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THE beach in Fanore was trans- formed into a scene more normally associated with California, the Mediterranean of Rio de Janeiro this weekend as it Clare played host to a leg of the Irish Beach Volleyball Championships for the very first time.

While the weather didn’t exactly help to set the scene, there was plenty of action on the sand to help warm the hundreds of spectators and par- ticipants and get them into the tropi- cal mood.

While indoor volleyball is a long time favourite among the Irish sport- ing fraternity, the sandier variety of the sport is fast become one of Ire-

land’s quickest growing sports.

“It was founded in Ireland in 1968 so we have been going for a good while. Beach volleyball is a lot new- er and we have only been involved in beach volleyball for the past five years or so and we have been getting very seriously into it over the past year or so,” said Paul McKeever, D1- rector of Development and Coaching at Volley Ball Ireland.

“We have a circuit going this year and Saturday was the first time that this circuit has come to Clare. Be- sides the men’s and women’s main competition there was also a casual court set up for people who have nev- er played before to come along and try out the sport.”

Beach volleyball is one of the

worlds fastest growing sports and the numbers playing in Ireland have more than doubled over the last five years.

‘Professional volleyball is played with just two people – it’s just two verses two, men and women. It’s been an Olympic sport since the 1986 Atlanta Olympics and at the last Ol- ympics it had the highest spectators numbers from any sport,” he said.

“It 1s huge worldwide. In fact we have a major show piece event com- ing up in Bray, County Wicklow later this week, where we build an artifi- cial court, sort of a hundred foot side sand amphitheater.

“Some of the best players from America, Australia and the UK will be over to compete over a couple of

days. There are a couple of guys from Ennis who have qualified for main competition in Bray this week.”

Unlike most of world beach volley- ball, a large amount of the competi- tions which take place in Ireland are played in less than ideal weather.

“If it lashes rain we will still play. The only thing that prevents us from playing is if there is lightning or something dangerous like that.” con- tinued Paul.

“You have to get used to playing in bad conditions in Ireland so yes, we play through the rain.”

FARM safety took centre stage this week with a number of organisation launching awareness campaigns aim- ing at preventing tragedies on Irish farms over the summer months.

Despite the weather, summer work on farms across the county has been continuing into late in the evening with farmers anxious to take advan- tage of any break in the weather.

Last week the IFA and the Road Safety Authority got together to launch a joint road safety strategy aimed at ensuring the safety of farm- MASP IMCLENN OTN oe

All road users were warned to ex- pect an increase in the number of agricultural vehicles using the roads

over the next few months and the IFA and RSA have called for increased vigilance for all.

‘I am advising farmers to be safety conscious whenever bringing a farm vehicle onto the public road,” said IFA President, Padraig Walshe

‘Farmers should be aware of traf- fic building up behind them and keep left where possible to allow other vehicles pass safely. I would appeal to other road users to show patience when encountering farm machinery on the road. With understanding on both sides, the roads can be safer for everybody’, he added.

Road users are being advised to watch out for tractors, trailers and other farm machinery exiting from fields and farm yards and to exercise

caution when travelling behind or meeting such vehicles on the public road.

Drivers of agricultural vehicles are also being reminded that they are governed by road traffic laws on driver licensing, insurance, standards in relation to vehicle roadworthiness, vehicle lighting and motor tax.

“Your driving mirror must provide an adequate view of the road to the rear.

“Do not carry a passenger unless the tractor is equipped to carry one and the trailer should not be used for transporting people unless it has pro- vision for carrying them,” said Noel Brett, CEO, Road Safety Authority.

“All agricultural vehicles must have proper working brakes on both trac-

tor and trailer units and must be fit- ted with lights, reflectors and indica- tors. In addition a vehicle should not be loaded in such a way that would make it unstable on the road, and beware of low bridges, overhanging trees, overhead cables and uneven road surfaces which could cause the load to shift and possibly overturn.”

Meanwhile, an internationally re- nowned expert on accident preven- tion will speak at the forthcoming National Seminar on Occupational Safety and Health in Agriculture.

Dr Juha Suutarinen of Agrifood Research, Finland will outline the key findings of a major study in Fin- land on the relationships between farm management and causes of farm accidents.

ONE of Ireland’s most promis- ing young vocal talents, Peter O’Donoghue, will join north Clare’s famed Lismorahaun Singers in a one off concert in Kilkee later this month.

O’Donoghue, who won the Tenor Trophy at the Feis Ceoil in 2006, learned his trade with the Lismoura- haun from a young age and 1s cur- rently studying in Dublin and in- volved in a number of other musical projects.

The summer concert, which is be- ing sponsored by Kilkee Civic Trust, will take place on July 21 in the fit- ting surrounds of Kilkee Parish

Church.

