Month: September 2008

THERE are some stories that are too good to be left untold. Like that Spring afternoon back in 1934, when a plane fell from the sky in a field in Moy and the attention of the world was all on north Clare.

Decades before Air Lingus or Shannon Airport had even been conceived, the crashing landing of the Leonardo daVinci in a field in Clooneyogan made national headline in Dublin, New York and Rome.

Piloted by American Captain George Pond and Italian Lieutenant Sesare Sabelli, it was attempting to become the first craft ever to fly from the US all the way to Italy. As we ap- proach the 75th anniversary of the crash, a group of locals are planning

the first formal commemoration of the flight of the deVinc1.

“Their goal was to fly direct from New York to Rome. At the time that would have broken the distance record for flying across the Atlantic. It had been tried before on a few oc- casions be they hadn’t made it,” said Michael Hayes of the Moy Historical Society.

“The left from New York and after 33 hours of fling they crash landed in Clooneyogan.

‘The plane had bad engine trouble during the crossing and more than once Pond had to clime out on the wing and fix a problem with the fuel Wb avery

‘There was a lot of competition to be the first to do it and when they crashed in Moy they were of the

opinion that their fuel lies had been tapered with. They were trying to do an emergency landing at Lahinch but the tide was in so they had to circle – but they eventually ran out of fuel and crashed here in Moy.”

After landing in Moy they were re- ceived by Eamon de Valera in Dub- lin before returning to Clare to finish their journey.

After encountering more engine trouble they landed in Wales before eventually landing in Rome on June 12 where they were greeted by Pope Pius XII and Mussolini.

The Moy Historical Society are compiling information on the flight and are trying to raise enough money to commemorate next years anniver- Se HMe

We have contact both the Ameri-

can and Italian embassies and they are keen on the idea,’ continued Michael.

“Michael McTigue is putting to- gether the place but we are looking for anyone who has information on the plane but also for anyone who might be interested in sponsoring the plaque and helping us to get this project off the ground.”

For more information § contact Michael Hayes on 087 9025283 or Colm Hennessy on 086 8123811.

THE Burren Smokehouse in Lis- doonvarna has received it’s second major accolade in a week with the news that it has been selected as one of the fine foods which will be served at the launch of the Volvo Ocean Race in Spain on October 9.

The smokehouse was selected by Tourism Ireland in conjunction with Good Food Ireland to be part of the prestigious launch dinner which takes place in Alicante in Spain later Woo)

The world famous race will this year feature two Irish teams and has also an Irish stop for the first time Oe

Burren Smokehouse founder Bir-

gitta Curtin will represent Ireland at the event alongside Peter Ward of Artisan Food Produce.

The menu for the evening will fea- ture a number of dishes from the smokehouse including honey lemon and pepper hot smoked organic Irish salmon, hot smoked plain and spiced Irish mackerel, honey lemon and dill hot smoked organic Irish salmon, smoked organic Irish salmon and hot smoked Irish silver eel served with lemon wedges.

Other Irish dishes including Con- nemara Irish lamb, Sowan’s organic brown soda bread, beef from James Whelan’s Butchers in Tipperary and Country Choice Cheese will also be Oy NEO)

This news comes just after a week

after the Lisdoonvarna smoke house, along with St Tola Goats Cheese in Inagh, was asked to participate in the Good Food Ireland Award Showcase in Dublin.

The showcase, which took place last night, is one of Ireland foremost annual cullinary events.

‘The key objectives of these awards are to honour those members who epitomise this philosophy and to raise standards within the food and hospitality industry,” says Margaret Jeffares, Managing Director, Good Food Ireland.

“The Good Food Ireland philoso- phy is to prioritise the core indig- enous ingredients of Irish cuisine and promote local and artisan food producers. Members are independ-

ently assessed by an expert judging panel.”

Good Food Ireland is the only all- island food tourism marketing group. Members come together to be pro- moted under the brand.

It is a not for profit organisation and is driven by the industry in a bottom up approach.

The steering group, executive com- mittee and members all work on a voluntary basis.

The Good Food Ireland members vision is to grow Ireland as a food tourism destination by promoting to domestic and international visitors places to stay, eat, cook and shop that are all committed to using above all else Irish, local and artisan food pro- duce.

ONE of the hidden gems of Clare’s vibrant artistic scene will be brought to the fore this Thursday at the Court- house Gallery in Ennistymon.

North Clare’s Salmon Poetry will celebrate National Poetry Day by hosting a free poetry reading at the gallery from 7.30pm.

