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THE value of an insightful analyst is immeasurable. That’s why in the lead up to Kilmurry Ibrickane’s All-Ire- land quarter-final clash with Tir Cho- naill Gaels in the Emerald Grounds in Ruislip this weekend, Paul Hehir’s vast knowledge into both sides can- not be overestimated.

For the uninitiated, Hehir has played at the highest level for both Clare and London, was part of the all conquering Doonbeg side that cap- tured several county titles at the turn of the century as well as a Munster crown in 1998. He has also played a sizeable part of his career for Lon- don side Tara also with brother Sen- an, picking up a London and British championship in 2003. Add in the fact that he played against Tir Cho- naill Gaels in this year’s league final and also represented Doonbeg in the 2008 Clare senior championship and it’s abundantly clear that there is no better judge of this game than Hehir.

First to the strengths and weakness- es of Tir Chonaill Gaels.

“Basically they are a just a well or- ganised club and the best run club in London to be honest with you. They have a good backroom staff with regards to the people running the club and have just got the commit- ment from the players really. Their strength mainly lies with their work- rate coming from the back. Their backs are very good and very tidy and they have a good strong mid- field. Basically the only thing they would be lacking really would be a panel of players. They have got a good 13 or 14 good players whereas the Kilmurry lads would have a good bench which will proably be decisive I reckon on the day.”

Having won four out of the last five London championships, the Gaels have ample experience of All-Ireland

quarter-finals but have been rather

unfortunate not to have advanced further, mainly due to a lack of belief according to Hehir.

“It’s a combination of things re- ally. What it really comes down to, just as in the county team, is whether they believe collectively that they can actually beat a team from home. They have come close in the last few years and it’s never easy for a team that comes over to London whether it’s inter-county or a club match and it would be good for London football in general if they did pull off a shock. Although It wouldn’t really be much of a shock in London because they are a good club team. They have got great backs, a good midfield and as I have said three or four decent for- wards. They are also full of inter-

county experience with lads from Roscommon, Leitrim and Donegal, guys who have played at the highest level back home but it’s just about be- lieving that they can win.”

Kilmurry Ibrickane’s chances of advancing to the semi-final stage have been made all the more difficult by the fact that they will have to take on the perennial London champions in their own back yard, a daunting prospect as Hehir outlines from per- sonal experience.

“Coming over to London is never easy for any team. I know that myself when I came over with Clare. You somehow have it in the back of your head that they are still only based in London and that you should be beat- ing them but any team that comes

over to London never has it handy.”

Still when pushed for a verdict, he gives a slight nod to Kilmurry Ibrickane on their strength of their overall squad.

“IT mean there is no taking away from what Kilmurry Ibrickane have achieved. I think they have only been beaten once in the last two years which says a lot for the quality they have. They have a great youth devel- Opment system coming through and it seems to have extended to the sen- ior team. They have great old heads of Johnny Daly, Odran O’Dwyer and Peter and Michael O’Dwyer as well and then there is the new breed coming through with the likes of Enda Coughlan and Mark McCarthy. There is a great combination and they

seem to mix it very well going all the way up to Micheal McDermott at the atosbene

“At the end of the day, it’s going to be a great game in fairness. They are two good footballing sides, two tough teams and at the end of the day, it’s just going to come down to who wants it more and overall I think that Kilmurry Ibrickane might edge it purely on the strength of the bench they have, despite the massive dent that Odran O’Dwyer’s injury will have.”

THE Slieve Callan Wind Farm will generate more than €750,000 a year for the 30 farmers whose land could form part of the proposed de- velopment. According to documents lodged with Clare County Council last week, the proposed wind farm will generate at least €775,000 for the land owners – who will retain ownership of their land, as well as €40,000 to local community groups and €500,000 for Clare County Council.

This means over the first 20 years of the project the local landowners stand to gain more than €15 million while Clare County Council will benefit to the tune of €10 million.

The proposed development consists of 31 wind turbines, each 80 metres in height and with a three blade ro- tary blade with a diameter of 90 me- BKey

Should this project go ahead in it’s current form it would become the largest wind energy facility on the is- land of Ireland, dwarfing the overall output of the current largest, the Al- tahullion windfarm near Dungiven in Northern Ireland.

According to the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) lodged with Clare County Council last week the plant has the ability to generate elec- tricity for 59,189 homes, or roughly the combined number of households in Clare and Limerick City.

This would mean that the entire site would produce roughly the same amount of electricity as the Ard-

nacrusha Hydroelectric plant, which is currently Ireland main source of green energy.

