Month: May 2011

FORMER pupils of Barefield National School fondly recalled their schooldays as the school marked its latest milestone on Sunday.

Sr Kitty Baker attended the school between 1925 and 1932. Her thoughts are contained in a memorial booklet produced by the school to mark the official opening of a new school extension. Sr Baker recalled walking five miles to school often through fields and bogs.

She said, “We had nice teachers, Master O’Riordan and Mrs O’Driscoll. The Master was a very good singer and he taught the choir. Mrs. O’Driscoll taught us sewing and knitting which I loved. I was not too good at the Irish but I was good at arithmetic and the teacher often gave me a pencil or a rubber as a reward. My sister Nelly was the best in her class.”

Sean Howard, who attended the school in the 1930s, explained his family’s long connection with the school. Sean, whose grandchildren now attend the school stated, “Barefield school has always been very near and dear to me and my family. My grandfather, John Howard, was the headmaster in Barefield National School from circa 1864 to 1907. In the early years, the school was located in the grounds where the church now stands and in later years (1895) the ‘new school’ was built in Drum- quin.”

John Butler lived in a cottage in Ballymaley with his father, mother and brother, Michael. He was a pupil at Barefield National School in the 1960s.

“Back then, rural electrification had not arrived in Barefield so we did not have electricity or running water, just candles and oil lamps and we carried water from a spring well for drinking and cooking and took water from a barrel off the roof for washing etc”, he recalled.

Bríd Baker was a student at the school from 1983 to 1991. “The highlight of the year had to be our sports evening. We paraded from the school behind the marching band up to the small sports field where all the events took place. A boys and girls relay team were picked from this to represent the school in the parish sports competing against Doora National School and Knockanean National School,” she recalled.

TEACHERS and parents along with students past and present gathered on Sunday to celebrate the official opening of the recently renovated 16-classroom Barefield National School.

Completed last year, work on the latest extension at the school included the construction of eight new classrooms, six special education teaching rooms, a general purpose/sports hall and multi-purpose rooms, stores, offices, toilets, boiler room, separate external store and a new roadside drop-off zone, as well as a new sewage system.

Work on an initial eight-classroom school was completed in 1997 with previous developments taking place at the site in the 1950, 1993, 1995 and 1996. The school has been a part of community life in Barefield for 115 years. Sunday’s ceremony was attended by staff, members of the board of management, parents association, local priest Fr Jerry Carey and local politicians.

Ronan Connolly, chairman of the board of management, said, “We are justifiably proud of having played our part as the Executive of the school who saw this project through to fruition and I thank all my fellow Board members for their countless hours of unselfish and voluntary dedication in achieving this outcome. We only could do so, however, as a result of the huge level of support and guidance we received from all of the relevant stakeholders who have vested their time and energies in this project.”

Mr Connolly also paid tribute to the work of principal John Burns and said that the school building project “exhibits very clearly all the wonderful attributes of the Irish meitheal concept and the force which a volountary community of parties working together can generate”.

He continued, “We were fortunate indeed to receive the necessary Government funding to allow this very positive development to proceed at a time when our country is sadly blighted with so much financial pain and negativity and the new school represents a wonderful beacon of hope for the future”. Michael Butler, chairperson of the parent’s association, said, “As parents of the children who attend Barefield National School, we know how fortunate we are to have such a dedicated team of people who look after our children’s education and development on a daily basis. Up to now, the conditions were not as we would have liked them to be. Now, however, with the opening of the new school, we can be truly proud of what is a first-class and future-proofed environment in which they will receive their education.” John Burns, principal, said that a striking feature of life at Barefield National School has been the “continuing generosity displayed by parents over the decades in supporting a range of activities at our school”. He said, “Barefield National School is a focal point for our community, educating generations of girls and boys since 1895. Our school’s close link with our community has always been an important feature of our growth and development over the years.”

COUNTY Clare’s spiritual heritage walks through the eyes of modern ecumenical Christians will take place during the coming weeks. Clare Christian Heritage walks, Ar bóthar na Naomh, has, in the past, attracted both local residents and people from further afield, including Northern Ireland and England.

The walks have a historical, archaeological and spiritual input, some of which is provided by expert guides and some developed through the skills of those who participate.

The organiser is Dr Rosemary Power, a historical and folklorist, who is also a local minister working on behalf of the Methodist Church.

The first walk will take in some of the most scenic parts of East Clare; Inis Cealtra, Holy Island on Lough Derg, on June 11. A White Sunday walk, entitled, ‘Walking the Shannon’, will take place the following day.

Walkers will move to the Burren on June 18 and 19. They will take in the stretch from Noughval to Kilfenora on June 18 and further parts of the Burren will be visited the following day. Both walks will end with an informal service in Saint Fachnan’s Medieval Cathedral Church.

On July 9 and 10, walks will take place in West Clare – Scattery Island and Loop Head. Both will close with celebrations in Kilkee Methodist Church. On July 30 and August 1, walkers will move to the Corofin and Parkanbinna areas.

Similar walks have taken place over the past two years and have attracted a wide range of age categories,from very young people to more mature adults. “This is our third year. We have always covered different parts of the countryside,” she said.

“It has been very, very positive,” she added. “I think sometimes that religion helps people to focus on what is valuable in life. People have lost the sense of belonging to the land and are hoping to get that connection back.

“There is a very positive sense of the strength of the spiritual in our lives and to explore our relationship with what is around us.”

According to Ms Power, the aim is to keep the pace of the walks relatively easy. Prayers will be said along the route, while singing will also form part of the events.

There will be regular breaks along the route and Dr Power will present talks on the historical importance of some of the places of interest along the way.

“The focus will be on both religion in the wider spiritual sense and the valuing of the religious of the past and exploring the spiritual in our lives today,” she said.

