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IRISH history’s most important painters will feature in an exhibition at the Courthouse Gallery in En- nistymon.

Beginning chronologically with a work by Paul Henry, the exhibition “Not What You’d Expect; Irish paint- ing 1919-2007” includes works from such legendary painters as Gerard Dillon, Jack B. Yeats, Mainie Jellet, Mary Swanzy and Norah McGuin- ness. The selection of exhibited works represents a broad survey of painting practice in Ireland.

Curator Fiona Woods of the Clare Arts Office said, “We are delighted to welcome works from some of Ire- land’s best-known painters, as part

of one of the most high profile art exhibitions ever held in this county. Many of the featured works have been sourced from the collection of the Arts Council of Ireland and Lim- erick City Gallery of Art’s perma- nent collection.”

“The work reaches right up to contemporary times, incorporating a number of genres such as Land- scape, Interior/Still-life, Portraiture, Abstract and Narrative approaches,’ she explained.

To coincide with the exhibition, the Clare Arts Office is organising a se- ries of guided gallery tours, public talks and workshops for artists.

Catherine Marshall, Chief Cura- tor with The Irish Museum of Mod- ern Art, currently on secondment as

Visual Arts touring and Collections Advisor with the Arts Council, will provide the opening talk on Irish Painting.

On Saturday, September 15 En- nis-born artist Mick O’Dea RHA will talk about his work, followed by a closed workshop for artists. The former National College of Art and Design tutor has won numerous awards at national and international Aon

On September 22, Micky Donnelly, a leading contemporary Irish artist and member of Aosdana will give a talk about his work, followed by a closed workshop for artists. Don- nelly has exhibited in many countries around the world.

His work is represented in most of

the important public art collections in Ireland. Every Wednesday, Marie Connole MFA will give tours for school groups, complete with educa- tional material at 1.30 pm. A guided tour for the public will be available at 3pm each Wednesday, or at another time by appointment.

The Fine Art Graduate of The Burren College of Art received the Spiresart Outstanding Student in Art, an accommodation and studio residency award in 2005 and tuition fees bursary in 2006/07 from The Clare Arts Office, and recently The Burren College of Arts Presidents Award.

The exhibition will run until Sep- tember 23, 2007 at The Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon.

ese

terday that he would find it very diffi-

cult to stay in business if the Shannon- Heathrow route was not restored.

Michael Vaughan, who is also the

Clare representative for the Irish Ho-

tels Federation, says he stands to lose

some €150,000 in annual turnover.

Vaughan Lodge will also be the location for a top level meeting of regional tourism leaders today (Tues- day), with a major announcement ex- pected to be made later today.

“With my own business, I estimate that I will be down about 15 per cent of my turnover if the Heathrow route goes. If 15 per cent of my business was no longer viable, I can tell you that my whole property would no longer be viable. It’s a very marginal business at the best of time,” he said.

“We are finding it much more dif- ficult to attract golfing groups from

the west of Heathrow. A number of groups who usually come in that way have been telling us that they will no longer be in a position to come into the country.

“I have a fear for the smaller busi- nesses, not so much the bigger busi- nesses, but the bed and breakfasts, guest-houses and smaller hotels along the coast. Fifteen per cent of all American traffic comes into Clare through Heathrow, that is a fair whack of people.

“I know of one high-end property in the region that has €500,000 of busi- ness tourism groups from Canada

which is in the balance until the Hea- throw question is sorted. It is happen- ing all over.

“We don’t have the ability at the moment to market to international markets from the region.”

Attending today’s meeting along- side Mr Vaughan will be solicitor Michael Houlihan, Cllr John Crowe (FG), Mark Fitzgerald of Woodlands Hotel in Adare, Robert Byrne of Lim- erick Vintners Association, Cllr Peter Considine (FF), Alex Fleming of Clare County Council, John King of Shannon Development, Paul O’’ Toole the head of Failte Ireland and his col-

league John Concannon.