Construction on the site 1s likely to cost in excess of €200 million with more than 40 per cent of this outlay,

or €80 million to be spent in relation to on-site works. It is envisioned that in excess of 250 people will be em- ployed on site during the 18 months of construction.

According to the EIS, the declining population and low socio-economic standing of the Slievecallan study area make it the ideal spot for the de- velopment of such a large scale wind energy facility.

“The analysis of census data for the study area shows that population growth has been significantly lower here than at county and national lev- el, with population decline recorded between 2002 and 2006,” it says.

“Overall, the electoral division that make up the study area were catego- rised as being in the ‘20 per cent most extremely deprived’ and °*20 per cent somewhat deprived’ groupings.”

TEAM coach Liam McHale takes the subs who saw no action for some exercise, while selector James Foran is with those who had game time for some stretches, while Micheal Mc- Dermott stands in between the two different groups and reflects on a very indifferent day.

‘Few positives,” he says cutting to the chase. “It wasn’t a good enough performance for the Clare public coming into Cooraclare to see what Clare football is going to be about in 2010.

“It wasn’t a good performance — we can’t hide behind anything. The one thing that disappointed me the most, and we’ve been working on it a lot in training, is creating goal chances. We never looked like threatening the goal there and maybe it’s a lack of belief in players.”

Some early doom and gloom then, before McDermott reminds himself that Clare are only two weeks into their season, and University College Cork are at it since the start of the new academic year last October.

‘They were much fitter than us, but the purpose of today was that even though it was a losing situation, we have learned a lot. The most impor- tant match we’re facing into was not this McGrath Cup game but the first league game against Wicklow on /eoje)abe- ba aae)

“This was a bigtime learning ex- perience — it was an opportunity for fellas to show that they were of in- ter-county standard, that they going to be ready for the type of game we wanted to play, that they were going to be ready for a battle.

“We learned a lot today and from

that point of view this was beneficial, but we know that we have a hell of a lot of work to do and two weeks training that we’ve had isn’t going to change that.

“Our use of the ball, or forward play was weak and there weren’t enough guys showing for the ball and hungry enough to win it. We started extremely well for ten or 15 minutes but then ran out of steam and the level of fitness was poor. But listen, fitness 1s something you can work on, but football is the most important thing to get right as well.”

And, to get those frontline players on sabbatical, or on Kilmurry Ibrick- ane duty back into the fold by Febru- aoe

“T would like, depending on what’s going to happen with Kilmurry Ibrickane next Sunday — we don’t want to look beyond that but I’d like to have some of those players avail- able for the Wicklow game,” he says

“We need those two points on the board — it’s our first home match of the season and we need to win it. We have a hell of a lot of work to do, but this is where it starts in the next cou- ple of months is going to be vital as regards the future of Clare football for 2010.

“It’s going to be a tough three weeks. We have learned a lot about individual players; we’ve learned a lot about the team as a unit and it’s about getting things right for three weeks and if we come out with two points in Cusack Park against Wick- low in three weeks time, today will all have been worthwhile.”

THE proposed wind farm at Slieve Callan will have a number of “slight” impacts on the elements of the sur- round environment, according to the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) lodged with planner at Clare County Council last week.

Along with some short term dif- ficulties during the construction phase the EIS has flagged some

longer term environmental concern in relation to the project.

These concerns are in relation to the noise generated by the windfarms and traffic flow in the Baer.

In addition to this the proposal ar- gues that the windfarm will have a significant positive impact on tour- ism in Clare.

According to the EIS, noise pol- lution from windfarms can come

both from the internal workings of the wind farm as well as the noise of the blades cutting through the wind.

‘Advances in turbine technology and design have resulted in reduced noise emissions. Above wind speeds of eight to twelve metres per second, background noise begins to exceed turbine noise.

“Therefore it is within wind speeds range of four to eight metres per sec-

ond that turbine noise is typically most audible,” read the EIS.

“At wind speeds greater than eight metres per second, noise generated by wind has the effect of largely masking wind turbine noise.”

The document also states that there is a slight possibility of injury to humans as a result of frozen ice building up on the turbines.

“The guidelines state that there is a very remote possibility of injury

to people from flying fragments of ice or from a damaged blade,” read the EIS.

“However, most blades are com- posite structures with no bolts or separate components and the danger is therefore minimised.”

Each windfarm will also be fitted with a special anti-vibration sen- sors, which is designed to detect any imbalance caused by icing on the blades.

A MAIDEN voyage for the good ship Clare under Micheal McDer- mott, Liam McHale and James Foran, but more than that, it was also a maiden voyage for Clare under the new experimental rules in place for the duration of the McGrath Cup and National League.

