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THE Kilrush Art Group is making history as well as beautiful paintings this year.

The talented group are in their 25th year and are looking forward to an- other successful exhibition begin- ning at the end of the month.

A mixture of founding members and new citizens welcomed to the town from abroad makes up a dy- namic group with a variety of sub- jects and techniques.

For the first time ever the exhibi- tion will display work in ink, thanks to its newest member Annette Pasz- Zkowsta.

The Polish national has settled in the west Clare capital with her part- ner and baby and brings a new lease

of life to the group.

Avril Brand also brings an inter- national flavour to the group. The South African born artist will exhibit a number of paintings inspired by her homeland.

Cheetahs, lions and other animals not usually seen in west Clare will now adorn the walls in the Kilrush Library thanks to her vivid paint- TbNTSaSe

The number of new Irish in the group bring with them not just their talent but stories of their home Ee TiteKe

The Kilrush Art Group was formed by Connie Farrell. Three of the origi- nal members – Breda Clancy, Dodo Kelly and Jackie Black – are still painting with the group.

Of the 15 members in the club a

dozen will be exhibiting.

The paintings include acrylic, oil, water and ink and prices range from €65 to €1,/00.

“There is quite a few people that follow our paintings and will be some of the first through the door,’ said group member Pauline Dunleavy.

Many of these collectors follow the works of these keen amateurs and each year add a new painting to their growing collection.

The paintings that make up the 2008 exhibition feature scenery, ab- Stract, humans and for the first time ever animals.

Most if not all of the scenery paint- ings are inspired locally.

“You can’t go outside the scenery in west Clare. It is breath taking,” said Ms Dunleavy.

The Kilrush Art Group meet every Friday evening for three hours, and have a tutor visit twice a year. Some- times the group venture to east Clare for classes and workshops.

All new members are encouraged to join the sociable and friendly club by contacting Pauline in Anchor Crafts, Kilrush.

The exhibition opens in Kilrush L1- brary on Thursday, July 31, and runs until August 22 during library open- ing hours.

A COUPLE and their two young children have been forced out of their Lahinch home because they could no longer put up with abuse from their 68-year-old ‘neighbour from hell’.

As their next-door-neighbour was jailed for six months for harassment of the couple, he was ordered by a judge to “end the bullying”.

The revelations of the abuse emerged in a case before Lisdoon- varna District Court last week, where both husband and wife spoke of how they had to leave their home and put it up for sale.

Robert and Eleanor Kennedy gave evidence in the case of Michael Mc- Namara, of Moymore North, Lahi- nch, who was charged with harassing them, between May 2005 and Janu- ary 2006.

In imposing sentence on McNama- ra, Judge Joseph Mangan said, “It’s time to end the bullying.”

Robert Kennedy, a businessman in Lahinch, told the court that he and his wife Eleanor and their two young sons – then aged five and two – moved into their new home at Moymore North, Lahinch, in January 2005.

He said that prior to buying the house, the previous residents had claimed to him that the next-door- neighbour had abused them. How- ever, he and his wife loved the house and the area and had never met Mr McNamara so they decided to go ahead with the purchase.

He said that everything was fine for the first three months, but when a friend of his went to put a fence around the house, Mr McNamara – a retired builder who hailed from Limerick – became aggressive to- WeNnelaveeee

Mr Kennedy said that Mr McNa- mara later shouted “abuse and ob- ee NLS Coes Ob Nee e

“He called me a w***er, a f***er, a black b***ard and that I should f*** off back to where I came from,” he ALOR

He said this behaviour prompted him to be concerned for the safety of his two young boys.

“My wife feared for her safety. We had to move house. We couldn’t take any more of the shouting, the abuse,’ he said.

“I had a strong fear for the safety of my children. There were cameras pointing over to our yard where our

children were playing,’ he said.

Mr Kennedy denied a suggestion by McNamara’s solicitor Charles Foley that he had moved his client’s fence without his permission.