“It is ecumenical – open to people of any Christian tradition,” she said.

Anyone looking for further information on the various walks should contact Dr Power on 087 9888 508.

INFLATION is a word no-one wants to hear anymore but, for one Clare man, it’s a word that is music to his ears. At the weekend, Boris Hunka from Killaloe held the first concert ever to be put on in Ireland in an inflatable theatre.

Ireland’s first fully inflatable arts venue – the Pop-up Playhouse – was launched in Killaloe with performances by Juliet Turner and John Spillane as well as Size 2 Shoes, who were joined by soul six-piece Hunka Burning Love, fresh from their performance at the Europa League Final and the Killaloe Ballina Gospel Choir.

Musician and teacher Boris started looking into how a venue could be provided for the town without quite knowing what he was looking for, he told The Clare People .

“We (the music school) put on a lot of our own performances and that was the initial impetus. There really was no venue in Killaloe where you could stage a big performance. I started looking into how we could have one and it was one of those things on the net when you find what you’re looking for before you even know what it is you’re looking for,” said Boris.

Boris came across a company in China who specialised in making inflatable structures and he started cor- responding with them to see if they could provide something that would meet the requirements of a theatre.

“We were going back and forth for a long time but, eventually, they came up with a plan for what we wanted and it went from there,” he said.

The Playhouse takes the concept of the Spiegeltent – a mobile, stylish, portable venue – into the 21st century.

It takes the best part of a day to prepare the floor and lay it out flat on the ground but, once that is done, it takes just one hour to inflate and it can accommodate up to 500 people if all three sections are used.

“It’s also a structure which only requires financing when it’s actually being used. When it’s being stored on the back of a truck, it’s not using electricity or costing rates,” said Boris.

Leader funding helped pay for the structure, which cost less than € 60,000, as it will be used to provide rural communities with performances of music and theatre.

It is 15m wide, 27m long, 5m high, constructed out of .65mm fireproof PVC with an internal wall dimension of 1m – and can be assembled on any flat surface.

“On the outside, the structure looks part sci-fi, part inverted bouncy castle whilst on the inside it is an otherworldly feel with wooden flooring, velvet curtains, sound system, stage lights, vintage jukebox, inflatable sofas and an illuminated bar. The structure is also equipped with a fullsize cinema screen and a silent disco set-up,” said Boris.

Boris plans for the theatre to be inflated and running in Killaloe for the whole month of July while it will be also be visiting Lahinch, Kilkee and other venues over the summer.

The structure can also be used in smaller modules of one or two sections.

“I know this is the only one of its kind in Ireland and the Chinese manufacturers admitted they had never made one on this scale before. But now we have a theatre that can bring performances to small communities anywhere.”

WEST CLARE could be about to get another wind energy project worth millions of euro in the development stage as a new application to construct a windfarm at Shanovogh near Miltown Malbay has been lodged with Clare County Council planners.

McMahon Finn Wind Acquisitions Ltd are planning to build the windfarm on a site that’s two miles away from West Clare Renewable Energy project on Mount Callan, the green light for which was given by Clare County Council last August.

The application lodged with Clare County Council last Friday is for a windfarm comprising of six turbines with a height of 85 metres and was submitted to local authority planners by Cian Ó Laoithe Architects.

Last year, Clare County Council invalidated plans submitted by McMahon Wind Ltd for a 12-turbine wind farm on the same site, while a decision date on the new planning application is due in mid-July.

The latest application for a windfarm development in the county falls within the guidelines of the Clare County Council wind energy strategy that has set a working target of 550 MW of wind energy to harnessed in the county by 2020.

Between 2000 and 2010, 22 applications for wind farms were lodged with Clare County Council, with one of the first projects to be given the green light being in 2002 when the ESB were granted permission for a nine-turbine € 20 million renewable energy farm at Moneypoint.

Most recently, last December An Bord Pleanala has rejected an appeal by An Taisce against a Clare County Council decision to allow Hibernian Windpower to construct a wind farm incorporating 11 turbines of approximately 2500kW capacity each, at Boolynageragh, Lissycasey.

The development site, which is three kilometres north of Lissycasey, will have a total rated electrical output of 27.5MW. The capital cost of the project is up to € 50m, while the Mount Callan windfarm that’s set to be the largest community-owned windfarm development in Ireland is a € 200m project that aims to create 300 jobs during the construction phase.

It has been claimed that renewable energy area in Clare has the capacity to create 10,000 jobs in the county from now until 2020.

WITH the county struggling to survive this recession a Clare businessman has come up with a novel idea to boost tourism while generating jobs and investment for the region: why not build a casino in Shannon?

Emelyn Heapes claims that a casino in the county could bring untold millions in investment, jobs and tourism to Clare.

“I can think of no better place for Europe’s biggest gambling casino than the Shannon Duty Free Zone. It’s not like we are stuck for space and from a tourist perspective, geographically, it’s in the best location in the world and right alongside an international airport.”

Controversial businessman Mr Heapes told The Clare People that the casino, properly run and legislated for, would attract millions of gamblers and tourists alike into the Shannon Region.

He added that the airport management would be creating a destination that will attract every airline operator to fly into Shannon Airport because they will now have a demand and good reason to come here.

“It will probably fill every hotel room within a fifty mile radius of the place. It will allow every other tourism provider to generate packages to get the ‘gambler’ away from the tables and while here, take in some of the best tourist attractions in the country and it will generate million of euros in tax revenue for the Government, and most importantly, sustainable jobs.”

Clare TD and Fianna Fail spokeman on Tourism Timmy Dooley didn’t dismiss the idea, telling The Clare People :

“While I’d like to hear more about it, any concrete proposal that generates jobs and investment in Clare right now should at the very least be looked at.”