Month: May 2007

THE Killaloe Coastguard is hop- ing that volunteers will rescue them from their staffing shortage by at- tending an Open Evening on Tues- day, May 22 in the Kincora Lodge Hotel.

The coastguard needs arounds 15 new volunteers to assist with search and rescue operations and general administration.

New recruits would receive full training in whatever aspect of the

service that they sign up to including land search and water rescue.

Coastguard Area Officer, Michael Quigley, outlined what will be ex- pected of volunteers.

“The evening will give an induc- tion into what the organisation is all about. Potential volunteers would need to be available at least twice a month. The training can be intense because it can involve boat han- dling, first aid and evaluation of dif- ferent scenarios. We have to follow a lot of guidelines and people have to

be committed. The training process can take up to six months,” he said.

He added that the role of the or- ganisation was very important and a contribution would be “very reward- rhe

There is no age limit on volunteers although people should be aware that the job can be physically demanding and as there are currently no female volunteers, applications from wom- en are particularly welcome.

“It’s very challenging. You can get the call any time- 24 hours a day, 365

days of the year. We try to divide up people to be on call but it’s still hard. Sixteen hours out on search can take its toll. Everyone knows their own limitations and a lot of it is a young person’s game but we still need oth- er people to help out at base,” said Mr Quigley.

Mentioning recent searches that Killaloe Coastguard has assisted in, Mr Quigley said that the need is higher now than ever.

The information evening begins at 8pm and everyone is welcome.

AFTER 20 years waiting for this day a little inclement weather was never going to dampen the joy of the teach- ers, pupils and parishioners of Clon- lara as Minister for Labour Affairs Tony Killeen opened a €1.1 million extension of Conlara National school on Wednesday afternoon last.

The extension, which services one of the biggest rural national schools in the county, sees Clonlara receive three new classrooms, three learning Support rooms, a staff room and an administrative office.

Clonlara National school has grown to house in 2007 a huge total of 334 pupils with 15 teachers and other support staff. Bishop Willie Walshe was on hand to bless the new build- ing in the presence of Father Brendan Cleary chairperson of the board of management along with board mem- bers.

School principal and Clare minor hurling team manager PJ Fitzpatrick said that it was the culmination of many years effort, lobbying and promises that finally led to this great day for the school.

The school has grown to be recog-

nised as one of the best centres of formative education in the region and was in dire need of this extension.

It will service the needs of an ever erowing hinterland population wise. Fitzpatrick thanked the architect Dermot Merry for “the excellent design and management of construc- none

He reserved special praise for the construction firm of Kerlim Building Ltd who went about their business in a “quiet considerate way considering the pupils and staff alike”. The effi- ciency of Kerlim must also be noted according to the school principal as

“the project was finished two months ahead of schedule”’.

PJ also thanked all the local contri- butions that helped to fund the con- struction after the 95 per cent fund- ing was granted from central funds.

After the formalities a reception was held in the new premises for guests and parishioners alike to cel- ebrate another success for Clonlara eynenee

THE tourism stock of east Clare of- ficially soared this week, as one of the finest waterside walking routes in the country was formally opened in picturesque O’Briensbridge.

Some 16 km of walkway, and a number of shorter routes, were for- mally unveiled to the public at a joint celebration by the O’Briensbridge Community Group and Shannon De- velopment.

The route has been painstakingly and lovingly carved out by the lo- cal voluntary group over four years with the assistance of State, semi- State, local authority and voluntary financial support at a total cost of €222,000.

Many walkers and athletes alike have already grown to love the set- ting that begins and ends in the vil-

lage and in between meanders along the banks of the Shannon before joining the Errinagh Canal.

Speaking at a celebration dinner at the Old Mill Bar, O’Briensbridge fol- lowing the launch, chairman of the O’Briensbridge Community Group Michael Murtagh said that the fin- ished walk now formally unveiled has been a labour of love and well worth the many long hours dedicated by the band of local volunteers.

And he predicted that the walk will be one of the real gems of east Clare tourism over the coming years, par- ticularly with walking holidays now emerging as one of the growth areas of the tourism sector.