He also denied that he had hit Mc- Namara. “I didn’t touch Mr McNa- mara,’ he said.

Mr Foley said “the reason the bad blood arose between the parties was because Mr Kennedy erected a high fence.”

Robert’s wife Eleanor told the court she could not believe their neighbour could be so aggressive.

She said McNamara started putting newspapers up on his windows and the only time the abuse would let up was when he was sick.

She said they moved away from the house and after they put it up for sale, McNamara painted his gable wall five or six different colours.

Referring to the fence, she said, ‘People put those fences up in Moy- more. The fence is fine. People actu- ally want privacy nowadays.”

Retired Sergeant Michael Gallery, who investigated the matter, said that in an interview with gardai, McNa- mara said the allegations were all lies. He denied shouting obscenities

and spitting at Robert Kennedy and denied staring at Eleanor.

‘I did not harass her or her husband in any way,” he told gardai.

He was asked, “Did you hear of the term ‘neighbour from hell’?” and re- plied, “If they were telling the truth, I’d say I was the neighbour from hell.”

Judge Joseph Mangan convicted McNamara. Inspector Michael Gal- lagher, prosecuting, said, “This is an awful situation the injured parties found themselves in. You wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

He said the Kennedys would ap- preciate if McNamara cleaned up his house, so that they would be in a po- sition to sell their home. “They want some finality to this,” he said.

Mr Foley told the court that his cli- ent was in poor health and suffers from heart disease.

‘He has no previous convictions in this entire life. He is a single man. What happened was he got upset at the high fence,” he said.

He said his client would undertake to clean up his house.

In addition to the jail term, McNa- mara was fined €3,000. A bond was fixed in the event of an appeal.

CLARE County Council mightn’t be the first organization to spring to mind when it comes to promoting rock music but the local authority is playing an unexpected role in en- couraging new musical talent in the Shannon area.

Through its County Arts Office, the council is giving support for the Shannon Music Project by providing bursaries for thirteen talented young musicians which enabled them attend the Ennis Guitar and Rock School workshops in Shannon last week.

County council’s Traditional Arts Coordinator, Tara Connaghan, who is based in Shannon, said the work- shops provided a great opportunity to work with community groups in stom D acre

The Shannon Music Project (SMP) is a Clare Youth Service project based in Shannon which provides young people aged 15-25 with op- portunities to get involved in musical events, avail of practice space and high quality musical equipment to Lou COwremelee

It has been running for over ten years and this year received some funding from Clare VEC and Shan- non Community Grant Scheme to help with the cost of new equipment purchases. The project has organised bands nights, acoustic performances and competitions in Shannon and also liaises with Ennis Music Project for similar events and workshops.

Last week, the Ennis Guitar and Rock School ran workshops in Shan-

non which included tuition by profes- sional tutors on guitar, drums vocals, CD recording and songwriting.

The Ennis Guitar and Rock School was established five years ago and runs weekly classes throughout the year from its Clonroad Business Park location and will commence beginner classes in Scariff, Kilrush, Shannon and Ennistymon from Sep- tember onwards.

Further information on the Clare Arts Office can be had from www. clarelibrary.ie/arts while informa-

tion on the Shannon Music Project can be had from Cathal Dillon in the Shannon Youth Office www.clarey- outhservice.org.

For information on the Ennis Guitar and Rock School call 065 6822516 or visit www.ennisguitarschool.ie.

THE managing director of Aer Arann has claimed that there has been an exodus of at least six carriers out of Shannon Airport since Rya- nair established its base there.

Addressing the Dail’s Transport committee, Gary Cullen said that the downside to Ryanair’s entry into an airport “is that its sheer strength dis- courages other carriers operating out of that airport”.

Two million Ryanair passengers are expected to fly out of Shannon this year and Mr Cullen said, “It is well known within the industry that other carriers avoid those airports we refer to as Ryanair airports like

the plague because they cannot earn a profit from operating out of them. The seventh carrier to withdraw was Aer Lingus, which withdrew the Shannon-Heathrow route.”

