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THE countdown is on for this year seventh annual Corofin ‘Tradition Festival which open Sunday, Febru- eae

This years festival is crammed which top class performers and in- clude headline concerts featuring Sean Keane from the Chieftains, Liam O’ Flynn, Don Stiffe, John Wyn- ne, John and Jacinta McEvoy, Tim Collins, Brian McNamara, Michael Rooney, Kieran Hanrahan, Fiachna O’Mongain, Liam O’Connor, John Blake and At the Racket.

Overall last year festival worked re- ally well so we decided to leave well

enough alone, so it’s quite a similar style to last year’s festival. We have a lecture and we have the family concerts back again,’ said festival organiser, Padraic O’Reilly.

“The only new thing is the look back on the previous festivals which takes place on the night. We will have slides and a bit of an audio visual show from the six years of the festival. This is the seventh year of the festival so we have called this the seven year itch.

“On Saturday afternoon we have a tribute to Mick O’Connor. Mick’s a Dub but his wife was from Ennisty- mon and he would spent a lot of time in Clare over the years. He played in

the Castle Ceili Band in Dublin and about half of that band are migrated Clare people so he has very strong Oem aloe

This years festival will also include a number of free events aimed at Teepe lone

“On the weekends it’s just not fea- sible to make the events free because of the quality of acts that we are get- abereas ne

“But for the family recitals we are able to get top class musicians at a very reasonable rate because of the novelty for them to play together as a family,’ continued Padriag.

“A lot of them wouldn’t have played together for year. Because of this we

are able to get in an event sponsor and run the event for free.”

It’s to make it accessible for the locals on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays night before the real die hard music lovers come in at the weekends.”

The festival opens on Sunday, with a CD launch by Joe Kierse at Jimmy Daftfy’s Bar.

Other highlights of the week in- clude a lecture by Tim Collins enti- tled Where the piper Croghan used to Dwell, recitals from the McNamara and Costello families, the McCarthy family from London, the Cotter and Boyd families from Ennis as well as workshops and masterclasses.

show that district court judg- es received on average €23,436 in expenses last year.

Judge Mangan, appointed in July 2001, is likely to be in the upper half of the list as he has a large area to ad- minister, stretching from south Gal-

way to south-east and west Clare.

The highest amount received by a judge was €82,240. It is likely that the judge concerned does not have a designated court district and instead moves from district to district to cov- er for judges who are on leave.

The court sittings over which Judge Mangan presides include those in Ennis, Ennistymon, Kildysart, Kil- kee, Corofin, Kilrush, Tulla, Gort, Athenry and Killaloe.

Judge Mangan’s expenses payments comes on top on his newly increased salary of €158,000, awarded on

the recommendation of the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in Public Sector. Judge Mangan’s sal- ary increased by 18 per cent from €134,124.

The figures show that country’s District Court judges spent €596,828 on mileage and €701,391 on subsist- ence.

The figures also show that the judg- es spent €14,211 on judges’ attire in- cluding wigs and gowns.

The FOI Unit has, however, refused to state how much each identified district judge received due to secu-

rity concerns.

The FOI officer states, “Both their security and the risk that any threat to the safety of their families may be used to threaten their judicial inde- pendence may effect the security of the State, particularly those in po- litical cases and those in the Special Criminal Court.

‘There is a genuine concern for the personal security of judges and their families … The disclosure of infor- mation sought on an individual basis will identify those judges who are away from home frequently.”

ARCHITECTURAL firms received significant Clare County Council payments to consultants last year.

The council paid such firms over €1m of the €4.9m which consultants received.

Yelland Architects Ltd received €213,400 which was the highest amount paid, according to figures which the council released in re-

sponse to a freedom of information request.

Murray O’Laoire Architects Ltd received €213,233, Byrne O’ Donnell Scully Architects received €142,924; Henry J Lyons and Partners received €89,190, Dermot and Sean Merry re- ceived €70,877 and Paddy Coleman and Associates received €44,955. All payments are inclusive of 21 per cent VAT.

Payments to architectural firms

would primarily relate to firms de- signing council housing schemes and reflects the upsurge in council house eluunCeuberee

The company that designed the award-winning Cliffs of Moher visitor centre, Cork-based Reddy O’ Riordan, Staehli was paid €63,779.

Regarding other payments to con- sultants Brendan McGrath and Asso- ciates received €42,580, PH McCa- rthy and Partners received €29,249,

Michael Leahy and Paul Conway received €26,961, while Brady Ship- man Martin received €12,298.

A number of engineering firms also received substantial council pay- ments. RPS MCOS Ltd, which car- ries out work at the local authority’s central landfill at Inagh, received €581,936. White Young Green (Irl) Ltd received €284,283, while Nicholas O’Dwyer and Partner re- ceived €241,325. John B Barry and

Partners received €192,557, while Mott McDonald Petit Ltd received € 147,179.

