The Clare People Archive

ONE of Ireland’s most acclaimed painters is eyeing a former barracks on the banks of the River Fergus as the location of a proposed new artistin-residence project.

Ennis man and award winning artist Mick O’Dea (RHA) is part of a local group proposing to convert old stables located near the Garda Station into an artist’s studio.

O’Dea believes the site is rich with potential and the project could attract the very best artists from around the world.

He says, “Ennis is one of the few towns in Ireland without a studio or even a proper exhibition space. There is one in Glór, but that’s more of an annex, its part of the building. Ennis doesn’t have a dedicated space. It would be an interesting thing to happen for the town.

O’Dea adds, “Those buildings and that area from Steele’s Rock down by the river are what makes the town, I think. Can you imagine if that was a car-park or if those buildings were gone? They are amazing buildings and you have these stories that go with that area. It’s a good opportunity to get artists into the middle of Ennis.” It has been suggested that some of the work produced by artists using the studio would be gifted to local museums or local authorities.

O’Dea is currently working on a proposal document for Ennis based on artist in residence schemes from around the world.

He says the cost of transforming the stables into a working studio would be “minimal”. O’Dea says Ennis should also exploit its twinning arrangements with other towns and cities to bring artists from around the world to the town.

“We’re twinned with enough of towns. There must be artists in these places who would relish coming to Ennis.”O’Dea was part of a group of local people including Fine Gael councillor Johnny Flynn who recently visited the buildings.

Cllr Flynn is hoping that the Office of Public Works (OPW), who are currently carrying out major flood relief works on the river, will repair slates and the guttering of the building while scaffolding is in the water.

He says the artist-in-residence project could be the next step in promoting cultural tourism through a so-called Abbey Quarter, based around the town’s historic Franciscan Abbey.

“You’re talking about the best in international talent. Anything that would bring more culture into the town would be great.”

Cllr Flynn is also proposing that the OPW develop walkways and cycle paths along the Fergus in order to connect Ennis and Clarecastle.

CASH strapped parents in Clare who are facing back to school bills of more than € 700 per child are being forced to turn to moneylenders and charities such as the St Vincent de Paul in desperation.

The Clare Citizen Information Office surveyed stressed parents who sought their advice and assistance and discovered that the cost of one second level student starting school in Clare has reached almost € 800.

The € 200 Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance (BSFCA) grant is not taking the pressure off parents, said Clare’s Citizen Information Development Manager Paul Woulfe and he has raised concerns that the financial pressure is forcing people to turn to “legal and illegal money lenders in desperation”, who charge exorbitant interest rates and in the case of illegal money lenders can resort to threatening and abusive behaviour when collecting a debt.

Parents are also finding some sol- ace in organisations such as the St Vincent de Paul.

“It is easy to see how the costs add up. Shoes cost about € 250 because you need runners and sports shoes too, € 200 for school uniforms and tracksuits, books cost anything between € 200 and € 250 with miscellaneous classroom costs at least € 50.

“The voluntary contribution to schools is usually between € 100 to € 125,” explained Mr Woulfe.

The Citizen Information development manager said many parents find themselves in debt at the start of the school year, especially as the BSCFA and children’s allowance is reduced as costs increase. The cost of school tours and extra-curricular activities or tuition can also be very high.

“Though not compulsory, such activities are often essential with regard to social and educational inclusion,” said Mr Woulfe.

“Children from lower-income families are likely to benefit most and yet be most at risk of exclusion from costly extra-curricular activities and supports. Additionally, a child who has to opt out of school tours or outings is likely to experience social stigma,” he said.

“Evidence from MABS suggests that parents may opt to ensure that their children do continue to participate in extra-curricular activities, school tours etcetera, but that this brings with it the risk of deepening household poverty, which carries with it not only health risks associated with food and fuel poverty but also the stress of household indebtedness and social exclusion of the parents and family within the broader community or socio-economic context.”

“They have so many costs it is crippling and they face a great burden,” said Mr Woulfe.

Families on certain social welfare payments and some low income working families are this week applying for the back to school grant.

The grant for second level students is € 200 down from € 305, while € 100 is granted towards primary school children.

KILRUSH’S Music and Set Dancing Festival could be in doubt for next year, as it failed to receive any financial support from the Arts Council, but organisers are determined to make this year’s event one of the best ever. The festival, which replaced the Eigse Mrs Crotty festival five years ago, has new competitions added to its listing this year with a focus on encouraging young musicians.

