive practices among all teachers in all lessons,” stated the report.

It remarked that students identified with special educational needs benefit considerably from their time in St Caimin’s, while “a continuum of supports and interventions is implemented wisely and reviewed regu- larly”.

A number of recommendations are contained in the report. It is suggested that more detailed tracking of the total allocation of resources and their impact upon students be introduced.

It states that the extension of “individualised planning for students with low incidence needs merits consideration”.

“Greater use of team-teaching merits consideration as does the exploration of opportunities for staff to share practices that promote inclusive learning,” stated the report.

It noted that good time-tabling practices are evident in the school, which promotes access to and the development of an inclusive curriculum.

“The school adopts a holistic approach to meeting the needs of each individual in the school. Personalised learning in the collective setting of the classroom is central to the school’s engagement with students and this practice is manifested in the school’s movement, away from an over reliance on individual withdrawal, towards more in-class supports such as team-teaching. This shift in focus is in keeping with Department policy and guidelines,” stated the report.

THE efforts of hundreds of Clare people who have given their time and energy over the last two decades to charity work in central and Eastern Europe is to be recognised in a new book die to be published this week. Going Forward Looking Back was officially launched by MEP Mairead McGuinness last week and features a number of photographs taken of volunteers at work with the Burren Chernobyl Project in Belarus.

Indeed, a photograph taken by award winning photographer and Burren Chernobyl Project volunteer Maurice Gunning was chosen for the cover of the book.

The picture features Lahinch woman Tessa O’Connor in conversation with a residents in Rudyna – a residential home for older people in Belarus.

A second photo taken by Maurice is also featured in the publication. This photo features an unidentified Burren Chernobyl Project volunteer singing to Nikita – a child from the Cherven Orphanage for children with disabilities in Belarus.

Maurice travelled to Belarus for three months in 2010 and full exhibition of his photographs in planned for Glór in Ennis this April. Going Forward Looking Back tells the extraordinary story of the Irish relief efforts in central and Eastern Europe since the early 1990s.

The publication is based on interviews with 31 different Irish charity workers and volunteers who have dedicated themselves to helping the most vulnerable citizens in this region over the past twenty years.

There are more than 100 Irish voluntary groups still operating in the region today. The interviews highlight different approaches to aid and development work over the years – the highs and lows, the success stories and the lessons learned.

The publication was developed by the Eastern Europe Aid and Development Network, which was set up in 2009 to increase co-operation between Irish charities working in Eastern Europe.

The exhibition of Maurice Gunning’s photographs with the Burren Chernobyl Project in Belarus will take place on April 14 for two week. John Spillane and Juliet Turner will play a charity concert afterward with all proceed going to the Burren Chernobyl Project.

THREE were lucky escapes for a number of Clare people based in New Zealand following last week’s devastating earthquake which shook the city of Christchurch – killing 145 people.

As hopes fade for the 200 people who are still unaccounted for fol lowing last Tuesday’s 6.3 magnitude earthquake, one north Clare woman is returning to Christchurch after miraculously avoiding being caught up in the devastating natural disaster.

Ennistymon woman Aoife Garrihy is currently living in Christchurch and had a lucky escape when she decided to leave the city and travel to visit a friend in Perth, Australia, hours before the quake hit New Zealand.

Aoife, who is a doctor in Christchurch Hospital, returned home to New Zealand city on Saturday last unsure of whether her belongings survived the earthquake or not. The Clare People spoke to Aoife before she returned to Christchurch who confirmed that she was okay and looking forward to getting back to work in Christchurch.

Christchurch Hospital escaped any serious damage during the earthquake but it has been inundated with a wide variety of serious injuries since the earthquake. The Clare People contacted a number of other Clare expats currently living in New Zealand to confirm that no-one from the county had been injured in the disaster.

The earthquake was felt as far away as Auckland on New Zealand’s north island where David Hanrahan from Lissycasey and Theresa Hassett from Tulla have been living for almost a year.

“We are okay, we are up her in Auckland so we’re away from the earthquake, thank God. It’s crazy down there,” said David.

“A mate of mine from Monaghan was working in a tunnel down in Christchurch, right beside where the quake struck. He had just come out of the tunnel a couple a minutes be- fore the quake hit – he is a lucky man but he is very shook up.”

The earthquake was also felt on Wellington and Lower Hutt on the north island, where Miltown Malbay brothers David and Declan Rynne are based.

“We’re all good here in Wellington,” David told The Clare People .

