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A SHOUTING match across the council chamber, name-calling and councillors refusing to take their chair was all part of the first meeting of Clare’s new county council.

It was a baptism of fire for Cllr Tony Mulcahy (FG) on Friday as he was named mayor of Clare, when newly re-elected councillor James Breen (Ind) got to his feet and opposed the selection process that saw the Shan- non man take the chair.

Watched by a large crowd in the public gallery, six novice councillors and two who like himself regained their lost seat, the former Fianna Fail councillor raised his first objection during the nomination process.

Cllr Mucahy was proposed for the top job in the council chamber by Cllr John Crowe (FG) and seconded by Cllr Patricia McCarthy (Ind) as Nea ueere MO LeU MUN Tcar-U 0m or-DUR MRED I ecp

As Cllr McCarthy finished her speech of support for Cllr Mulcahy, Cllr Breen stood up and said, “I can- not support what I believe is a power sharing agreement.”

The outgoing mayor and chair of the first half of the meeting, Madeleine Taylor Quinn (FG) asked the coun- cillor to limit his comments to nomi- nating a candidate for mayor.

The Kilnamona councillor re- mained standing, stating he was ob- jecting to the selection process.

“Are you proposing? Then if you are not, resume your seat,” said Ms

Taylor Quinn.

With no other proposals forthcom- ing, she then deemed Cllr Mulcahy elected. Cllr Breen continued to stand, and continued to object.

“Put it on the record there is one person descending,’ Ms _ Taylor Quinn told the county secretary as she prepared to hand over the chain of office. Cllr Breen remained stand- ing as the chain was presented, much

to the distress of the new mayor’s family and friends.

During his acceptance speech, the new mayor thanked the councillors for “your almost unanimous sup- port here’. At the end of the mayor’s speech, Cllr Breen got to his feet again and, after some protest, said he wanted to wish the mayor well and again make his point.

Cllr McCarthy told the council it

was disingenuous of the councillor to say he was objecting because he was an independent councillor and accused him of turning his mobile phone off when the final deal was being agreed.

“You are a maverick. That is what you are and what you will always be,” she said and accused him of “go- ing on with baloney”.

Again Cllr Breen was on his feet demanding in a loud voice to reply to Cllr McCarthy. “This is not going to be the James Breen Road Show,” warned the mayor. He continued to ask to speak on a point of order.

Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) then took to his feet and shouted across the chamber at Cllr Breen.

“Reference the point of order’ and “respect the mayor,” he repeated.

Cllr Breen said that he wanted to decide with his election team whether he would be part of the deal to which Cllr Meaney said, “You did not know what it was.”

“You are not in Dail Eireann now,’ said Cllr Kelly.

Cllr Breen eventually took to his SorsLMre DELO MSIODN (COD

“Tam very sorry that your election has been turned into a circus by one member of the council,” said Cllr Joe Arkins (FG) to the mayor.

KILKISHEN GAA Club will provide a guard of honour today for the funer- al of local man Kevin McMahon.

The 23-year-old died last Saturday after spending almost a week on a life Support machine in a Spanish hospi- tal. The holiday tragedy took place early last week when Mr McMahon hit his head while diving into a swim- ming pool.

He was pronounced dead on Satur- day night after members of his family had travelled to be by his side.

Mr McMahon, who has an address at Plunkett Drive in Kilkishen, repre- sented the county at U-14 and U-16 level, and worked for local council- lor Joe Cooney (FG) for a number of erie

THEY formed the most famous mid- field partnership that ever togged out in a saffron and blue football jersey — the day 17 years ago that Clare took a catapult to Kerry in The Gaelic Grounds.

The Tom Morrissey/Aidan Molo- ney partnership was too much for Noel O’Mahony and Anthony Glee- son that Munster Final day — 17 years on they joined forces at champion- ship level once more when plotting Cooraclare’s first championship vic-

tory in five years.

It was the story of the opening weekend of the 2009 championship as Cooraclare ambushed five-times county finalists this decade, Eire Og, in Kilmihil on Friday night to bring an end to the biggest losing streak in Cooraclare’s proud championship VI Ke as

“Since 2004 we hadn’t won a cham- pionship match,’ said Morrissey after Cooraclare’s 1-15 to 1-9 vic- tory. “Some of them had never won a championship match but they went out there today and for the first time

in a long time a Cooraclare team showed a bit of heart, a bit of passion and a bit of fire. We’re just delight- ed, delighted for Cooraclare that we LOLeN eM CneT-VObYancxolMmsetclMneueP

“We brought in Aidan ‘Horse’ Moloney and you couldn’t have better than him. He knows all the drills and he put a bit of belief into our lads. We have been down, we have been down a lot in the last four or five years.

