Month: December 2012

IN AUGUST this year, Gabrielle Fennessy, 51, her husband Chris Kearns, 51, and youngest son Finn, 16, decided to uproot from Kinvara, in Galway, and take up a job offer in Boston.

They left their home and the security provided by family and friends to see whether the grass really is greener on the other side.

“The job opportunities are a lot better here than Ireland for both of us,” explains Gabrielle, “and the education system is a hell of a lot better!”

Chris says he was happy “to get away from the economic and political environment in Ireland”. From the beginning, Finn noticed how, “much more positive people are here.” The couple agree that it is much easier to save money working in the US than it is to do so here.

Gabrielle had work secured before leaving and was straight into it once she arrived. Chris and Finn took a little longer to settle in. At first, setting up the new family home kept them busy. Unlike their countryside home in Ireland, they moved into a suburban apartment. A car had to be bought, insurance cover arranged, phone and internet access organised. And Finn had to be registered in the local high school. It was all very new and exciting.

Five months later, Chris is working with an international, high-tech firm which specialises in cloud computing. Finn has settled right into the American lifestyle. He has replaced hurling and rugby with American football, which he plays with his high school team. They will not be home for Christmas. “We’re going to have an Irish Christmas here instead,” says Gabrielle. While they will miss their extended family and the traditional Christmas round of visits to friends and neighbours, they are lucky to have some family travelling over for Christmas. Gabrielle reflects that Christmas in Boston is different to Ireland. “It’s seen as a Christian holiday here,” she explains. They live in a predominantly Jewish community. Cribs and baby Jesuses are left out in favour of more secular Christmas decorations such as snowmen and reindeer.

The traditional Irish Christmas dinner of turkey and ham is considered more of a Thanksgiving staple. At Christmas, a wider range of foods are eaten. Many people that they work with are only taking one day off work.

Whether this is just their first of many Christmases state-side remains to be seen. Gabrielle says that while they initially left for the US with the intention of staying one year, “now we’re looking at extending it.”

WHEN Marie McNamara went to Australia in 2008, it was with a sense of adventure.

At home, she found herself in a job that just wasn’t the right fit for her, she had always wanted to travel and had heard stories from her brother and friends who had spent a year travelling around Asia and Australia.

It was a now-or-never attitude that saw her fill her backpack and travel around Asia for three months before finding herself in Australia.

This was to begin an adventure that would take no longer than a year, then she would be back home in Ballynacally.

Four years on and the reality she left behind in 2008 has changed sig- nificantly.

Now Marie is working full-time in Australia, something she knows would not be possible if she returns home.

She is therefore home for three weeks at Christmas to visit family and friends rather than returning, as she would wish, for good.

“You are really doing the same thing over there as you would be doing here, it’s just that the weather is better. You get into a routine and a way of living,” she said.

“Everyone thinks the grass is greener but we are living away from all our family and friends.”

Marie said that she hopes to come home some day as “home is home” but for now “the country is in a mess and I know if I stayed, there would be no work here. I have to be practical and go back to Australia where the work is. There is nothing for me to come back to now. It would be great to stay home but I have to be practical.”

The Clare native has had a number of various jobs since she arrived Down Under. She worked for six months in an office and then travelled around the country.

As with most backpackers, she then ran out of money but decided she would stay for another year.

To be allowed to stay in the country for a second year, she was obliged to spend it working in rural Australia.

So she ended up weeding, sorting tomatoes and potatoes and doing general agricultural work on a farm.

“It was great craic. There was no pressure and you met a load of people. You experience a different side of Australia that you would not see otherwise,” she said.

After her time on the farm, she came back to Sydney and was sponsored to stay in the country working with the company she had worked with previously.

She is now home for a three-week holiday, her third Christmas trip home in a row.

“The first Christmas in Australia was great craic, having Christmas on the beach and watching the fireworks on Sydney Bridge on New Year’s Eve. By the second Christmas, the novelty has worn off,” she told The Clare People .

“To sit beside an open fire for Christmas – there is nothing like it.”

MAURETTE and Barry Crowley were just newlyweds last December when they decided to go to Australia for a least a year.