“There were times when we were banging on doors looking for fund- ing for this that we thought we would never see this day but now that we have, it has been more than worth

every bead of sweat,” said Michael.

“When you see what has been achieved here you really get a sense of a job well done and it is a tribute to all in our community, not just those in this official voluntary group. This 1s a diamond of a walk and you couldn’t have a better place to start and finish it than in what we believe is one of the prettiest villages in the country, O’ Briensbridge.

He added that without the help of the many volunteers and the sup- port from State and semi-State spon- sors, “this would not have happened and to one and all we say a big thank Wo) ae

The walks — all are colour coded with arrow sign-posts – vary from the longest Green Loop, which travels all the way from O’Briensbridge to Par- Korey mr-H OO mDy-1ee

There are shorter treks within the

system, including the Blue Loop, which links early with the Erri- nagh Canal and brings walkers back around to O’Briensbridge at a total distance of just 5 km The red loop, meanwhile, carries on to the village of Clonlara, returning to O’Briensbridge along the Errinagh Canal in an overall trek of 10 km.

Work on the ambitious project be- gan back in 2003 and has been fund- ed by Waterways Ireland, €27,000; Shannon Development, €11,000; Clare County Council €87,000, Leader Group, €26,000; Conserva- tion Volunteers, €2,000; Heritage Council, €26,000; ESB, <€18,000; O’Briensbridge Community Group, orm OOF

THE tourism season has been ex- tended by two weeks, members of Kilrush Town Council have been told.

They were listening to a presenta- tion from marketing and develop- ment officer, Siobhan Garvey or what has been done to promote the town and boost tourism.

She told the meeting that it has been officially recognised that the season has started early, “about two weeks early. The tourist information office is going to open early this year

to facilitate the visitors”.

The town council also plans to re- print 50,000 copies of an updated brochure featuring local activities, sights, accomodation, restaurants, pubs and service for visitors as well as giving them a handy map of the locality.

The brochure is being provided as a partnership project with local tour- ism providers and the Town Coun- cil.

The brochures will be ready by the end of the month, she told council members.

Among the other activities which

Siobhan has been involved in were re-developemnt of the town website, www.kilrush.ie which is expected to go live by the end of the month, she told the council.

Kilrush was also represented at the London St Patrick’s Day parade and literature for the town was available on the Shannon Development stalls at the Holiday World Shows in Bel- fast, Dublin and Limerick.

A postcard is also being produced with CANTATA funding promoting nine heritage centres in Clare and offering discount for visitors to the na Kehe

Kilrush adverstisments have also been included in national tourism publications including

IT HAS been almost a century since the Kelly family began selling peri- winkles and seagrass to holiday makers on the Kilkee seafront and the tradition remains strong today as the stall prepares for another hectic SLebeavenoe

Frank Kelly, one of the third gener- ation to keep up the family tradition, said that his grandmother was one of the first to sell the local delicacy.

“My grandmother, Katie Kelly and a friend of hers called Ellie Halloran, started the stall nearly a hundred years ago now. At the time they were using pony cars and they would push

them up to the beach with a white sheet thrown over the contents. They sold the periwinkles to customers from the back. There would have been very few people in the business at that time,” he said.

He said that he believes the starting year to be the year that the Titanic sank, 1912.

“My father, Michael Kelly who was a local councillor for 20 years, took it up after his mother. I have been running the stall now for 20 years as well and I hope that my niece, Nora Kelly who helps me out on it now, will take it over after me.”

Observing decades of change from a prominent spot on the strand line,

Frank described the transformation of Kilkee.

“The town has really changed be- cause of all the new buildings. I think that it’s not as good now because it’s more expensive. In the summer years ago, the town used to packed every day and not just weekends.”

The Kelly stall, the longest in busi- ness in Kilkee, has had many famous customers according to Frank’s col- lection of photographs.

“Richard Harris was a great friend of mine. He used to come and see my grandmother and he knew all my un- cles. Anytime he came to Kilkee he would drop by. The storyteller Ea- monn Kelly and Phil Coulter and his

wife have been down,” said Frank.

‘Winkle picking can be a hard slog in peak times but Frank hopes to keep the tradition going for another 100 years.

