Month: July 2007

A 17-YEAR-OLD youth was in Garda custody in Kilrush yesterday, amid allegations that a 14-year-old girl was raped in the town at the weekend.

A woman made a complaint to gardai on Saturday that her daugh- ter had been raped by a young man,

who was known to her, the previous night.

The 17-year-old was arrested yes- terday afternoon. He can be held for up to 24 hours. The young girl was treated at the Sexual Assault Unit at Limerick regional hospital and inter- viewed by gardai. Gardai say they are not looking for anyone else in relation to the incident.

Elsewhere in west Clare, gardai are investigating the theft of a shotgun during a break-in to a house near Cranny, on Sunday.

The house, located on the Cranny/ Ballynacally road, was ransacked between Ipm and midnight. A sin- gle-barrelled licensed shotgun and a portable television were taken in the incident.

MUSIC lover in north Clare are in have a real treat in store next month with the arrival of the Munich Boys and Girls Choir to Ennistymon.

The 40 strong German choir have gained renown over the years through a series of international appearance and now spends most of each sum- mer touring across Europe and North America.

The choir, which contains members from between the ages of 10 and 20, will perform in Ennistymon Church on Wednesday, August 22.

The concert itself is free, but organ-

isers are appealing to the local peo- ple to pitch in by offering the mem- bers of the choir a place to stay on the evening of the concert.

‘The choir contains about 40 mem- bers, 20 boys and 20 girls. They travel all around Europe during the summer months playing concerts as they go to pay their way,” said Can- non Richard Thorpy.

“The concerts themselves are free but the people who attend are asked to make a small donation and they also sell CD’s after the performance to help pay for the journey. To save on the costs they also ask local people to put them up for the night and save on

the cost of accommodation.”

Ennistymon Church has hosted a number of high profile performances in recent years, most notably the Irish National Orchestra last year.

“We are looking for people to host some of the children, there are about 40 in total and about six or seven adults who travel with them. We al- ready have a good few people signed to help put the children up for the night, some are taking two children but there have been others who say they can take four or five,’ continued Cannon Thorpy.

“They have been touring in various countries and have had a number of

concerts in Ireland before this. It is how they spend their summers. They sing a great variety of music, from the classical to the more religious songs, so there should be something for everyone’s taste.”

The group will arrive in the early afternoon of August 22, and have a short rehearsal before the perform- ance that evening. After spending the evening in Ennistymon they will be leaving the area early on August 23.

Anyone interested in taking in members of the choir for the evening should contact 065 7071346. The concert will take place in Ennisty- mon Church on August 22 at 8pm.

ALMOST 60 students at Ennisty- mon’s Mol an Oige Steiner School will be going ‘to school through the falls’ from September following the eranting of planning permission for four prefabs at last weeks meeting of Clare County Council.

Parents, teachers and_ students were in council chambers for the announcement last week which re- ceived the unanimous support of all county councilors present.

The planning will allow the school to erect four prefab buildings on a site beside the Falls Hotel. It is an important step for the school which is involved in a long running battle to secure official state recognition from the Department of Education.

“We are delighted with the unani- mous cross party support received from Clare County Council in fa- vour of the temporary re-zoning of a site in Ennistymon for Mol an Oige school,” said Mary Fahy, secretary of Mol an Oige.

“This honoured a previous guar- antee made by the April ’06 council meeting when a unanimous motion was passed in support of Steiner multi-denominational schools in north Clare.

“We would like to sincerely thank the 25 county councillors present. Their lOO per cent support reflects the broad support in the local com- munity for diversity in education. Sincere thanks to the planning au- thorities for furthering our applica- tion for temporary planning.”

Hopes are now high that the schools new premises will help in the schools aim of getting official state recogni- tion. To date the school has received no support from the Department of Education and has survived through an ongoing series of fund raising events.

“Our understanding is that a posi- tive recommendation went from the New School’s Advisory Committee to the Department of Education,” she continued.

“With 56 pupils pre-enrolled in Mol an Oige for September ’07, we are confident that Minister Hanafin will respect the growing trend in multi-denominational education and respond to the need for choice in education in rural Ireland.