Maurette, a teacher originally from Tulla, and Barry, an engineer from Knockerra, are now adapting to life down under and enjoying all that it has to offer, although they admit they do miss home at Christmas time.

“We would love to be home for Christmas, but it’s a good experi ence to be here for one Christmas,” said Maurette, explaining that they both intend to be having turkey and Christmas pudding in Clare next year.

The weather in Melbourne does not lend itself to the Christmassy feel. However, one morning last week, as Maurette got the train to work, the temperature dropped for a few minutes and she had to put on her coat as she passed a busker playing ‘Silent Night’ on a trumpet.

For a brief moment, it was Christmas time as she knew it.

The new Christmas experience consists of high temperatures and summer dresses, different foods and blue Christmas decorations.

“The decorations seem strange. They are all blue. There is no green and red like at home,” explained the Tulla native.

The Christmas carols also give the Clare woman pause for thought and a smile. She is currently working as a relief teacher in an Australian pri- mary school and is teaching the children ‘Ozzy Jingle Bells’.

“Instead of singing about the sledge, they sing about putting on the barbie. It is very funny and worth people Youtubing just to hear the difference,” she said, laughing.

Teaching in an Australian school brings home to Maurette how many Irish people of her generation have emigrated there, many with no other choice. There are Irish pupils in each class in the school, some who have recently moved to Australia with their families and others who were born to Irish parents in Australia in the last five years.

There are also a number of Irish teachers teaching in the school so she is not the only Irish accent in the staff room either.

And as the staff all settle in for an Ozzy Christmas, Maurette and her husband Barry are heading to the Goldcoast to celebrate their first married Christmas with her sisters in 35- to 40-degree heat with blue Christmas decorations. “HOW is it being away from home at Christmas?” asks Jason Ryan of himself. “I’m in my shorts; we’re all in our shorts; it’s blistering hot outside and I have the The Clare People here in front of me.” It’s true, like the old Harp ad, the sun tan is for free and unlike back home in Clare, if one wanted to hit the town on Christmas Day, there’d be plenty of pubs with a ‘fáilte isteach’. It’s Phoenix Arizona, where 36year-old Jason Ryan has called home for the last seven years, moving permanently in 2005 after first visiting a year previously. With a wife and four children, ranging from the age of seven down to only a couple of months old, he’s not for moving. Back home or anywhere. Jason has The Clare People and Clare Champion thanks to his parents who landed for a week before Christmas. “There are 5,000 miles between Newmarket-on-Fergus and Phoenix,” he says, “so when they come over, it’s a long 14-hour trek. You won’t do it too often, so when your parents come over before Christmas it’s special and it’s important. You miss the craic of home around Christmas so having them over is great,” he adds. Before emigrating, Jason freely admits that Phoenix was never on his radar but that all changed when he met his now wife in NUIG. “Arizona and Ireland – the first thing I thought was total opposites but, after meeting, we came out and it wasn’t until I got here that I realised there’s such a big Irish community here.” And it’s something that Jason has immersed himself in over the last couple of years, mainly through the GAA. Like his father Christy, who is synonymous with the GAA back home, as are his uncles and first cousin Colin who inspired the Newmarket Blues to a first county hurling title in 31 years this year. “Five thousand miles is a long way,” he says, “but the world is a smaller place and, when you’re away, it’s more tolerable. It’s not just an evening phone call – there’s text messaging, Skype, Facebook, Twitter…

and you keep in touch that way with matches back home and what’s going on.

“With the GAA here, I am manager of the Phoenix Gaels and chairman of the South West Board of the GAA, so that keeps you in touch with home as well. When there are big games, you’d go and meet lads and watch them. Tony McCarthy from Killaloe and Eanna Mulkere from Crusheen would be two that I’d meet to watch matches. My brother Johnny is in Perth and there are eight or 10 more from Newmarket there, so we’d keep in touch through the social media.”

Still though, there’ll be a few home thoughts from abroad, but not for too long because he’s well ensconced in Arizona now and so comfortable with life a world away from Newmarket that he has a slow southern drawl.

