Month: September 2011

ENNIS will play host to Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann at some time in the future, as befitting its status and reputation as being one of the primary homes and melting pots for traditional music in Ireland.

That’s the defiant message being aired this week by members of the broadband coalition of forces that came together to spearhead the county capital’s bid to play host to the 2012 staging of the event.

“It’s a big blow,” the chairman of the Fleadh Cheoil Working Group, Micheál Ó Riabhaigh, admitted this week, but he added defiantly “I would certainly believe that we will come back again.

“We have an excellent location for it. We have done an awful lot of the work. We have proven that we are regarded very highly in terms of a location, so I think it’s inevitable that Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann will come to Ennis,” he added.

“Ennis has a well deserved national and international reputation as a centre in which to enjoy superb tradition Irish music and we still believe it is a perfect fit for this wonderful event. This is not the end of our efforts to secure this prestigious event for Ennis, we will try again,” the Shannon Development chairman, Dr Vincent Cunnane told The Clare People .

The Ennis bid was officially launched last April, after the initial moves to bring the Fleadh back to Clare for the first time since 1977 were first proposed by the Abbey branch of Comhaltas Cheoltóirí Éireann in August of 2011.

The ambitious plans were subsequently backed by Clare Comhaltas, while Shannon Development, Clare County Council, Ennis Town Coun- cil and Clare GAA also rowed in with support.

“Meetings will be held fairly shortly to see where we go from here,” revealed Mr Ó Riabhaigh. “Our working group will meet later this week and we will do a review of the whole thing. The Abbey branch of Comhaltas that put in the initial bid will meet and there will be a meeting of the county board as well.

“I think people will give due consideration to the whole issue and to where we go forward from here. While we have been bitterly disappointed, the amount of work that we have done has been enormous and it has been a huge insight into the whole thing for us. We learned a great deal.

“It was mentioned by Labhrás Ó Murchú at the meeting that both Sligo and Ennis would have been two fantastic venues to stage Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann and while they couldn’t give a commitment that they could allocate it to either town, immediately or in the near future, they felt very much that any one of the two towns would have been deserving winners,” added Mr Ó Riabhaigh.

ENNIS lost out on staging Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann for the first time in 35 years by one vote in a nail-biting selection process that took place at the Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann headquarters in Dublin on Saturday afternoon. The Clare People has learned that the Ennis bid were beaten into second place in the three-candidate election by just one vote on the second count of a selection process believed to the closest contest in the 60-year history of the showpiece of the traditional music year.

The Ennis bid to stage the weeklong traditional music spectacular next August, which would have been brought an influx of over 250,000 visitors to Clare and be worth over € 20m to the county, was edged out by Cavan as the host town for 2012 on 14-13 vote.

Three centres were in the running to host the festival – Cavan which staged the 2010 and 2011 events and Sligo, which last hosted Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in 1991 and Ennis, which previously staged the event in 1956 and 1977.

Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireannn sources have revealed that Ennis topped the poll after the first count – garnering ten votes, to Cavan’s nine and Sligo’s eight. However, following the elimination of Sligo from the contest a second ballot saw Cavan edge the vote by the mininum margin.

“It was a great disappointment, because we had obviously done an awful lot of work. We did an excellent presentation and we felt that we couldn’t have done anymore than we did,” said Micheál Ó Riaghaigh, chariman of the Fleadh Cheoil Working Group.

“We were fairly confident. We believed we had done everything to get Fleadh Cheoil. On the other side we were always realistic that we recognised that there were two other strong contenders – Sligo’s was a good bid and Cavan had a very good track record,” he added.

In winning the vote, Cavan will become only the fifth centre to play host to the event for three successive years. The others were Listowel (1985, ’86, ’87), Sligo (1989, ’90, ’91), Clonmel (1992, ’93,’94) and Tullamore (2007 , ’08, ’09).

However, crucially these other centres were automatically given the right to host the festival for the third year in succession because there were no competing bid from other towns.

“There always the chance that we wouldn’t get it and that’s what we were hoping against,” continued Ó Riabhaigh. “It was down to one vote. There are 31 members of the Ard Comhairle and the chairman only exercises a casting vote. There were two or three of the Ard Comhairle who weren’t available for the meeting. It wasn’t on the casting vote.

“We were very close to landing. If we had lost by more than one vote it wouldn’t have reflected the amount of effort, time and commitment given by everybody involved in the whole bid,” he added.

FINE Gael presidential election hopeful Gay Mitchell has pledged to do everything in his power to mobilise the party’s troops in the county to ensure he wins the vote in the Clare constituency in the November 27 poll.

