Month: November 2011

A RETIRED fireman with strong family links to Clare is spearheading a campaign to honour victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Bill Whelan was among hundreds of firemen who took part in the rescue effort when hijacked planes were flown into the two towers of the World Trade Centre 10 years ago. Over 300 Fire Department of New York (FDNY) personnel were killed in the attacks, including a workmate of Bill’s.

Now living in Florida, Bill, whose brother Jack has lived in Ennis for almost 40 years, is pledging to hon our the sacrifices made by firemen on 9/11.

As a member of the Gulf Coast Retired Firefighters Association, Bill is involved in a drive to raise money for a memorial sculpture built using pieces of steel from the World Trade Centre towers.

He explains, “It’s an American flag blowing in the wind. It’s going to be all granite, 13ft high. It’s like a wave. It’s going to be set on a map of the US. Then we have a walkway around it, like the way the Pentagon is set up. We have bricks, if anybody wants to buy a brick to memorialise a family member who is a police officer or a fireman. Doesn’t really have to be that, it can be anybody. You can buy a brick for € 100 and it will be there forever.”

A regular visitor to Ennis and Sixmilebridge, where his sister lives, Bill was off duty when news broke of the unfolding disaster at the World Trade Centre. However, the then Brooklyn-based firefighter volunteered his services and arrived at the Ground Zero site around 15 minutes after the towers collapsed

He recalls, “We were just going through the buildings that surrounded the Trade Centre. We got into the centre as best we could. You did what you could. There was total silence.”

Bill says the awful memory of the day still lives with him. “It’s there every day. Every day you think of it, especially when we get together with other firefighters. That’s tough. A lot of people are still crying. You have fathers looking for sons, sons looking for fathers, brothers looking for brothers.”

Originally from Tullamore, Bill moved to New York in the 1970s, working in the retail business before joining the Army. He joined the Fire Service in March 1970, working in one of the busiest areas of the city for 25 years.

He says, “I hated to leave. I wish I could go back. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, I don’t know if you ever saw New York in those years – Brooklyn and the Bronx, it was horrible. They were burning houses and buildings down. You could almost pick your fire when you went out on the job. You could see the smoke on the horizon. And then on your way to a job, you’d pick up another job. So there was a lot of work, an awful lot of work. And we lost a lot of guys.”

Bill adds, “Since I went on in 1970 till I got out – of course 9/11 was the big one – but we lost, I think it was 144 guys before 9/11, just on my time, line-of-duty deaths. The injuries were absolutely horrendous also. But it was a great job.”

SENIOR FINE GAEL party members in Clare yesterday described the party’s performance in the presidential election as a “total disaster”, with one party insider blaming the attempt to parachute Pat Cox into the race for “splitting the party”.

Gay Mitchell received just 2,545 first-preference votes in Clare in the presidential election, compared to the 24,524 first-preference votes received by the party’s candidate in this year’s General Election.

Shannon Senator Tony Mulcahy said that the decision to run a candidate who had been out of the public eye for such a long time was a mistake.

“The election was a disaster – I don’t see how anyone could think any different. It was a disaster for a number of reasons.

“You had Martin McGuinness, who is very high profile; Sean Gallagher who is on the TV; and then you had our man who has been out of the country for the last four or five years,” he said.

“We didn’t make an impact on this one at all. A lot of Fine Gael people I met before the weekend said that they were going to throw their support behind Michael D. That was it. If we had been closer, then maybe we would have got more of the vote? Maybe it was an anti-government thing.”

One party insider in Clare blamed the attempt to draft in Pat Cox as the reason why the party failed to per- form in the election.

“The decision by headquarters to bring in Pat Cox did not sit well with a lot of people within the party who have been working hard for the last number of years. There was huge resentment after that and that made its way down to every part of the Fine Gael campaign,” he said.

“It was a celebrity campaign. You had Dana, Martin McGuinness and Sean Gallagher and even Michael D is a semi-celebrity. Gay Mitchell was all about straight-talking to people and that didn’t connect with the people at all.

“But the Pat Cox affair split the party – it would have been very difficult for everyone after that.”

North Clare Senator Martin Conway said that the party needs to listen to what the people said in this election.

“We need to learn lessons from this and really take on what the people have said. You can go down very quickly in politics so we need to learn from this,” he said.

THE PEOPLE of Clare turned out in their droves to support Newmarketon-Fergus man Michael D Higgins on his way to becoming the ninth president of Ireland.

President Elect Higgins received a whopping 20,828 first-preference votes, or 44.3 per cent, making the Banner County one of his best performing counties. This left Higgins with a commanding lead after the first count at the Clare Inn, with Sean Gallagher in second with 14,779, followed by Martin McGuinness with 4,950, Gay Mitchell with 2,545, David Norris with 1,707, Dana with 1,313 and Mary Davis with 890.