“We did feel the quake but it was quite minor here compared to Christchurch. They’ve had a pretty bad six months of it down there.”

This is the second earthquake to hit the city of Christchurch in recent months. On September 4 of last year a 7.1 magnitude quake struck outside the city, injuring two people and causing major power outages.

ONE man was taken to hospital for precautionary reasons following the accidental spillage of 250 litres of sulphuric acid at the Organic Lens manufacturing plant in Ennis on Friday.

The incident occurred at 6.30am in the chemical storage area of the plant, which is located in the Gort Road Industrial Estate. The plant, which is owned by Essilor Ireland, manufactures ophthalmic corrective lenses. It has 310 people employed there.

Employees were evacuated from the building, while six units of the fire brigade from Ennis and Shannon attended the scene. 50 of the plant’s night shift workers were in the building when the incident occurred.

It is thought two drums of 98 per cent sulphuric acid fell from a pallet while they were being moved with one of the drums bursting.

No one was injured in the incident though one man was brought to Ennis General Hospital, “just as a precaution” a company spokesperson confirmed yesterday.

Employees returned to work later on Friday while a full clean up of the storage has taken place, the spokesperson said.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Health and Safety Authority were informed of the incident. An EPA inspector visited the site and verified that the spill- age was contained.

In a statement, Jim Crampton, General Manager, outlined the details of the spill. “At approximately, 6.30am Organic Lens Manufacturing had an accidental spillage of 250 litres of sulphuric acid in the chemical storage area. As part of our plant emergency procedures, the plant was evacuated and the local fire brigade alerted,” he said.

Mr Crampton also thanked emergency services and employees for their assistance.

He added, “The fire brigade are assisting the company with the clean up procedures. There were no injuries to any of our employees and the plant is returning to full production. All relevant statutory bodies have being notified. We thank the fire brigade staff and our employees for their assistance.”

The incident is the first of its kind to have occurred at the plant, which opened in Ennis in 1991.

Human Resources manager Amy O’Leary explained that a “small” chemical spill had previously taken place but this had been dealt with at the time by fully trained and equipped in house staff. “We’ve never had the fire services out here before,” she added.

Essilor is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of ophthalmic lenses. The company has been in Ireland since 1973 when a glass manufacturing facility was first established in Limerick.

FINE Gael have blown their best ever chance of taking a third seat in Clare by only running three candidates in last week’s election. That is according to a survey of FG county councillors conducted by The Clare People in which 10 of the 12 councillors, including unsuccessful candidate Tony Mulcahy, agreeing that a major tactical mistake had been made.

The vast majority of councillors said that either east Clare’s Joe Cooney or north Clare’s Martin Conway should have been added to the ticket – with some describing the move to run just three candidates as “gutless” and “lacking ambition”.

Only one councillor agreed that the three candidate strategy was the right one with one other declining to comment.

“The Fine Gael strategy of leaving north and west Clare with no candidate for the first time in history was a big mistake. This was one of the reasons why Dr Hillery (FF), James Breen (Ind) and Michael McNamara (Lab), who got a lot of votes in the area, did so well,” said Cllr Martin Conway – who yesterday announced his intention to run for the Seanad.

“Fine Gael at national strategy were made aware of this situation but the chose not to listen to the grass roots. They were well briefed by the organisation here in Clare.

Cllr Tony Mulcahy, who won 7,438 votes in Friday’s election, also said that strategy was a mistake saying that there was “definitely a case for saying that we could have ran another candidate – either Joe or Martin”.

There was also a feeling amongst the Fine Gael councillors that a third seat would have guaranteed a Clare seat at the cabinet table.

East Clare councillors Pat Burke said that “the morning that Tony Killeen retired I feel that Martin Conway should have been added to the ticket in north Clare” while Clarecastle’s Paul Murphy said that “a third candidate in north Clare it would have given us a serious shot at at taking that third seat”.

THE CREATION of hundreds of jobs in the north Clare and south Galway area have been put on hold following the news that construction work on the € 300 million Gort to Tuam motorway is to be delayed.

Work on the Public Private Partnership (PPP) was due to commence earlier this month but the National Roads Authority (NRA) have confirmed this the project has experienced difficulties due to problems obtaining funding from supporting banks.

This is the second delay which has struck the motorway, which will be used by hundreds of Clare commuters each day when completed, following a four month delay in signing contracts with the projects main contractors, the the BAM/Balfour Beatty Consortium, last September.

This delay in signing the contracts caused the construction start-time for the motorway to be put back from November of 2010 to January of 2011.