Farm Business Advisers Ltd re- ceived €284,283. Patrick J Tobin & Co Ltd received €138,556 while Er1- naceous Consult Services (Ire) Ltd received €134,394.

The council insists that the pay- ments are subject to various internal and external council and Department of Environment controls.

A MULTICOLOURED troupe of angels are once again coming to the aid of the Doolin Search and Rescue Service. The Burren Stained Glass Shop, which is located on Fishers Street in Doolin, has launched their latest incarnation of the Doolin An- oe

More than 100 hand made stained glass angels are currently on sale in the shop with all money raised from the limited edition products going straight to the Doolin Search and Rescue Service Coast.

The shop, which is owned and run by American couple John and Karen Battersby, has been in operation in Doolin for almost four years. The Battersby’s came up with the idea of the angels as a way of giving some- thing back to the local community.

They have hand made all 100 an- gels in their shop in Doolin and will donated every cent of the €10 raised from each sale.

“We decided to do this as our way to contribute something to Doolin and to the search and rescue around here,’ said John.

“This is our third year doing it now. We are going to make 100 stained glass angels and sell them at €10 an angel. That will make €1,000 that we can donate to the Doolin Search and Rescue and they can use that for equipment or training or whatever

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The shop is open all year round and make a variety of stained glass ornaments as well as_ stained glass windows.

“People really do like angels. We make a lot of different designs here but angels are always one of the most popular. A lot of people even collect the angels,’ continued Tom.

“It’s also a nice thing to associate with the search and rescue. We call

them the Doolin Angels in honour of the coast guards. Everything is hand made and there 1s a lot of labour in it. Each piece gets cut out and ground by hand, you put copper foil on each piece, varnish it and assembly it. It’s pretty labour intensive.

“We have been in Doolin for about four years now. We are from Ameri- ca originally, from Philadelphia. We moved over here because we loved the Doolin area and the people here.

They have been really nice to us here. So it’s good to do thinks like this and get involved in the community.”

The angels are currently on sale in the Doolin Stained Glass Shop but are strictly limited to 100 pieces.

FIGURES for 2007 show more young listeners in Clare are tuning into new station SPIN South West.

The Joint National Listenership Re- search figures for the period January to December 2007 show that Clare FM remains the most listened to ra- dio station in the county.

The figures show a 42 per cent “‘lis- tened yesterday” figure for Clare FM

and that the station has a 37 per cent market share.

The findings also show that Clare FM’s weekday reach figure for the 12-month period remained static at 42 per cent. Clare FM’s weekday share figure, calculated between 7am and 7pm, was down I.1 per cent to 37.7 per cent placing the station sev- enth out of 16 local radio stations.

The JNLR/TNSmrbi_ study re- vealed Clare FM’s weekly reach fig-

ure to be 65 per cent, a drop of two per cent from last year. In its first five months on the airways, SPIN South West made inroads into the youth market in Limerick, Kerry, Clare, North Tipperary and South Laois. The JNLR figures show the station, along with Today FM, are the most listened to radio stations in the re- gion for 15-34 year olds. The figures were calculated over the period July to December 2007.

Reacting to the station’s first JNLR figures (July to December, 2007), Chief Executive of SPIN South West, Aevann Upton said that the re- sults indicated a successful first five yneloyaleatcy

“We anticipated a strong showing but nothing like this as we were on air for just five months of the year. This is a remarkable achievement and testament to the mix of youth music and talk that we have here at SPIN South West. It is a real boost to our shareholders, hard-working staff and, indeed, our advertisers.

“It is very early days for us yet, of course, but we couldn’t have hoped for better than this.”

The JNLR figures for the “listened yesterday” rating showed that 31 per cent (49,000) of 15 to 34 year olds across the region tuned into SPIN South West. This puts it joint top with Today FM in terms of listener- ship in the region. The station leads in the 7pm to midnight category with Rw mete

SPIN South West shareholders include former Lions, Ireland and Munster rugby star Keith Wood, Clare Community Radio Holdings, Liam O’Shea (Managing Direc- tor Clare FM and Chairman SPIN SouthWest).

STAFF and students at St Senan’s National School are this week cel- ebrating their fifth green flag!

The school will be presented with the green flag by An Taisce, at a ceremony in Galway tomorrow (Wednesday).

This is the fifth time the school has won the flag, which is awarded to

schools every two years.

The project was co-ordinated by teacher Margaret Murphy and all 102 students played their roles in en- suring the environment was treated well.

During the past year, children at- tending the school have been educat- ed on the importance of reducing the carbon footprint and the impact that transport has on this. They have also

been made aware of the importance of saving water and electricity.

The staff also encouraged the pu- pils to engage in healthy eating poli- cies and cut down on refuse.