It will feature a wide-ranging col- lection of musical styles and genres, including classical favourites, con- temporary music, music from the movies, spirituals, and choral ar- rangements of Irish song.

Along with this, Peter will join the Lismorahaun Singers in a number of Operatic arias and traditional Irish ey NUE Tence

Originally founded in Fanore in 1999, the Lismorahaun Singers rose to national prominence during their sold-out performances of Mozart’s Requiem in Ennistymon and Dub- lin’s RDS Concert Hall in 2005.

The story behind the choir and its inspirational leader, Archie Simp-

son, was also the subject of a popu- lar documentary, Sing and You Win, which has had several showings on RTE in recent years.

Indeed, the singers completed their first international performance at a venue near Venice in Italy earlier this year.

The Lismorahaun Singers have grown in size from an initial group of twenty, to a current membership of over seventy, ranging in age from 8 to 70. Coming from all walks of life, this broad based choir draws its members from throughout Clare and indeed from Galway, Limerick and Tipperary.

The choir has also been instrumen- tal in promoting young people’s in-

terest in the vocal arts and a number, such as Peter O’Donoghue, have gone to take on singing as a career. Through the choir, the Music Schol- arship Programme was set up to support students as they prepare for third level voice education.

“THERE 1s no doubt that the Hanley proposals are alive and well and that the people of Clare are its first vic- anon

Those were the words of Clare Deputy Pat Breen (FG) in the Dail on Wednesday after news broke that there would no longer be a mammog- raphy service in the county.

“IT am reliably informed that unit was fully installed and ready to be recommissioned. The problem with the service is simply that there was no consultant radiologist employed at the hospital who was willing to

interpret and report on the mammo- grams, he said

“Prior to the refurbishment, this work was carried out by the HSE in Limerick Regional Hospital, but the service was discontinued. Why was the HSE not up-front with the peo- ple of Clare before the election?” he AIS .Cor6 B

“The HSE said this decision would cause inconvenience for the women of Clare but that those in north Clare could avail of services in Galway rather than make the long journey to Limerick. Did the HSE give any consideration to the women of west Clare, who will have to travel up to

100 miles to avail of the new serv- ice?” he asked.

Clare minister for state Tony Kil- leen (FF) said he was prepared to argue the case for retention of such services at acute hospitals rather than centralising services.

“Tam concerned about the loss of breast screening services at Ennis General Hospital and the impact it will have on the level of service be- ing received by Clare patients.

‘Any evidence I have seen, on the one hand, saying the centralisation of services is best is more than coun- tered by alternate evidence suggest- ing that the provision of local serv-

ices 1s best.

“IT am not entirely convinced that this decision will benefit the people of Clare in the long term”, added Minister Killeen.

Fianna Fail TD Timmy Dooley said that the HSE needed to clearly set out how it planned to manage the trans- fer to Galway and Limerick of some 400 women each year.

“It’s now time the HSE set out clearly the measures it intends to take to upgrade procedures in Limerick and Galway, particularly in light of a recent failure in Limerick to diag- nose a previous screened patient with breast cancer.”

LISDOONVARNA will play host to an Irish debut this September as Ireland first ever outdoor painting competition takes place in the Bur- ren Painting Centre.

Outdoor painting competition or ‘paint-outs’ have became popular in America in recent years but this is the first one which has ever been organised on this side of the Atlantic. The competition sees a large group of artists gather together on one day to paint and offer different artistic takes on the same moment in time.

“It’s an opportunity for good ama- teur artist to come together and paint for one day. Each person who comes to the day will have their canvass or paper stamped in the morning and they will sent out to three location

around Lisdoonvarna,” said Chris O’Neill of the Burren Painting Cen- nko

“They can choose any landscape the can find in those three locations. They can paint all day, submit their work and the judging will be carried out the next morning.”

The judging panel includes Irish painter Rosemary Carr and water colour expert Charles Harper. Paint- ers will be allowed to enter two painting in either oil and acrylic, pure water colour or mixed media, pastel and gouache.

“It’s for good amateurs. This means if you are a profession and you earn your livelihood through art then you are not eligible. We have decided to use the Government criteria of the artists tax exemption as a way of deciding who is amateur and who is

not. If they are earning their income through art and qualify for the tax exemption then they are not eligi- ble for this competition,’ continued Chris.

“We have had great support from the local community in putting the competition together. Michael Cun- ningham from Gort sponsored the main prize. Jordan’s Supermarket, Marian Petty Solicitors, the Road- side Tavern, Hayse Printers in En- nistymon and Burkes Builders have all offered great support. The whole local business community has been great as have the Lisdoonvarna Com- munity Council who have helped greatly with all the paperwork.”

