Month: July 2008

FEAR, rage and bitterness – long af- ter the battle of the Gaelic Grounds gave way to a night of nursing disap- pointed pints and stifling tears, the fight raged on in the darkest corners of the World Wide Web.

The scrapping in the stands may have been blue-on-blue action, but on the forums of An Fear Rua, Boards. ie and GaaBoards.ie the battle lines were drawn very much along the banks of the Shannon.

The day had started in friendly fashion; with a public poll on boards. ie predicting a narrow Tipperary win and some 30-year-old memories on An Fear Rua.

“T’m old enough to remember the Munster Final of 1978. There was a massive build-up,” said Clooney- QuinHead on An Fear Rua.

“Both sides were crammed with outstanding hurlers and everything pointed to a classic match. What oc- curred was a disappointing match, with a lot of niggle between players all over the field. I hope it wont be the same today,”

After the match however, the gloves came off with fans pointed at each

other and the Banner players.

“Our supposed big game _ play- ers were no where; Carmody, Grif- fin, Plunkett and Gilligan (lets face it, when the fat was in the fire he

couldn’t score from 40 yards),” said Kid Chocolate on An Fear Rua. “Only Colin and BOC and to a less- er degree Donnelan, Vaughan and O’Grady came out with reputations

intact…Frank Lohan has hurled bril- liantly for Clare for a long time but he is not a full back. He was caught against Limerick last year, Limerick this year and nearly Waterford and was very poor yesterday. It’s unfair to such a good hurler to have him end his career like this. We need a full back… Mike Mac showed a stub- born side by excluding Quinn and this cost Clare. We now have a centre back 1f Mac picks the right team.”

Meanwhile on boards.ie the con- sensus was that Clare had only them- selves to blame.

ml OIF: Vcmm sey uoay amd s(ommex: hoe Come UE hYARUYa Li their wasted chances. Not at all un- expected, I think the Biddy Early Curse is still having an effect,’ said AO STE

Greediness was singled out as an- other contributing factor.

“Clare beat themselves today with the six forwards displaying high lev- els of greediness,’ said CyberDave.

‘Any time one of the players got a chance within 90 yards from the goal they were looking to land the big ‘hero score’ in stead of using their heads an picking out a better placed forward inside, a lack of experience I suppose.

“They had something like 14 wides if they got even a third of them they would have had a better chance at the end. However, they will still be a ma- jor challenge for who ever they meet in the quarter-finals.”

There was even time for some two week old sour grapes from the Wa- terford faithful.

“TI think Clare have been made to look better then they actually are,” said Deise59. “Tipp were awesome at times today yeah, but 10 wides to 2 in the first half tells its own story.”

Last word to Clare poster Keano the Legend on boards.ie who summed up what many in the county are still feeling today.

“Tm still very disappointed by Clare’s performance. Always hard to take a defeat but yesterday was tough as I felt Clare had the potential to win the game,’ he said.

“Once again the poor shooting was the main factor. The management will have to look at their own per- formance. Tactical changes should have happened sooner. Oh well, its onto even tougher challenges ahead.”

has learned that Slainte, the HSE’s local drug and alcohol treatment service, has been forced to limit its service to those under the age of 24.

The recruitment freeze in the HSE has also left more than half the county without a local mental health counsellor as staff covering the En- nis, east Clare and west Clare regions have not been replaced.

This has created a situation where Clare GPs have no place to refer pa- tients who present with alcohol or drug addiction problems, while GPs outside of Ennis, east and west Clare

can only refer addiction patients with mental problems to the mental health services which they claim are “inap- propriate” to their needs.

“There is a big difficulty in Clare when it comes to funding. At the mo- ment, in large areas of the county there is no counselling service avail- able at all. We have a worse service now than we had back in 2006,” said Clare county councillor and commu- nity nurse manager with Clare com- munity mental health services, Joe Arkins (FG).

