The Clare People Archive

THE match may not live long in the memory but for members of the Tulla Pipe Band the meeting of Ireland and Slovakia in last Friday’s European Championship qualifier was certainly an unforgettable experience.

After years of performing at some of the country’s biggest sporting and cultural events, the band played for over 40,000 fans and an international television audience of millions when they performed the national anthems of the respective nations at the Aviva Stadium.

The band were invited to perform after impressing Football Association of Ireland (FAI) CEO John Delaney during a visit to Tulla in July. An invitation for a first ever performance at the old Lansdowne Road was extended to the band by the FAI through Tulla United.

Club players and officials accompanied the 26 band members and assistant treasurer Mary Boland to Dublin on Friday.

“We got there at 5pm on the button and the bus pulled into the tunnel in the stadium. I suppose it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to get into the heart of the stadium,” recalled band Chairman Fintan Leamy.

The band ran through a 20-minute sound check and rehearsal before returning to their dressing room beside the Slovakian national team.

Fintan said, “They were right next door to us. They came out to try and warm up in the warm up area where we had left our equipment and instruments. I think it obstructed them. I don’t know if they were put there for tactical reasons!”

The band spent six weeks preparing for the event, making sure their performance conformed to the strict requirements of television schedules.

He continued, “We were back out on the pitch at exactly 7.29pm, that was our time slot to be out on the field. The playing of the two anthems came in at around 2mins 30secs and we had to shorten it by about 10-15 seconds…It was the most technically managed event we ever played at.”

Fintan added, “We had it all very well rehearsed. From the gate to the pitch in Tulla is almost the exact same length as the tunnel in the Aviva. We were 100 per cent prepared.”

While Slovak fans gave a rapturous response to the band’s version of ‘Lighting over the Tatras’, Fintan said the players weren’t sure what to make of it.

He explained, “The Slovak players were a little surprised on hearing their anthem played on pipe music. The fans were certainly rejoicing in it. It’s normally played in an orchestral band format. It was a totally new sound (for them).”

Band members were congratulated on their performance by John Delaney and former Republic of Ireland international Ray Houghton.

Fintan said he hopes the high profile association with the world of international soccer will help attract a new generation of musicians to the band who this year celebrate 75 years in existence.

He added, “Any band would love the exposure. It’s great advertising. Certainly we would love to do it again.”

THE announcement of 35 new jobs for Gort could be the first in a series of jobs announcements for the locality, according to the local Chamber of Commerce.

US-based company CareFusion are to add 35 new full-time positions to their medical equipment manufacturing centre in Gort before the end of the year. This company currently employs 90 full-time and 15 contract workers and the latest jobs announcement will swell their number to just under 150 workers.

According to Chamber of Commerce spokesperson and local councillor Gerry Finnerty (FF), this investment proves that the infrastructure is now in place in Gort to cater for large-scale factories and investment. Over the past 12 months, Gort has seen the completion of the Gort/Crusheen bypass, which gives the town motorway access to Shannon Airport, and the local water and sewerage scheme.

“It isn’t so much the number of new jobs. This is a vote of confidence for the area and an indication that we will certainly be able to hold onto the jobs which are already here. The size of this operation now shows that we have the infrastructure here in Gort to attract major companies,” he said.

“We now have the motorway and access to Shannon Airport, which is very important. And we have the new water system and good broadband, which is all very important for attracting business.”

The new jobs are also expected to have a large spin-off for other local businesses, with more money being spent in the locality by the increased factory workers.

CareFusion was established in Gort in 2006 with just 12 staff members. The company now employs more than 15,000 in more than 20 countries worldwide.

Since the Gort/Crusheen bypass opened 10 months ago, the retail sector in the town has seen an increase in trade with better access to the town and a reduction in congestion leading to more people chopping in the area.

A number of businesses in the hospitality sector have seen a reduction, however, with a lessening in the passing trade using local cafes, bars and hotels.

ONE of east Clare’s largest employers, Beckman Coulter, is seeking up to 20 voluntary redundancies from its plant in O’Callaghan’s Mills as part of a major restructuring of the company.