The evening will include a mixture of poets and styles with a line up fea- turing the best of local as well as na- tional poets. It feature locally based poets Frank Golden and Knute Skin- ner, Galway poets Caroline Lynch

and Peter Mullineaux as-well-as Paul Allen and Michael Heffernan.

“We have a number of visiting po- ets and some local poets involved so it promises to be a very exciting evening,’ said Jean Cusack of Salm- on Poetry.

“We are going to have a great mix- ture of poets. Knute is a very well established poet, Frank would be midway, while Caroline just pub- lished her first collection earlier this year. It’s great to get the newer poets in with the most established poets, it makes for a very interesting reading and give the poets and the audience a

good mix.”

Founded by Jessie Lendennie in Galway in 1981, Salmon Poetry has moved operation to the Burren in recent times. Over the years it has cultivated an image as an alterna- tive voice in Irish literature, focuss- ing greatly on promoting new and female artists.

Over the last quarter of a century the company have published some 200 volumes of poetry and have marked themselves out as great inno- vators in the Irish poetry scene.

“Events like this are great ways of getting poetry out there to the people

but also a good way to show off just how many poets we have based here in rural Ireland. A lot of Salmon’s poets are based in the west of Ire- land,’ continued Jean.

“We have more than 20 books of poems published this year at Salmon so people’s interest in poems does seem to be on the way up. But as well as publishing, it’s great for poets to be able to get their work out there and to perform in from of a live audi- ence.”

Salmon Poetry is based in Lis- cannor and can be contacted at info@salmonpoetry.com

THE holy grail of Irish surfing has been re-forged and this weekend scores of surfers will compete to be the first to lift the Irish Trophy Cup in almost four decades.

The cup was one of I[reland’s first surfing competition and attracted dozens of surfers to the fledgling sport when held in Lahinch in 1969, ‘70 and °71.

This weekend, hoards of surfers are expected to descend on Lahinch as the West Coast Surf Club and Kenny Bar re-stage the competition for the first time in 37 years.

The inspiration behind relaunching

the competition came when one of Ireland first and most famous surfers visited Lahinch a number of years ago.

“The idea of this came about four or five years ago. One summer, Brian Britton came into the pub. To look at him you wouldn’t think he was a surfer but he walked over to the counter and said that 33 years ear- lier to the day he had pulled into the same parking space and walked into the pub,” said Kenneth Kenny.

‘He was telling us all about the old days of surfing and he mentioned the surfing competition. So eventually we decided to get it going again.”

The original winners of the compe-

tition were awarded a carved stone trophy, which quickly became the most recognisable prize in Irish surf- ing. Having since been lost, com- petition organisers contracted local sculpture Shane Gilmore to remake the holy grail of Irish surfing.

“The trophy is wonderful, like the original it’s made out of stone and has four sides that show off the dif- ferent elements of surfing in Lahinch. We also have a carved bog-oak surf- board that the winner will be able to keep forever. We will also have a larger bog-oak surfboard in the pub which will carry the winners name each year,’ continued Kenneth.

“It’s really going to be more like a

celebration of surfing than a compe- tition. The whole idea is to bring the past and the present together and to celebrate the West Coast Surf Club and the wonderful surfing that we have had over the years in Clare.

“We are hoping that this will turn into an annual event and host it in Lahinch every year.

The competition will take place on October 4, 5 and 6, in Lahinch. For more information or to enter check out www.westcoastsurfclub.com.

A MEMBER of the Newmarket- on-Fergus Gun Club was the star of the show as Ireland took part in the Home Countries international tour- nament last week.

Although the Irish lost out to Eng- land, by 40 targets, Seamus Ryan of the Newmarket-on-Fergus club per- formed impeccably.

The two-day event took place at Llandegla shooting grounds in

Wales. Winning his first cap, Ryan stole the show, particularly as he outshone professional shooters Peter Cole and John Winn from England. He outscored the duo, who have fine reputations at international level, and in the process finished near the top of his class.

He finished with a total of 192 targets, which was a single target behind the tournament overall high gun Ian Mullarkey.

According to Pat McCoy of New-

market-on-Fergus Gun Club, Seamus Ryan’s performance was fantastic.

“He did very well against two of the top guns in England. They scored 99 and he scored 100,” said Mr McCoy.

Mr Ryan (53) 1s a native of Limer- ick and was previously a member of the Castleconnell Gun Club in Lim- erick. He has been a member of the Newmarket-on-Fergus club for more than two decades.

