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MARY Shannon’s decision to go public last week and her call for mandatory sentences for rapists re- kindled memories for several other rape victims.

One Clare rape victim recalled horrific memories of her own or- deal, at the hands of her former partner.

The woman, who is from west Clare and who wished to retain her anonymity, said she was repeat- edly raped over a period of a long number of years but was too afraid to take a case against her attacker.

After going through prolonged pain for several years, she eventu- ally left him, five years ago.

“If he wasn’t raping me, he was beating me. I would refuse to have sex with him but he would force himself on me. I would get a belt anyway. I would lie to the doctor about my injuries.

‘“T reported it to gardai, but I didn’t go any further with it, because I felt I was the one that was in the wrong. I have been feeling guilty all my life,’ she said.

Not only was she afraid to make a statement to gardai, but she was also in fear of telling her family

what she was going through.

“IT was afraid to make a statement in case I hurt his feelings. He had a hold over me. It was up to me to walk away but I couldn’t,” she said.

She eventually managed to tear herself away and she fled.

“It was very hard to walk away from it. He cut my breasts and that was the end of it,” she said.

She attended counselling at the Rape Crisis Centre, but believes the psychological effects of her ordeal will remain with her forever.

She said that Mary Shannon’s de- cision to go public has inspired con- fidence in her and, in hindsight, she

regrets not pressing charges against her attacker.

“T regret not going ahead with it. I always get angry when I hear some- thing like this (Mary Shannon’s case). I have come a long way, but you have to get help,” she said.

“My advice to other women would be to report incidents like this… fast. You never forget. You start drinking or using drugs to dull the pain. It works for a while, but then you become addicted and you are worse. The biggest thing I felt was anger and I would feel angry again when something like this happens again,” she said.

THE cool dudes from Mullagh know what is good for them.

Everyday during the month of March they are eating their greens and devouring their fruit as part of Bord Bia’s Food Dudes programme.

The programme, launched by Mary Coughlan, Minister for Agriculture and Food and Mary Hanafin, Minis- ter for Education and Science aims to permanently increase consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables among primary school children both in the school and at home.

Mullagh National School is just one of 50 schools nationwide selected to take part in the programme.

This programme, which was devel- oped by the University of Wales, has delivered effective and long-lasting

results across the primary age range, regardless of gender, school size, and geographic and socio-economic fac- tors.

It is ultimately designed to enable children enjoy healthy diets, and to create a healthy eating culture within schools.

Two of the teaching staff, Mrs Connie Sexton and Ms Brid Keane, of Mullagh National School have attended Department of Education in-service in relation to the delivery of this programme and are currently overseeing its implementation in the school.

The pupils enjoy fruit and vegeta- bles on a daily basis as well as talks and videos explaining the benefits of fruit and vegetables within a healthy hte

More than 30,000 children will

participate in the programme over a three-year period.

The implementation of this pro- gramme was one of the recommen- dations in the recent report from the National Obesity Task Force.

Speaking about the programme in Mullagh National School, Minister Coughlan said, “The results of the National Children’s Food Survey 2005 tell us that currently in Ireland, some one in five children are over- weight or obese. It is therefore impor- tant that we encourage our children to eat healthily and fruit and vegeta- bles are key in that regard. The Food Dudes programme is designed to encourage children to develop a lik- ing for fruit and vegetables through repeated tasting and to maintain this behavioural change over time.”

School principal Séan McMahon

welcomed the initiative.

“Food Dudes is proving to be pop- ular with both parents and children. It has been successful in increasing consumption of fruit and vegetables among children in Mullagh. I see it as a central element of the schools approach to promoting a healthy en- vironment and seeking to instill in pupils a health conscious approach to diet, which will stay with them throughout their lives.

Mar a deir an seanfhocail “Is fearr an slainte na na tainte,” he said.

that they “join with the community in offering support to

Mary Shannon during this traumatic time, for her and her family”’.

The statement continued that those involved in the organisation felt that the three-year suspended sentence served on her perpetrator “was nel- ther fair nor consistent with other rape sentences. This man pleaded not guilty to rape, thus forcing Mary to give evidence of her experience. He was found guilty by a jury, yet the fact remains his crime goes unpun- ished”.

The statement said that it is “ex- tremely difficult for women to come forward and report rape or domestic abuse. It is worrying that the outcome of this trial will discourage women

from disclosing rape and abuse, thus leaving them in a potentially danger- ous situation and undoing all of the good work and practices that many agencies in this country have striven hard to achieve”.

