The Clare People Archive

RESIDENTS concerned about late night behaviour on the streets of Ennis have reached agreement with management at a local nightclub, a court has been told.

Ennis District Court heard last month that residents on Francis Street were forced to put up with mayhem due to the actions of people urinating and vomiting on the street in the early hours of the morning.

A member of the local residents association told the court that while an application for a dance licence for the Queen’s Hotel was not being objected to, there were serious con- cerns about the behaviour of some late night revellers.

“We are not objecting to the l1- cence. We have a problem with anti- social behaviour that takes place on

our street between 3 and 4am. The majority of the people have been liv- ing there for 70 or 80 years,” said one resident in court, on that occasion.

The case was adjourned for a month. In court last Friday, solici- tor for the Queen’s Hotel, Marina Keane, said that agreement had been reached between the residents asso- ciation and the hotel and there were no issues arising.

A representative of the residents as- sociation was in court on Friday but was not objecting to the licence.

The manager of the Queen’s Hotel, Barry Lee, told the court that there is CCTV on the premises and this is available for inspection by gardai, if este LUN BKSLe

Judge Joseph Mangan asked Mr Lee how long the CCTV recordings are available for and was told four weeks. The licence was granted.

A 40-YEAR-OLD woman who had been accused of stealing cash by making several ATM withdrawals has had a string of charges against aes ae UES ea b Ester ms

The woman had denied 10 charges brought as part of a Garda investi- gation which was launched after a family reported that money had been taken from an account over a three- week period last summer.

Initially 10 charges were brought and three of those were struck out in court last Wednesday. After hearing submissions from the defendant’s

solicitor, Judge Joseph Mangan ad- journed ruling and on Friday he dis- missed all charges.

Of the seven charges on which the judge made his decision on Friday, the woman had been accused of making withdrawals – ranging between €50 and €300 – totaling €1,450 from an ATM machine in east Clare.

A 16-year-old girl told Ennis Dis- trict Court that she went to the bank on September 20, 2008 to withdraw money from her account. However, she was dismayed to discover that there was no money in the account. “There should have been over €2,000 in it,’ she said. She said she did not

give anyone permission to withdraw money from the account she held jointly with her mother. She said her mother kept the ATM card either in her purse or in a press at their home. The girl’s mother told Judge Mangan that she did not give the ATM card to anyone and did not give anyone per- mission to use the card. She told the court that she has known the defend- ant for many years.

Under cross-examination from defence solicitor Tara Godfrey, the woman denied that she had ever bor- rowed more than €2,000 from the defendant. “No I didn’t and I never would,” she said.

“You supplied her with the ATM card for repayment of that loan,” said Ms Godfrey. The witness denied Wek

The defendant told the court that she had been friendly with the other woman for many years.

She said she had been involved in an accident a number of years ago, for which she received several thou- sand euro in compensation. From this, she said she loaned €2,200 to the woman (who made the com- ete ee

She said the other woman gave her access to the bank account, which contained €2,300. She said that an

ATM card, PIN number and note was furnished to her at her home ad- dress.

She told the court that she used the ATM card with the woman’s author- ity. She said that she wasn’t happy making the withdrawals, but did it because “it was money that was owed to me’”’.

She said that she was owed €2,200, but “I took out €2,300, which was a mistake on my part”.

Ms Godfrey submitted that the charges should be struck out. “In ef- fect, there isn’t one summons where evidence has been adduced,’ she Said.

THE last two weeks will define the life of Mike Finn – for better or for 0) Toe

Like many other people on Gort’s Crowe Street he has lost everything in the flood. The undiscriminating waters took it all, his livelihood and the business that has been in his fam- ily for generations. A life’s work sim- ply washed away.

Like most other people on Crowe Street Mike has no insurance – no insurance company would have him after the floods in 1995 – and he now stands to loose an estimated €1 mil- lion from the latest set back.

‘The business in closed and I have no appetite at the moment to ever open it again. It’s heartbreaking to see it all. Heartbreaking,” he said.

“It’s not getting any better, not for the near future anyway. Long term it is still not good. We have great work done here, everyone is helping out, everyone wants to help get us out of this mess – but it’s frightening.

“We were let down at the start of this. We were let down by our local engineer and the local guards but I don’t think they realised the scale of the problem. Since then though they have come on board.