Secretary of the group Anne Hayes said a new under 12-concertina competition will take place for the first time this year, as well as the traditional under-18 competition.

While the Kilrush Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann organised festival has encouraged musicians of all ages from all over Ireland to visit the town during the last five years, it is facing new challenges every time.

This year the direct funding from the Arts Council has been cut, resulting in the group working with € 3,000 less than last year. Determined volunteers have not been deterred by this or the fact they are also competing with other festivals and competitions.

As schools are opening earlier and earlier every year the national fleadh competition has been brought forward to accommodate school going partici- pants. As a result the Kilrush competition also had to be brought forward so as not to clash with the national competition. The West Clare music festival is now competing with the festival in Feakle and over laps with the Rose of Clare just out the road in Cooraclare-Cree. Despite all the hurdles the festival promises to be better than ever, opening tomorrow (Wednesday) with a Sessiun in the Teach Cheoil at 9pm.

The Singers Club will take place in the Haven Arms on Thursday August 8 at 10pm with_music, set dancing and Irish language classes on Friday from 10 am. A unique Musicial Boat Trip to Scattery Island will take place on Friday at 1pm, and an open air ceilí in Kilrush Town Square at 7pm followed by music sessions in the town bars from 10pm.

Classes will take place again on Saturday, as well as concertina competitions followed by open air dancing to Johnny Reidy Ceili Band at 2.30pm and a Gala Concert in the Teach Cheoil at 8pm.

On Sunday the final of the concertina competition is at noon with a monster open air music session at the Vandeleur Walled Gardens with Inis Cathaigh Comhaltas Branch. Open Air Ceili with the Five Counties Ceili Band in the square at 7p.m. with the closing sessions in the town’s bars at 10pm will bring the festival to a close.

PLANS for a multi-million euro wave energy plant off the Clare coast could soon be sunk as the government appears to be dragging its feet in legislating for the project.

It was announced earlier this year that a license for the project, which has been earmarked for White Strand in Miltown Malbay, had been authorised by the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources however, The Clare People has learned that this license has yet to be issued.

In addition, the legislation necessary to allow for a private company to “lease” a section a Irish water from the state has not even been drafted.

According to Kieran O’Brien, Executive Director of Carnegie Wave Energy and former Managing Director the ESB National Grid, the Clare site has fallen behind rival locations in Scotland and England – and if a decision was being made today, the Clare site would not even be in the running.

“The Minister has announced that we are to be granted a license, we haven’t actually got it yet, it is still in the legal process,” said Kieran.

“After we actually get the license we have a lot of technical survey work to undertake and once those surveys are completed we would have to secure a lease for the ground. The legislation that will grant us a lease is not even in place in Ireland at the moment. So, even if we were ready right now, we couldn’t do anything in Clare.

“To be frank, I’m going to spend the first two weeks of September in the UK – I’ll be talking to people in Scotland and down in Cornwall and in London. These people have all this stuff in place.

“In Scotland, they have one agency who looks after all of this. If you want to talk to fishermen, you talk to Joe; if you want to talk about a lease, talk to Mike; if you want support from the Scottish universities, you talk to someone else.

“They are extremely well organised and funding – they have the administrative organisation that investors who want to spend million like. The Irish authorities have a long way to go before they are in that area.”

If successful, the project would see a large spherical wave buoys being built to harvest the power of the sea. The movement of the buoy would be used to turn turbines which would in turn create electricity. The buoys which will be used off the Clare coast would be of full commercial size, have a diameter of between 16 and 20 metres and produce up to 1.5 megawatts a day.

A number of Irish companies are currently developing wave energy generators but none have yet progressed past the prototype stage of development.

LOCALS in Doolin are growing angry with a small group of visitors who are ignoring advice from residents and continuing to get in the water with Dusty the dolphin.

Despite national and international media coverage for Dusty’s numerous dust-ups with the public over the past 10 days, swimmers did attempt to swim with the dolphin over the weekend.

“One lady did try to enter the water and swim with her – despite all the warnings. There is no getting through to some people,” a local told The Clare People .

It has also been revealed that Dusty is unlikely to leave Doolin as a result of recent violent interactions with swimmers – indeed, these interactions could actually encourage her to stay forever.

NON-FARMING shareholders are to lose the right to vote on issues concerning the future management of Clare Marts Ltd.