He runs a garage Newmarket-on- Fergus and lives in the area. He has

shot for County Clare on several oc- casions over the past few years and his selection on the Irish team was a welcome boost for his dedication over SO many years.

“It was a dream come true for me. I didn’t think I would make the team, having hurt my shoulder in qualify- ing,’ he said.

He hopes to compete for Ireland again next year and also has ambi- tions to participate in the Olympic trench event in 2009.

IT HAS been on the cards for several years and now the builders have ar- rived on site. The long-awaited con- struction of the €1.2 million créche in Sixmilebridge has got underway.

Builders moved in to the site on the Shannon road last week and it 1s hoped that the creche will be com- pleted by next Easter.

Its completion will dramatically increase the number of childcare places available in Sixmilebridge. At present there are just 20 spaces and this will increase to 102 (51 full-time and 51 part-time) when the new fa- cility is up-and-running.

Among the facilities to be built at the créche will include two montes-

sori rooms and baby rooms, while a sensory room may also form part of the plans, at a later stage.

The creche 1s part of an overall €10 million project which will incorpo- rate a playground, community centre and multi-purpose hall.

It had been anticipated that the playground would be the first part of the project completed, but there has been a delay with this part of the de- (odo) oy anton le

PRO of the Bridge Complex in Sixmilebridge, Marelen Cadogan, said there is great joy that the work has got underway.

“There will be a huge increase in numbers. We will be able to take children from three months to 12 years. We had originally looked at

figures in 2003. It has taken this long to get it going. It seems to be very much on par with what we need,’ she said.

“The railway station in Sixmilebri- dge is due to open in 2009 and that 1s literally over the bridge. It would be ideally located as a drop-off place,” added Ms Cadogan.

The existing montessori school has operated at the parochial hall in Sixmulebridge for a number of years, but has now moved into the court- house building. It will continue to operate out of there until the comple- tion of the créche.

After the summer break, several projects have regained pace over the past few weeks. There was good news for the teen café, which was

eranted €1,000 in funding from the National Lottery, towards the pur- chase of equipment.

Funds of €20,000 were also grant- ed for renovations to the courthouse. The works were carried out in 2005, at a total cost of €40,000 and the money was granted by the Depart- ment of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. The committee is indebted to Fianna Fail TD Timmy Dooley, who delivered the good news that the money was granted.

THE people of Shannon are being urged to get behind the Wolfe Tones junior hurling team in Saturday’s ‘A’ nue

Although the senior hurling and football teams have been knocked out of the championships, the club is now hoping that the junior hurlers can claim silverware. The junior Cs have already won their champion-

ship this year.

Should victory be achieved over O’Callaghan’s Mills on Saturday, it will be bittersweet, as the Tones have competed in three of the last four fi- nals – but without any success.

They will be looking to the likes of captain Sean Condren, Darren O’Connell at corner-back, Gary Leahy and free-taker Jamie Walker to lead them to success in the final.

“We are appealing to people to

come out and support the team. We want to do it this year,’ said club PRO, Amanda Hogan.

Although the build-up to the game has been subdued, hopes are high that hundreds of people from Shan- non will head to Sixmilebridge for the big match.

Despite the disappointment expe- rienced by the senior teams, there is plenty of optimism that they will bounce back.

“We were quite disappointed with the seniors. It was the first time in ages they didn’t get outside the group, but the footballers are young yet and their day will come further down the line,” added the PRO.

The club is also planning to open its own shop, selling merchandise, in October. It will be located at the Wolfe Tones GAA clubhouse and will open a number of nights every Neto

A NEWMARKET-ON-Fergus lec- turer has scooped a top accolade at the University of Limerick.

Dr Caoilfhionn Ni Bheachain (Vaughan) has been awarded the University of Limerick Teaching Ex- cellence Award for 2008. The award, a silver medal, was based on feed- back from her students and her col- leagues at the university.

Caoilfhionn lectures in commu- nications at the Kemmy Business School and has taught at the univer- sity for the past seven years.

She was brought up in Newmar- ket-on-Fergus, where teaching, mu- sic and sport were prevalent in her family. Her late father Brendan (who

died three years ago) was heavily involved in the GAA was the prin- cipal of St Senan’s National School in Shannon. Her mother Deirdre O’Brien-Vaughan is a music teacher in Newmarket-on-Fergus. Caoilf- hionn’s brother Donnacha is also teaching, in Poland.

Caoilfhionn was educated at St Senan’s National School and then at St Caimin’s Community School in Shannon. She then studied English and Archaeology at Trinity College Dublin and then did her PhD in Eng- lish at NUI, Galway.