“T’m tired of giving out, I’m not go- ing to give out anymore, we need to get on with it and do the best that we can. It’s a natural disaster in the area,

it should never have happened and it should never happen again. But there is nothing being done to prevent this happening next year or the year af- oe

“If we can get some sort of drain sorted out between here and Kinvara then that would be a solution. There

are houses marooned under 12 feet of water, cattle gone out of sheds, the fodder is gone and the sheds them- selves are gone.”

For many people affected by repeat- ed flooding there is simply nowhere to turn, as the insurance companies will refuse to re-insure someone who

has previously made a claim.

According to Mike, the €10 mil- lion allocated by the Government to tackle the flooding will be just a frac- tion of the eventual cost.

“It’s bad, I need something from somewhere, I need to sort out myself and I need to sort out my family. I

need funding, and I don’t need it next month, I need it now,” he continued.

‘There doesn’t seem to be any an- Swers out there. Brian Cowen going out around the country in a pair of shoes is not the answer. He doesn’t need to go around the country, all he needs to do is turn on his TV – he needs to go out to Europe and get funding to fix this.

“We are sending out funds to every country in the world and we can’t Support our own people. It’s the peo- ple on the ground who are working very, very hard to sort this out and we are not here to be giving out.

“We are in the middle of a reces- sion and the last thing that we needed was to be hit by this natural disaster.

“We have no flood insurance here since the flooding in 1995 but we still pay high rates. I pay nearly €14,000 a year in rates and what happens? The place is distroyed for a second time. That shouldn’t happen. The council needs to protect the town from some- thing like this.

““T have no insurance, no one would insure me after the last time, I’m to- tally wiped out. I don’t think that a million euro would be enough to sort me out at this stage; the building has to go.”

THE flooding disaster in Gort was only prevented from turning into a catastrophe through the actions of a small group of volunteers, who have carted away more than 70 million gallons of water from the town over the last two weeks.

Despite the intensive flooding in parts of Crowe Street, large sections

of Gort remain largely untouched by the disaster. Had it not been for this effort, it 1s believed that more than 100 houses and businesses located on the Galway Road out of Gort would have been destroyed by the rising water.

A number of pumps have been go- ing round the clock in Gort since the flooding started and a small army of volunteers have been carting the wa-

ter away using tractors.

‘The situation on Crowe Street – we didn’t realise what we were doing at the time but we saved half the town. We thought we were saving our own street but by doing that we saved half the town by pumping away all that water,” said Mike Finn.

‘There is more then 70 million gal- lons of water pumped out of Crowe Street in the last 10 days. We thought

we had lost the battle on a few occa- sions but we pulled through.

“The gardai were good and the council workers. The community reaction here has been brilliant. We just can’t let it beat us now, we are nine or 10 days into it now and we will stay going – we will fight it all the way.”

Despite the terrible conditions, lo- cal people have been offering their time and support to the flood relief.

“It’s a huge community effort here. We have so many people working voluntarily here, so many machines working voluntarily. It’s not just in Gort, it’s all over the area,’ said Cllr Gerry Finnerty.

“It’s unbelievable the effort that people have made and only for it south Galway would be gone.”

Despite the flooding, locals have been keen to emphasise that Gort is still open for business.

‘There is a lot of good people here in Gort who have been doing their best to help. We need to emphasise to everyone out there that Gort is not closed, it is still open for business,’ continued Mr Finn.

‘This is a bigger disaster than peo- ple realise – if things don’t change all the shops will be closed by the Christmas.”

CLARE GAA chairman Miuichael

O’Neill has resolved to have the 1m-

passe between county senior hurlers

and their manager Mike McNamara

sorted out by next week at the latest. Speaking to

“ANOTHER one bites the dust.” One of Queen’s signature tunes that could easily describe the significant number of teams who have fallen on Cratloe’s powerful sword. Despite the hurling season coming to an eventual end last weekend in Waterford the footballers have at least one more big day out after this stirring victory. “Tt’s absolutely wonderful,’ ex- claimed jubilant selector Ger Lawlor afterwards. “We showed great char- acter and heart out there. We fought hard and gave them nothing easy. I’m so pleased with this fantastic result.” And who would blame him? Crat- loe’s achievement of taking another scalp along their road to success can’t be underestimated. They were the better side overall and only for a brief period of wind aided domi-

nance for Rovers this game would have been long wrapped up before the final whistle.

“The start of the second-half saw them take some control and they started getting on top,’ admitted Lawlor, “however we responded per- fectly. We didn’t lie down and then Padraig Chaplin came on and took his goal well. Then a few minutes later and McGrath got our third. They say goals win matches and they certainly helped us today. They re- ally killed off their challenge in the end.”