Steiner schools approach learning

in childhood through a process of imitation and example. For exam- ple, language development in Steiner Schools is addressed through songs, poems and movement games.

Extensive time is given for children to play freely, under the guidance of adult(s), in a home-like classroom environment that includes natural materials. The school emphasises the importance of children experiencing the rhythms of the year and seasons, including seasonal festivals drawn from a variety of traditions.

A KINVARA musician is preparing to turn the world of traditional Irish music on it’s head with the produc- tion of the world’s first ever trad-mu- sical.

The Year of the German is an ex- citing and ambitious new production from Gerry Kennedy, who last year produced the Road to Clare with Druid Theatre. Indeed, the Year of the German takes it’s inspiration from his 2006 production, which became one of the highlights of the Galway Sessions 2006 programme.

“It is set in the 1970’s when trad

music began to become popular with the Europeans and especially the Germans. This happened because German traditional music itself had been used by the Nazis and they wanted to find something else,” said Gerry Conneely.

“You began to see young German men and women hanging around Doolin with tin whistles in their back pockets, around McGann’s and Gus- sie O’Connors. These European also made their way up as far as Kinvara and that is what the story is about.”

The Road to Clare is set in Kinvara and tells the story of the impact these European visitors had on the local

community and musicians. The Year of the German is a continuation of this story, set in the imaginary town of Ardbo and put to music.

The Year of the German is cur- rently preparing for it debut in Aras Inis Gluaire in Belmullet but plans are already underway to take it on the road.

“It is very much a work in progress. I mean, this production is being done with transition year actors and mu- sicians and is very much something that I am playing with at the moment, seeing how it can be developed,” con- HOM OCoNaA

“It has been going well and the con-

cepts seems to be catching on. So it is something that I will be looking to get professional actors involved in and develop more in the near future.” The musical tells the story of Johnny Keogh, who seized the reins of the well-known Keogh’s Bar in Main from his alcoholic father. He pro- ceeds to run it into the ground and alienates most of his customers, 1n- cludes local musician Patsy McMa- hon. In a weird twist of fate, Patsy is ‘discovered’ and becomes a radio sensation in Germany. Patsy’s fame draws thousands to the town and Johnny has to befriend Patsy again in order to save his own business.

AN ECONOMIC disaster could be just weeks away for Clare with reports indicating that as many as 3,000 builders face redundancy later debhwpesreyniaee

A leading representative of the Clare construction industry claims that hundreds have already left the industry, with a return to mass emi- eration of the 1970s and 80s already

underway.

Fears are now growing that a mass lay-off will take place following the builders’ holiday later this month, with a numbers of contractors be- lieved to be holding off until the holiday in the hope of an upsurge in the market.

The two-week annual holiday be- gins on July 27, a date which sections within the construction industry have already dubbed ‘Black Friday’.

“The only thing that is keeping us going at her moment is houses out in the country. There is nothing at all going on in the towns. Traditional places where there would be build- ing like Kilkee and Lahinch are just dead. The building has stopped,” said Paddy Kenneally, head of the Clare Plasters Union.

‘There is a lot of employment out there at the moment, it’s easy to get a plasterer in Clare at the moment.

People are ringing me up all the time looking for work and I don’t have much to tell them.

“A lot of plasterers are just leaving the trade and going to work in facto- ries or whatever they can get. There are quite of few who have emigrated already, especially from the Shannon area.”

It 1s believed that 30 per cent of Clare’s estimated 11,000 to 13,000 construction workers could be let go this year.

One of the companies believed to be preparing to cut numbers after the builders holidays is McInerney Con- struction, which was formed in Clare almost 100 years ago and has bases in a number of EU countries.

“We have heard that McInerney Construction and a number of the other big companies will be laying a lot of people off. The builders will be paid their two weeks of holiday mon- ey and they won’t be taken back,” continued Mr Kenneally.

‘There is a huge fall off all over Ire- land, we are down at least 30 per cent in Clare since the beginning of the year. A surplus of houses has been created and the fact is that people can’t sell them.

“I can’t see anyway out of this, un- less we go back to the old days when we are building council houses all the time.”

yesterday that the

worst could still be ahead for the in- dustry.

