The Clare People Archive

IT TOOK six gardai to overpower an angry prisoner after he was arrested and brought to Killaloe Garda Station, it was claimed yesterday. It’s alleged that a large number of the officers involved in trying to restrain Declan Browne, of 19 Cecil Street in Limer- ick, were injured in the struggle.

Browne appeared yesterday before Ennis District Court where Judge Leo Malone was told he had breached a condition of his bail by getting in contact with the Cahill family in Mill- stream in Killaloe.

The court heard that the accused had previously had a relationship with a daughter of the Cahill family.

He allegedly caused €600 worth of damage to the Cahill family home and the mother, Mary Cahill, was in court

to give evidence that he further threat- ened her.

‘He rang me to say that he was com- ing back with a couple of people to finish the job he started two weeks ago,’ she said.

Browne’s solicitor, Tara Godfrey, asked garda witnesses if they were aware that his former girlfriend, Ms Cahill, had come to his apartment in Limerick of her own accord.

“He will say that they were trying to patch things up and that he called to the Cahill home because he was locked out of his Limerick apartment and didn’t have his keys,” she said.

But having heard allegations that Browne, who suffers from attention deficit disorder, was extremely vio- lent towards gardai, Judge Malone re- manded him in custody to appear be- fore the court again next Monday.

A PLANNING dispute between two rival taxi firms has resulted in Ennis Town Council refusing planning per- mission to Ennis Cabs to retain a cab office in Market Street, after AAA Cabs objected to the proposal.

As far back as 2000, a planning application was lodged to retain the use of the premises at the corner of Barrack Street and the market from retail to a cab office. However, the application was refused and An Bord Pleanala upheld the decision result- ing in the council serving a warning RK meme semen silo

A subsequent application was lodged in 2001 to change the use from retail outlet to taxi control station and this was again refused in April 2001. In 2002, the council eranted 12-month planning permis- sion to retain the use of the cab of- fice as a taxi dispatch office. In 2003, the taxi office managed to remain operational after securing a further two-year temporary planning per- mission. Last year, two separate ap- plications for retention were refused to continue to retain the office as a taxi office.

On behalf of the current applicant, Frank Gleichman, consultants, P Coleman & Associates pointed out

“that between the hours of 9am and 6pm, the office will be closed to the general public. There will be no ac- cess to the premises except for a sin- gle member of staff who will operate a telephone-radio dispatch office”.

However, Martin White, John Longe and Tony Woods from rival firm, AAA Taxis called on the coun- cil to shut down the operation at its current location.

In the objection, they stated, “When the taxi rank was moved to Parnell Street car park, all taxi oper- ators were to operate from that rank. We object to Ennis Cabs being given preferential treatment and strongly contend that the firm must use the aforementioned rank like other taxi operators do.

“We request that you give favour- able consideration to this objection.”

In its decision, the council stated that the proposed retention of the dispatch office by virtue of associ- ated haphazard parking and traffic movements would endanger public safety by reason of traffic hazard and obstruct road users at a busy junction of the market with Barrack St and would not be in the interest of proper planning and orderly development.

Mr Gleichman now has the option of appealing the council’s decision to An Bord Pleanala.

A 30-year-old Ennis man who was found with an open Stanley knife in his possession after a street row had more than 60 previous convictions, a judge heard.

James Clune, of 11 Ashville Park, Ennis, pleaded guilty before Ennis District Court to a charge of posses- sion of a knife on August 3.

Garda Gary Cooley told the court

that he was called to the Abbey Street car park at 1.30am where he found Clune and another man involved in an argument.

Garda Cooley said they the argu- ment had calmed somewhat from the time he had first received the call “but when we searched Clune, we found an open Stanley knife in his possession.’

Inspector Michael Kennedy read out some of the most recent of a

string of previous convictions for Judge Leo Malone.

These included three convictions for possession of knives, burglary, theft, possession of illegal drugs, criminal damage, illegal possesion of a forged prescription, failing to ap- pear in court and being intoxicated.

Clune’s solicitor, Tara Godfrey, said her client has a “serious addic- tion problem. His father was a very violent man and he suffered at his

hands. He subsequently found his father dead. He has recently been attending Slainte and a psychiatrist and, in what was a Trojan effort for him, remained sober for one and a half weeks just before this incident.”

She asked that the court might con- sider putting off sentencing for a time to allow Clune to continue tackling abismsKelenlen(eyee

But Judge Malone said that he could not let him walk free from the court.

“The first time, I might consider a non-custodial penalty but the second time round, if you carry a knife, you go to prison.

‘People cannot go around carrying knives in public.”

The judge sentenced Clune to three months and set bail at his own bond of €600 with €300 to be lodged and an independent surety of €800 of which €400 was to be lodged, he directed.