“We are a good traditional cham- pionship team. We hope to get out of the group and have made a good start to get out of the group. We have

to go out again the next day and re- peat that — that’s what we’ll be look- ing for. Nearly all of them lads have been playing since 2004 and have not come out of the group. To win is a massive lift for all those boys in there. They’re finally men the way the stood up there today,’ added WY uu

It the only blow for the underdog over the weekend — elsewhere county champions Kilmurry Ibrickane, and Doonbeg, who are greatest pretenders to their throne, were most impressive in easily dispatching the challenges

mounted by Ballyvaughan and Shan- non Gaels respectively.

Controversy came in the shape of an end-of-match dust up between Kilrush Shamrocks and Liscannor players after their drawn game in Quilty.

The fracas saw the Shams’ Alan Daly and Liscannor’s Ronan Slattery receive straights red cards from ref- eree Kevin Walsh.

Bosses should share pain

AS tense and full-blooded a first round tie as you are ever likely to witness in Quilty on Friday evening as Liscannor had to utilise all of last year’s experience to carve out a point. And a draw was probably the fairest result as neither side really deserved to lose but certainly Kilrush will feel that they had enough chances to win this tie long before the final whistle.

The Shams’ superior intensity in the first half constantly disrupted Liscan- nor’s flow, especially after Liscannor talisman Brian Considine had to be withdrawn with a rerecurrance of a hamstring injury but although Kiul- rush led by O-5 to O-3 at the break, it should have been far greater. What would have frustrated Kilrush most was not the quantity of first half wides, incidentally six of those in all, but the manner of the misses as at least four of those it seemed were easier to score than miss. Consider- ing that Kilrush’s full-forward line seemed to have the edge, Liscan- nor would have felt relieved to have only gone in two points behind at the usrehe

It went blow for blow early on though. Liscannor’s Kieran Consid- ine opened the scoring with a free in the third minute that was cancelled out by Jim Young only two minutes later before Peadar McMahon con- verted a free to put Kilrush 0-2 to O-1 ahead by the seventh minute. How-

ever, depsite their impressive open- ing, they also had kicked four wides by this stage and added to the loss of Brian Considine for Liscannor, Kilrush would have felt confident of building on that lead.

However, credit Liscannor for not panicking, and moving Niall Consid- ine to midfield, they dug deep and in- deed it was Considine who set up the equalising score for Alan Clohessy at the end of the first quarter.

Two more wides were to follow for Kilrush but they did regain the lead in the 18th minute when Patrick Mc-

Grath converted a free, this time off the ground after he had failed with a previous effort. And they doubled that advantage only three minutes later when Matthew Maloney gath- ered a kick-out and fed the onrush- ing Paddy Clancy who could have gone for goal but was content to take a point.

The tension moved up a few notches as three Kilrush players were yellow carded in quick succession for some hefty challenges but on the score- board, the Shams held firm after K1- eran Considine and Peadar McMa-

hon swapped frees before the break to earn Kilrush a O-5 to O-3 half-time advantage.

It would get better for Kilrush on the restart when Peadar McMahon pointed within a minute. However, true to form, Liscannor didn’t drop their heads and soon rallied, even- tually gaining parity by the 4lst minute with a Ronan Slattery free, a great passing move that was started and finished by Dara Blake and a huge free from Kieran Considine that brought the crowd in the stand KOM Oslo pup oom

However, Kilrush hit back in style only a minute later with a flowing passing move of their own, moving through Maloney, Young, Brendan Crowley and finally Peadar McMa- hon who struck a great leading point. Alan Daly followed up with a poor wide and Niall Considine and Chris Dixon entered the referee’s book be- fore Alan Clohessy levelled the game up with a free in the 50th minute.

With the game in the balance, Kil- rush should have done better with a counter-attack when John Kelly fed the overlapping Matthew Maloney who bore down on goal but he dillied and dallied before offloading across the box and the danger was cleared. Kilrush made amends with a superb Peadar McMahon free in the 57th minute that dissected the posts but when leaders were needed, Liscannor had them in abundance, epitomised by the equalising score that came af-

ter Ronan Slattery raided up the left and kicked a pinpoint crossfield pass to Dara Blake who dummied inside and put over the bar.