School principal Sally O’Neill said the honour is recognition of the ef- fort put in by everybody.

“The discipline of the project is good for the children and a concert- ed effort was put in by everybody.

We have the green flag for 10 years now and to maintain that momentum each time is great. It 1s an achieve- ment to have the five (flags), said Ms O’ Neill.

“It is part of the curriculum pro- gramme and it is topical too. It is 1m- portant that the students understand it as well,’ she added.

The flag will be officially raised in in the next few weeks.

THERE was good news for west Clare at the weekend when grant ap- proval was confirmed for a major up- grade of the local road infrastructure and and extensive redevelopment of Doonbeg Harbour.

In addition to the €16 million al- located to Clare Council Council for the maintenance and improvement of regional and local roads, a fur- ther €1.5 million was approved for Specific improvement work on the Miltown Malbay/Gort and Miltown Malbay/Ennis roads.

€200,000 was approved for spe- cific improvements to the Kilmihil/

Cree road and safety work on the road at Paradise, Kildysart qualified for a grant of €30,000.

A special block grant of €204,000 was allocated to Kilrush Town Council with €127,000 of this being being targeted for footpath and car- riageway repairs.

€44,000 was allocated for the pro- vision, repair and replacement of footpaths in the Kikee Town Council area. This will cover the cost of work on the footpaths at Dunlicky Road (€7,200); Circular Road (€8,480); Marian Estate (€4,800); Carri- gaholt Road (€8,160); O’Connell Street (€9,600) and O’Curry Street (5,760).

Minister of State Tony Killeen ex- pressed optimism that any planning issues relating to the commence- ment of works on the Doonbeg Har- bour Development would soon be resolved. He was commenting after the Government allocated €525,000 to Clare County Council to under- take extensive improvement works at Doonmore, Doonbeg.

“The cooperative approach adopt- ed by the local community, Clare County Council and the various State Agencies in securing the nec- essary funding to upgrade Doonbeg Harbour is a perfect example of how essential rural projects can be pro- eressed for the benefit of all,” he

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“There is a varied and extensive programme of works earmarked for this development including the dredging of the inner harbour and channel, construction of protection breakwater and walkway at crest level, and the demolition of the ex- isting slipway and construction of a replacement slipway. Clare County Council also intends reclaiming, regrading and resurfacing on-shore So}:

He added that the maintenance and development of piers and harbours was essential for the sustainable de- velopment and regeneration of coast- al communities throughout Clare.

REIGNING All-Ireland Minor Dou- bles champions Niall Malone and Diarmuid Nash bowed out of the 2008 race on Thursday night last. They were beaten in dramatic cir- cumstanaces by Limerick’s Seamus O’Carroll and CJ Fitzpatrick.

The tie started in Tuamgraney, but finished in Tulla. The Clare pair led 19-17 in the first game, but lost it 21- 19. In the second game it was Nash and Malone who enjoyed a good start and were leading 12-7 when damp- ness started to show in the alley.

After a Limerick objection, referee

Mike Kelly ruled the alley unfit to continue and the large crowd headed to Tulla, where the Limerick pair eventually turned the tide. Nash and Malone held serve at 19-17 and again at 20-18 only for the Limerick pair to snatch the game and the match, 21-20.

Meanwhile, also in the Munster Mi1- nor Doubles Championship, Trevor Vaughan (Tulla) and Gerry Cooney (O’C. Mills) had a massive 21-2, 21- | win over Tipperary opposition on Friday night last.

In Minor singles, Niall Malone will play Ballina’s Fergal Collins at Nenagh (TBC) and Diarmaid Nash

will face Cappagh’s CJ Fitzpatrick at Tuamgraney (TBC) in their Munster Ist round games next week. In Mas- ters B Singles last week, there was defeat for John Moloney but John Nihill progressed and will tonight (Tuesday) take on Cork’s John Mc- Donagh at Galbally in the Munster semi-final at 8.00pm.

Mike Baker (O’C. Mills) will play Limerick’s Pat Doody in the Munster Novice Singles quarter-final in Cap- pagh this Wednesday (18th) at 8.00. Baker teamed up with Clarecastle’s Finbarr Sheridan to play Limerick in the Novice Doubles but were defeat- ed 21-15, 21-15 on Friday last in Gal-

bally. In the Dalkia Senior Handball Championship, there was defeat in the round of 32 for Clooney’s Fergal Coughlan against Cork’s Tony Healy in Tuamgraney.

Meanwhile, anumber of Clare play- ers are involved in the All-Ireland Schools championships this weekend in Kilkenny and Cavan. Tulla’s Alan Leamy and Trevor Vaughan take on St. McCartan’s College Monaghan in the Intermediate Doubles semi-final.