The group will be briefed by a number of headline tourist industry representatives in Clare, including representatives of Doonbeg Golf Course and Dromoland Castle.

“We are going to get a first-hand report from these people on how the axing of the Heathrow route will ef- fect their businesses and we will be coming out with a recommenda- tion regarding that,” continued Mr Vaughan.

“In this case we will be making a statement in what we feel the Gov- ernment will do on the issue.”

INAGH cheesemakers, Siobhan Ni Ghairbhigh and John Harrington are celebrating this week, having scooped two major awards at the first Bord Bia organic competition.

The couple – who make St Tola Or- ganic Goat’s Cheese – were singled out for the overall best organic prod- uct prize as well as an award for best chilled/frozen product.

“We were absolutely delighted, par- ticularly because it wasn’t an award in a restricted section. We were up against everything from babyfood to full meals’, said Siobhan.

The couple have won many awards for their cheese in the past, and say they owe a huge part of their success to their four full time staff, Petru and Carmen Gal, Grainne Casey and

Guillemette Allut.

“Without them we couldn’t have achieved so much,” said Siobhan.

The couple said they were de- lighted even before the awards were announced “as these awards are a recognition of the importance of the organic food industry.”

St Tola has been made in Inagh since the early 1980’s. Originally made by Meg and Derrick Gordon, the business was taken over by their neighbour, Siobhan in 1999.

Since then, new premises have been built, the process has been brought up to HACCUP standards and in 2001, St. Tola became a registered organic producer with I.O.F.G.A, The Irish Organic Farmers and Growers Association. Both the farm and the cheesemaking operation are inspected individually, by LO.F.G.A

inspectors, twice a year.

Among the awards which St Tola has previously won are: 2006 British Cheese Awards gold and bronze med- als, 2005 Irish Farmhouse Cheese gold and bronze awards, 2005 IFEX Awards, bronze award, 2004 Irish Farmhouse Cheese Awards, Su- preme Champion and gold awards, 2002 British Cheese Awards, gold medal.

The awards, organised by Bord Bia in conjunction with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, attracted more than 7/0 entries.

Bord Bia chief executive Aidan Seay UCM Oe A WALD RDUMAEloMo Nl et-velee trade and consumer awareness of Irish organic capabilities and cre- ate a platform for organic producers to demonstrate the broad range and high quality of products available.

“Organic food is one of the fastest erowing segments of the European food market and has a growth rate of 15% -20% in Ireland,’ he said.

“Bord Bia will continue to work with and support the organic sector with significant optimism towards its further development in Ireland.”

Mr Cotter said Bord Bia, in con- sultation with the Organic Market Development Group (OMDG), has drawn up a three-year marketing plan for the development of Ireland’s organic food market.

THE FINAL whistle comes in the ninth minute of injury time and Croke Park is an ocean of emotion. Clare bodies drop to the floor, shat- tered, exhausted. Derry are whoop- ing and ecstatic.

In the tunnel beneath the Hogan Stand, just as Claire Doherty, the Derry captain climbs the steps to ac- cept the trophy, a Derry man appears with two bottles of champagne. He’s bouncing up and down. “I told ye I’d get some bubbly if we won,” he says to Doherty as she ascends the stand.

Once the formalities have been done with on the field, Clare begin to file in one by one, nosing slowly for the comfort of the dressing room. Faces are winced. Eyes are watered and tears stream down the cheeks of the majority.

You scratch your head and wonder when the old stadium saw such a late goal to steal an All-Ireland final and the best reference point is Seamus Darby’s effort for Offaly against Kerry back in 1982, almost 25 years to the day.

A quarter of an hour after that de- vestating Derry goal, Clare captain

Deirdre Murphy walks towards the dressing room.

She’s just played 38 minutes of immaculate camogie and has been Clare’s rock for the entire second eee

She stops to take in some air and to run her thoughts over what has just happened but the sequence of things just don’t make sense.