“We may have the offices and the signs outside the door, but we don’t have the personnel inside. The area is badly under funded. People over 24 years of age are being sent to the mental health services which is a totally inappropriate place to send Weloeee

ENNIS woman Sharon Collins has spent the weekend in jail after being convicted of soliciting a poker dealer to murder her partner PJ Howard and his sons, Robert and Niall.

The mother-of-two, of Ballybeg House, Kildysart Road, Ennis, was

also found guilty of conspiracy to murder the three Howards, at the end of an eight-week trial at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin.

She was remanded in custody to the Laurel House unit of Mountjoy women’s prison where she is one of ten inmates, including Tanya Lamb (30), who is serving a 10-year term

for killing her partner with a hockey stick.

Her co-accused, Essam Eid (52), a native of Egypt, was found guilty of extortion and handling stolen prop- erty and acquitted of burglary at the Howards’ family business in Ennis.

However, the jury could not decide on conspiracy to murder charges

against him and recorded a verdict of disagreement.

Collins denied setting up the email address lyingeyes98@yahoo.ie and hiring a hitman over the internet in 2006. She claimed that she had been the victim of a set up.

STAFF and students at St. Clare’s schools Ennis can _ congratulate themselves on a job well done after the school was named among the winners in the AIB Better Ireland Programme.

St Clare’s will receive a funding boost of €10,000 after winning huge Support in a public text vote that de- cided the winners.

St Clare’s caters for children with all disabilities, physical, sensory and intellectual.

There are currently 57 children en-

rolled in the school supported by a highly dedicated staff.

Last year was one of the most sig- nificant in the history of St Clare’s with the opening, by Dr Willie Walsh, of a sensory garden.

The garden is specially designed to give children uninhibited access around the garden and allow them to discover something new at every nebaee

School principal Anne Rice said winning the award represented a tre- mendous achievement for the school.

She explained the money would be used to improve existing facilities,

including the sensory garden at the school.

St Clare’s is one of five award win- ners in Clare. Clare Haven house and Ennis CBS were the other nominees for the prize in Ennis.

Both the winning and runner-up groups will receive the proceeds from the text votes registered for their groups. Runner up projects will also receive an additional top-up do- nation from AIB, in recognition of the huge efforts they put in to their local campaigns.

The project with the second highest number of votes will receive a top-up

of €300, while the project with the third highest votes will receive a top- up of €200.

Michael Carr, AIB Regional Direc- tor, Clare and Limerick said:

“We would like to congratulate all the winning groups on their success in the public text vote and extend our thanks to all those who voted and helped out during this stage of the AIB Better Ireland Programme. We had a fantastic response to our call for votes, and this was due in no small way to the enthusiasm and en- ergy that all the groups put into cam- paigning at a local level.”

AN Ennis man’s mission to climb some of Ireland’s highest peaks has raised over €7/7,000 for cancer re- search.

Jim McMahon from Ennis along with Chris Whythcombe, living in Tulla but originally from Kerry un- dertook the The reeks challenge in Kerry.

This challenge took place in mAT and consisted of climbing the 10 peaks in the McGillycuddy Reeks in County Kerry.

The purpose of the climb was to raise funds for The Friend’s of St.Luke’s Hospital for cancer cure,

control and care.

The climb raised €7,700 and the cheque for same was presented to a representative of St.Luke’s in Ennis on last Friday.

At the presentation the climbers thanked all those who contributed to the fund and paid special thanks to Jacko McMahon who organised two major fundraising events, a soc- cer match and a motor bike night. Thanks was expressed to Avenue United FC, Wheels within Wheels Motorbike project and Clare Adult Education Centre for assisting with these events.

The two me also helped organised a series of other events in prepartion

for the challenge such as the Wheels Within Wheels motorbike project.

The event included information on bike building, racing, grass track rac- ing and motorcross racing. Speakers at the event included Keith Meere, a local successful motorbike racer, Clinton Tully, chairman of the Shan- nonside Offroad Club, who spoke on motorcross and grasstrack, and Pas- cal Shanahan explained the process of bike building.