The Clare Haven statement added that they “commend Mary on her courage to waive her anonymity and in her determination to challenge the system, and we offer her our full sup- port now and in the future”.

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the Rape Crisis Centre in Limerick said they were “horrified” at the sen- tence.

She said there was a “huge swell of phone calls from women after the

sentence and every one of them ex- pressed support for Mary. The other thing that most of them said was that if they were raped, what would be the point in reporting it?”

The centre recently ran a major me- dia campaign under the title of “An- other Silent Night”, urging victims of rape and sex abuse to speak out, report the crime and seek help.

“Tt is so difficult to convince wom- en to report rape, it’s so hard to get a rape case as far as court, and then When you do get a conviction, the rapist gets a suspended sentence. It’s sending out the message to perpetra- tors that it’s fine – go ahead and do it. After all, what will they do to you?”

DOONBEG Community Develop- ment Ltd has added its voice to the objections against the proposed clo- sure of aright of way on to the White Strand.

In its letter to the council, chair- man John Smith, said it was decided to object to the proposed closure fol- lowing a meeting of the development company on March I.

He said the company objected to the “proposed closure of the public road to Murray’s (Carrig’s) gate and the consequent extinguishment of the public vehicular and pedestrians

right of way to the beach from the said gate which has been obstructed by a boundary wall”.

“We would remind the council that it was this company which proposed the golf development in the first place and supported it through planning on the understanding that right of way to the beach would be honoured,’ he wrote.

‘We have always been of the opin- ion that a tunnel capable of taking an ambulance was the best solution to this particular problem,” the letter eyeTebaLeCeem

“We welcome the long overdue provision of a car park.”

Doonbeg man Murt McInerney has also written to the council with a similar objection.

In his letter he said the proposal to provide a car park was welcome, and agreed with the development compa- ny that a tunnel under the fairway ca- pable of taking an ambulance should be provided.

Meanwhile Cree man James Mc- Nulty has written to all council members asking that they object to the proposal.

The proposal in question is for a 120-metre portion of the public right of way on a local road, from where the existing roadway turns to give

access to Doonbeg beach to the point where it enters the private driveway.

Any extinguishment of a right of way is the reserved function of the council and can only be changed by the council members.

Kilrush’s county councillors have already unanimously proposed to defer any consideration of the pro- posed extinguishment of a public right of way at Doonbeg pending the outcome of a judicial review.

The councillors also agreed to move their March meeting from the Doonbeg Golf Club to Lissycasey, for fear of a perceived conflict of in- terests.

THE Farm Relief Services has this week announced a major addition to their service team in East Clare with the arrival of Dutch born hoof care operator Roland Dross.

Mr Dross, who now lives in Bod- yke, brings with him a state of the art hoof care crush with is believed to be the only one of its kind in Ireland.

Born in Holland, Dross perfected his trade in Denmark before return- ing to Ireland recently with his Irish wife and four children. He will most- ly cover the East Clare area.

Roland comes from a long line of dairy farmers in the Drenthe region of Holland, his father has a Holstein Friesian herd of 110 cows and a poul- try farm of around 14,000 chickens, so farming has always been a way of life for him.

After agricultural college, he traveled to Canada to broaden his knowledge and gain dairy manage- ment experience. He then travelled to New Zealand to round off his dairy experience before meeting his Irish wife in Holland in 1994.

In 1997 he moved to Denmark Where he bought a dairy farm of

70 Holstein Friesian cows and 120 acres. Over the next 9 years, he suc- cessfully managed, modernised and expanded the farm to 360 acres and a milking herd of 165 Jerseys.

He switched to a computerised feeding system using transponders on the herd and built a new dairy and free stall in 2002. He also carried out the entire hoof trimming on his herd, using his own crush and found this enjoyable and interesting and an area in which he would like to spe- cialise.

Late last year however, he sold the farm following a family decision to

return to Ireland and pursue a future in hoof care. The next three months were spent gaining intensive hoof trimming experience with a Dutch expert Gerwin Cnossen in Germany and Denmark.

Roland will now work for the Farm Relief Service and he will mainly be based in east Clare as well as in parts of Galway, Limerick and North Tip- oe Nae

To view a video of his unique cattle crush check out www.klovbeskaeren. dk/sider/main_video.htm or for more details contact Liam O’ Rourke, Farm Services Manager at 063 90666.