In October of 2010 a spokesperson from the NRA confirmed to the Clare People that “despite rumours to the contrary” construction work on the motorway would begin in early 2011. Despite these reassurances NRA spokesperson, Sean O’Neill, confirmed over the weekend that construction work would be delayed on the project. Mr O’Neill also said that the NRA was still committed to the 57-kilometre project and hoped that that matter would be resolved soon.

“This delay has arisen due to concerns on the part of the funding banks relating to the sovereign debt situation in Ireland, and these concerns have impacted on the timing of progressing to financial close,” he said.

It had been expected that work on the project, which would complete the Ennis to Galway motorway, will be completed by 2014 however, it is not clear when construction work on the motorway will now be able to begin.

The delay comes as a blow to the business community in north Clare and south Galway with a number of local companies expected to act as suppliers and sub contractors to the main development team.

It is also expected that the influx of workers would give a boost to the local economy.

Once completed the motorway will connect the Gort/Crusheen bypass to the M6 motorway east of Oranmore – bypassing Ardrahan, Kilcolgan and Clarinbridge. It is expected to reduce the commute time between Ennis and Galway by 15 minutes.

A MEMBER of the Clare Travelling community may soon be granted a guaranteed seat on Clare County Council, thanks to a new proposal from the chairperson of Clare County Council’s Traveller Accommodation Committee, Cllr Brian Meaney (GP).

At Friday’s Clare Active Citizenship Network debate for Clare’s General Election candidates, Cllr Meaney put forward the proposal that one seat should be temporally ring-fenced for a member of the Travelling community.

Speaking to The Clare People after the meeting, Cllr Meaney admitted that the Clare’s multi-million strategy for the Travelling community was a failure.

“We are in a situation now where the Traveller way of life seems to be at odds with the rest of the community. The policies of the past have not worked and we can’t keep employing those policies and expect that they will work. One way that we can resolve this is to include the minority group in local government – this is done with the Inuit people in parts of Canada and the Maori people in New Zealand,” he said.

“Traveller-specific accommodation has not worked – that is saying something considering all the millions that have been spent on it – and I am not in the business of making mistakes. We have to make this work – there are responsibilities to make this work.

“This is something that is practiced in a lot of democracies to provide a seat in a local assembly for a minor- ity. This is not something that would be popular in local government, it wouldn’t be popular among elected people and I’m not sure that this would be a popular in the Green Party, this is something that I am putting forward.”

According to Cllr Meaney, his proposal should allow for member of the Travelling community to be elected without assistance in future local elections in Clare.

“This is something that would be introduced as a temporary measure during a period of transition – after that I would expect that people from the Travelling community could be elected on their own bat. This would be a temporary measure – maybe for the lifetime of one or two local elections in Clare,” he said. “It is necessary that we begin to approach the Traveller situation in a new way. We need to move away from a dependency situation – where Travelling people are treated as dependents – we need to ensure that all the people can participate in our entire society. This will require a change of attitudes from all sections of our society.”

THERE’S a line of traffic up College Road towards the imposing old convent building that stands sentinel over what could be described as the leafy Ennis suburb just after you cross the Rhine into the Lifford are of Ennis.

Erasmus House dates from the 1770s and was originally a private residence before became a convent, but more recently housed both Maoin Cheoil and Chláir and the Ennis Language School.

In their own way both the Maoin Cheoil and language school hit at the source of all the activity. There’s both music and language, albeit it’s more England than Ennis, cockney not Clare.

Adults and children alike snake around the back of the building to a small church hall that’s hidden away. And, in a way it’s appropriate that this is the new rehearsal venue for the society – an old religious house for the society that came to Ennis thanks to the oldest established residents in Ennis, the Franciscans.

It was in 1953 that the society, then called the ‘Friary Choral’ under the direction of Fr Eunan had its maiden voyage with ‘The Country Girl’ in the New Hall on Station Road.

It was six more years before the society set sail again with the production of ‘Wild Violets’, but since then the Ennis Musical Society has become one of the staples of the performing arts in Ennis and wider Clare.

And the last 50-plus years reads like an eclectic what’s what of the genre – ‘Calamity Jane’, ‘My Fair Lady’, ‘La Belle Helene’, ‘Orpheus in the Underworld’, ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ and many more.

This year it’s ‘Oliver’. Bill Sikes stomps on stage; the Dodger dances; Fagin figures his next move; Oliver sits at the workhouse table, takes his deepest breath and plucks up the courage from somewhere to say he wants more.