“When I’m home, my wife can’t understand me but when I’m here you have to slow down for people to be able to understand you,” he says. “Everything is different, but it’s great. There isn’t the big Christmas dinner and turkey wouldn’t be traditional because of Thanksgiving, you’d just do a ham.

“Then you have movie theatres open on Christmas Day and people go there or to the bars – it’s not like home when everything shuts down. Even some of the stores are open for people to go shopping.”

He’ll hardly shop, because it’s not the done thing back home, catching a movie mightn’t be on his radar either, but a pint and toasting the great year that both the Blues and Newmarket Celtic enjoyed on Christmas Day.

Now, there’s a thought.

KILRUSH Town Council passed what was described as “a particularly difficult budget” on Thursday evening, a function they undertook for the second last time as the Minister for the Environment plans to abolish all town councils in 2014.

In drawing up the draft budget, which was accepted in full by the members, the council officials had to contend with a cut to its local Government Funding of five per cent – € 24,287.

Town Manager and Director of Service Anne Haugh said, “The Draft Budget provides for expenditure of € 1,348,986 in 2012. Income excluding rates and the Local Government Fund, has been estimated at € 631,133 in 2013 compared to € 625,473 in 2012.”

Kilrush Town Council payroll has also been reduced by € 32,237 from that provided in the 2012 Budget.

“However, notwithstanding this, Kilrush Town Council are proposing to maintain the existing level of services in 2013,” said Ms Haugh.

In an attempt to balance the books and yet reflect the difficulties that local businesses are experiencing in the “current economic climate”, the local authority agreed to maintain the commercial rates at that 2012 level.

Impacting on the 2013 budget is a loan drawn down in 2005 to fund works on Henry Street and at the Vandeleur Walled Garden.

However, loan repayments have been reduced by € 9,023 on loan charges in 2012 due to capital re- payments on the loan and also the reduced interest rate.

There was some good news for those renting their home from the local government as it was agreed there would be no increase in household rent.

The council was not optimistic in receiving a large income for planning applications in 2013.

“It is anticipated that in the current economic climate that the number of planning applications received will again be insignificant, hence a provision of € 750 for planning ap- plications fees has been provided for in 2013,” explained Ms Haugh.

The town council agreed to support numerous community groups and public vents in the coming year.

A total of € 13, 550 was provided for tourism development and promotion, € 5,000 was provided for the Shop Front Initiative and a provision of € 2,000 was included for the Gathering in 2013.

The council provided € 10,000 in hope that it will be named the lead town in Munster for the National Famine Commemoration.

A 14 year-old boy and 21-year-old man have been sent forward for trial to Ennis Circuit Criminal Cour t following a violent incident at an Ennis Primar y School. A t Ennis District Cour t on Wednesday Inspector Tom Kennedy told Judge Patrick Durkan that the Director of Public Prosecution had consented to return the trial of 21-year-old Conor Mahon to the next sitting of the circuit cour t on Februar y 12, 2013. Mr Mahon ( 21) , with an address at Ballaghboy Halting Site, Quin Road Ennis, is alleged to have committed violent disorder at the Holy Family School, Station Road, Ennis on March 20. He is also charged with unlawful production of an ar ticle contrar y to the firearms and offensive weapons act at the same date and location. Mr Mahon was remanded on continuing bail and legal aid was granted for defense solicitor Darragh Hassett and one junior counsel. A 14-year-old boy also appeared in cour t charged with offences in connection with the incident.The teenager who cannot be named is charged with a violent disorder at the Holy Family Primar y School on March 20, 2012. He is also charged with the production of a machete contrar y to the firearms and offensive weapons act. The teenager was remanded on continuing bail and legal aid was granted for defense solicitor Darragh Hassett and one junior counsel.

A MAN who had to be forcefully removed from his ex-girlfriend’s car by four gardaí had been ordered to pay € 575 in compensation and donations to the court poor box.

Brendan Brosnan, Ballycasey, Shannon pleaded guilty to four charges relating to a night that saw him arrested by gardaí and placed in a cell where he later caused criminal damage.

The 35-year-old refused legal representation at Ennis District Court, the operations manager opting to represent himself.