Mr Cullen said, “I am not privy to the books of Shannon Airport and I do not know whether that develop- ment is a good or a bad one. One could argue that Shannon Airport has gone further down the road with Ryanair but it has the transatlantic business as a balance.

“One can observe that Ryanair is a highly successful airline at driving volume through an airport, of that there is no doubt. It is a major suc- cess and good luck to it. There are downsides and other implications.

“With regard to Aer Arann operat- ing out of Shannon Airport, this is linked to what I have just said. We are wary about beginning to operate any UK services out of Shannon because of the strength of Ryanair there.

“We continually talk to long-haul airlines and if we get an opportunity to provide a feeder service contract to a long-haul carrier, we certainly would be interested in doing that.”

Mr Cullen did, however, open up the possibility of Aer Arann putting in place a new Shannon-Dublin serv- ice if it can agree with Aer Lingus to share on the route.

In answers to Clare TD, Timmy Dooley, Mr Cullen said, “Aer Arann operated the Shannon-Dublin route,

but withdrew from it because we could not make any money on tt.

“If we could reach an agreement with Aer Lingus whereby it would operate the morning flight and we would operate the evening flight and we could share in that way, we would do that, as that would make sense. We know that if we were to oper- ate that route on our own without a link with another carrier and had to compete directly with Ryanair, that would not work.”

Only last January, Ryanair pulled its Shannon-Dublin service after only two months on the route. He said, “If carriers co-shared the morning and evening flights, they could make a go out it.”

that St Michael’s Community Col- lege in Kilmihil is the only second- ary school in the county that does not have traffic calming measures.

“Flashing lights need to be put d1- rectly in front of the school and on the approach,” he said.

He said it was a health and safety concern to have a school of approxi- mately 300 students and no measures to reduce the speed of on coming meena blen

Cllr Curtain was a teacher in the school for 29 years, before he retired. The mixed school is close to a junc- tion and on a local road with the ac- quired speed limit.

Cllr Curtain said that he has raised the issue on a number of occasions at County Council area meetings and would be doing so again next week.

He had been told that there was no funding as yet assigned to the project but funding would be sought.

Cllr Curtain believes that the issue is urgent, however, and must be ad- dressed immediately and certainly before the students return to school in September. “It is an immediate concern relating to road safety,’ he said. The area meeting will take place in Kilrush on Monday next.

THE purveyors of doom _ were quick to write Cork’s obituary after their laboured win over Dublin last week. Their lacklustre performance prompted rumours of unrest in the camp and Galway were installed as hot favourites for Saturday’s All-Ire- land qualifier.

But a team is always at their most dangerous when written off and Cork defied the odds and even a numbert- cal disadvantage to overturn a two point half-time deficit and produce arguably their best championship performance in two years.

The final whistle was greeted like an All-Ireland win as players ran the length of the field and thousands of supporters invaded the turf of Sem-

ple Stadium, singing and chanting for over an hour after the game.

Cork manager Gerald McCarthy was equally elated but had also a bone to pick with the media over the treatment of the players in the lead up to the game.

“Tl think whether we won or lost, I think it was very unfair, the press treatment that these bunch of players got from the press during the week. I think the way our players were writ- ten off so completely but not just that, they were ridiculed in some eon

“There were a lot of things said about the style of play, there was questioning whether they would ever last again and some of them mightn’t make it through this year. That was disappointing, that a bunch of play-

ers that they are and what they have given to the game and the determi- nation they bring to their training and everything they do in hurling. Somebody questioned ‘had they lost the love for hurling’ in one of the pa- pers during the week and I think the answer to that was out there for eve- rybody to see today.”

Still, he could understand some of the criticism after the Dublin per- formance but explained that it was fatique that affected his players that day after a hard week of training in order to prepare them for the long road ahead.

“Well it’s easy to do off the back of one or two bad results. People are very anxious to look further down the line and say that this team is fin- ished. When you look at the Tipper-

ary game, we really had that game there for the winning but we went into a valley period after twenty min- utes and that affected us.