His post match analysis was very accurate indeed. Chaplin’s and Mc- Grath’s goals in the final quarter se- cured progression into next week’s Munster final against Kerry champi- ons Spa. What an amazing bonus for the Munster Club of the Year. They were so close in reaching a similar

position with the hurlers but now the footballers have dealt with this sem1- final hurdle and only one more game stands in the way of yet another his- toric final success for Cratloe.

“What a great year we have had? And now we have a Munster final to look forward to next week. Hope- fully our much congested year will be rewarded then. It’s not going to be anyway easy of course. I don’t think a bad football team has ever come out of Kerry and I don’t next weekend we will come up against the first. With a bit of luck we will be cel- ebrating again this time next Sunday as well.”

That would definitely be the icing on the cake. For their efforts alone this year in both codes they deserve another piece of silverware. It could happen, because this Cratloe team doesn’t seem to entertain defeat.

THE biggest and most important day in the history of Spa GAA Club is about to dawn.

With the days, minutes and hours to Sunday’s Munster intermedi- ate football final in Mallow ticking away, it’s almost show-time for Sean Moynihan’s men who are now just 60 minutes away from their place in lo- cal football folklore.

Not only is this the first time that a team from the club has contested a provincial football final, but Spa are also the first East Kerry club to compete in a Munster intermediate decider.

Having watched Cratloe at first hand, Moynihan is aware of the task I OT-LMrEhY ECDL ACM OD CHESS LO (OR

“They looked impressive. They are a small bit like ourselves — a young team, lively, extremely fit and they wouldn’t have any stars but have a massive work-rate,’ says Moynihan.

“Cratloe look like a really good side. They use the ball very well. They actually seemed to play better against the wind than with it and, overall, I was impressed with what Sa

With no injury worries to report, Spa will look to their star duo of Mike ‘Stam’ O’Donoghue and Niall

O’ Mahony for scores, with the former being the main source of scores.

“The likes of Mike O’Donoghue and Niall O’ Mahony have got us over the line on numerous occasions but I have always stressed that we are very much a team effort,’ he adds.

‘There have been days when the two boys might have an off-day and that’s when Tomas Lynch could step up, or if he had an off-day, Conor Glesson or Cian Tobin or Pa Murphy or one of the other lads could step up to the plate.

“We will need an unbelievable ef- fort from all the lads on Sunday if we want to win the Munster title. It’s what we want. We know how close we are but there is a seriously hard game of football ahead of us. We have to match their intensity other- wise we will be in trouble.”

His team is on a high at the moment and the spirit is great, as Moynihan explains.

“There is a serious belief in our squad at the moment. The work-rate is there, the determination and a de- sire to achieve something special. There is a special spirit there.

“Even away from the football, they are all good friends. They head off out on the town together and just get os aer VORA oll E

“The camp is buzzing and I think

that will stand to us on Sunday. When you are representing your county wearing the Spa jersey, well, that’s the ultimate for these players. Focussing on the game is not a prob- one

“We are up against a team that put out the favourites so we have it all to do. This is very much like the Cur- row game (the county intermediate final) when we both went in with ht- tle to choose between us. Whoever performs on the day will take the trophy and that’s going to lend itself to a fantastic game.”

Interestingly, under Moynihan, Spa have never lost a final. A lucky omen ahead of Sunday, perhaps.

“We have played four finals since we took over as a management team and we haven’t lost one yet. Touch wood,” he says.

“We won back-to-back East Kerry leagues, we won the county interme- diate and we won Division Two (of the county football league) outright as well so that’s four trophies.

“We know how to win together and that will be invaluable in a big exh on

COLM Honan’s reaction to Clon- lara’s shock county final defeat to Cratloe was to let his players go. His reckoning was that the mileage in their legs to reach county final day would have to do, because the stom- ach for getting back to the grind just wouldn’t be there.

However, lack of appetite for train- ing could in no way be construed as being equal to lack of interest — Ho- nan wanted this and so did his play- ers, simply out of a fear of the dam- age a second big-game defeat could do.

“Tt would have been very very hard to take another loss. Playing in two county finals and to lose both would have been a disaster for us,” admits Honan.

“We didn’t really drive them on for this game. We didn’t make a huge

deal of it beforehand but at the same time once we were out on the field we were very anxious to win it. I thought that they played fairly well at times.

“We hadn’t met at all after the county final, apart from meeting on Friday night for a chat. There are a lot of leaders on that team and it showed at various times during the game when we wanted it most.