With building contractors plan-

ning projects two years in advance,

he believes that a real collapse in the

industry could take place in Octo- ber 2008 unless corrective action is Cote

“The problem goes back to last Oc- tober and the stamp duty. McDowell opened up a big debate and people began to realise it 1s an unjust tax,” said Mr O’Reilly.

‘He took the genie out of the bot- tle. The situation has been resolved for first time buyers but not for the rest of the market and there has been stagnation in the market for the last nine months.

“Builders plan two year in advance

and how could they think about start- ing projects with the uncertainty in the market from last October. It has been a soft landing so far, prices haven’t dropped too much except in the higher end but there is a ticking time bomb there for October 2008 if the stamp duty situation is not sorted out quickly.”

Meanwhile, Ulster Banks chief economist, Pat McArdle, has pre- dicted that 30,000 jobs will go in the construction industry nationwide be- fore the end of 2009. If this proves to be the case, between 1200 and

1500 Clare builders will be forced to leave the industry over the next 2 to 3 years.

Speaking at an economic briefing last Friday, McArdle also predicted that the unemployment rate would erow to more than 5 per cent before the end of 2008.

However, McArdle also predicted that the Irish economy would con- tinue to grow over the next two years and that European Central Bank (ECB) would only increase interest rates once more in the foreseeable JULRU Ken

THE CONSTRUCTION Industry Federation (CIF) has rubbished re- ports of a major collapse 1n the build- ing sector, claiming that the current downturn is part of a natural cycli- cal pattern and will correct itself shortly.

CIF Secretary for the Mid-West Region, Conor O’Connell, said yes- terday that even though he did expect redundancies following the builders’ holiday, the figures had been blown out of proportion.

‘There is no doubt about it, all the anecdotal evidence suggests that there will be some lay offs around the holidays, but if you look at the figures there has always been a cycli- cal pattern,” he said.

“The run up to the builders holi- days has always been a time when contractors review their staffing lev- els, that has been the case year in and year out.

“So it is very hard to know until af- ter it happens what will take place on the ground. It’s very hard to predict how long a down cycle will take to

run its course, and I’m not sure that we will even see the downturn that a lot of people are predicting.

‘There is an awful lot of scaremon- gering going on at the moment and people are being scared off from making that first purchase. I’d nearly bet my bottom dollar that come next spring there will be a turnaround in the market again.”

While the CIF predict a downturn, the organisation believes that work- ers will simply transfer to the com- mercial sector.

“The outlook for the industry is

still very good. It has boomed over the years and this talk of a big down- turn and a lot of people getting laid off is a bit too dramatic. It is a cycli- cal market and always will be.

‘That said, we do expect to see a significant amount of workers to transfer from house building sec- tor to the general contracting sector. This country is still playing catch about on the services and infrastruc- ture being built up. For example, the provision of a wastewater and sew- age infrastructure,’ Mr O’Connell concluded.

MOTORBIKE enthusiasts in En- nis are on the road again aiming to break records and at the same time highlight the important work of the Simply Said project.

A group that previously re-stored a vintage motorbike as part of project to highlight adult education programmes in the county are now setting their sights on another chal- lenge.

This time the plan is to restore an- other motorbike from scratch and then race the finished article around Mondello International motor racing circuit.

Its all to do with the Simply Said

– a collection of writings produced annually by students attending Clare Adult Basic Education Service (CABES).

An active member of adult educa- tion programmes in Clare, Jacko McMahon wants to restore the mo- torbike in time to mark next year’s 20th anniversary of Simply Said.

The first stage of that process be- gins in Ennis this month with the launch of a four-team soccer tourna- ment involving teams from around the town.

The teams captained by local men Tommy Leahy, Jim McMahon, Ed- die Walsh and Basil Whelan will play-off against each other for the Paddy Coughlan trophy.

Money raised from the event will go towards the purchase of parts for the motorbike restoration project.

Community and voluntary bod- ies such as Clare VEC, Clare Youth Service and the Congress Informa- tion Opportunity Centre all co-oper- ated on previous restoration projects.

A previous contributor to Simply Said Jacko wanted to mark the 20th anniversary of the project.