“But the way we played for the first twenty minutes, if we could have sus- tained that for most of the game, we certainly would be winning many, many games. SO we were very, very determined and the Dublin game last week really brought the critics out but we as a management took a cal- culated risk. We trained the players hard through that week to look be- yond the game with Dublin and per- haps we could have paid the penalty for it but we had to look at this week to get a bit of rest into the players and that’s what we did. That affected the players against Dublin and that’s not taking anything away from Dub-

lin. They hurled very well and they stayed with us in lots of places but that was the reason for it. Our lads were tired.”

So what about the prospect of meet- ing Clare for the fourth time in as many years?

“Tt will be tough, Clare are always tough but to be honest, we hadn’t re- ally looked past Galway. But I can tell you, we are on the crest of a wave and we are going to drive forward. We are not just satisfied with beating Galway, we want to go all the way in this championship and we are quite capable of doing that.”

The fighting spirit is back in Cork. They tore up the script with their teeth on Saturday after the press had fueled their motivation.

Rebels by name, Rebels by nature.

CALLS have been made for the gov- ernment to clarify its position in rela- tion to water charges for schools be- fore the beginning of the new school year this September.

As part of a heated debate at last night’s meeting of Clare County Council, Cllr John Crowe (FG), called on central government to tackle the problem before schools are thrust into more financial difficulty.

“The reality of this is that schools in County Clare are already operat- ing on a shoestring budget. They have to organise endless fundraising to keep the schools going.

“Coupled with this the grants schemes for minor works were cut

last week despite the promises that government would not cut back from the health or the education budgets,” he said.

“Charges should only be levied if the schools use up all of their allow- ance. The schools can’t afford the fees that are being put upon them and we need central government to tackle this situation.”

Speaking on that debate, Green Party councillor Brian Meaney, said that most school welcome the charg- Ae

‘“T’m on the board of management of a number of schools and this has been a bone of contention for some time. Boards of management are looking at this in a positive way rath- er than a negative way,’ he said.

‘School are places where values are learned and thought – schools have no problem paying the charges as long as funding is available in terms of capitation or in other ways to al- low them to meet the charge.”

CUlr Martin Conway (FG) com- mented that the water charges were an example of the underprivileged being hit the worst in times of reces- sion.

“It is a clear example that when we have an economic downturn that the people most in need will suffer,’ he said.

“When the belts need to be tight- ened it’s always the elderly and the young who suffer. The government need to be clear and unambiguous about this.”

IRISH fishermen could finally be set for a slice of good news if a new scheme for utilising over-catch is adopted in the EU.

Speaking at the Council of Agri- culture and Fisheries Ministers in Brussels last Thursday, Clare TD and Junior Minister in the Depart- ment of Agriculture, Tony Killeen, made a proposal to the European Commission for the introduction of a pilot project to address the discard- ing of catches by Irish fishermen.

The Irish Department of Agricul- ture and its agencies the Marine Institute and BIM, in conjunction with the Federation of Irish Fisher- men (FIF), are developing the pilot

project, which is proposed to run for one year.

It will target unavoidable by-catch- es, in particular in the prawn fish- ery, where large scale discarding of marketable fish such as cod, which are caught over quota, is a particular problem.

These fisheries occur in the Irish Sea, Celtic Sea and off the west coast. The overall object will be to use more environmentally-friendly fishing gear to avoid catches of small fish in these fisheries and to reduce the occurrence of discarding of mar- ketable fish that cannot currently be landed under EU law if quotas are exhausted.

“The proposed project would be operated in conjunction with the pro-

ducer organisations that make up the FIF,’ he said.

‘The minister asked Commissioner Borg to give urgent consideration to this new proposal and to bring for- ward EU measures, which would al- low the new pilot project to be imple- mented as soon as possible.