“We pick them up near Loop Head and other places and cook them in the family home. We pick the seagrass locally and dry it under the sun. We go out either very early in the evening with the tides and it is tough work. It has always been a family thing and I hope my niece will carry it on. That was my grandmother’s wish before she died.”

THE Kilrush Family Resource Cen- tre will hold a day-long conference on all aspects of family health from 10am to 5pm on Saturday, May 26.

All interested parties can attend the free event, which will involve half- hour talks about everything from nutrition to sexually transmitted in- fections.

Development worker Viv Rooney outlined the speakers and topics lined up for the day.

“A representative from the HSE who is going to talk about healthy eating and cessation of smoking will attend. There will be a breast checker and someone from the Marie Keat- ing Foundation talking about cancer awareness. Staff from the Red Rib- bon Project will be there to address sexual health. We have two women from the Shannon Youth Service looking at relationships and STIs Koren

There will also be a public health nurse giving an update on their ac-

tivities in Clare, a spokesperson from Clare Haven will talk about the ef- fects of domestic violence as well as speakers on family planning, repro- ductive health and complimentary health.

Ms Rooney said that this is the big- gest event of its type staged by the family resource centre and it has been in the planning stages since January.

“This event is part of our three year plan because we wanted to do something around the area of health awareness and promotion. We all

talked about it and decided a confer- ence would be a good way to do it. It will be a great day – very interest- ing. There are lots of different talks and we will change topics quickly so that we can cover a snippet of every- den eetoaa

Numbers are not strictly limited but booking is needed, ideally before Spm on Tuesday, May 22 (today), so that lunch can be provided for every- one on the day. For information con- tact Kilrush Family Resource Centre on 065 9052173.

DOONBEG will play host to Irish and international musicians over the June bank holiday weekend when the eight International Jazz Festival comes to town.

The popular annual event attracts as many as 2,000 visitors to Doon- beg with its mix of swing, dixie and jazz and this year’s programme will suit all tastes with performers from Luxembourg, Germany, Poland, England, Guatemala, and Ireland.

Committee member, Philippa Sea- grist, said that the festival has gone from strength to strength over the years.

‘It has been a slow process but we

are getting a good reputation. The festival is not about heavy jazz but a lively jazz mix. We are just final- ising the last details now and we’re hoping for lovely weather like the last Whit weekend,” she said.

Philippa added that all the events are free despite the “miniature” budget and most will take place nightly in local bars before a hoped for “spill” of the crowd onto the streets for the final day.

The festival will officially open in The Igoe Inn on Friday night and there will also be a Saturday after- noon jazz ‘jam’ session.

The festival will have many high- lights this year including Edith van den Heuvel and Dany Schwickerath

with songs from The American Songbook, as well as modern jazz tunes from Horace Silver and Th- elonious Monk.

Manu and his Latino House is a showcase of international musi- cians who have joined with Manu Ramirez from Guatemala to make an exciting Latin-Dance fusion with Afro- Caribbean influences. They have appeared at the Gaiety Theatre Latin Club, The Temple Bar Music Centre, Half Moon Club and the Cork Jazz Festival.

The Portobello Jazzband from London will bring the flavour of New Orleans to west Clare with their six piece Dixie Band.

Flying the Irish flag will be The

Jazzberries a Dublin based duo who have been entertaining their audiences since 2002, playing jazz standards and swing as well as mod- ern tunes with a jazz twist.

The East Coast Jazz Band from Arklow are an exciting five-piece band playing popular jazz, bossa and blues and have appeared at the Cork Jazz Festival for the last 10 Nerd ase

Local band Skazz will be enter- taining with their unique mix of jazz, reggae and ska, fresh from be- ing voted ‘Best Band’ at Cork’s Bal- lydehob Jazz Festival. Limerick’s David Irwin Trio and Spilt Ends will also make highly anticipated appearances.

POLITICAL graffiti artists have tar- geted some 50 General Election post- ers in the north Clare area in an act of political ‘jamming’.