There was still time for some his- trionics and a brace of red cards for Ronan Slattery and Alan Daly who needlessly got caught up in the tense drama late on that took the sting out of the on-field action and hastened the inevitability of the spoils being shared.

Townies trounce [Tones at home

SIXMILEBRIDGE must have been watching Clarecastle’s battling win over the Blues only two days previ- ous as this was almost a mirror 1m- age of that game. In what was an- other bruising derby, both sides were understrength but after making the Superior start just as they had done against the Magpies, Newmarket faded badly in the second half, only scoring two second half points to again fall to a four point defeat.

A glut of second half dismissals typified a touchy neighbourly con- test as first Anthony Kilmartin and Declan Morey saw the line in contro- versial circumstances just after half- time before Martin Murphy followed late in the game for an off the ball incident involving Wayne Kennedy. Aside from that, the quality was not of the highest standard as both sides repeatedly wasted good scoring op- portunities and for almost fifteen minutes mid-way through the sec- ond half, it appeared that neither side

wanted to win it. That Sixmilebridge finally prevailed came down to the greater need as the home side had not won a game all season and were rooted to the bottom of the Division 1 table.

However, for Newmarket, it was another fine display from Bernard Gaffney that kept them ticking over until the final quarter as the former county player hit all but three of their eleven point total while the Bridge’s main protagonists were midfielder Danny Morey and corner-forward David O’Connor, the latter who turned this tie decisively towards the Bridge with four second half points from play.

It was the Blues who began bright- est though, with Gaffney hitting four early points to give his side a 0-4 to Q-1 lead by the ninth minute. The Bridge battled back though, drawing level by the 19th minute and from there until the break the sides went blow for blow to go in at 9 points apiece, with the only other notable incident an injury time effort on goal

by Declan Morey that just flashed by Kieran Devitt’s left post.

The second half began in dramatic fashion, with a large brawl breaking out near the sideline after Anthony Kilmartin had produced a high chal- lenge on Declan Morey and after things calmed down, referee Ger Hoey decided to dismiss both play- ers. That incident upped the intensity another notch as points from Gaffney and Dominic McMahon were bet- tered by three good passing moves that ended with David O’Connor points for the Bridge.

However, at 0-12 to O-I1 to the home side by the turn of the final quarter, the game entered it’s most fallow period with a plethora of wides on both sides only heighten- ing the tension. In the 55th minute, Newmarket were reduced to thir- teen when Martin Murphy received a straight red and taking advantage of this, the Bridge finished strongly with O’Connor, Christy Griffin and Danny Morey completing the scor- ing to give them a much needed win

and cap off a thoroughly disappoint- ing week for Newmarket.

Blues beaten twice in the same week

2006 GRAND National winning trainer Martin Brassil has led the tributes to Tom Costelloe, the legen- dary Clare horse trainer and dealer who died on Sunday. In a remark- able career in the horse racing indus- try Costelloe put six winners of the Cheltenham Gold Cup through his Newmarket-on-Fergus stable as well as training the winner of the Irish Grand National.

“He had the biggest supply of horses going into England for a long number of years,” Brassil told

a | wouldn’t be surprised if 10-year-olds were involved (in drug abuse).”

He said that drugs are widely avail-

able.

“In the past, it was always thought that heroin was available just in the larger cities but there is no such place as a quiet place any more,” he said.

“Drugs are available in the most ru- ral parts of Clare as much as in Lim- erick city,’ he said.

‘The big need in the mid-west is to have a drug detox service based in all the main centres – Limerick, Ennis, Nenagh.

“The Health Service Executive (HSE) has plans for it, but in the cur- rent economic climate, it may be put on the long finger,’ he said.

Mr Duffy said that the spread of drugs is linked to the increased de- mand.

“It’s a supply and demand issue. If there was no demand, there wouldn’t be need for supply. It’s the people who create demand who create the supply,” he said.

“l’m concerned there are people out there who should know better, who are stoking up the demand side which leads to misery,’ he added.

‘People who dabble in recreational drugs think that a let-off at weekends is to dabble in drugs. They have to bear in mind that the consequences

of that leads to problems,” he added.

“We have a very high tolerance of drugs. Social acceptability doesn’t allow it,” he said.

While gardai in Clare have repeat- edly expressed concern about the increased availability of heroin and cocaine, Mr Duffy said, “I couldn’t say it’s one or the other. Someone who starts on soft drugs graduates up along.”

Services, like Bushypark addiction treatment centre in Ennis, have been provided in an effort to help people get off drugs, such has been the spi- raling use.