MAYOR of Ennis, Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) is hoping to include local representatives from across the county in the council’s meeting with the minister for health next month. Clare’s four TDs, Minister Tony Killeen (FF), Deputy Pat Breen (FG), Deputy Timmy Dooley (FF)

and Deputy Joe Carey (FG) along with four councillors are to meet with Mary Harney on September 20 to discuss the future of Ennis Gen- eral Hospital.

Prior to the election the Minister for Health gave certain guarantees regarding accident and emergency services at the hospital.

The Ennis town mayor said that the

delegation of councillors would now be looking for a guarantee of “24- hour doctor led accident and emer- gency services for Ennis in writing”.

“IT was hoping to include mayors from Kilrush, Kilkee and county mayor Cllr Patricia McCarthy from Shannon if possible to show that this is not just an Ennis issue but a county issue,’ said Cllr Brennan.

The meeting has been moved from 10am to 11.30am to accommodate the train timetable.

It is not yet known if the newly formed Clare Cancer Concern, which will lobby for the return of mammog- raphy services at Ennis General Hos- pital, will also meet with the minster on the same day.

Deputy Carey told the last meet-

ing of the group that he would try to secure a meeting between it and the minister for the same day.

Meanwhile a meeting will be held on Monday next August 13, at 8pm in the Auburn Lodge Hotel Ennis to discuss the future of the hospital and gage public support for the campaign to retain acute services at the coun- ty’s main hospital.

DISASTER for Shannon is being predicted today with Aer Lingus expected to pull the plug on its Hea- throw route, putting up to 200 jobs in danger and starting a stampede of business interests out of the region. Mayor of Clare, Councillor Patricia McCarthy, said job losses could be as high as 200 with the knock-on ef- fects of the decision, while losses to the airport authority in terms of fees

alone are being put at €7 million, ac- cording to Cllr Martin Conway.

Business sources have revealed that many companies are already consid- ering relocating to Dublin as there will be no service to Heathrow if the airline pulls all four daily flights as expected.

Staff, unions and the airport au- thority waited to hear official con- firmation of the decision today with airline boss, Dermot Mannion due to arrive for a 10am briefing.

Interim chief executive of Shan-

non Chamber of Commerce, Laurie O’Connor, said the ending of Aer Lingus’ Shannon-Heathrow route would be “a big blow for business in the region”.

“We need the support of the Gov- ernment on this. We are still waiting for a marketing plan for the airport around Open Skies – we’ve heard that €9m in route support promised to the region may not be coming to Shannon. The Minister for Transport has to intervene,’ O’Connor added.

Fine Gael’s deputy spokesperson on

Enterprise and Clare TD, Pat Breen, questioned the transport minister’s response to the Aer Lingus decision “to sign the death warrant for Shan- non-Heathrow services”.

‘As a Shareholder in the company, the minister must make it clear to Aer Lingus that retention of the ex- isting slots to and from Shannon are critical to providing connectivity to this region,” added Deputy Breen.

THROUGH gap in the dressing room door, Clare captain Frank Lohan can be seen shaking the hands of play- ers and thanking them. The place is almost empty. Players are filing out, heading back up that cavernous stretch under the David Stand.

Lohan, shakes the last of hands, says a few more words before ac- knowledging the two lads with the tape recorders.

He makes his way out the front door of the dressing room. Outside the stillness is rocked by another de- lerious roar as Cork and Waterford endeavor again to bring the very best out of each other.

He’s known better days on the big stage and knows the way Croke Park can provoke a thunderous response in a team.

On Sunday, it just wasn’t there. A genuinely dejected looking Lohan offers his thoughts on why Clare

failed to rise to the occasion.

Too many wasted chances. Allow- ing Limerick to get a run on them. According to Lohan it was a combi- nation of factors. “We gave them a soft goal and that put them a bit away. They got ahead of us so it was prob- ably that bit comfortable for them at the end of the day.”

With Limerick renewed by their three game saga with Tipperary, Lo- han said it was always going to be difficult once Clare fell behind.

“They had that bit of a cushion. It was three points for a bit and then it was seven or eight points and you can’t do that with a team like Lim- erick and let them have that sort of a cushion.”

Lohan also had words of praise for goalkeeper Philip Brennan. The Tul- la man had been the focus of unfair attention earlier in the season after filling the position vacated by David Fitzgerald.

‘Philip has had a great year. He’d a

difficult year too. He is a great goal- keeper and he is going to show that in years to come. We had three lads in Croke Park who were playing for their first time, maybe even a few more and hopefully that will stand to them”’.

“We came up with the intention of getting to an All-Ireland semi final and I suppose we didn’t play as well as we wanted. But that’s it, fair play to Limerick,’ he added. There was nothing left to say.