And, thanks to those new rules implemented by Kerry official John Lynch, Clare can always say that they at least enjoyed one victory on the day — the tag of being more au fait with the rules than their UCC op- ponents.

All because UCC were pulled up on five occasions for handpasses that were given without the closed fist, while Clare only infringed this rule once over the hour. As for the mark, there was a noticeable lack of high fielding on the day, but Clare did edge this stat too by 2-1 thanks to Alan Clohessy and Gary Brennan catching kickouts in the first half.

Still, despite this hollow victory, Clare manager Micheal McDermott believes the mark idea, though good in principle is doomed to failure, gamesmanship even. “The mark is something that I don’t think will

work,’ he says.

“Teams will get clever and there will be more breaking ball than field- ing in the middle of the field. The idea is good to try and introduce high fielding, but I think more teams will concentrate on trying to break the ball to make sure a guy doesn’t catch it and you’re going to be back to the same old situation again.

“But the mark is there for the league and we’ll have to work with it. When you win the mark, you are waiting for the whistle, rather than using the ball quickly. When you do that you give the opposition a chance to fun- nel back. We have no problem with the rule being in place. We have to learn to use the ball quickly when we make a mark. That’s something we have to work on.”

As for the fist pass, the work looks already done. “We were good on the fist pass,” says McDermott, giving the rule the thumbs up. “We worked hard on the fist pass in training, whereas UCC suffered from it be- cause it’s not in place for the Siger- son Cup. But the advantage we got in the game was something we didn’t punish.”

You can’t win them all, one sup- poses.

THE NUMBER of companies in Clare to find themselves on the rails has more than trebled in the last four years.

25 Clare companies went into re- celvership, examinership or liquida- tion in the year ended December 31, compared to seven during 2005.

The figures released by financial advisory firm, FGS show that just one in three examinerships were successful last year. One of the com- panies which rallied and stayed open with the aid of examinership was the Clare-based Lynch hotel group.

In all 1,570 Irish companies went into receivership, examinership or liquidation last year. The largest cas- ualties have been in the construction industry with 593 companies in this sector – 37 per cent of the total.

And most worrying is that the in- formation does not point to a slow- down as 28 per cent of the failures occurred in the last three months of 2009.

CLARE senior hurling manager Ger O’Loughlin has called for patience from supporters as he looks to step up the rebuilding process to make Clare a serious force in hurling once rae) Kor

O’Loughlin was speaking after his side claimed victory in their opening game of the year against college side WIT and in a frank assessment, the two time All-Star winner feels that this is a three year development plan due to the low average age and inex- perience of the current squad.

“It’s a very young panel and I hon- estly do believe that this set-up will be three years before we will actu- ally see how good they are going to be. I hope people have the patience because we have only something like five lads over 25 so you can’t expect miracles.”

Clare’s All-Ireland Under 21 suc- cess has brought renewed hope to the county after a disastrous year at senior level but despite calling up a large percentage of that Under 21 squad, assilimilating them to senior hurling will take time according to O’ Loughlin.

“There are new lads on the scene and you could see there today how enthusiastic they were. They wanted to be on there, they were trying hard, they were hooking and blocking and as I say we will all learn as we’re go- ing along I presume.”

Next up for Clare will be a quarter- final clash with All-Ireland finalists and Munster champions Tipperary in what will be a repeat of last year’s final. Clare have played the Premier on five competitive occasions over the last two years, with their only victory coming in last year’s Wa- terford Crystal Cup in Ogonnelloe; Clare’s first senior trophy in eleven years. That game will now take place next Tuesday evening, January 26th in Borrisoleigh at 8pm but for O’Loughlin, game time is still his main motivation at the moment.

‘These matches are great if the weather can improve because you could see there that this 1s what we were lacking there today. We have Six or seven sessions done on the physical side of it and you can even see that the lads were able to hold out there for the 62 or 63 minutes but we need more hurling.”

THE COMPANY behind plans to extract 4.5 tonnes of material from a site in Ruan has appealed Clare County Council’s decision to reject the proposal which was supported by a number of bogus submissions.

Last month, the Council refused planning permission to Lagan Bitu- men Ltd for the 45-acre quarry at Ardkearney, Ruan over fears that it would pose a risk to traffic safety.

The Council claimed that the com- pany did not own the land to upgrad- ing the site and consequently refused planning permission – a move wel- comed by opponents to the plan.