“The additional quota will mean that this small quota can be set aside for unavoidable catches of cod by Irish fishermen in the Celtic Sea. This will help to reduce discarding of marketable cod in this fishery.”

The minister’s proposals, which he presented to Commissioner Borg, would mean that fishermen would be given an incentive to participate in the pilot phase. Vessels targeting prawns would have to be allocated

an additional discard quota by the EU, which would allow the landing of marketable fish that would other- wise be discarded. Fishermen would be allocated a share of the sale price of the fish to cover vessel-running costs. The remainder would be allo- cated to a charity.

Also at the Council of Ministers meeting this week, an amendment to the TAC and Quota Regulation for 2008 is due to be approved that results in an increase of 44 tonnes in Ireland’s allocation of cod in the Celtic Sea.

This increase came after sustained pressure by Ireland, after indications of improvement in the stock came from fisheries scientists earlier this year.

A GROUP which offers support to polio survivors and which 1s spear- headed by a voluntary board of 11 people, including Whitegate man, Hugh Weir, is the most recent char- ity to avail of a special telephone net- working service which makes com- munication easier.

The Post Polio Support Group, a national organisation with almost 750 members around the country is using the Commmunity Network system to keep in touch and for tel- econferencing.

Community Network Ireland is a unique service specifically for the voluntary sector, linking groups by phone so that people can be part of a support group regardless of their mo- bility or geographic location.

Supported financially and techni- cally by BT, the service also allows colleagues in the voluntary sector to stay in touch and attend meetings by providing them with an operator-led conference call service.

The Post Polio group has a number of members in Clare including Hugh in Whitegate and some in Killaloe.

Hugh said, “Many of our members

have decreased mobility and are get- ting on in years.

“They find it difficult to get out to our support group meetings, especial- ly during the winter months which can be very isolating for them.”

The Whitgate man added that the, ‘“PhoneChat, the name we gave to the service, allows polio survivors chat together on a regular basis and is a good example of peer support in ac- none

“The group can share information, exchange ideas or even just listen to each other.

“Working with Community Net-

work Ireland allows BT to offer its unique professional expertise to help build these communities through bet- ter communications,’ a BT spokes- man said.

Carmel O’Connor, Corporate and Social Responsibility Manager, BT added, “Not only is this service the first of its kind in Ireland, it’s a sim- ple and straightforward service that helps create opportunities for social inclusion and positive community engagement so that no matter where you live, what age you are or how mobile you are, you should not feel isolated or alone.”

PASCHAL Carmody was born in Tarbert, north Kerry, 60 years ago. From a family of 13 — nine brothers and three sisters – he attended the local primary school, before board- ing at Rockwell College in Cashel, SoA Ae Bye lae

While in his Leaving Cert year, he had a strong interest in biology and

science and decided to go into medi- cine.

In 1966, he went to university in Galway, where he studied for six years. He passed all but one exam during his years at university. After graduating, he served as an intern at the University College Hospital Gal- way.

During his year-long internship, he served under Dr Murphy for six

months and six months under Dr Bartholomew Driscoll, who special- ised in respiratory, dermatology and AMO Coges (ose

It was while working with Dr Dr- iscoll that he had his first experience with photodynamic therapy.

As the only dermatologist in the west of Ireland, Dr. Driscoll treated dermatology lesions with laser.

Dr Carmody then went to the Jervis

Street Hospital in Dublin where he worked for six months in accident and emergency, six months in the medi- cal wards and a further six moths as a Senior House Officer (SHO).

When he finished in Dublin he worked in Limerick for 18 months. He also worked as an SHO, then spe- cialised in obstetrics and gynaecol- ogy, and later paediatrics.

At the age of 29, he decided to spe-

cialise in obstetrics and gynaecology, but later changed his mind and went into general practice.

In 1976, just as he prepared to emi- grate to take up a position in Mon- tana, the Mid Western Heath Board asked him if he had an interest in taking a position as a GP in Killaloe, or Castleconnell, Co Limerick. He began working as a GP in Killaloe on October 1, 1976.