Anyone who saw Carol Reed’s film starring Ron Moody, Oliver Reed and Mark Lester – we all did as a rite of passage – knows the lines by heart, simply by opening the trapdoor of the mind.

‘Oliver, Oliver, never before has a boy wanted more…..’

Yes, Charles Dickens’ victorian classic has always been a winner with the crowds – makes it long over due another ride on the Ennis Musical Society’s carousel. “Oliver never loses its appeal,” says society chairman Jonathon Hopper, “and it’s great to put it on again,” he adds trawling through the online archives to when it was last brought to an Ennis stage.

It was 1990 when the Ennis Musical Society contended for the industry’s Oscars – the Association of Irish Musical Societies awards – when Cecil McDonagh was runner-up in the Best Actor category and Padraig O’Reilly was runner-up in the Supporting Actor role.

“This year we decided we wanted to have something that had children involved,” said musical society chairperson Jonathon Hopper. “The kids loved being involved in shows and ‘Oliver’ is just one of the classic shows that’s brilliant for children. The response we got was absolutely brilliant. We had 80 children audition. Beforehand we were slightly worried whether we’d have enough children turn up. We needed 20 but got 80. People want to see ‘Oliver’ and the kids want to be involved with it. It’s as popular as ever.”

The work on the 2011 production is almost done with now. The sets are built, costumes made, rehearsals ramped up in frequency over the last while as everyone involved close in on showtime in Glór from March 8 to 12.

“It’s a big undertaking every year,” says Hopper, “but a big budget needed to bring everything together, so there’s fundraising involved, people helping out with the sets and the background stuff. There are a lot of people involved and I’d say that the musical society is a family.

“I’m Australian and I decided to come to do the Europe thing for a year and I came to Ireland. I’ve been five years. I was around town, wondering what I’d get involved in and I had the idea ‘what about getting involved in musicals’.

“I had done some in high school. I was working in Shannon at the time and a friend was telling me he was involved in a musical and I said to myself ‘I can do that’. I just turned up and got involved and have been involved ever since.

“It has had a huge impact on myself. I would say that almost everyone I know in Ennis is someone I know through the musical society. To be honest it’s one of the reasons why I ended up staying in the country. It’s a huge part of my life.”

The society itself has been a huge part of Ennis life for countless generations of performers.

Expected Glór to be play to full houses between March 8 and 12.

CLARE’S most important hidden architectural gem will soon be destroyed as a result of rising sea waters. A 700-year-old medieval fishing weir, located on Boarland Rock the estuary of the River Fergus, will be completely destroyed in just 10 years.

According to Dr Aidan O’Sullivan of the School of Archaeology at UCD, the weir is one of the best preserved medieval fishing sites in Europe.

The weir was protected for centu- ries by a large bank of mud at Fergus estuary but changes in the flow of the river in recent years has exposed the structure to the tidal water.

Dr O’Sullivan has been forced to abandon a programme of scientific research on the weir, conducted by a team of UCD experts and a number of local fishermen, because of recent funding cuts to the Irish Heritage Council.

“There is little we can do to preserve the medieval fishing structures because they are totally exposed to the forces of nature on the mudflats, after being buried for centuries be- neath the mud,” he said.

“They are likely to be entirely destroyed within the next ten years. We had hoped that by working with the local community we could record this significant archaeological site before it is destroyed.”

The structure itself is located almost two kilometres from dry land in the very middle of a large network of mudbanks and water channels. The site can only be accessed by boat for a few weeks each year when the water level on the Fergus is at its lowest.

“We can see wooden ropes with knots tying together the structure and most remarkably, we have even found woven, conical baskets intact in the clays at the ends of the weirs. It is almost as if someone had walked off and left these baskets there last year,” continued Dr O’Sullivan.

The team from UCD has been assisted in his research of the weir by local fishermen in the Clarecastle, including Flann Considine.

“Flann knows the Fergus like the back of his hand. He is very knowledgeable about the tides, the currents, submerged rocks and the likely impact of changing weather condi- tions on the boat,” said archaeologist Conor McDermott.

“It’s simple. We wouldn’t be able to investigate and record these archaeological sites without his help and that of his colleagues.”

Dr O’Sullivan will speak at the Temple Gate Hotel in Ennis on Tuesday, March 1, at 8.30pm.

Dr O’Sullivan has close family connections with Clare. His father John O’Sullivan (1938-2006) played hurling with Killaloe Smith O’Briens. He captained the Clare minor team in the 1950s and played senior hurling with Clare in 1957.