JONATHAN Clancy emerged from a soundless dressing room to offer a player’s perspective on Clare’s flat performance against Limerick.

The Clarecastle player produced some sparkling moments. Namely when he drifted across from the left

wing and fielded Gerry O’Grady’s clearance to land his first point.

Even with the game up, he still mo- tored up and down finishing Clare’s best-constructed move of the match from under the Hogan Stand.

Nice moments, but ones you sus- pect Clancy won’t dwell on.

Like his manager he’s thinking

about the ones that got away.

With his back against a _ wall, Clancy spoke of his frustration as he contemplated another early exit from the All-Ireland series.

“We missed a number of chances in the first half that will haunt us for a while. We didn’t enjoy the bounce of the ball, which is always important

in such tight matches. We are sick and tired of coming up here giving good performances and not winning. I’d rather have played a bad game and won than a good one and lost.” However, he said the experience would benefit the team in the long run. According to Clancy, Clare could do with a little rub of the green.

“We still have a very good team, but we need to be contesting All-Ireland semis and finals to bring it on. There is very little between the teams when you reach this stage of the champi- onship. Games can go either way. Just look at what Wexford achieved against Tipperary on Saturday. All we need is a little bit of luck.”

RICHIE Bennis is not the sort of man to take punishment from author- ity lying down. Having been banned to the stand for the most important game since he took charge of Lim- erick last year, Bennis was unable to curb his emotion in the latter stages of this quarter final and took it upon himself to move down closer to the action, positioning himself behind the substitute enclosure.

“It was a joke. I was told on Friday that I had to sit in the stand. Then today, I was escorted up and had to walk all the way around to the back

of the stand. It was scandalous be- cause my eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be. I’m alright when I’m on the sideline but when I’m that far away, my eyesight is not good at all. So late on in the game I came back down myself because I had to watch it from somewhere.”

Ironically, Bennis got his chance to take over the Limerick hotseat in the aftermath of the pummelling which Clare gave them just over a year ago in the qualifiers and after perform- ing major surgery on his player’s at- titudes and performances, Limerick have emerged a radically different side this year, not in personnel but in

personality. And while Bennis may not have 20:20 vision, he is well able to air his opinions. Reflecting on the seven point victory over neighbours Clare, it was obvious that he was delighted to have turned a corner on Sunday.

“We are very pleased because of the way they worked. You know peo- ple were saying that we are a kind of a hard working side more than anything else but we are well capa- ble of hurling too and they proved that today. All over the field we had character today. Clare came back at us in the second half but I think we weathered the storm well and came

good again in the last five minutes. These lads have great character and are great yokes. They want to win something this year beacause they are not known to have won anything. They won three under 21s but that is not enough for these players. They really want to win more.”

During the week, Bennis_ had stressed the need for big performanc- es from his players in this real test of their development and so he was par- ticularly impressed with the contri- butions of Andrew O’Shaughnessy and substitute Donie Ryan who com- bined scored 1-12 out of Limerick’s total of 1-23. But while he is relieved

to have got over the abnner on Sun- day, he was at pains to stress that this is only a stepping stone in Limerick’s plan for the campaign.

“We are not happy with that. This was the best performance since ’96 but now that we are in the sem1’s, we have no preferences who we meet. We don’t care because we can beat them all now. We are in the top four now which is a big thing for Lim- erick because we weren’t in the top four this morning, we were in the top eight. The team is getting better now with every outing and there is a lot more to come from them, I can as- sure you.”

A FLOPPY ham sandwich in one hand, half a bottle of Lucozade gripped tightly in the other. It was a slightly perplexed Tony Considine that faced the thicket of reporters outside the Clare dressing room af- ter his side had gone down by seven points to Limerick.

His mood was quickly explained. Missed chances. Clare had too many of them.

The Clare manager said his side’s failure to score at critical junctures in the game was the main reason for their exit from the All-Ireland se- ries.

He was also full of praise for Lim- erick, a side he said were better pre- pared for the contest by virtue of their rigorous four-game Munster campaign.

He said, “you can’t afford to miss the chances we missed and expect to win a match, especially in the first half. We missed goals that we should have got. Look it we came up, as un- derdogs and I knew that. People were building up Limerick and things like that. This is a god Limerick team make no mistake about it. They will put it up to anyone left in the cham- pionship. Jesus lads, you can’t af- ford to miss the chances we missed. Whatever you do whether you do it wrong in training, it’s just maybe fel- las don’t see the posts when they get out there. At the end of the day when you miss those chance you’re not en- titled to win those matches, you’re not entitled to win the match.

“We died and we came back again and we brought it back to three points. Of course we gave away a very soit goal as well. In Croke Park you get mistakes like that, you get mistakes. The one thing that you have to do is get over them. Everyone can make a mistake; I can make them myself as well. At the end of the day, I think Limerick deserved to win. They were the better team and I wish them the best.”

