Month: December 2007

THE CHAIRMAN of the Clare Childcare Committee believes that the Government may perform a u- turn on contentious proposals that may leave community childcare services worse off.

Cllr Joe Arkins (FG) said yesterday that there was a possibility that the Minister for State at the Department of Health, Brendan Smith, “may see the light of day” in relation to the proposed Community Childcare

Subvention Scheme (CCSS) being introduced from next January.

Cllr Arkins said that if the scheme was introduced in its current form “all the good work of the last six to seven years in this area will be over- aU bw elere

Cllr Arkins confirmed that case studies have been carried out on a number of community-based child- care providers in Clare and it has found “that they will be considerably worse off” under the new funding mechanism.

In the Dail, Minister Smith said “that the new scheme will provide an effective framework for the contin- ued targeting of additional resources towards disadvantaged parents and their children while continuing to Support community childcare serv- CoO EUR YE

‘The scheme has been informed by and takes account of a number of en- hancements recommended by the re- port of the Value for Money Review of the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme 2000-06. . .

‘The new scheme has clear advan- tages over its predecessor. There is an increase in the level of funding available under it, and a majority of services will benefit from the chang- es it introduces.”

However, Cllr Arkins said yester- day that the new scheme hadn’t been measured in terms of rural isolation or economies of scale. The Ruan- based councillor said that if the new Scheme was introduced, it would result in greater fees for parents in Clare and would make some com-

munity childcare services in Clare unviable.

Cllr Arkins said that lobbying had already taken place with Minister Smith and Junior Minister, Tony Kil- leen on the issue.

Cllr Arkins believes that the meas- ures were put in place with Dublin- based community childcare provid- ers in mind. He said: “It is an east versus west argument to some extent and Minister Eamon O’Cuiv is now on side and I am confident that the new measures will be overturned.”

THE long-term future of two Clare hurling clubs hangs in the balance before an historic joint-vote at the weekend.

Sunday is set to become a pivotal occasion in the history of both the Inagh and Kilnamona hurling clubs as a proposal to amalgamate both has been put forward.

The matter will be voted on this Sunday when Inagh and Kilnamona will hold their AGM?’s simultane- ously. A three-quarters majority is needed from both clubs if the motion is to be formally passed.

The connotations of such a move are far reaching as the amalgama- tion will lead to the folding of two historic institutions in order to create one new super-club.

Inagh and Kilnamona are currently amalgamated at underage level where they have experienced great success in recent years, winning minor and under 21 A titles.

In the past, they have also merged at senior level but never to the detri- ment of their own distinct club sides at intermediate level.

If the proposal is passed by both clubs, it will mean that at adult level a senior and an intermediate side will represent the new club after In- agh consulted the county board at the November meeting.

Kilnamona were relegated from senior this year after losing out in a relegation play-off against Smith O’Briens while Inagh just missed out on a quarter-final spot.

With such an important issue, some Opposition to the proposal is antici-

Oe Kexeb

However, some speculation in the Kilnamona camp yesterday [Mon- day] suggested that this motion is being railroaded through by their executive committee without the full backing of the club.

Further speculation of a member- ship controversy on the Kilnamona side 1s starting to build as confusion over full membership means that some members find themselves inel1- gible to vote next Sunday.

A source said, “In recent years the amalgamation of Kilnamona and Inagh at underage level has yielded success and most people in the par- ish would not have an issue with the clubs amalgamating for senior hurl- ing but not at the expense of winding up Kilnamona hurling club.

‘There is a lot of opposition to the

proposed winding up of Kilnamona but its looks like most of the opposi- tion is from people in the parish who are not going to be allowed vote in the meeting to decide something that is the cornerstone of most rural par- ishes in the country.”

A splinter club known as the Kil- namona Gaels is also being touted if the move goes ahead. ‘Inamona’, as the amalgamation is affectionately known, could bring to an end 120 years of the Kilnamona club who have been in existence since the ear- liest days of the GAA. A team repre- senting Inagh first made an appear- ance in 1918 and officially reformed as the Inagh hurling club in 1953.

Historic clubs in even more historic times but there’s set to be much de- bate at the respective AGM’s next Sunday.

AT THE start of the year, Michael Browne and Mike Murphy sat down for a chat. Murphy was captain for the year but nobody would have known where the road was going to lead.

The two came up with a strategy that has served Tulla well and high- lights the approach they’ve taken to the season. Murphy would act as one of the prime ball winners for the Tulla forwards, he’d put his body into whatever fight for possession that presented itself and even if he only moved the sliotar three yards in the direction of the Tulla goal, that would be enough.

That Al Pacino speech in Any Giv- en Sunday, the one about inches has been thrown about for most of this new century — and taken on board particularly by the Cork hurlers – but Tulla and Murphy have personified that system this year.

TMENo aioe meee de

In the end, they didn’t get the Mun-

ster championship that they craved since taking down Crusheen in the county final, but the season has been the greatest in living memory in Tulla.

After the game on Sunday, the disappointment in Murphy’s face is obvious but it shows just how far the club has come over the course of the season.

“The way that wind was blowing,’ he says “it didn’t have any advantage for either team. It was so strong out there that it just carried the ball.”

Even as he’s talking, the cold is still seeping into him, his teeth are rat- tling and his body is shivering. It was that kind of day.

“Tn the first half, the wind was blow- ing for them but it didn’t seem to be a great help. We knew coming down here that we’d be up against a strong team and that’s how it was. The goal gave them a bit of a cushion and on a day like today, that could always swing things in one direction.”

Right to the end, Tulla didn’t die and they hung on still within touch-

ing distance.