The Friends of St Luke’s Hospital was established to raise funds to en- hance the care, comfort and manage- ment of cancer patients at St Luke’s Hospital, Dublin. 27 years later the hospital has a vibrant network of

supports all over Ireland. St Lukes depend entirely on the goodwill of the people of Ireland who work tire- lessly to raise funds for the hospital. To date over €25million has been raised. The goals remain the same and that is to generate the funds to ensure that St Luke’s Hospital con- tinues to be a warm, friendly, com- fortable and well-equipped facility for patients to undergo treatment in achieving a cure for their cancer.

Mr McMahon said he was delight- ed to be able raise money for such a worthy cause. “It was tough alright, but worth it in the end. It was great to be able to help out St Lukes, which does fantastic work for people”.

ENNIS student Noel Whelan has won the engineering award at the 3rd annual Wood Marketing Awards held in Enfield.

Noel represented Galway/Mayo IT Letterfrack with the project entitled ‘When Ash Meets Cowhide’. His project addresses the current prob- lems faced by hurley makers in the country and it is aimed at finding solutions to ensure that GAA hur- ley manufacturing industry remains in Ireland, tackling the problem of insufficient native ash supplies and high labour costs.

Noel was presented with his award by RTE presenter Duncan Stewart.

Reaching the final represented a ma- jor achievement for Noel given that over 100 projects were entered in the three categories of engineering, ar- chitecture and design by third level students from both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. A sec- ond project presented by a County Clare student made it to this year’s jnbeeeD Ese

Cork IT student Seamus Moroney, from Clogher, O’Callaghan Mills, was short-listed for his project “Mo- ment Connections in Timber con- struction’, in the engineering section. Fifteen Students were drawn for the finals from universities nationwide, including DIT Mountjoy Square Dublin, Bray PLC, Southern Region-

al College Lurgan, Galway Mayo In- stitute of Technology, NUIG, Queens University Belfast, Cork IT, UCD and the University of Ulster Jordan- stown.

Speaking at the awards, Duncan Stewart spoke of the high standard of entries which had been received and thanked the WMF, all the students and their lecturers for their commit- ment to the competition.

“This year’s competition has been incredible. We have seen 15 projects at a very high standard and all the projects here today deserve to be winners,” he said.

The students assembled at the start of the day and set up their presenta- tion stands. Models were created by

all teams and these were backed up by PowerPoint presentations and Al posters and other supporting litera- ture.

The students were interviewed for RTE’s Nationwide during the day with the actual award ceremony tak- ing place at 3.30pm. The WME in- stituted this all-Ireland award to pro- mote the use of wood as a design and building material.

ENNIS based politician Paul O’Shea is heading for Baghdad to take up a humanitarian mission with the Unit- ed Nations.

Mr. O’Shea, who is standing as a Labour party candidate for next year’s local elections in Ennis, de- parted for Jordan on Sunday.

He will travel to Iraq this week to work on a humanitarian mission with UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund. Mr O’Shea, who is a member of the Department of For- eigen Affairs, Rapid Response Corps is to be the first Irish aid worker to be deployed with UNICEF. Mr O’Shea will spend six months working in the region.

The Rapid Response Corp is part

of an additional initiative designed to respond to emergencies. There are currently 10 Irish members deployed in Ethiopia, Kenya, Darfur, Demo- cratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, Burma, Sri Lanka and Iraq.

There are an additional 50 people with specific skills on the register who are trained to respond to emer- gencies who are ready to be deployed within 72 hours.

Mr O’Shea will work as part of the child protection unit aimed at reach- ing out of school children, youth, working children, street children and other vulnerable children. Working with Iraq ministries in Baghdad and Erbil as well as non governmental organisations and local partners, the project aims to get children back into to educational programmes.