Clare lead by two seven minutes into injury time. It looks like she’s going to bring All-Ireland silverware back home but 90 seconds later, eve- rything has changed.

“It’s so hard to explain,” she says.

“When the referee called for a throw- in and they didn’t get clean possession from it, I thought we were in a great position. But when the ball came out, they got it and got that goal.”

Her own goal nine minutes from the end had looked like the score that would catapult Clare to the win and their first All-Ireland junior title in 21 years.

At that stage, they led by three points and were in control all over the field. But Derry still had those couple of goals in reserve.

It’s the second that will be re-run in Clare minds though and in the

corridor of the Hogan Stand, those wounds were just being dealt with.

“Inside in the dressing room, we’re still trying to come to terms with it. But the bottom line is, everybody on the panel worked unbelievably hard to get here and did everything that could have been asked of them today.

“We’re proud of how we played, but the way it finished in the end 1s a huge disappointment for us. What can you say?”

Deirdre wanders off, back to the dressing room to the only people that can understand.

THE online petition to retain Aer Lingus’s Shannon-Heathrow slots now has more than 13,760 signa- UN KeNe

The petition which features on the Shannon Action Group website calls on the board of Aer Lingus to reverse

its decision to cancel all four daily flights to Heathrow from Shannon as of next January in the interests of the region.

Meanwhile, Comhar Sustainable Development Council has said that the cost of greenhouse gas emissions and access to airports will influence the future sustainability of the air

travel industry.

In a commentary just published the council chairman, Professor Frank Convery, said that the recent focus on Heathrow landing slots and the Aer Lingus move to Belfast brought into sharp focus the link between airport success and access to a trav- elling population.

GORT sisters are doing it for them- od Aone

GWEN (Gort Women’s Equality Network) is looking for women to participate in a study that will define women’s equality needs in the Gort region.

The aim of the study is to identify barriers to women being able to par- ticipate in decision-making process- es at local level. It will also explore barriers as to why more women do not, or cannot avail of further educa- tion or participate in the workforce.

Programme organisers said that the

most important aim of this study 1s to give women a voice.

The programme was created by Dr. Niamh Clune and Douglas Johnson of GRACE (Gort Regional Alliance for Community and Environment) in partnership with the Family Re- source Centre. Initially, a group of women were invited to participate in a training programme designed to enable them to conduct a women’s equality study, which will then be submitted to Pobal.

Pobal manage programmes on be- half of the Irish government and the EU. The study will help inform fu- ture policy in the National Develop-

ment Plan.

The training programme received by the newly formed women’s net- work (GWEN) means they will be able to conduct PLA (Participatory Learning and Action), which is an innovative way of gathering informa- tion. It is hoped that all participants in this process will feel involved and empowered, whilst at the same time, learning new skills. The whole programme is designed to build con- fidence in women who might oth- erwise not have the chance to voice their concerns. This exercise is to discover some of the issues as to why women might feel marginalised or

unable to participate in new oppor- MUD AVL Cone

GWEN will host two public meet- ings on Wednesday September 19 from 7.30pm-9pm and Thursday September 20 from1lam-12.30pm in the Lady Gregory Hotel. The reason for the two meetings 1s to facilitate the kind of flexibility necessary to enable all women interested in at- tending. “It is a chance for women to voice their needs and help to influ- ence government policy in relation to woman’s place in our society,’ organisers said. For further informa- tion, please contact: 0863381773, or just turn up.

THERE were few complaints from Clare afterwards but understandably, team manager Colm Hanly was won- dering how and why so much injury time was played.

“What in the name of God was all that injury time about? We were two points up and to have to go through that much injury time? I couldn’t tell on the sideline what all the time was for. Not to be unsporting, but I just can’t figure that out. But in fairness to Derry they kept going and going and got that bit of luck at the end.”

It’s been a long journey through the season for Clare and with the end in sight, the final roadblock was the one that caused the real pain.