The elimination of Mary Davis and Dana saw a continuation of the theme, with Higgins receiving 745 transfers compared to 560 picked by Gallagher.

Gay Mitchell did make up some ground on Martin McGuinness, with the pair collecting 265 and 202 transfers respectively, while David Norris received 151 extra votes.

As expected, the vast majority of David Norris’ transfers in Clare, almost 60 per cent, went to Higgins, who received 977 extra votes, compared to Gallagher who received 364, McGuinness who received 213 and Mitchell who collected 125 votes.

The elimination of McGuinness and Mitchell further supported the land- slide for Higgins, who received 5,169 on the available transfers compared to just 1,468 for Sean Gallagher. This left President Elect Michael D Higgins with a commanding 27,719 votes, compared to Gallagher who took 17,171 Clare votes.

Clare voters gave a resounding ‘yes’ to the proposal to amend the constitution to allow for judges’ pay to be reduced. Of the 45,945 valid votes in this poll, a massive 37,196 or 80.96 per cent voted yes.

The same could not be said for the Oireachtas Inquiries Referendum, where less than 800 votes separated the sides. A total of 23,422 in Clare voted against the proposed change, with 22,273 voting in favour of it.

FROM a three-roomed thatched house with no running water or electricity in Ballycar, Newmarketon-Fergus, to Áras an Uachtaráin – that’s the journey that Michael D Higgins will complete on November 11 when he’s inaugurated as the ninth President of Ireland and Clare’s third Head of State after Eamon de Valera and Dr Paddy Hillery.

After topping the poll in 35 out of 43 constituencies and polling more than one million votes after the fourth count, Higgins has pledged to be “a president for all the people” and to lead “a sea change” in the values of society.

“I want to be a president for those who didn’t vote, whose trust in public institutions I will encourage and work to recover. And always in my mind, too, will be those who have gone away and I will be their president too,” he said.

In outlining his “vision” for a new Republic, the President-elect said his seven-year term would be one “where life and language, where ideals and experience, have the ring of authenticity, which we need now as we go forward.

“During a long campaign, which for me was almost 14 months since I first sought a nomination from the Labour Party, I saw and felt and feel the pain of the Irish people. I recognise the need for a reflection on those values and assumptions, often carelessly taken, that had brought us to such a sorry pass in social and economic terms, for which such a high price has been paid and is being paid.

“I recognise the righteous anger, but I also saw the need for healing and to move past recrimination. I love our shared island, our shared Ireland and its core decency. I love it for its imagination and its celebration of the endless possibilities for our people.

“This necessary transformation which has now begun will, I hope, result in making the values of equality, respect, participation in an active citizenship, the characteristic of the next seven years. The reconnection of society, economy and ethics is a project we cannot postpone,” he added.

In January, Higgins marked his last official function as a member of Dáil Éireann by returning to Clare, telling The Clare People “that some of the major experiences in my life are associated with County Clare”.

In taking part in a poetry reading in the Burren College of Art and surrounded by family and supporters, the Newmarket-on-Fergus man launched his presidential campaign when saying “the president of Ireland is a president for the people and not for any political party” – a pledge he is set to follow through, with the announcement that he will be leaving the Labour Party when taking up office in November.

CLARE Labour TD, Michael McNamara was working with the United Nations in Ethiopia in 2010 when he read on The Irish Times online edition that Michael D Higgins was going to contest the presidential election.

It proved a pivotal moment for both men. Higgins’ decision has proved an inspired one, while McNamara’s move to pledge his support to the Newmarket-on-Fergus man’s campaign there and then was one of the key factors that brought him into the Labour Party and sent him on his way to winning a Dáil seat.

“I remember writing to him from Ethiopia,” said McNamara after the declaration of Clare’s presdential vote. “It was in May 2010 and I wrote to him offering support in his campaign. I always believed that Michael D Higgins would be an excellent candidate and I supported him strongly in the parliamentary nomination process.

“I knew Michael D before I knew the Labour Party. When I was about 12 years of age, I remember him reading poetry in Scariff, in Mike McNamara’s Bar – it wouldn’t have been a Labour stronghold at the time, either Scariff or Mike Mac’s,” he added.

Now everything has changed. Scariff has a Labour Party TD, Clare has a Labour Party presidential, with Higgins capturing 44.3 per cent of the first-preference votes in the county – when Labour’s Mary Robinson was elected in 1990 she received 13,745 votes which translated into 31.7 per cent.