WHAT goes up must come down. After the high of victory over Kerry in the under 21 grade, the low of a 13 point drubbing at the hands of a rampant Monaghan.

Standing in the grey gloom outside the Clare dressing room, the rain pouring down around him, Banner boss Paidi O’Shea picked positives out of an awful day for Clare foot- eye

“It isn’t a major setback. I haven’t seen the rest of the results yet. We’re on four points and there will be a lot of better teams than us on four points around the league. We’d think that there is a good opportunity to get an-

other two points against London and we have games to come against Of- faly and Longford, so nobody knows just yet. We’ll have a look at it and see,’ he said

“We lived on the edge for a while in the first half. We never got going and Monaghan could have punished us further. We were playing catch up after 20 minutes. We can have no complaints, they were completely better than us. We lost a shower of players through injury and any team is going to miss players. Maybe if we had Michael O’Shea a bit earlier it would have given us a bit more. We are missing other players like Alan Malone and Stephen Hickey.”

Meanwhile, his counterpart Sea-

mus McEneaney revealed the way Clare were on their last visit to Ennis was a powerful motivating force for them. ““We were determined to put right what happened when we came here two years ago,” he said.

“We weren’t treated right that day; we weren’t even allowed to warm up on the pitch beforehand. We came down early yesterday, we got here around 10.30am. The lads were re- ally focused that was the most com- plete 74 minutes of football I’ve seen from us this year.

“We came down here with a mis- sion and that was to still be top of the league after the match. Things didn’t go our way before this match either. We didn’t have a place to warm up beforehand so we had to go on a bit of land that the Council owned and then the Guards showed up to move us on. So if we needed anymore mo- tivation that was the final nail. I have waited two years to talk to you guys about what happened, and get that of my chest,” he added.

Clare could do with some similar motivation.

THERE were celebrations in Liscan- nor last week with the news that the Government has promised almost half a million euro of funding to- ward the creation of a state-of-the- art creche facility in the village.

Just under €430,000 has been ear- marked for the creation of the service which could be up and running be- fore the beginning of 2008. The most likely venue for the new facility is on the grounds of Liscannor Primary School but no definite agreement has been reached to date.

Liscannor and the surrounding ar- eas have seen a large growth in popu- lation over the last decade and these creche facilities are now essential for the future growth of the area.

Plans have also been muted to es- tablish an after school service in conjunction with the new creche fa- Teta

“We are hoping that this will al- low us to put on a new building onto the primary building in Liscannor. We are aiming to have 20 preschool places in the new building, but we would also be looking at creating an after school service. The hope at

the moment is to be able to combine three existing rooms at the school to form the after school service,’ said creche organiser, Liz Bonito.

‘There is a huge demand in the area for something like this. We are cur- rently operating in the community centre but this new purpose building will make all the difference.

“We have been fundraising for this the whole time and so many people have been a huge help in getting this off the ground. It is the combined ef- fort of an awful lot of people in Lis- cannot.

“It’s thanks the parents who have

abd Cehncys MBs Mm Oe CoM el buwuss0lMmel Roles (om oy-KI parents, future parents and con- cerned people in the locality.”

The announcement was welcomed by local county councilor Richard Nagle.

“T am really delighted, there has been almost €430,000 allocated for the provision a play school service in Liscannor,’ said Cllr Nagle (FF).

“I made a number of representa- tions on behalf of the group and I am really hopeful that things will be able to progress as quickly as possi- ble from now on. It is a badly needed service for the area.”

FOR the third consecutive year, cus- toms officials at Shannon Airport did not confiscate any goods from pas- sengers arriving in Ireland from the US during the traditional Christmas shopping period.

This is despite an _ estimated 100,000 Irish people travelling to the US, many from Shannon Airport, and spending millions of Euro on Christmas shopping trips in the pe- riod between the start of November and the end of December.

While customs officers carry out random checks at airports as part of their daily duties, passengers stopped at Shannon during November and December did not have any items in excess of their allowance.

Information obtained from the Revenue Commissioners confirmed that the number and value of goods

seized from passengers and pas- sengers’ baggage between Novem- ber | and December 31 at Shannon was “nil”. The number and value of goods released on compromise pen- alties was also “nil”.

The figures revealed that the amount of duty and taxes taken from passen- gers declaring goods on importation was €1,262.66 – made up of €117.15 in duty and €1,145.51 in VAT.