However, in their appeal, Lagan Bitumen state that it is difficult to reconcile the Council’s claim that the proposed upgrade represents a traffic hazard when in fact, it repre- sents a major design improvement in the existing junction.

They state that the roads upgrade will be on land registered by Ennis Supply Ltd. and landowner, Stephen Flaherty is agreeable in principle to the works being carried out on his Voce) route

Lagan Bitumen and is one of the Lagan Group of companies and the material extracted from the site will be used by another of the Lagan Group sites — the Irish asphalt site at Tulla.

The appeal states that site inves- tigations have established that the material available at Ardkearney is eminently suitable for use in the Tul- la plant as it has been rated as high quality limestone.

A decision is due on the appeal later this year.

CLARE TD and Minister for State Tony Killeen (FF) is only too aware of what benefits the National Color- ectal Screening Service can bring to potential cancer suffers in Ireland.

The junior minister who was di- agnosed with bowel cancer last year said the announcement of the screen- ing service by the minister for health was positive, “as the key intervention in cancer of any kind is early diag- nosis”.

“If I went a bit sooner I would have

escaped the trauma and discomfort of chemotherapy,” he maintained.

“If I went later the outcome would be much more negative,” he added.

Announcing the new screening service, Minister Mary Harney said, “The next and most important clini- cal priority for population screening has been colorectal screening. This is acritically important development for both men and women. Colorectal screening has two great benefits – early detection of cancer, improving treatment outcomes, and the detec- tion of pre-cancerous growths.”

The first screening programme will be for people aged between 60 and oe,

“We are starting this year with the detailed preparations, so that the pro- gramme will commence screening in 2012 for the people involved on a national basis irrespective of where people live,” she said.

Minister Killeen added, “This is one of the diagnosis that tends to be very accurate, and with early diagno- sis the recovery rate is very high.”

“When an opportunity like this (screening) is put to people they usu-

ally use it,” he said.

The Clare Minister admitted that men are not the best however for attending doctors for tests, but said there is usually a positive if you go pm Ansar

“There 1s no advantage of going too late,’ he warned.

Colorectal cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer among men and women in Ireland.

About 2,200 new cases are diag- nosed every year and approximately 1,000 people die from it.

Free screening will initially be of-

fered to 400,000 people in the 60 to 69 age group. The programme will be operated by the National Cancer Screening Service in cooperation with the Health Service Executive and will be extended to all those aged 55 to 74 years of age “as logistics and resources allow”’.

The 60 to 69 year age group con- tains about 50 per cent of all cases of colorectal cancer in the 55 to 74 year age band, and other countries includ- ing England, Sweden and Finland have aimed their programmes on this 60 to 69 year age group also.

ST VINCENT de Paul in Ennis is encouraging people with time on their hands to join up as volunteers. As the organisation launches its an- nual volunteer drive, its president Cathal Oakes is urging people to attend its open night on Wednesday next, January 27 (Temple Gate Hotel at 8.30pm).

With unemployment rates on the increase due to the downturn, vol- unteering across the board is on the increase in Clare.

Those who get on board as vol- unteers with St Vincent de Paul are assigned to various projects. These include becoming part of the hospi-

tal visitation team or as home volun- lo ie

St Vincent de Paul also runs a hos- tel and shop in Ennis, but these are primarily managed by staff rather than volunteers.

“We have a hospital visitation team and we go into St Joseph’s Hospital once a fortnight. We also have family visitations in Ennis and surrounds,” he said.

Young people interested in getting involved have the choice of joining schools branches of St Vincent de Paul. There is one up and running in Shannon and plans are in place to set up branches in schools in Ennis and Kildysart.

He is encouraging people to attend

the open night.

“We tell them what the commit- ment is like and if they are interested in becoming a member we set up training,’ said Mr Oakes.

“Those involved are from a very broad spectrum. We find that if one person joins, they tell people at work and more people join from that source,” he said.

The organisation is expecting to hear dozens of queries from people interested in volunteering, but would be hopeful of recruiting a dozen vol- OnE

“Countywide we have about 120 volunteers at the moment. We are looking to recruit 10 or 12 commit- ted members in the Ennis area,’ he

added.

“People used to come in in dribs and drabs, but now they come in and do three nights’ training and they are volunteers as quickly as possible,” said Mr Oakes.

Those who sign up next week will take part in training over the coming weeks and this will be completed by the end of February. They then take part in the various initiatives spear- headed by the organisation. The organisation is busy, particularly to- wards the end of the year.

“December is by far the busiest time of the year. It was particularly busy in 2009 because of the floods and the lack of the Christmas bonus,” said Mr Oakes.