“It’s a proud day for the Labour Party in Clare and a proud day for Clare,” said Deputy McNamara. “I was worried for a while, because the opinion polls were strange. I was canvassing in Ennis and Shannon last week and was getting a great response. Nationally, I think in the last week people were reflecting that it wasn’t just a celebrity television contest. It was an important office and people were beginning to wonder how much they knew about the candidates. You would have got great odds last year on Labour comfortably winning a Dáil seat in Clare and having a Labour president from Clare.

“There has to be a lot of pride in the county to have a third president after Eamon de Valera and Paddy Hillery. I’m certainly very proud of that,” he added.

JOHN Higgins stood looking up at the Returning Officer, Pat Wallace, as he announced the results of the first count in Clare. It was 7.07pm in the Clare Inn Hotel on Friday evening. He knew what was to come would be music to his ears.

“Higgins, Michael D – 20,828,” said Wallace to thundering applause from the Labour Party family that had gathered around Higgins. By then it had been a long day, in a long few weeks, but the celebrations had just begun.

“It’s a very proud moment,” said an emotional Higgins. “We are very, very honoured – it’s the highest office in the land and it has come to Michael D, a Clareman. There’s great pride in what he has achieved – my Dad and uncles and aunts would be very proud today.

“I couldn’t believe it was happening today. Last week we were all down in the dumps – the gap between Michael D and Sean Gallagher was unassailable as David Davin-Power said on RTE, but he turned it around.

“It was a huge move to go for the presidency in the first place – one that indicated Michael D wasn’t finished with politics. He didn’t go in the last election because he wanted to go forward for the presidency. There will Clare celebration because this is a victory for Clare and it that celebration will start with the inauguration,” he added.

And, why not! After all, it was another Clare presidential moment to park with the two terms of office each that Eamon de Valera and Dr Paddy Hillery served. A victory for Newmarket-on-Fergus, but more parochially than that, a victory for Ballycar.

“He got a great percentage of the vote in Clare with over 20,000 votes,” says Higgins. “And in Ballycar it was 73 per cent and I think it was the same in Clonmoney, which shows that closest to come they really came out and supported Michael D.

“When we came to Ballycar in 1946, Michael was five and I was four. We came from Limerick to live with our uncle and aunt. My father had got pneumonia and it was a very long recovery period because there was no penicillin. “We came out to Ballycar to give them a rest in Limerick and my aunt and uncle fell in love with myself and Michael and agreed that we would stay in Ballycar and our sisters were living in Limerick. “In Ballycar they would have been interested in politics but never went for it. They were very mindful of different politics of the time. De Valera had been in power from ’32 to ’38 and I remember the talk in the house when the Inter-Party government came into power in ’48. “After going to school in Flannan’s he got a job in Shannon and then in Galway with the ESB. There was a man in Galway, Redmond Corbett, who funded him to go to university. It was from there the he became politically mind. That’s where it started and it led all the way to Áras an Uachtaráin.”

GARDAÍ in Clare are warning people who legally own firearms and ammunition to ensure the property is under lock and key – 20 firearms have been stolen in the county in the past four years.

Most of the weapons were stolen during break-ins to homes, with a small number taken from cars.

“In some cases, it was discovered that the firearms were easily accessible and not secured away to prevent their removal. There are considerable obligations on all firearm holders to ensure that their weapons are securely stored away when not in use,” said the crime prevention officer in the Clare Garda Division, Sergeant Joe Downey.

“This applies to both within the home and when travelling to a shoot or a hunt,” he added.

He said that firearm holders run the risk of having their licences revoked if it is discovered that proper security measures were not in place at the time of the theft.

“As the amount of firearms increases in your possession, the place where they are stored should be alarmed. Where you possess six or more firearms, then the alarm must be linked to a central monitoring station and have back-up signalling facilities,” he said.

“During transport, store them out of sight in an area that is not accessible to the driver or any passenger. Never leave them inside the vehicle whether occupied or left unattended,” he added.

TREMORS resulting from the extraction of shale natural gas in west Clare could cause major structural damage to some of Clare’s key tourist attractions, including the Cliffs of Moher and the Doolin Cave. That is according to No Fracking Clare, a group set up to oppose plans to extract shale from underneath west Clare.

The Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources has awarded a license option to UKbased company Enegi-oil to search for shale gas deposits in a large section of west Clare. The area, which is being described as the Clare Basin, covers thousands of acres between Quilty, Kilbaha and Labasheeda.

Should exploration prove success- ful, a technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, will be used to create large cracks in the bedrock at the drill sites by pumping large amounts of highly pressurised fluids underground.