Speaking to The Clare People during his whistle stop tour of the three biggest centres in the county – Ennis, Shannon and Kilrush – said the key to his objective was enlisting the services of members of the Fine Gael election machine within the county at a time when the party is the dominant player in Clare politics at local and national level for the first time in its history.

“It’s very important that I get strong support across the board everywhere. I’m in Clare because I want to build on the support that I have in the county.

“I really need that support,” Mr Mitchell told The Clare People .

Clare Fine Gael have an unprecedented four Oireachtas members in Deputies Pat Breen and Joe Carey and Senators Martin Conway and Tony Mulcahy; there are 26 councillors between Clare County Council and Town Councils in Ennis, Shannon, Kilrush and Kilkee, while party also holds the mayoral chains of of- fice in three of the four town councils.

“I’m out here with the Oireachtas members in Clare and the organisation in Clare is fully behind me,” said Mr Mitchell.

“We are one of the few organisations with people in every corner of the country and I need that organisation out behind me.

“We had a two-day meeting of the Fine Gael Parliamentary and we gave a good part of the meeting to stretegy and getting the vote out in each county – getting the vote out in every corner of Clare. I think that’s very important.”

Mr Mitchell secured the Fine Gael party nomination to contest the presidency on July 9 when winning a three-way contest that also involved Pat Cox, who originally hails from Shannon and fellow MEP, Máiréad McGuinness.

Mr Cox, a former TD, MEP and president of the European Parliament, was eliminated on the first count, while Mr Mitchell received 54 per cent of the vote, as against Ms McGuinness 46 per cent in the second count.

“I wouldn’t have sought the nomination if I didn’t think I could win and win the presidential election,” Mr Mitchell told The Clare People . “I believe I can win. The polls will show that in October.

“The reality is that if a story breaks in New York the farmer on a tractor in Clare will hear at the same time as someone in Dublin.

“Society is changing. Ireland is a small country and I think that I can get the vote out. I will be in every corner of Ireland that I can be. I will be back in Clare several times,” added Mr Mitchell.

THE statesmanship shown by Clare president Dr Paddy Hillery in times of crisis has been held up by Fine Gael candidate Gay Mitchell as the template for his style of presidency should he succeed in becoming the ninth incumbant in Áras an Uachtaráin.

Speaking to The Clare People on Thursday during his first visit to the county since being selected to contest the November 27 presidential election poll, Mr Mitchell hailed Dr Hillery political courage during his 14-year stint in office from 1976 to 1990.

Dr Hillery took office following the constitutional crisis sparked by his the decision by his predecessor Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh to refer the Emergency Powers Act to the Supreme Court, which prompted the Fine Gael Minister for Defence Paddy Donegan to label him “a thundering disgrace”.

President Ó Dálaigh resigned in the fall-out from these remarks, and now 35 years later Mr Mitchell, who is bidding to become the first ever Fine Gael president, used his visit to Clare to highlight the crucial role the Spanish Point man played in restoring the honour of the presidency in the wake of the crisis that rocked the office.

“I’m not just saying this because I’m in Clare,” Mr Mitchell said during his visit to Ennis, Kilrush and Shannon.

“I’ve said this a lot of times. Dr Hillery restored the presidency after the resignation of Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh.

“And when his own party came looking for him (in January 1982) not to grant a dissolution of the Dáil to the government of the day, he had the experience and the integrity to stand up to that pressure.

“The president is an important person in terms of the independence of the office. The president is like the sentry in the box. Those are the qualities I will bring to the office. I am an independent soul. I made it very clear that I want the support of more than Fine Gael – I need that. I want to reach out to all of the community not just Fine Gael. I need to do that,” he added.

CLARE County Council is making preparations for another winter freeze with an estimated 3,500 tonnes of salt to be available for the county’s road network. That capacity could increase to 9,000 tonnes in the coming years if plans for a new salt depot run by the National Roads Authority (NRA) prove successful, it emerged yesterday.

The details are contained in a report on the Council’s winter maintenance programme, which was outlined at yesterday’s meeting of councillors in the Ennis Electoral Area.

Senior Engineer Tom Tiernan told the meeting that there is currently 600 tonnes of salt in the county but that will increase to 3,500 over the coming months with the “significant expansion” of facilities at the Beechpark depot. He said the Council would aim to cover 706km of road throughout the county.

Mr Tiernan said he was confident that there would be adequate capacity at Beechpark to cater for a “very severe weather” conditions.

The meeting heard that the Council has spent € 1.1m of its own resources on winter maintenance over the past two years. “We have had to spend a huge amount of money for maintenance that we hadn’t really bargained for”, explained Mr Tiernan.