“We did have chances even late on. They just wouldn’t go over for us and even at the end, when Andy Quinn dropped the 65 into the danger area for us, we still could have snatched a win.

“But it just wasn’t going to be our day. The bottom line is that it’s been a great season for us. To come out and win a county championship was a dream come true. It would have been fantastic to have come down here and won a Munster title for Tul- la, but it didn’t happen. We’ve got the county to keep us going through the winter.”

Not just that. While the disappoint- ment of the Munster final might have been there on Sunday, it’s sure not to linger.

Last week, Murphy became a fa- ther. A boy.

“Another Tulla hurler on the way,’ somebody reminded him on Sunday. Because of the year just finished, he’ll be part of a club with a whole new set of ambitions.

TULLA are old stock. Clichéd and all as it may sound, they hurl from the heart and it’s taken them to a Munster Final.

Think of that. A Munster Final!

At the start of the summer that con- cept wasn’t even part of their thought process and before the provincial de- cider on Sunday, Jim McInerney said as much. He looked back to where Tulla were at this time last year — having been dumped out of the Sen- ior B Championship — and said that a Munster Final would barely have registered as a dream.

But that’s where they were on Sun- day and the club has provided some of the only positive vibes in Clare hurling this year — particularly since they took the county final back at the end of October.

Before that, they went quietly about their business, taking out a couple of big guns on the way to a novel final against Crusheen. If that game didn’t live up to expectation, perspective gives us the opportunity to reflect that in hindsight, maybe both sides went in hoping not to lose rather than aiming to win. The hurling didn’t set the world alight and word was out that Tulla had won a soft enough

championship.

War NmmyeclyeM mba OCcmrcn ele Mm iMmy schol mn r-b be either. In ways, it probably has more to do with the usual swelled crowd at the final compared to the numbers present to see Tulla dispose of New- market and Clarecastle.

The county took Tulla to their hearts but it wasn’t a rapid process. Word was seeping out that the Kerry champions could take a Clare scalp in the first round of Munster but Tulla came out that day in Tralee all guns blazing and had the game killed off before Lixnaw could even shake the cobwebs from their bones.

Then Ballyduff came to Ennis and

Tulla played some of the best hurling Cusack Park has seen all year. Flags and banners with the claret and gold have popped up all across the county since then.

In a year of let downs on and off the field for the county hurlers, it was Tulla, along with Clonlara who car- ried hopes through the latter half of the season.

That Tulla failed to take a provin- cial title shouldn’t ruin the next few months for them. Since the county fi- nal, celebrations have been cut short as they seriously went about taking a Munster title. All year they’ve been proving their critics wrong and the

attitude was — what’s the point in stopping with a Clare title.

When they’d finally relinquished the game at the Gaelic Grounds, a large knot of Tulla supporters moved onto the field to commiserate with them. It was a shared pain. Through- out the game, it was the Tulla fans who displayed most energy and colour and they too will have some warm thoughts to keep them going over the cold months now upon us.

ONE final scrum developed out on the field after the final whistle, then it morphed into a rolling maul that went up the steps to the presentation area in the Gaelic Grounds. It where David Kennedy joined his team mates in celebration.

Before that he had broken away from the scrum to be feted as TG4 man- of-the-match — it was an easy call for match analyst Donal O’Grady, such was Kennedy’s dominance of this game from centre back.

Kennedy more than anyone else was responsible for Loughmore- Castleiney’s Munster final victory — the impenetrable wall in their de-

fence who swatted Tulla attackers out of his way all day.

He caught more ball high ball than everyone else on the field put togeth- er, Something that moved some sages of Tipperary hurling in the stand to it was Kennedy’s greatest ever per- formance on a hurling field.

If so, he picked a great day to pro- duce his very best. Maybe it was the level of his own performance and the significance of Loughmore- Castleiney’s victory that left Kennedy slightly shell-shocked after the game. Certainly he was stuck for words.

“T don’t know what to say really,” he said seconds after Cathal McAI- lister’s final whistle. “It’s very hard to believe that we’re Munster cham-

pions. A year ago we were nowhere, we had nothing, that’s where we’ve come from.

‘This means everything for Lough- more-Castleiney. This is going to se- cure hurling in the parish for a long number of years.

‘We’re a very small club and win- ning this title is great going into the jaUiaet Ken

“It’s way beyond winning an All- Ireland. With Tipperary every year, no matter how bad things were go- ing you expect to be in Croke Park. With Loughmore you don’t expect anything.

‘This year we didn’t expect to win a county title and a Munster title — we didn’t expect to be hurling at

this time of year. This is a different universe,’ added Kennedy warming to his subject.

Then he turned to vanquished Tul- la. “They gave it everything and were really attacking us near the end, but our defence held firm.

‘We knew it was going to be a real battle out there and with the condi- tions there was never going to be pealecelemsneme ie

“We knew at half-time that the game was far from over, even though we were only a point up having played with the wind. It was almost as difficult to play with the wind as against it. We showed something in us today — I don’t know where it came from.

“It was important that we didn’t concede a goal, while the goal we got in the first half from Evan Sweeney was very important.

We missed a few other chances in the half but in the second half really played well at the back and got the crucial scores to win the game.”

With that Kennedy rejoined his team-mates — Munster Council chair- man Seamus O’Gorman presented the cup to Loughmore-Castleiney captain Johnny Gleeson. The singing started in the Mackey Stand.

It was cold, wet and miserable, but no one in the green and red of Loughmore-Castleiney minded. It was theirs and most of all David Kennedy’s day.