The redundancies are to be spread between the company’s two Irish plants – the O’Callaghan Mills facility which employs 180 people, and a facility in Galway City which employs 190.

These redundancies are the first part of a major restructuring of the company which could lead to a closure of one of the two plants, with operations to be consolidated in ei- ther Galway or east Clare.

According to Clare SIPTU spokesperson Mary O’Donnell, who is working with the Beckman Coulter employees in O’Callaghan’s Mills, it looks likely that there will be enough staff members willing to take redundancy at this time.

However, SIPTU officials in Clare and Galway are monitoring the situation and hope to interact with Beckman Coulter management concerning any possible closure.

“At this point, we have the impression that there will be enough people to take up the voluntary redundancies so there is no plan for any union actions at this point,” she said.

“We are also monitoring the situa- tion regarding the proposed closure of one of the facilities. At this point, we have been given no timetable for when a decision on that is likely to take place.”

In a statement to all staff last week, Beckman Coulter president Bob Hurley said that eight per cent of the company’s 12,000 employees, or just under 1,000 employees, would be affected by the restructuring.

He said that management of the company were in the process of “making many tough decisions” about the future of the company and that any lay-off in facilities outside the US would “follow all local laws and legal requirements”.

Beckman Coulter was bought by Washington-based technology firm Danaher last July and have been in the process of a major restructuring of operations since then.

These latest job losses for O’Callaghan’s Mills come after 59 employees were let go at the facility in 2009.

These lay-offs were made following Beckman Coulter’s acquisition of the facility from Olympus Life Sciences in August of that year.

The reduction came when Beckman Coulter had to choose between getting rid of its Immunoassay Departments in either Clare or Galway. The factory has existed in the Lismeehan area of O’Callaghan’s Mills for more than 30 years.

KILRUSH was once considered as a potential site for the Harland & Wolff shipyard, but it’s as close as the West Clare capital came to the Titanic – the ill-fated White Star Line ship that came to a watery end on the Atlantic 100 years ago next April.

Until now that is, because this Tuesday – 150 years after Harland & Wolff nearly made a home for itself in Kilrush – the Titanic is finally coming to West Clare thanks Jackie Whelan’s West Clare Railway in Moyasta that’s being given a lead part in new documentary on the most famous vessel in maritime history.

International distributor ZDF Enterprises is co-producing a € 1.6 million documentary on the men below the Titanic’s deck with Irish production company Tile Films and German-based Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion.

“They’ve come to the West Clare for a couple of reasons,” Whelan told The Cla re People this week. “I have the only steam-operated engine in the country and the final journey made by a lot of people before they boarded the Titanic was on a steam train. “They are re-enacting that scene, while they also want to film the boiler we have in the Slieve Callan engine, because in many ways its similar to the boilers that were used to power the Titanic,” added Whelan. Saving the Titanic, which will be available to mark the 100th anniversary of the ship’s sinking on April 14, 2012, will use eyewitness accounts to tell the story of six engineers who were below the Titanic’s deck. The production budget is more than € 1.6 million and will include largescale re-enactments and computer generated imagery to bring to life the last hours of the Titanic. The Irish/German co-production is being funded by ZDF Enterprises, RTÉ, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and the Irish Film Board. “It’s great that they’re coming back to the West Clare,” said Whelan. “Four or five different film crews have been here for filming and it’s great publicity for what we are trying to do,” he added. The West Clare Railway’s first brush with film came back in 1956 when acclaimed Holywood director John Ford used the narrow gauge railway to film

GARDAÍ are investigating the seizure of four kilos of methadrone, a heroin substitute, in two connected hauls over the weekend. The total value of the drug is almost € 175,000.

The first two kilos was seized by gardaí during the search of a car on the Tulla Road in Ennis last Thursday afternoon.

In a follow-up search, another two kilos of the drug was seized in a bog in the Ballymaley area on Saturday evening. The drugs discovered in each seizure is valued at approximately € 87,000, according to gardaí.

A man in his 40s, from county Clare, was arrested at the scene on Thursday. He was detained at Ennis Garda Station, before being released without charge on Saturday evening. A file is being prepared by gardaí for the DPP’s office.

Gardaí say that the amount of this type of drug – which was sold in the head shops nationwide prior to their closure last year – is significant.