In Intermediate Singles Tuam- eraney s Diarmaid Nash (Cistercian College, Roscrea) plays the Leinster final against Kells CS, with the win- ner playing the Connacht champion

while in the other semi, Nash’s club- mate Niall Malone (Scariff C.C.) plays the Carrickmore, Tyrone rep- resentative.

At Kingscourt, Cavan on Satur- day (11.00am), Clooney’s Paula and Lisa Loughnane (Rice College) play St. Patrick’s, Armagh, in the Junior Doubles semi-final.

Also at Kuinsgscourt, Sarah O’Donnell (Tuamgraney, Scariff C.C) plays St. Mary’s, Newry in the CISCO DENTS CoO OV EIOUSTDEMAU AONE CoMmEN| Senior Doubles, Ashling Fitzgerald and Edel O’Grady (Tuamgraney, Scariff C.C.) also play Newry oppo- sition in their semi-final.

THE Mayor of Clare, Patricia McCa- rthy, has criticised air traffic control- lers at Shannon Airport for taking further unofficial industrial action at the weekend. Operations there were brought to a standstill for three hours on Saturday night, hours before it was confirmed that 99 per cent of the country’s 300 controllers had voted to take official action.

Controllers at Shannon, employ- ees of the Irish Aviation Authority, refused to volunteer for overtime against the advice of their union. All flights in and out of the airport were either cancelled or delayed for three hours on Saturday resulting in 12 flights being affected.

Wednesday night’s action when staff refused to work overtime to fill a two hour gap in the roster affected 11 flights.

Councillor McCarthy asked why Shannon was targeted twice in less than a week when Dublin was only affected on one occasion, on January 25, for about 45 minutes.

“I have to ask what is really going on here. This is the second time in a few days that Shannon Airport was closed because of this dispute while Dublin Airport only suffered for a mere 45 minutes. Shannon has been out of service twice for a total of

five hours with disruption caused to flights and passengers. This is a dis- grace and flies in the face of union advice,’ the mayor said.

Air traffic control staff are in dis- pute with the authority on the issues of overtime and recruitment. They have previously indicated to the [AA that demands on staff to work over- time are unsustainable.

‘“T am very surprised that this can be allowed to happen at a time when Shannon is recovering from bad news and every effort is being made by everyone at the airport and in the business and tourism industry to pro- mote an develop the airport,’ an an- ery Councillor McCarthy said.

IMPACT has confirmed that the ac- tion took place despite advice from the union to “work whatever overtime is required” while talks between the union and the Irish Aviation Author- ity were ongoing.

‘Our advice to members has been to work whatever overtime is required to facilitate the ongoing talks,’ the spokesman said.

Ryanair has accused ‘Taoiseach Bertie Ahern of failing to put in place contingency plans to prevent passengers “being hijacked by wild- cat” strikes.

Both sides are due to return to LRC for further talks on February 19. The nature of the action is to be decided.

THE promotion of equality and in- clusion are among the key priori- ties identified by the new head of the Shannon Family Resource Centre.

Marie Rowland, who has recently taken up the post as co-ordinator of the centre, has pointed to a few ar- eas of significance for the people of Ser veneceyee

Chief among these will be her aim of ensuring the people of the town are welcomed at the centre at all mn eeleky

“There are a few key areas, includ- ing the development of relationships with the local community and the provision of appropriate support needs,” she said.

“The aim is also to highlight in-

equality and social exclusion,’ add- ed Ms Rowland, who is a native of Cork.

She is also keen to play a role in the provision of training in childcare and education and to network with vari- ous organisations in Shannon.

‘Networking is all about going out and meeting the people in the com- munity and making the service more user friendly,” she said.

The Family Resource Centre is situated in the Respond Centre at Ri- neanna View.

The centre offers a wide range of support for families and runs vari- ous initiatives including a parent- and-toddler group, Traveller health initiative, personal development programmes and out-of-school pilot development schemes.

Its out-of-schools programme takes place two afternoons a week and a parent-and-toddler group meets two mornings a week.

Ms Rowland is also involved with the town’s multicultural group ‘Le Chéile na Sionna’ which was set up last year.

The group consists of members from several countries. Ms Rowland is hoping to play a role in ensur- ing the group expands and receives funding.

She also has many other ambitious plans for the resource centre.

“Iam hoping to have a drop-in computer facility and will start a painting group, homework club and a sports club for young people with disabilities,” she said.

The appointment of Ms Rowland

will be followed shortly by the re- cruitment of a community develop- ment worker.

Currently Ms Rowland works alongside an administrator and a part-time co-ordinator for out-of- schools projects.

Having previously worked with Shannon Youth Service and with the Southill Community Training Centre in Limerick, Ms Rowland is anticipating the challenges which lie ahead in her new post. She believes she has one vital asset, initially – her office.

“We have a great resource here, in the building,” she said.