This article is from page 35 of the 2007-06-05 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 35 JPG
THE council came with two lorries and left with each filled to overflow- ing and a sparkling clean beach in Fanore behind them. Over the last number of months, local man Wil- liam Verhulst has been walking the shoreline and coast, gathering rub- ten
Since February, William has col- lected more than 120 bags of rubbish and greatly improved the view from one of Clare’s most scenic villages.
“I covered the area from Creggagh up as far as the beach, fields as well as coastline. After every storm, it keeps coming in. It 1s a global prob- lem. It is inevitable that fishing boats
would lose some of their material during storms or whenever, but in terms of the bottles and rubbish, I think that they should be stored in appropriate places until they get back to harbour,” he said.
“IT started in February. My doctor advised me to take a lot of exercise. So I asked Patsy Corrucan for per- mission to walk across his fields and I thought to myself, ‘this doesn’t look right’.
“So I started collecting the rubbish. I then spoke to the area office of the county council in Ennistymon and they said that they would come out and take the rubbish away. But they said that they wouldn’t come out for 20 or 30 bags. I contacted them in
April to say that there were over 100 bags now.”
Originally from Holland, William retired to north Clare four years ago. A keen traditional music fan, he had been coming to Ireland for years to the Fleadh Nua and other festivals.
“IT found large plastic contain- ers that had come in from all over. One was from Norway, I discovered from reading the writing on the con- tainer. There were some from Spain and Portugal and some with Chinese characters, they probably came from passing ships,” he said.
“There is no telling where the rub- bish comes from, but I would imag- ine that a lot would come from ships, being thrown overboard.
‘From the way that it had been dis- integrated, I would guess that some of it has been away for up to four or five years.”
William continues his work clean- ing the shoreline and hopes that oth- ers will join him in the task.
‘I do hope that this will inspire oth- er people to help clean up the beaches in their own area,” he continued.
“Now I have started working my way towards Dorreen and so far I have collected another eight bags with Bernie Conway who looks after the beach here 1n Fanore.”