The effected posters, which are di- vided indiscriminately across all po- litical parties and candidates, feature a pair of false cartoon eyes stuck on the candidates’ faces, as well as the words “Obey Me’ embossed on their Ke)Ko store OMOmonvne

Jamming is a form of graffiti in which the artist targets public adver- tisements or political posters in order to express a political or moral point.

The posters are located in the Lahi- nch, Ennistymon and Inagh areas but

a number can also be seen on the In- agh Road in Ennis.

The process of jamming has become more commonplace in Irish elections in recent years. The most high-pro- file recent example of jamming took place in Cork City during the 2002 local election.

On that occasion, brown paper en- velopes were attached to hundreds of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael election posters in the centre of Cork City on the night before the election.

A Cork-based anarchist organisation later claimed responsibility for this stunt which was part of its ‘anti-elec- tion’ campaign. To date, no-one has claimed responsibility for the north Clare jamming.

According to the Head of Psychol- ogy at the University of Limerick, Tony Cassidy, the graffiti is actually a positive sign.

“It does represent some disillusion- ment with the state of politics in the area, but it is actually a quite positive thing that people are willing to put that much time and effort into mak- ing a political statement,’ said Dr Cassidy. “It shows a level of disillu- sionment with the system, but it also shows that the people involved have a will to make their voices heard. It is quite a positive thing in that respect.”

Meanwhile, Fine Gael candidate Pat Breen has described as “politically motivated” the destruction of his bill- board in the outskirts of Kilrush just

hours after it was erected.

The €60, eight-by-four-foot bill- board, which was erected on Saturday evening, was discovered on Sunday in an adjacent field.

The board, which was promoting Fine Gael’s commitment to accident and emergency services in Ennis with a picture of Breen’s head, had been de- faced with the TD’s mouth cut away.

Deputy Breen told

A MAN who called gardai “paedo- philes” did so because of a previous incident, a court has heard.

Maurice Walsh (57), of Finian Park, Shannon, appeared in court last week, charged under the Public Order Act.

Shannon District Court was told the accused called gardai “paedophiles and c****s” and accused one garda of setting him up for drink driving, on March 3 last.

Defending solicitor Tara Godfrey said the accused’s wife is deceased. This date would have been her 50th birthday. He drank too much alcohol and became emotional, she said.

Judge Aeneas McCarthy asked, ‘“What’s his problem with gardai?”

Ms Godfrey replied, “I think it’s his problem with the world at large.”

At that stage the accused addressed the judge.

“What have I got against the gardai? Four years ago, I was inside in Ennis General Hospital, having two operations carried out and while I was having the operations carried out, gardai arrived at my house with a search warrant, on the pretence I was after stealing a Kawasaki motor- bike from Sixmilebridge,” he said.

The judge told him that was a mat- ter for the Garda Complaints Board. The accused said he had made a complaint, but the garda officer who investigated it found there had been no wrongdoing.

The case was adjourned for a Pro- ley 1h(O0 Ke) Lam

A MAN who failed to abide by a court order to sign on daily has been refused bail.

Patrick Ballard, of Rossbracken, Shannon, appeared in court last week, accused of assaulting a garda in Shan- Wteyee

Ballard previously appeared on charges relating to the stealing of cig- arettes, alcohol and clothes in Ennis and Shannon.

Inspector Michael Gallagher told Shannon District Court that he was objecting to bail.

He said that in February, the accused had been ordered to sign on daily, but had failed to do so in recent weeks.

Defending solicitor Tara Godfrey said her client was a “troubled young- ster”. Sergeant Dermot O’Connor said he accepted that.

Ms Godfrey said her client was “*vul-

nerable”. The sergeant replied, “His mother and members of An Garda Siochana dealing with him are vulner- able as well”.

Judge Aeneas McCarthy said the accused was “committing crimes all over the place. Society has to be pro- tected”.

Ms Godfrey said the duty of the State to the accused has not been car- ried out. She said the probation serv- ices were to carry out a report and this concluded that prison was not a suit- able place for her client.

The judge replied, “The State is not in locus parentis to Mr Ballard. He has responsibilities.”

Ms Godfrey said her client has been ‘led astray” by people who are unde- sirable.

The judge noted the accused had breached his bail and remanded him in custody for a week. “I want to see a psychiatric report,’ he said.