At Dublin Airport, passengers returning from the US during the same period, with “goods lawfully declared”, paid €749 in duty and €3,430 in VAT.

While some items were seized, they were released to their owners follow- ing payment of duties and penalties valued at €1,031.

Passengers are allowed to bring home items worth no more than €175 before they must make a dec- laration.

COCAINE use in Clare has risen sharply and is the second most used drug in the county, with its popular- ity now outgrowing ecstacy.

The use of heroin is also continuing to increase in Clare, as addicts travel to Limerick to get their fix, accord- ing to gardai.

The head of the Clare Garda Di- vision’s Drug Unit, Sergeant John Brennan, said the trends in drug use in Clare had changed dramatically over the past few years and cocaine was now widely available.

“Our seizures of cocaine would be next to cannabis. It would have been very rare, going back three or four years ago.

“It has eclipsed ecstacy and am- phetamine,” said Sgt Brennan.

“It is the demand for cocaine that is causing problems. A lot of people with good wage packets are indulg- ing in cocaine at weekends. Once there is a demand, there will always be a supply,” he said.

While gardai in Clare have not made any major seizures of cocaine in recent years, they believe that a string of minor hauls is resulting in inroads being made into its supply.

‘A lot of individual seizures are be- ing made. There has been a substan- tial increase over the past number of years in the amount of cocaine vis- ible to us anyway.

“It seems to be deemed acceptable across the board, by all sections of the community,” he said.

He said the link between cocaine use and violence was significant as people who wouldn’t generally have violent tendencies resorted to vicious assaults after taking the drug.

“It is very obvious it is responsible for violence and public order inci- CSN

“It is commonly accepted that the use of cocaine leads to violence and it has been a factor in some of the se- rious assaults that have taken place,” |ntemncy-B (em

The majority of drugs are brought into Clare from mainland Europe, via Limerick, and gardai believe that cocaine and cannabis come in Koons

A number of prosecutions have been brought to court and a number of others are still pending, relating to possession of cocaine.

Sgt Brennan said the use of heroin continued to pose huge concerns for ee KerNe

“There is still a considerable amount of it. A lot of our people are going in to Limerick to get heroin. Some of the notorious drugs gangs in Limerick are cutting back the supply of cannabis, because it is more bulky, and are replacing it with heroin,” he Sr HLGe

He said that the popularity of ecsta- cy tablets has “dropped completely”’.

THE people of the Burren region have been invited to come on board with new projects which aim at cre- ating an overarching tourism man- agement system in north Clare.

The Burren Project, which is a combination of Clare County Coun- cil, BurrenBeo, Failte Ireland, Shan- non Development and the National Parks and Wildlife Service, has started work from a new base office in Ennistymon and hoping to shape the evolution of the tourism product in the area over the next few years.

“We are really hoping to work with everyone – voluntary organisation like BurrenBeo, the businesses, the

farmers, everyone who has an inter- est in the area,” said project leader Carol Gleeson. “It’s really a case of finding out exactly what is happen- ing and working in partnership with these people. “In the long term, what we want to do is have a Strategic overview and help integrate and co- ordinate a lot of the things that are already going on in the Burren. That is the aspiration the County Council would have for this project.”

The group are hoping to promote a diversification in the tourism market which would see more people com- ing in the off-season and visiting different places. They are also hop- ing to promote the environmentally sustainability of the area by promot-

ing ‘soft footprint’ eco-tourism and establishing a code for visitors.

“There are a lot of returns from that sort of tourism in the long run. We are looking for people who would stay longer, go for walks and eat in the restaurants. These people tend to come at any time and stay longer. It’s people who are interested in their health, active people and people who are interested in finding out more about what is actually going on in the Burren,’ said Emer McCarthy of the project.

“We are working closely with Bur- renBeo who have been providing info on the Burren for the last number of years. They have been working a lot with regard to education and have al-

ready done a lot of work especially in the schools. It is very much a part- nership approach, we really want to work together with people like Bur- renBeo, the IFA or anyone else who is providing a service for local peo- ple.”

Projects that the group is currently looking at include educational pro- erammes for school and _ visitors, the creation of a number of Burren viewing points, the establishment of a Burren Code about, a signage au- dit and the establishment of a Burren brand

For information contact Carol and Emer at cgleeson@burren. ie, emccarthy@burren.ie or O65 7072295.