In co-ordination with a rehabili- tation team, UNICEF will provide necessary school equipment, teach- ing materials, health and hygiene kits. Mr. O’Shea completed a two week security awareness training programme organised by defence forces at the United Nations Training School at the Curragh.

The programme included a naviga- tion and radio communication, 4×4 driving, hostage taking, land mine clearance and first aid.

Despite working in politically un- stable regions, Mr O’Shea admits Baghdad will be a totally new ex- perience. He said, “This will be my first mission to the middle east, hav- ing worked in Africa and South East Asia for a number of years. I expect it will be very different culturally”.

The situation in Iraq has calmed somewhat in recent months though Mr O’Shea and other members of the UNICEF mission will receive armed escort when traveling around the oltielsa’s

Mr O’Shea said the training he re- ceived in the Curragh was first class and but is hoping he won’t have to put all of his new skills into practice.

“It was very good and pretty inten- sive. We were given courses in four wheel drive, communications, sat nav even hostage taking. Obviously I’m hoping not to encounter any situ- ation like that. But definitely, it will be an interesting experience”.

Mr O’Shea also recently worked in Kosovo as the Irish long term elec- tion observer with the council of Eu- rope.

THE number of adults unemployed in Clare has jumped by more than one third in the last year, and by 9.3 per cent in the past month accord- ing to figures released by the Central Statistic Office.

As many as 5,505 people were sign- ing on last month in County Clare, 1,375 people more than during the same month last year.

The number of people on the live register in the Tulla area has in- creased by as much as 52 per cent from June 2007 to last month.

Unemployment in Ennistymon has increased by 40 per cent with 806 people signing on the register.

In the county town of Ennis there are now 32 per cent more people un- employed than this time last year, as 3,293 people are signing on.

In Kilrush the unemployment in- crease is the lowest in the county, but it has still increased by almost 20 per cent.

There are now some 1,067 more men unemployed in the county than i (eyenles tb

Fine Gael TD Pat Breen said this was only the tip of the iceberg with more Clare workers set to join the dole queues over the coming months.

“For the past twelve months jobs have been haemorrhaging from County Clare however in spite of nu- merous warnings this Government have sat idly by while the crisis de-

veloped,” he said.

“Unemployment in Clare has grown by 33.3 per cent in the year from June 2007 to June 2008 and especially worrying is the fact that the number of those unemployed under 25 has increased by 46.6 per cent from 759 in June 2007 to 1,113 in June 2008,” the TD added.

“The truth is that ordinary workers are bearing the brunt of this Govern- ments economic ineptitude and this is especially true here in County Clare. We are also now witnessing how the lack of connectivity from Shannon to

London Heathrow is adding substan- tial costs to local businesses as a re- sult of the Government’s failure to act to secure the service,” he said.

“My call for a regional strategy to address this crisis has fallen on deaf ears. In fact this Government has sleepwalked it’s way through much of this crisis. Next week following months of not recognising that there is a crisis, the Government will out- line to the Dail how they intend to deal with the current crisis.”

WE find Lissycasey poised and primed, ready for battle, prepared to defend their title. They’ve heard the word going around the county, that they’ve had a poor league, that they’re going to struggle to keep Jack Daly in the paish.

The former, they know themselves. They don’t need telling on that front. The latter? Well, they’ve plenty to say about that but they’ll keep their powder dry and allow their football do the talking between the white Thee

We find last year’s captain renewed and refreshed on the eve of the cham- pionship. James Kelly says that plen- ty has changed in Lissycasey over the past eight months. A first champion- ship tends to do such things.

There’s more enthusiasm at the club, he says. More motivation among the players, particularly the younger members of the senior panel.

“On top of that,” he adds, “there’s

a great buzz among the underage teams.” You want knock-on effects from a championship win and there they are. Foundations being built for the future, seeds being sown. For a small parish with a growing popu- lation — particularly among young families — the story of 2007 may have great consequences.

But for now, that tale is put to bed. Last year is done with. It’s time for a new page.