The Burren Painting Centre was established in 1974 and has been at- tracting budding artist from Ireland, Europe and America to the Burren

for more than three decades. Courses run each year in Lisdoonvarna from May to August, with ‘away’ trip or- ganised all over the world in April and October.

The Outdoor Landscape Paint- ing Competition will take place on September |. For more information contact the Burren Painting Centre in Lisdoonvarna on 7074208.

THE General Secretary of the Psy- chiatric Nurses’ Association (PNA) staunchly defended the standards and staff at Cappahard Lodge during the heated radio debate last Friday.

Des Kavanagh said: “We are talk- ing here about a unit that the health service 1s particularly proud of.”

He added that PNA nurses wel- comed any investigation “as an op- portunity to prove to all and sundry that the care we provide is of the op- timum”’.

He also criticised Ms Flanagan’s

decision to go public with her com- plaint before the investigation was finished.

“We have felt for a long time that we are caught in the middle of an in- ter-family row… what Ms Flanagan is doing is trying to use information and rumour to create an impression of Cappahard that is totally inappro- wrANKon

It is unfair to people who have family members there because it puts concerns in their minds that their relatives are under stress or duress or threat and there 1s nothing further from the truth.”

A 55-YEAR-OLD man has been found guilty of making more than 8,000 nuisance phone calls to the garda emergency line in Ennis, over a five-month period.

Eddie Kirby, of Glenoir, St Senan’s Road, Ennis, was found guilty by a jury on nine charges, at Ennis Circuit Court on Friday. However, the trial judge indicated he was not likely to jail him.

Kirby admitted making the calls between October 2004 and March 2005. However, he argued that he suffered from a paranoid delusional disorder at the time.

The trial was told that on one oc-

casion, Kirby threatened to carry out a public hanging on public property. He was asked who was to be hanged and he said himself. During another phone call he made a reference to “corrupt gardai”.

On another occasion, he told gardai he had a rope around his neck. Each time, a garda car was dispatched but did not get any response.

The majority of the calls were made late at night and during some of the conversations, Kirby was abusive and often appeared drunk. His calls regularly clogged up the emergency line and he was told to stop ringing the 999 or 112 emergency numbers but continued to do so.

“Some nights the whole night was

taken up answering calls to this in- dividual, just ringing and ringing and ringing,’ Sergeant Michael Ha- ran told the trial. A log was set up at Ennis Garda Station where the calls were tracked.

Kirby’s barrister Michael Fitzgib- bon said, “This poor man has an ob- sessive compulsion.”

He said the accused was “not a bad man. He’s a misguided man. It’s not his fault. He suffers from this ill- ness.”

Kirby’s psychiatrist Dr John O’Mahony said that in his opinion the calls had been motivated by his condition. “He has a_ personality structure that’s of a paranoid nature. He feels that figures of authority and

other people conspire against him or do him harm,” he said.

He said another psychiatrist con- cluded that Kirby was “like a ter- rier with a bone. Once he gets it, he won’t let it go.”

Kirby told the court he was “very sorry he had to go to that extreme to try to express” himself through his phone calls to Ennis Garda Station.

He said he was abused by a farmer, when he was aged 11.

He made a complaint to gardai in Limerick, but the DPP directed that no prosecution be taken. He said he was sorry he ever made that com- plaint.

He told the trial he was socialising in Galway in 1997, when he was as-

saulted by aman who put his “fist into my mouth and burst three crowns.”

He made a complaint to gardai about that, but was upset that nobody was held accountable and admitted he was “obsessed” about it.

In his closing speech, Judge Sean O Donnabhain told the jury, “If you believe the defendant was entirely delusional or partially delusional, you have to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

The jury found Kirby guilty on all charges. Judge O Donnabhain ad- journed sentencing until a later date, but said he did not believe a prison term would be appropriate.

‘IT don’t see any merit in imposing a custodial sentence,’ he said.

RESTORING the bridge in Killaloe to it’s former glory will cost in the region of €100,000 Clare County Council officials have revealed.

A meeting last week of council offi- cials and elected members from both the Killaloe and Ballina sides of the river was being updated on progress with plans to repair the structure.

Council engineer, Sean Lenihan, told the meeting that the project is now at the stage where the council 1s seeking quotes from conservation ar- chitects for the job.

He told the meeting that the work

will be “slow and expensive” but of necessity as the bridge is listed as a national monument.

“The scope of this has increased considerably on what was first envis- aged,” he said. “Initially, we thought it was just a matter of cleaning off vegetation but there are some spots where the vegetation has become al- most part of the structure and it’s not just a matter of pulling it out. There’s a lot of restorative work and repoint- ing needed.”