Mr Tiernan also told councillors that responsibility for maintenance of the country’s motorway network will be transferred to the NRA over the next two years.

He also revealed that the NRA intends to seek planning permission for the development of a salt storage dept on the outskirts of Ennis.

The depot, which will have capacity for 6,500 tonnes of salt, is proposed for the Tulla Road interchange near a section of the M18 motorway.

Questioning the need for the NRA facility, Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) said Clare could end up with a total of 9,000 tonnes of salt. Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) urged the Council to purchase a smaller salting vehicle to be used in housing estates in Ennis and surrounding areas. Cllr Brennan was also critical of the NRA’s plans, saying they represented a duplication of services.

Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) also expressed concern over the depot. He said the site was in the ownership of Clare County Council and could be used a potential site for a new secondary school to cater for the estimated population of 7000 living in the Doora area.

Mr Tiernan explained that the site is an area of surplus land left over from work on the Ennis bypass. He said that while the site was registered to the Council, it had been purchased by the NRA.

AN INITIATIVE which will form a solid link between Ireland and America – which is the brainchild of a Quin resident – is poised to become official within weeks.

Gerry O’Neill, who has lived in Corbally, Quin, for the past 53 years, is a retired employee of Clare County Council.

A number of years ago, Gerry who is a native of Athlone – came up with the idea of presenting an official document – a Certificate of Irishness – which would certify the Irish heritage of those whose ancestors originated in Ireland. Irish emigrants and their descendants will be in a position to formalise their Irishness for a small fee.

It now appears that the certificate will be launched by Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore in New York later this month.

Gerry told The Clare People yesterday that he was delighted that moves are being made to rubberstamp his idea. “It’s for the sake of the country . . . I believe that we owe something to the generation before us,” he said.

He is hopeful that any links set up or strengthened between the US and Ireland would primarily benefit the Shannon region. This idea has been supported by Independent County Councillor James Breen, who is a long-time supporter of the initiative.

“I am delighted, provided it takes the right turn. The key is that any- thing that comes out of it goes to the west of Ireland,” he said.

Gerry developed a love for the US through visits to Shannon Airport while working with Clare County Council. He visited the US more than 50 times over the years, during which time he developed several connections.

He put his idea forward to government officials in 2008 and felt it would provide an economic boost to Ireland through increased visits by those from the US.

Those who apply for the certificate will be required to submit details of their Irish ancestral connections.

Mr Gilmore said earlier this year that he expected the certificate to be in place by October and was in the process of being established “in direct response to a strong demand for such a scheme from those members of our diaspora who are not entitled to Irish citizenship”.

IT CAME down to one vote – a vote that went against the Banner County’s hopes of bringing 2012 Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann to Ennis, which would have bridged a 35-year gap to when the showpiece of the traditional music year was last in Clare.

Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann decided on Saturday by a 14-13 in Dublin to give host town status to Cavan for the third successive year, thereby robbing Clare of a festival which would have brought around 300,000 to Ennis next August and been worth an estimated € 30m to the local economy.

LOCAL business interests are on the cusp of making a pitch to take over the running of Shannon Airport in a lease agreement that would see the former hub of the aviation world given its freedom to chart its own future away from Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) control. The Clare People can reveal that a coalition of business interests in the mid-west region could be lined up to lease Care’s international airport from the DAA if Transport Minister Leo Varadkar backs a radical move by the Shannon Airport Authority (SAA) to offload the airport to a private company for between 15 to 35 years.

However, the plan has been blasted by Fianna Fáil transport spokesperson Timmy Dooley “as privatisation by another name. This is selling Shannon. It’s selling away a state asset for two generations”.

The SAA board, which is chaired by local businessman Brian O’Connell, submitted its plans on foot of a request for submissions by Minister Varadkar on the break-up of the three state-owned airports – Dublin, Shannon and Cork.

Ryanair have backed the plan, with spokesperson Stephen McNamara telling The Clare People “it should be taken out of the hands of the DAA and there is a case that it should be a local airport, owned and operated by local people so that it can grow”.

“We need an independent Shannon, free of Dublin where we can deter- mine our own destiny,” said Deputy Joe Carey. “The current model has failed Shannon. Something radical is needed,” he added.

The plan was drafted for the SAA by Avia Solutions consultants, but no private company has been listed as being interested in taking control of the airport, something which has prompted local Labour TD Michael McNamara to “call on the chairman of Shannon Airport to come clean and tell us which private company, or companies, or investors have expressed an interest”.

Shannon Airport have declined to comment on the matter.