The head of the Clare Garda Division Chief Superintendent John Kerin said gardaí are continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding the seizures of the cheaper substitute for heroin.

“This is the first significant seizure in Clare and we are not aware of too many of them around the country. It’s unusual in this regard,” he said. He described the amount seized as “surprising”. “It is a substitute for heroin and is very addictive. The amount found is quite surprising. We would never have come across anything of this nature previously,” he said. “People of any age group who are sampling them are likely to get addicted. People were using them and there were all kinds of bad reactions to them and they have led to the commission of crime. It has serious side effects and has been known to be involved in the commission of crime, criminal damage and attempted suicide,” he said. “They can be even more addictive than heroin and cocaine,” he said. “We are delighted to take it off the streets. It’s worrying that we have a quantity like this,” he said. This significant seizure follows six seizures of small quantities of the drug from individuals during random searches by gardaí in recent months.

TWO tragedies marred the summer on the county’s waters.

After a busy summer on the county’s beaches, the 30 lifeguards completed their final tasks of 2010 at the weekend.

The lifeguards at the county’s beaches finished their duties for this year at the end of August, but those at the busiest beaches – Lahinch, Kilkee, Spanish Point and Fanore worked until Sunday evening.

There were two tragedies on the waters in Clare – the death of a Limerick woman while out swimming near Liscannor in June and the death of a man while out fishing in Kilkee two weeks ago – during the summer.

A number of rescues took place during the summer months, the most serious of which were in Spanish Point after two people got into difficulty in separate swimming incidents.

The county’s Water Safety Officer Liam Griffin reflected on the summer, saying, “The weather wasn’t as good as we would like to see. There were a number of rescues. There were a couple at Spanish Point that were quite serious.”

A number of other rescues also took place in Lahinch and Fanore. Lifeguards also had to deal with several missing children in several of the seaside resorts in Clare.

“We had 30 lifeguards on duty covering 12 different beaches; four in Lahinch, four in Kilkee, three in Spanish Point, three in Fanore and two at the others,” he said.

The other beaches covered were Bishop’s Quarter in Ballyvaughan; Doolin; White Strand, Miltown Malbay; Seafield, Quilty; Whitestrand, Doonbeg; Cappagh, Kilrush; Ballycuggeran and Mountshannon.

Mr Griffin stressed the importance of swimming in public areas over the coming months when the lifeguards are off duty.

“In many cases, people are not aware of the dangers of the water. If people are in strange places, they should ask locals. People who lose their lives in the West Clare area are not locals. Locals know and appreciate the dangers and will help,” said Mr Griffin.

“The advice is to go to areas regularly frequented by other users and don’t go swimming in isolated areas. If you are going boating, life jackets are vital. They are not expensive to buy,” he said.

AIR QUALITY issues have emerged yet again in Shannon, according to local residents in the town.

The town has been plagued by concerns over unsavoury smells emanating in recent years. In March of this year, the Environmental Protection Agency put monitoring measures in place and recorded a result of ‘good’ at the time. This was upgraded to the top possible result of ‘very good’ last month, and the latest figures are set to be made available later this week.

The EPA’s mobile laboratory, which is located in the town, actively analy ses the quality of air in the town and surrounding areas. This is part of a comprehensive assessment of air quality in all major cities and towns in Ireland.

However, Fine Gael Senator Tony Mulcahy, who first brought the issue to the public’s attention several years ago, said that there have been several complaints in recent weeks over odours. “We have a very bad sewage smell and an unsavoury pungent odour. I have had complaints from Smithstown and the lower half of the town; Ballycasey and Tullyvarraga. I am getting a very bad sewage smell myself,” said Mr Mulcahy, who lives in the town. “I am getting complaints about a pungent odour at weekends. A few people have rang me with the same thing,” he said.

“If it is a sewage issue we need it cleaned up as soon as possible. We need it identified,” he said. “Up until now there hasn’t been an issue but in the last two weeks there has been a smell. We had a similar issue last year. It is something we need to resolve. We need to establish where they are coming from,” said Mr Mulcahy.