‘This year 1s all that matters now,” says Kelly. “Even though the seniors aren’t playing well, the champion- ship is a different story. That’s what it’s all about. We didn’t go well in the league but got to the final of the O’Gorman Cup and didn’t play well in that game either. Right now we’re preparing to get off the ground in the championship.”

From the very start of the year, Kelly felt the opposition treated Lis- sycasey differently. Carrying the tag of champions, teams were more fo- CLUSTor6 Me-Nee- UOT] MNOS OO PMRAOLoATABE-DESCoLO Mm NO COEN

game. It comes with the territory though, it’s the sideshow that win- ning the league and championship brings.

“This year, instead of playing 100%, we’ll have to play 120% be- cause teams will be trying even harder against us this year. Every team will be out to beat us as we’re up there as county champions and it’s something you’d even notice during the league.”

Speaking of which, things have changed slightly since then. James Murrihy came in as trainer at the be- ginning of the season and has since been replaced. Has that had an effect on championship preparation?

“Not really,” says Kelly, “because it’s still basically the same training. James 1s preparing for the Olympics at the moment [he plays for the Irish soccer team] and he couldn’t stay on with us. But from our point of view, it’s still basically the same train- ing and there’s a good atmosphere there.”

Other changes have come about as well. Martin Daly, man of the match in the final last October, has come on board as part of the management and Michael Slowey, an influential addi- tion to the club for last year’s cam- paign, has departed.

Two big names missing from the forwards, but Kelly reckons Lissyca- sey have the talent to push on.

‘“There’s a lot of young lads there this year from 17 and 18 years of age upwards. I’m talking about the likes of Francis Hayes who was coming along last year — he’ll be just one trying to cement a position for them- selves. A lot of the up and coming players are actually forwards. Fair enough, we’re missing the two boys but there’s plenty of competition.

‘In general, there’s good competi- tion for places and that’s positive because it should push fellas on. The young lads coming in will drive on the older lads to try and hold their place and we’ll have to all fight to keep our place on the team. Things seem to be coming together right now so hopefully once the champi- onship comes around, we’ll all be ready for road.

“We’ll be in there with a shout.”

TWO directors of a Sixmilebridge- based company have been ordered to reconstruct a house on the village’s main street that they demolished without planning permission.

Clare County Council issued a warning letter under the Planning and Development Act to Patrick and Evonne Costello of Maxfern Ltd., Shannon Road, Sixmilebridge.

The council has told the two that it considers the demolition of a dwell- ing house at Main Street, Sixmiulebri- dge to be unauthorised as it does not have the benefit of planning permis- sion and does not constitute exempt- ed development.

The council is demanding that the two reconstruct the house as per the original design and to the satisfac- tion of the council.

It is understood that the house was demolished adjacent to the bow way entrance to a development of four apartments and two shop units for which Mr Costello secured planning permission for in 2005.

The council has stated that before works commence on reconstructing the house, they are required to sub- mit a set of drawings showing the proposed reconstruction works, a schedule of all materials to be used in the reconstruction works and a works schedule and timeframe for the completion of the works.

The council is also demanding that the two carry out all remedial works to ensure the satisfactory reinstate-

ment of the adjoining property to the west of the site.

The council is also seeking that the Costellos employ a chartered struc- tural engineer to supervise all works to the adjoining property.

‘In the event that the unauthorised development is continued, the coun- cil may issue an enforcement notice. In this regard, officials of the council may at all reasonable times enter on

the land for the purpose of carrying out inspection.

“You may make submissions or observations in writing to the coun- cil regarding the matter within four weeks from the date of this letter.”

In the warning letter, the council warn that a person who is guilty of an offence shall be liable on summa- ry conviction to a fine not exceeding a Oe

A spokesman for the council said yesterday that Mr Costello had made oy nL eKel Ma o1 00MM eComexeLEDe Les 0 mr-TO(CME- Wp Oeletel ing was going to take place between the two sides to identify a way for- FN KOB