He also hopes to enlist the help of people like Jimmy Meere, Engi- neering Instructor with Clare Youth Service Terry Considine, Adult Edu- cation Organiser with Clare VEC Dr Sean Connellan, who donated time and effort to previous projects.

Jacko said, “It was an opportu-

nity not be missed. Simply Said is a great project and I hope to be able do something to mark the 20th an- niversary ’.

The 19th edition of Simply Said was recently launched by Bishop Wille Walsh and featured contributions from over 100 students. CABES pro- vides one to one voluntary tuition to adult learners to improve their read- ing and writing skills. Over 1,000 people avail of the service in Clare each year.

WOMEN across Clare are being encouraged to attend an awareness evening, organised by “Take Thirty Women Fitness Centre’ on the issue of heart disease.

The event will take place at the “Take Thirty Women Fitness Centre, located above Liam Cleary Car Sales, Kilrush Road, Ennis, at 7.30pm on Thursday July 19.

The aim of the event is to raise awareness and _ provide an under- standing of the problems associated with heart disease.

Several health professionals will be on hand to explain how simple pre- ventative measures can help reduce

the risk of heart disease.

According to the Irish Heart Foun- dation, approximately 10,000 people die each year from cardiovascular disease (CVD), including coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke and other circulatory diseases. CVD is the most common cause of death in Ireland, accounting for 36 per cent of all deaths.

The largest number of these deaths relate to CHD, mainly in the form of heart attacks. 22 per cent of prema- ture deaths (under age 65) are from CVD.

“Take Thirty’ manager Celina Kil- leen said the purpose of this aware- ness evening is to encourage people to lead a more active lifestyle.

She said “The main aim of the evening is to try to get people to be nee) Kemr-LOLB Aon

“We want to show that by lead- ing a more healthy lifestyle you can combat and reduce the risk posed by heart disease”.

Celina’s own interest in the subject was fuelled by the death of a fam- ily member from heart related prob- snake

“It was all sparked off when a member of my own family died. I had been involved in health and fit- ness for most of my life and yet was surprised to see the stats about how many people are affected and the amount of problems it causes”

Attendees at the awareness evening

will have the opportunity to have their blood pressure checked and find out their body mass index, body fat per cent, and hydration levels.

Ennis based chiropractor Dr. Heather Thompstone will address is- sues relating to heart disease, while Jim Fives of the Irish Heart Founda- tion will give an overview of his or- ganisation’s work.

Members of the Health Services Executive will offer advice on how people can make their lifestyle a healthier one.

Celina added, ““We want to encour- age people to be more active. All it takes is 30 minutes exercise a day, so you see it doesn’t take that much ef- fort to prolong your lifespan”.

THE Miltown Malbay E-town is on course despite the bad weather af- fecting building projects across the county.

That’s according to Shannon De- velopment E-Town Project Leader Paul Ryan, who said that the project is On course for opening in October.

The Miltown Malbay E-town will give a “turn key” working and living space for families and single people wishing to avoid the rat race and set

up business in the west Clare town.

The 12-unit E-town is expected to attract micro business to the area and cluster them so that they in turn could grow from each other and pro- aCe ComAUUUM sloiumoreel O)Cenranetounle

Miltown Malbay has a hard work- ing community and a history of in- dustry, which made it attractive for this project.

The population of the town is about 1,000 people with another 3,000 in the area.

In partnership with the local au-

thorities, local communities and the Ibrickane network Shannon Devel- Opment is pioneering this new rural town renewal initiative, a €4 million investment by the development com- Orv aNYA

Among the many attraction likely to entice people to the west Clare town and its e-town are the nine pri- mary schools and secondary school in the area.

It also has a vibrant community, surfing, golf, drama, Irish music classes, créche facilities, 15 bars, and

a dozen restaurants within a couple of miles, and the sea.

It is just 30 minutes from Ennis and less than an hour from Shannon In- KoouirleCeyer Diane Oe) um

The primary aim of the pioneering approach of the e-town is to enable people to achieve a live/work bal- ance in tailor-made accommodation, create clusters of businesses and bring new economic activity back into local communities.