“That’s the way it goes. That’s sport, you can’t legislate for that kind of thing. You work and you work as hard as you can and not to get the reward is painful but I’m sure we’ll be back. It’s literally as bad as you can get. These players have been phenomenal all year. They’s been so comitted, so dilligent at every train- ing session. There isn’t an ounce of energy left from anyone, they left

everything out there. It was just that bit of luck. We always just asked them for work rate and we got more work rate than anybody could have expected. I’m still trying to get my head around the end of the game, but I’m extremely proud. Fair enough we came up short but on the day we were the better team. They performed out- standingly well.” ;

Derry’s joint-manager Padraig O Mianain, who runs the team with his wife Susan, 1s gracious and forward- looking even though his side have just clinched victory from the shark’s mouth.

‘This is the third time we’ve played Eee A-UCmioteh BNO Mm aon anything in it. These two teams have been very evenly matched and it was was a great game of camogie out there today. A great advert for the game. I feel that the likes of ourselves and Clare are closer to senior division that many of the teams in our own division and I don’t know what Croke Park can do to accommodate us. If we could get into the top division and play the top teams that would improve us no end. We need to play better teams to progress and the dis-

play of camogie out there shows that there’s good camogie in both teams. We’re not too sure what the system is right now. Whether a team have to win twice to move up. Look at today. There’s nothing between these teams so either of us could stay perpetually down in the juniors. So I’d make an appeal to change the structure be- cause now we need to look at getting these two teams senior.”

The Derryman also felt that late on, the game was slipping from his side.

“The way we addressed the game all year, we put ourselves in a posi- tion to compete but at that level, you just need a bit of luck. To be honest, When our full-forward caught the ball at the end, it was 50/50 if it was a penalty. I wouldn’t have criticised if it hadn’t have been given. I thought that was the chance gone. But to get it with the last puck of the ball was unbelieveable. We know what it feels like. We lost the final last year by two points.”

RYANAIR confirmed last night that it has submitted its appeal to the Eu- ropean Court of First Instance (CFI) in Luxembourg against what the air- line describes as “the EU Commis- sion’s unlawful and politically moti- vated decision to prohibit its merger with Aer Lingus.”

The low-fares airline had made an offer of €2.80 per share to acquire Aer Lingus following the former national airline’s floatation last Oc- tober.

Ryanair was required to seek ap- proval for clearance of the deal from the European Commission. The Commission blocked the merger.

“As a result, Aer Lingus sharehold- ers have suffered a 58 per cent col- lapse in their interim profits and a

share price fall to €2.50”, a Ryanair statement issued last night said.

Speaking last night, Ryanair’s Head of Regulatory Affairs, Jim Callaghan, said: “We have filed our appeal with the CFI today asking them to overturn the Commission’s unlawful and politically motivated decision to block Ryanair’s merger with Aer Lingus.

“This merger, which accounts for less than 5 per cent of the EU air transport market was clearly pro- competition and would have been the first merger in history to guarantee fare reductions, which would have saved European consumers more than €100m per annum. The Com- mission made several manifest errors in its assessment of the merger and ignored evidence from Ryanair dem- onstrating the numerous benefits that

the merger would bring to consum- ers and increased competition with the high fares Mega Carriers. At the same time, the Commission ac- cepted, without question, misleading and factually inaccurate submissions from the Irish Government and Aer Lingus, both of whom were clearly trying to block the merger.”

He said that the airline “also of- fered unprecedented commitments to the Commission to address any possible competition concerns, in- cluding giving up more than half of Aer Lingus’ Dublin-Heathrow Slots, as well as over 1,700 additional weekly slots — several times what has been offered in any previous airline merger.”

A NORTH Clare painting school has played host to Ireland’s first ever out- door painting competition.

The contest, open to amateurs, was organised by the Burren Painting Siem EM (ss).

28 amateur artists travelled from all over the country to participate in the event, which was based in three locations.