“We won the last three puck-outs having conceded the goal. They were puck-outs that were hard to win against the wind but we won them. They got a few chances but our workrate put them under savage pressure. We finished out the game strongly.

“The pitch was in beautiful condi- tion, but conditions were very diffi- cult. Fellas found it very hard to turn, Sometimes the ball would bounce, other times to would just go plop. First touch was difficult, passing was

difficult. It was hard to judge where it was going to end up so it was a bit of a lottery at times.”

Clonlara won that lottery and so in part exorcised some of their county final demons — of course they will never fully go away until Canon Hamilton is back where they feel it belongs, but Honan for one is look- ing forward to trying to meet that challenge.

“You don’t get too many chances to win county finals,’ he admits, “but having said that this Clonlara side are young enough. There’s a young enough squad there and they’ll come back strong again. I know they’ll come back again in the champion- ship. It’s onwards and upwards, go for a few pints and winter well and come back again next year”’.

FLOODING may have postponed the visit of two of the biggest names in Irish soccer to Clare this week but one World Cup hero 1s expected to be in the county on Friday.

Football Association of Ireland (FAT) chief John Delaney along with the Technical Director Packie Bon- ner were due to attend a workshop in Ennis tomorrow to launch Clare’s hosting of the 2011 FAI Annual Gen- eral Meeting.

However in an email last night Clare District Soccer League secre- tary, Oliver Fitzpatrick, stated that the event has been postponed due to bad weather.

The occasion would have marked one of the first public appearances

for Delaney since the FAI’s request to have the controversial World Cup play-off between Ireland and France replayed was knocked back by FIFA.

One man on his way to Clare is Ray Houghton. The hero of Giants stad1- um in 1994 will at the Clare Inn to officially launch the new website of Ennis Town football club.

Houghton will also present players with the club’s new jersey. The man who famously ‘put the ball in the English net’ visited Ennis last year.

“IT just think its great in counties like Clare; so many youngsters are given the opportunity to play soccer, which wouldn’t have been the case quite a few years ago. It’s changed dramatically”, he said at the time.

DOONBEG, the five star golf resort in West Clare, has been selected as the European Golf Resort of the Year for its “exceptional contribution to the world of golf travel’. The prestigious award was made by the International Association of Golf Tour Operators (LAGTO) whose more than 300 golf tour operators cast votes for this an- nual award. Doonbeg’s sister proper- ty on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, won the North American Golf Resort of the Year Award. The awards were presented at the [AGTO awards gala dinner which was held in Malaga last night (19 November 2009).

Previous winners of the European Golf Resort of the Year include Turnberry (Scotland), Druid’s Glen (Ireland), Praia D’El Rey (Portugal), Dona Filipa & San Lorenzo (Por- tugal) and Carton House (Ireland). The awards scheme was inaugurated by IAGTO in 2000.

[AGTO’s 300+ golf tour operators, representing 49 different countries, cast their votes prior to the awards dinner. Each operator was asked to nominate what they consider to be the best performing golf resorts of the year enjoyed by their golf trav- elling clients. There are over 1,000 golf resorts in the USA alone and an estimated 2,000 in total worldwide. The golf resort in each of the three- categories — Europe, North America and the Rest of the World — with the

most number of votes receives the 2010 Golf Resort of the Year acco- lades.

Operators were asked to consider the resorts under the following cri- teria: Customer satisfaction, quality of golf course/s and accommodation, value for money, accessibility to tee times, speed of communication and quality of service of the golf resort sales, marketing, reservation, admin- istration and management staff

Speaking of the award Mr Joe Rus- sell, general manager, Doonbeg, said that they were delighted to win such a prestigious award. “We rely on the Golf Tour Operators to provide us

with a great deal of business and the award is acknowledgement that we are providing the kind of service that they and their clients require. In ac- cepting the award I do so on behalf of all of the staff at Doonbeg. We pride ourselves on our attention to detail and the service we give and I believe this award is an endorsement of both.”

Doonbeg, in County Clare Ireland, is a luxury resort destination featur- ing five star accommodations, a Greg Norman-designed championship links golf course, restaurants, pubs and a state-of-the-art spa. Overlook- ing the Atlantic Ocean on the mag-

nificent crescent-shaped Doughmore Bay, Doonbeg allows for whole-own- ership cottages and suites as well as a private residence club managed by Timbers Resorts, the word’s leading creator of deeded property interests. For all other inquiries, contact Mike Touhill, Doonbeg Director of Pub- lic Relations, 843 768-6529, Mike _ Touhill@KiawahIsland.com.