According to No Fracking Clare, this process has resulted in large tremors or mini-earthquakes in other parts of the world.

“Whilst pollution of water and air are major concerns associated with fracking, another big concern for Clare is earth tremors in the vicin ity of the Cliffs of Moher, Loophead and the Burren, especially Doolin Cave with the biggest stalactite in Europe,” said Bob Wilson of No Fracking Clare.

“Apart from the dangers to people living, working in and visiting these places, there is also the threat to tourism which is now seen as one of our best potential growth areas. We live in a beautiful and unique place here in the west of Ireland and our potential for tourism is directly related to our landscape and environment. In my opinion, fracking ought to be banned in Ireland altogether certainly in Clare.”

Enegi-oil have carried out research on a well drilled in Doonbeg in 1962. This analysis identified the presence of a large deposit of shale gas be tween 800 and 1,100 metres underneath the ground.

The company has put together a timetable for their on-site research in west Clare, which will determine the best drilling locations for extracting the shale, but it is as yet unclear when this process could begin.

A spokesperson from the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources told The Clare People that the current license option allows Enegi-oil to conduct “shallow geological sampling” but exclude major exploration drills at this time.

“In the event that hydraulic fracturing was proposed as part of a possible future onshore exploration or production programme, it would be subject to environmental impact as sessment, including an appropriate public consultation phase,” said the spokesperson.

The Clare People contacted Enegioil in relation to this article but no response was received at the time of going to press.

CLARE County Council has announced plans to develop a 6,500tonne salt depot on the outskirts of Ennis.

The council is proposing to build a road maintenance depot for the region at Tulla Road, Ennis (old GAMA site), adjacent to Junction 13 of the N18 Motorway with access from the R352 Tulla Road from Ennis.

According to the council, the development will include offices, a storage area and workshop, car parking, salt barns, depot, weighbridge, hard standing area, ESB sub-station, refu- eling bay and an access road directly from the R352 road.

The development will also encompass ancillary services such as water supply, foul treatment, surface water collection, bounding and landscaping around the site, the diversion, protection and provision of utilities and construction of boundary treatments, accommodation works and fencing at required locations.

It is anticipated that the depot will be run by the National Roads Authority. The proposal was first revealed by County Engineer Tom Tiernan in September.

At the time, Mr Tiernan said the council’s winter maintenance pro- gramme would aim to cover 706km of the county’s road network in the event of severe freezing temperatures.

The council has put in place a winter service plan for national primary, national secondary and strategic regional roads. Mr Tiernan explained that priority will be given to the motorway, followed by national primary, national secondary and strategic regional routes.

That programme includes plans to further expand the council’s Beechpark depot to ensure that 3500 tonnes of salt are available in Clare over the winter period.

The council has spent € 1.1 million on winter maintenance during the past two years.

Local councillors have been critical of the NRA’s plans, saying they represented a duplication of services.

An ice detection and prediction system, ICENET, in conjunction with thermal mapping linked to weather stations in Crusheen M18, Kilrush N68, Lisdoonvarna N67 and Ogonnelloe R463, facilitates Clare County Council in its decision-making process regarding whether or when scheduled routes should be treated.

Submissions or observations with respect to the proposed Tulla Road development may be made in writing up to and including December 23.

GIOVANNI Trapattoni proved to be a man of his word when finally fulfilling his commitment to throw his weight behind the Cliffs of Moher’s campaign to be designated as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World on Friday.

The Irish soccer manager and his assistant – World Cup-winning hero from 1982, Marco Tardelli – visited the Cliffs on Friday, nearly four months after he postponed a visit that was pencilled in as part of the FAI annual general meeting in Clare, because of industrial action being undertaken by SIPTU workers at the tourist resort.

“I have heard a lot about the Cliffs of Moher,” he said.

“I am very familiar with long campaigns and hope that November can be a month when Ireland achieves success in both the Euro 2012 playoffs and the new 7 Wonders of Nature campaign.

“It is fantastic. I was also in America [at the] Grand Canyon. It [Grand Canyon] is different but this is very, very beautiful. I think these cliffs are very, very spectacular,” he said.

The Cliffs of Moher was shortlisted in the New 7 Wonders of Nature competition in July 2009, along with 27 other sites, from more than 440 participants representing 220 countries. Among the other shortlisted sites are the Amazon Rainforest (South America), Table Mountain (South Africa), Black Forest (Germany), Vesuvius (Italy), The Great Barrier Reef (Australia) and The Grand Canyon (USA).

The official New 7 Wonders of Nature list, which is subject to a worldwide poll, will be declared on November 11, 2011 – the same day that Clareman Michael D Higgins is inaugurated as Ireland’s ninth president.