Competitors were given the choice of three venues where they could paint – Whitethorn in Ballyvaughan, Ballinalacken Castle and Hotel near Lisdoonvarna and Liscannor Har- lereltbe

They were given the opportunity to participate in three different catego-

ries – oils and acrylics; watercolours and pastel gouache or mixed media.

Organiser Chris O’Neill, who has run the painting centre for the past RUA er VEIN EMO SD ETA a LKore MAY aU OMB OComCLU (Or cess of the event.

This year’s competition was open to amateurs only and Ms O’Neill now plans to include a professional category next year.

“T had heard a little bit about some- thing similar that goes on in Amer- ica. We run an outdoor painting course here and I thought there was very little opportunity for reasonable good amateurs to show their work and meet with a challenge. There is quite a lot for professionals but there isn’t for those who are not profes- sionals,” she said.

“Next year, I might have a catego- ry for the professional section,” she added.

“This is the first time an outdoor painting competition has been done in Ireland.

“The whole concept was that peo- ple came on the one day. They reg- istered in the morning, went out to one of three sites and get an idea into their heads on what is available,’ she said.

Margaret Kent from Wexford was the overall winner. Using oils, she painted a picture featuring the Bur- ren. Mark Doughlas-Smith from Killanena won in the mixed media category, while Joan Turner from the UK received first prize in the wa- tercolour section. All received cash

prizes and vouchers from various art material shops.

Lady Alison Ross travelled to Lisdoonvarna from Birr Castle, to present the prizes to all of the win- ners.

Ms O’Neill was particularly im- pressed by one disabled participant who travelled from the midlands in his wheelchair, and went home with a merit award!

‘His carer had to squeeze out the paint before he started, as he hasn’t the power in his hands. He was just fantastic,’ she said.

The event took several months to organise and Ms O’Neill is optimis- tic that next year’s competition will again attract the interests of several artists.

A YOUNG man painted obscene eraffiti, “Bitch, it’s not over,’ on the home of his former Art teacher, a court has heard.

Kevin McNamara (18), of White- gate, faced several criminal damage charges relating to the incident in Tuamgraney on August 9 last.

He admitted painting graffiti on the teacher’s house, her car and a car and public house in the immediate vicinity, while the footpath was also painted.

‘Bitch – it’s not over. You’re f***ed, you bitch, you called me fat,” were the words painted on windows of his former teacher Ms Mary Rouine’s home. Crosses were painted on cars in the immediate area.

The total amount of the damage caused in the spate of crime amount- ed to €2,300.

Garda Gerry Slattery told Scariff

District Court the damage was simi- lar in all cases, but was more severe in the case of Ms Rouine.

Mary Rouine told the court her house was vandalised in the early hours of the morning.

Asked by Judge Joseph Mangan did she know why, she said, “No. I would have taught him this past year.”

Another of the victims Martin Whelan – a neighbour of Ms Rouine – said a big cross was painted on the windscreen of his car and paint drib- bled along the bonnet.

Asked by the judge why he was tar- geted, he replied, “Not a clue. Obvi- ously they were passing my house.”

Garda Slattery said he solved the crime after receiving information that the accused was in town that night.

He said he spoke to a number of people who were with the accused on the night. They confirmed he had been in town, but the accused took

responsibility for all of the damage. “It seemed to be focused against Mary Rouine alright,” said the garda. Defending solicitor James Nash said the accused was drunk and claimed he didn’t know what premises had

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“There was a fair trail left. There was paint sprayed all along the road. It was pretty basic stuff,’ he said.

He said the accused had just com- pleted his Leaving Certificate. Ap- plying for an adjournment, he said his client should be given the oppor- tunity to “make recompense”.

Judge Mangan adjourned the case and ordered the accused to stay away from Scariff and Tuamgraney.

He ordered him to abstain from al- cohol, sign on weekly and abide by PCIE CANA

“I expect that the question of com- pensation will be finalised. I expect to see receipts for compensation,” said the judge.

‘I won’t say expect the worse if the conditions are complied with. [ll say, expect the next best thing,” said Walon LU COh Xen