A resolution was passed at last week’s Special General Meeting of the mart which will see the creation of a two distinct tiers of shareholders: those who have voting rights and those who don’t. Almost 91 per cent of shareholder present voted in favour of the resolution, which requires shareholders to trade cattle, sheep or horses to the value of at least € 5,000 over a four-year period, or surrender their voting rights.

A shareholder who does not fulfill these conditions will be deemed to be a “Category B” shareholder and will lose the right to vote, but will retain the full value of the shares.

Mart shareholder and Ennis busi nessman, Oliver Moylan, criticised the decision – describing it as “discrimination” and said that Clare Marts was “biting the hand that fed it”.

A spokesperson for the mart told The Clare People yesterday that the move was designed to maintain farmer control for the decision mak- ing process at the mart. He also said that similar moves had been made at a number of Irish marts in recent years.

No person who was a shareholder when the resolution was passed last Wednesday, July 24, will lose their voting rights. However, the Category B conditions will kick in when shares are transferred or willed to others.

Over the years, a number of shares at Ennis Marts Limited have been passed on to people who are no longer active farmers. This has created a situation at the mart where many of the shareholders no longer have any direct connection to active farming.

Mr Moylan criticised the decision saying it was very unfair on business people and local families who were involved in setting up the mart and will soon lose their voting rights.

“It’s a farce they don’t want nontraders. They just want farmers and yet a lot of the marts’ business in volves renting and investment,” Mr Moylan said.

“They’re now trying to make it so we have no voting rights. It’s discrimination against a minority.

Turnover of the marts was € 69.5 million last year with the majority of that coming from the sale of livestock and the rest coming from property.

ENNISMAN Anthony McMahon has been appointed to parish priest of Kilmurry-Ibricane this week.

The Clare priest was the only priest promoted by Bishop Kieran Reilly SMA, when he announced the new Killaloe Diocesan Priest appointments yesterday morning (Monday).

The bishop made 11 changes and appointments in total, including the reconfiguration of the of the East Clare Cluster to include the parish of O’Callaghan’s Mills, which is to move from the Scáth na Sionnaine Cluster.

Fr McMahon will move to Mullagh in succession to Fr Pat Larkin who has been appointed parish priest of Kilmaley.

Fr McMahon who is a native of Ennis was educated at St Flannan’s College, Ennis, and St Patrick’s College Maynooth and was ordained in 2001. He continued post graduate studies in Maynooth in 2001 and 2002 and was appointed Curate in Kinnitty, County Offaly, in 2002. In 2003 he was appointed Curate in Nenagh, County Tipperary, and has also worked as the Diocesan Catechetical Advisor to the Gaelscoileanna.

Canon Michael McLaughlin, PP Kilmaley, will also see a change to his role in the diocese when these changes come into affect on August 30, as he is to be priest in residence in Inch.

Fr Harry Bohan is to continue as parish priest in Sixmilebridge, while Fr Harry Brady is to continue as PP of Clarecastle.

Fr Paddy McMahon, a native of Kildysart, is retiring from the Diocese of Spokane, USA, and is to be attached to the Cluster of Scáth na Sionnaine with residence in Bridgetown.

Fr Ignatius McCormack will con- tinue to teach and reside in St Flannan’s College, Ennis, and be available for weekend ministry in the parish of Quin.

Changes outside the county will see Fr Enda Burke, assistant priest Cloughjordan, retire and Fr Tom Whelan, Administrator Cloughjordan, to be appointed curate in Castleconnell, Limerick.

Fr Tom Hannon, who is returning to the Diocese from Sabbatical leave, is to be parish priest in Cloughjordan.

Fr Noel Hayes, Assistant Priest, Bridgetown, is to retire due to ill health, returning to St Patrick’s Missionary Society.

THERE is a glimmer of hope for dwindling vocations in the Diocese of Killaloe as five young men have expressed an interest in training for the priesthood next year and are in talks with the vocations officer.

Even if one of these men are from Clare and decide to enter St Partick’s College Maynooth as a clerical student, it would still be at least seven years before the county had a new Clare priest among the 52 priests currently working in the county.

There is currently no Clare man training for the priesthood and just one man from the diocese – a Birr native – studying in Maynooth.

Meanwhile the number of priests serving the diocese continues to decline, as the patrol needs of the 124,000 Catholics in the six county dioceses are met through a “cluster system”.

According to figures released by the Diocese of Killaloe there are currently 82 priests in full-time ministry in the diocese’s 58 parishes, and The Clare People has learnt that 52 of those priests are serving in this county.