She was thrilled to be nominated for this award and subsequently emerge as the winner.

“T am delighted to get it. It is a love- ly thing. I was shortlisted, based on

student evaluations and observations from my peers. The board then went through a short list,” she said.

Given that her students had a say in who won the award, her methods of teaching undoubtedly played a cru- cial role in her success.

“A lot of it would be teaching phi- losophy, with emphasis on relation- ships within the classroom. Relation- ships are based on mutual respect and mutual learning; not just dictat- ing to students,” she said.

Her curriculum focuses on the workings of communications and marketing. “Students get to reflect a lot on their skills and there is a lot of personal development,” she added.

Her love for her work has stood to her, not just in winning this award,

but also in her everyday teaching.

“It’s a subject I love teaching. I am very lucky. I am interested in non- traditional spaces for learning,’ she said.

While Caoilfhionn is dedicated to her teaching, she is also immersed in rq he: Re UM MCC T-Dme-lOLW AVAL Aloe mnv CoM OOO UE versity. She is involved in running the farmers’ market at the university, while she is also a member of the environmental committee. This en- sures that she enjoys a busy life, bal- ancing work and leisure activities.

THERE was a major boost this week for two health service providers in east Clare with the announcement that they are getting combined fund- ing of ©700,000.

The Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs and the Health Service Executive (HSE) have grant- ed funds totalling €140k and ©560k to An Ghrianan in Bridgetown and Scariff Health Centre respectively.

The funds allocated to An Ghri- anan, at Brookside Lodge, Bridget- own, O’Brien’s Bridge, will be used to provide and install play equipment and a safe ground surface, as well as to give the grounds a thorough makeover.

Meanwhile, the money that has been allocated for Scariff Health Centre will be used to provide a new extension, rewiring, roof repairs, re- furbishment of grounds and a clini- oN Koleyeemy sls emi Ke): txon

Welcoming the announcement of the grants, Minister of State Tony Killeen said he was confident that the new round of funding for health projects would make a significant contribution towards the health and wellbeing of the CLAR communities in O’Briens Bridge and Scariff.

The Junior Agriculture Minister said, “The two projects that will re- ceive funding through the new HSE CLAR Programme are important to each of the local communities

involved and support the Govern- ment’s commitment to improving the quality of life in rural areas.

“The programme is an excellent example of effective cross-depart- mental and cross agency co-opera- tion that will help improve health services in rural areas.”

Minister Killeen said that the funds would help to develop, refurbish and improve health centres and facilities in each of the local communities in- volved.

THE community of Whitegate was this week celebrating having 32 peo- ple trained in the use of a defibrilla- tor which could save lives.

But even while they were marking the marvellous response from local people in raising enough money to cover the cost of training, insurance, and equipment to house and secure the precious machine, the commu- nity was making plans which could mean they never have to use it.

Trained volunteers and supporters enjoyed a function last week to mark the fact that the money had been raised and cheques handed over.

“We want to make people heart

aware and promote a healthy life- style and that’s part of what we are using the money that we raised for”, said chairwoman of the defibrillator committee. Mary Cusack.

To that end, there will be a walk, blood pressure clinic and happy-heart nutrition advice session in Whitegate on October 5.

The machine itself was bought along with an identical machine for Mountshannon but initially, there were just two people in Whitegate who knew how to use it on a joint roster with Mountshannon.

“We wanted to go our own way and have as many people trained as a possible . We are linked into the Irish Heart Foundation, the gardai,

the ambulance service and the local GP, all the necessary services.”

Mary says the hardest thing was to “get the on-call part right. We have six people trained 1n a local company Molloys, we have people trained in the pub, the post office and the shop. If a call comes during the day then people will automatically know who is available to drop everything and answer it.”

As part of the awareness campaign, local schoolchildren were asked to draw a picture of their understanding of what a defibrillator does.

“They were marvellous – they all knew what it does and the drawings were fantastic’, said Mary.

On October 5, locals are invited

to come along to the clubhouse in Whitegate to have their blood-pres- sure tested and then to take part in a healthy 4 mile walk as part of World el tam (oe

A trained local nutritionist will also be on hand to give advice about foods that will keep hearts healthy.

“Tt’s won’t be a formal sort of thing, with someone standing on a stage giving a lecture. She’s just going to give a talk and any one who wants to ask questions 1s welcome to do that. People can do the clinic the walk and the talk or any one of the three that they want. We want to promote heart health and hopefully, we’ll never get a call for the defibrillator’, said Mary.