The council’s conservation offic- ers became involved in assessing the project and they advised senior staff that conservation architects would be

jWerex0 Lorem

The question of where the money will come from for the work is still being discussed.

‘‘T have contacted the Heritage Coun- cil and they have a special fund which I hope might be available to us and we have inspectors from the department coming down on August 6. We’ll be making representations to him to see if we can get any department funding. After that, it will be between the two councils to pay for it,” said Sean.

Meanwhile, the meeting was told that the brief has now been finalised for the new river crossing at Killaloe.

Senior Officer, John Sheehy said

that the finished brief is about to be issued to those consultants who ex- pressed an interest.

“The consultants then have six to eight weeks to come back to us and we would expect appointments to be made after that,” he said.

The Clare council officer added that the new crossing “is a big project and it will take time. There will be issues on the links to the existing roads and after the consultants have been ap- pointed, there will be at least a year’s work for them to do. Anyone who is expecting a bridge to be there within a year has to realise that won’t hap- pen.”

THE HSE ordered an external inde- pendent review into the treatment of patients at Cappahard Lodge, Ennis last May following concerns raised by a number of parties including Sree

A separate Garda investigation is also under way following complaints made by family members of Kilrush man Gerard Finn relating to his treat- ment and care at the home.

The 69-year-old, who died last month, was admitted to the home in December 2005 with Alzheimer’s

and angina.

During an “extended period of time” some of his family members made a number of complaints to the HSE regarding his care at Cappahard Lodge.

The complaints were investigated by the Clinical Director and Direc- tor of Nursing, Clare Mental Health Services under the HSE Trust in Care policy document which is designed to deal with allegations of abuse.

The first part of this investigation process began on September 5 last year and concluded on January 8 last. The complainants were informed of

the findings.

This “screening process” found that no abusive actions had taken place and that “nursing and medical care provided for Mr. Finn was ap- propriate”.

The HSE said that as a result no further investigation was warranted:

“These findings were communicat- ed to the family members together with the appeal procedures and con- tact details of the appeals officer. The appeal process was not availed of by family members,’ the HSE said in a lengthy statement.

Following the Trust in Care inves-

tigation the HSE continued to re- ceive complaints from some family members, however, in relation to Mr. Finn’s ongoing treatment and care.

An external review was then com- missioned prior to Mr Finn’s death in June.

‘Those members of Mr Finn’s fam- ily wishing to make submissions to the review team will be contacted and will be invited to do so,” said a HSE spokesperson.

The HSE said it would also be co- operating fully with the Garda inves- tigation.

Cappahard Lodge on the Tulla Road

is a community residence providing long term care for clients of Clare Mental Health Services. The home is inspected by the Mental Health Commission on an annual basis.

The review will be chaired by Dr Donald Lyons, Mental Welfare Com- mission of Scotland and will involve an examination of “Processes and Protocols relating to both the clini- cal and administrative management of the unit’.

Relatives and other stakeholders are to be contacted and asked to make TU leyseb hwy Oy ele

PEOPLE who live in rural areas all their lives are being turned into urban dwellers who can’t get permission to build homes, it has been claimed. Speaking on a motion he tabled for last night’s county council meeting, Cllr Joe Arkins(FG) said that people, “who have been brought up and lived their lives in rural areas, surrounded by green fields are being urbanised because this council has drawn a line around their homes and re-zoned.” The councillor wanted the county

development plan interpreted as, he Said, was discussed with a former senior planner, to ensure that people who enjoyed the status of local rural person status should not have that status “eliminated by virtue of re- zoning the area of their birth”’.

The councillor said that much of the land which had been rezoned “will not be developed in the lifetime of this plan. Meanwhile, sites are sell- ing for figures that resemble foreign mobile phone numbers. It’s virtually impossible to buy a site.”

Councillors supported the motion

and detailed how people who had lived in the country could not now get planning permission to build if they wanted to build even a few hun- dred yards down the road.

Cllr Cathal Crowe (FF) described it as, “absurd that a person can have a line drawn around them and be told they are urban when all around them are green fields”.

Cllr Madeleine Taylor Quinn (FG) said that when the council had origi- nally discussed the issue “we were conscious of people coming in and buying up land. Now we have a situ-

ation where local rural people are be- ing actively discriminated against.”

In a reply to the councillors motion, planners said that the result of doing as the councillors had asked would be “to remove any need for any land- owner to show they have current links with the rural community.”

Replying at the meeting, senior planner John Bradley said that what councillors had asked of planners in the past was “to be consistent”.

“You don’t want us flip-flopping. You want to see consistency in deci- sions,” he said.