Considine also revealed that Gerry Quinn’s selection was in doubt right up until he took the field in Croke Park.

Quinn, who lined out at centre back, wasn’t expected to start due to a knee

ligament injury. However, a late fit- ness test at the team hotel and the pre-match warm up, convinced Con- sidine and his selectors that Quinn was fit to play.

With three players making their Croke Park debut — Philip Brennan, Brendan Bugler and Bernard Gaff- ney — Considine said inexperience played its part.

“There was inexperience as well. We made silly mistakes as well. They came back they got the fourth

point and the fifth and the sixth. That kind of kills a team as well. I thought our lads gave everything as well. I can’t fault any of them lads for the effort they gave out there. Lynch has been a superb man for years, I think he has been superb for the last thirty years. He gives it everything. You can’t fault anyone. Everyone goes out there to do they’re best. I done my best for the team as well same as Pat O’Connor, Ciaran O’Neill and Tim Crowe. We did our best and it wasn’t

good enough today.”

The sandwich now gone, Consid- ine drained the last of the Lucozade before taking questions on his own JaUUHUNRon

After a stormy year at the helm, the Cratloe man gave no indication whether or not he would like to con- tinue in the role.

‘Well I have been shot so may times this year that a few more bullets won’t do me any harm at this stage. That’s for another day, maybe that’s

for other people, maybe that’s for an- other day. You don’t think about that now.

“We all know what sport is and we all know what tragedy is as well. Sport is only part of our life. We give or best everyday we do it, whether that’s at club, county or any other level.”

An east Clare widow is refusing to give-up lands valued at €1.4 million to allow the lands be sold on, a court hearing into a family land dispute has been told.

At Ennis Circuit Court last Friday, Marie O’Halloran contested an ac- tion by her sister-in-law, Josephine Barry (72) to have her vacate 66 acres of farmland two and half miles from Tulla.

Mrs O’Halloran told the court that her late husband, Stanley O’ Halloran, reached a deal in the late 1970s with the owner of the farm, his late broth- er, Michael to purchase the lands for £65,000.

Mrs O’Halloran also told the court that Stanley paid different sums of

cash over the years to Michael, who was a bachelor farmer.

However, counsel for Mrs O’Halloran, Leonard Parker BL, acknowledged that no record of the agreement existed, nor had Mrs O’Halloran been able to recover any record of cheques paid by Stanley to Michael due to the time that had elapsed.

In evidence, Josephine Barry dis- missed the monies paid by Stanley O’Halloran to Michael as “pocket money’ and said that she had no knowledge of the alleged deal be- tween the two to sell the farm to NEDA

Mrs Barry’s sister, Ida Rohan told the court, “If there was a deal, it wouldn’t hold water.”

Counsel for Mrs Barry, Gerry Kie-

ly BL, said that Michael O’Halloran died aged 64 in May 2004 intestate and that without a will being made, his farm was divided three ways, be- tween his two sisters, Mrs Barry and Ida Rohan and Stanley O’Halloran.

Stanley died four months later aged 68 and his share passed onto his wife, Marie O’Halloran.

Mr Kiely said that Michael O’Halloran was diagnosed a chronic schizophrenic in the 1970s and evi- dence would be given from a con- sultant psychiatrist that he wouldn’t be capable of entering any agreement to sell his lands.

A retired school teacher and admin- istrator of the estate, Mrs Barry told the court that her brother, Michael was first admitted to psychiatric care in the winter of 1973-74.

He was admitted again in 1985 and stayed in institutional care until his death in 2004.

Mrs Barry said that Stanley “com- mandeered Michael’s lands after he was admitted in 1985 and moved his animals onto the lands without consulting anyone’ and that Mrs O’Halloran was now refusing to re- move the animals from the lands.

Mrs Barry said that at Michael’s ‘month’s mind’ Mass in June 2004, Stanley approached her, said “what about Mike’s land?” and offered €100,000 to each of his sisters for his brother’s farm.

Mrs Barry said that she was sur- prised that Marie O’Halloran was now laying claim to all the lands. She said: “Everyone was due to get their fair share and I was surprised that

someone was being greedy in look- ing for more than their one-third.”

She said, “I don’t accept that there was any agreement between Stanley and Michael over the lands. Michael only had €1,100 in his account when he died and €300 of that was put through by my eldest son days before he died.”

Mr Parker told Mrs Barry, “Mrs O’Halloran wants to keep the lands for her two sons and waive any right she has to the lands”’.

Mrs Barry said, “We can’t all do what we like. I have four sons too.”

Mr Parker said that Mrs O’ Halloran had made an offer of €400,000 to the two sisters to purchase the lands in April 2006, but this was rejected.

Evidence in the case is in the au- tumn.