Among the 50 plus priests serving in Clare is Bishop Emeritus Dr Willie Walsh, who retired as bishop in 2010, but continues to serve the people of his adopted county as a priest.

The Diocese also has a priest from a Polish Diocese – Fr Dariusz – attending to the patrol needs of the Polish community.

Based in the Cathedral in Ennis, he serves Mass once a week in Ennis, while also moving to other counties in the diocese to serve Mass and administer at christenings, weddings and funerals.

A further six Killaloe priests are engaged in full-time school chaplaincy, teaching, diocesan administration and other pastoral work throughout Ireland, while five more serve overseas in various ministries.

Fifteen Killaloe priests are fully retired from active ministry, four of these men are from Clare.

The Diocese also benefits from the service of six priests from other dioceses or religious congregations serving as priests and benefits from the ministry of the clergy based at the Franciscan Friary in Ennis and the Cistercian Monastery at Mount St Joseph’s, Roscrea.

LESS than a year after it was threatened with closure, representatives of the Ennistymon Community Hospital yesterday signed contracts which will secure the facilities future for a generation.

Following a mammoth local fundraising operation, The Friends of Ennistymon’s Hospital and the HSE yesterday signed contracts for Phase 1 of a € 3 million master plan for the facility.

Construction work will begin in early August with Phase 2 of the project likely to get underway at some stage in 2014.

In order to secure this new future for the facility, the Friends of Ennistymon Hospital have raised an incredible € 400,000 from local people to co-fund Phase 1 with the HSE.

A similar amount of money will also need to be raised locally to cofund the second part of the project. Yesterday’s contract signing seems like no more then a dream last year, when the facility was threatened with closure for the third time in as many years.

“The contracts were signed this morning which is a great relief for all of us.

“This is a major step forward, in the last six months we were threatened with the hospital being closed.

“That is the third time in recent years that we have been told that Ennistymon hospital was in danger of being closed,” said Thomas O’Sullivan of Friends of Ennistymon Hospital.

“It came down to what funding we could put up to back up our talk. So we were able to go to the HSE, from our small community, with € 400,000 for Phase 1.

“This is an incredible amount of money for the people of North Clare to come up with.

“We have people at church gate collection from Mullagh up to New Quay and down to Kilnamona and the support that we have got is really tremendous.

“These local people are the real back bone of our funding. That proves to us that people really want it.”

The development will see the total transformation of the facility, with twin on-suite rooms replacing the current ward-style sleeping arrangements. Phase 1 will focus on the mens and women’s sleeping quarters while Phase 2 will develop the mens area.

“As soon as the first section is nearing completion we will start looking at Phase 2.

“We have started fundraising for that already and hopefully we can progress that in the next eight or 10 months,” continued Thomas.

MORE than 40 council houses are to be made liveable again, as almost a half a million euro is invested in the project.

Clare County Council’s 2013 Housing Works Programme got an extra € 700,000 boost and the funding is being invested in improving the local housing stock.

The 42 vacant Clare council houses will not only be returned to use as a result of the investment, but the work will also contribute to local employment.

The funding will be targeted at improving the energy efficiency and comfort levels of the council’s social housing stock, returning council houses to use and providing grant aid for the adaption of houses for older people and people with a disability.

A specific allocation of € 198,490 was set aside under the jobs stimulus investment programme for energy efficiency retrofitting of social housing stock.

Mayor of Clare, Cllr Joe Arkins, highlighted the new employment opportunities that will be provided for numerous private contractors in the county by the effective doubling of Clare’s 2013 allocation.

“The energy retrofitting measures for 2013 will target 250 older houses in the council’s stock which lack adequate insulation and draught proofing. The works will, in addition to providing an economic boost, considerably improve the comfort levels for our tenants.”

Meanwhile, the Chairperson of the Housing SPC, Cllr Patricia McCarthy welcomed the provision of additional funding of € 400,000 euro to carry out necessary works to return vacant houses to stock.

“This budget provision will see contracts being issued in respect of approximately 42 vacant units around the county in the current year. This, she stated, is particularly welcome at a time when our recently completed housing needs assessment identified 1,671 applicants in need of housing,” she said.

The housing adaptation grants scheme also received a welcome boost with an additional allocation of € 81,456 to bring the total available for the year to € 1.55 million.

The council’s director of Housing Services, Bernadette Kinsella, said, “This ambitious work programme presents a significant challenge for the council. However, I believe the Housing Department’s highly motivated technical and administrative team will ensure the effective delivery of this programme.”