When the EPA announced the measure in March, it indicated that the initiative would continue for up to a year. The assessment was started, on foot of requests from local town councillors. This assessment is done via a trailer which is located at the rear of the civic offices in Shannon. Analysers are contained in the trailer and these are read on a regular basis.

In addition to the trailers that are moved from one location to another, there is also a fixed network whereby a number of sites nationwide are monitored on a continuous basis. One of those sites is Ennis. Concentrations of oxides of nitrogen, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and benzene and toluene are being measured. The index is based on four parameters – sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone and particulate matter.

According to data from the EPA, there was one exceedance of particulate matter to-date this year.

IRELAND’S last living matchmaker, Willie Daly, says he is the man to find a fourth husband for lovelorn singer Sinead O’Connor.

O’Connor, who says she is looking for an older man, with “leather trouser-wearing gardaí” and farmers a special fancy, last month admitted that she would have joined an online dating service long ago but feared that the media would find out and scupper her chances of love.

With the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival just getting underway, Willie Daly believes that he would have no problem finding a match for O’Connor.

“Over the years, quite a lot of celebrities have come and attended the festival. They would be surprised themselves about how much they would be attracted by a lot of the people attending the festival. The men and women who come to the festival do get on very well together and maybe people can be reluctant to go up to someone who might be that bit famous,” said Willie.

“Sometimes people are put off by the bit of celebrity but Sinead O’Connor seems like a lovely person. She sounds like a very down-to-earth person and that is what the people who come to the festival are looking for. Lisdoonvarna is a real holdinghands kind of place. Maybe later on in the night they might have other thoughts but early in the evening it is a very romantic little town.”

This year’s festival got underway over the weekend and will continue for the next five weeks. According to Willie Daly, the people contacting the matchmaking service this years are more serious and more interested in marriage.

“The festival builds up bit by bit each week and we did get a lot of people already this weekend. We got a lot of serious people, people looking for marriage. In the past, anyone who would come early might have been looking for fun but it really seems like marriage is back in a bit way, much more than in the last four or five years anyway,” said Willie.

“I think that the need for security has crept back in. If people are on the dole or they have low incomes, I think that maybe they feel that two incomes are better than one. We did a lot of introductions last weekend we introduced a lot of people on Saturday and Sunday night.

“We’ve had a lot of women down this weekend. Maybe there will be more men as the week goes on. We are looking for a nice balance but at the moment we have a lot of women interested.”

A LIBYAN man who has lived in Ennis for almost 12 years has recalled how he made a dramatic escape from the fallen regime of Muammar Gadaffi.

Salaheddin Attia Elkurdi, a former aircraft engineer with the Libyan air force, recently returned to Ennis af ter spending a couple of weeks in his home town of Benghazi, providing logistical support for the rebel army there.

Despite the volatility and danger that still exists in parts of Libya, Salaheddin says, “I returned to my country to see what happened and to see my family. I found everything okay. People need to help the country.”

A former student at Clare VEC adult education centre, Salaheddin moved to Ennis after escaping the Gadaffi regime in the late 1990s.

After studying in the Soviet Union, Salaheddin became an officer in the Libyan air force. In 1981 he and members of the armed forces were accused of plotting a coup. He spent eight years in a Libyan prison before being among a group of hundred or so prisoners released in 1988 following pressure from the United Nations. He lived in Libya but remained under the watch of the regime. After being interrogated by Gadaffi forces in 1997, Salaheddin feared for his life. He fled to Turkey and eventfully made it to Ireland in 1999. He admits that he is lucky to be alive.

He was one of the first refugee students to study at the adult education centre in 2001. Salaheddin, who has since gained Irish citizenship, studied electronics with FÁS and was offered a place at Limerick Institute of Technology.

A married father of two, both of Salaheddin’s children attend primary school in Ennis. He says, “Ireland is my country. The hospitality from people in Ennis is very good.”

Salaheddin hopes to return to live with his family in Libya.

He adds, “The people are okay. The people are excited. When it started, the people fight for freedom and they die for freedom. They don’t think about themselves. They fight and many of our friends die. Our family also have some people that died, but it’s nothing for the freedom of Libya. I think if a million people die in this war, it’s nothing for Libya.”