Prosecuting Garda Inspector Tom Kennedy told the court that on Sunday December 15, 2012, Mairead Gavin called Shannon Garda Station and reported that her ex-boyfriend had refused to get out of her car.

She said she had been giving Mr Brosnan a lift home and when they got to his house he told her he was not leaving the car.

Garda Pearce and Sergeant Ryan went to the house but Mr Brosnan refused to get out of the car.

Two more gardaí and a second patrol car were called to scene.

Eventually the four gardaí forced Mr Brosnan from the car.

He then started to hit out at gardaí and told Garda Pearce he would “kick the head off him”.

Inspector Kennedy said Mr Brosnan was taken to a cell at Shannon Garda Station where he then “stuffed a cell blanket into the toilet” causing damage to the blanket.

“Tell me why I should not impose a prison sentence,” asked presiding Judge Patrick Durkan.

“It was totally out of character for me and I do apologise to the gardaí on the night.

I threw the blanket and it ended up in the toilet,” said Mr Brosnan.

“I am very embarrassed and deeply ashamed.”

“I have no excuse,” adding that he was inebriated at the time.

Inspector Kennedy told Judge Durkan that the loss to the state following the damage to the blanket was € 75.

“Your behaviour on the night was appalling,” the judge said to the defendant.

Taking into account his clean record and early plea Judge Durkin ordered Mr Brosnan to pay € 175 in compensation – € 75 towards the cost of the blanket and € 100 for the clean up of the cell.

He remanded him to appear in Ennis District Court on February 16 by which time Mr Brosnan must have paid the compensation and € 400 to the court’s poor box.

If these orders are not met Mr Brosnan was told he will be fined a total of € 950.

A BOYCOTT on all farmed salmon caught off the Irish coast has been called for in protest against plans by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) to license the creation of a large salmon fish farm off the Clare coast.

Environmental group Friends of the Irish Environment called for all of its followers to boycott Irish farmed salmon in the run up to Christmas. The call was made Thursday, hours before the Irish Wildlife Trust came out against the proposed fish farm.

It is as yet unclear what impact, if any, the boycott will have on farmed salmon producers in the run up to Christmas – the busiest time of the year for sales of salmon in Ireland.

According to Friends of the Irish Environment, the planned fish farm should not go ahead until the difficulty with sea lice on Irish fish farms has been resolved.

“The initiative contradicts the moratorium on fish farms agreed under the National Development Plan’s Irish Seafood National Program 2007 to 2013,” said a spokesperson.

“This ruled that no increase in pro- duction would take place until the sea lice issue had been addressed. A recent report from Inland Fisheries Ireland showed that in fact mortalities from wild salmon from farmed salmon sea lice have now reached 39 per cent of the returning wild salmon.”

The proposed fish farm has been hugely controvertial since details of the proposal first emerged more than six weeks ago. It has two State agencies – Bord Iascaigh Mhara and the Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) in direct conflict.

BIM claim that the farm could creat as many as 500 jobs in the locality while the IFI believe that a more realistic jobs target would be less that 50, while it also believes that pollution created by the farm could threaten inland fishery resources in North Clare and South Galway.

Irish Wildlife Trust confirmed on Thursday that they have made a submission to the Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney (FG) outlining their opposition to the project. Minister Coveney will decide in the new year if BIM can allow groups to tender for the license to create a fish farm off the Fanore coast.

EUROMILLIONS winners Dolores McNamara could be set to make Killaloe her new home after a deal was concluded for the sale of Tinarana House over the weekend. A deal for the 270 acre property, which was sold for around € 13 million by Dr Paschal Carmody in 2006, was finalised late last week – with Dolores McNamara understood to be one of the bidders in the final shake-up.

The property was sold for around € 3.5 million, almost double the 2012 asking price but still nearly € 10 million less than was paid for it by development consortium Tinarana Ltd in 2006.

Local property agents GVM have remained tight lipped over the identity of the estates buyer. Once the transaction had done through details of the sale will be published on the newly established Property Price Register. The address of the property and the final sale price will be included on the register – but not the name of the buyer.

It is understood that Dolores McNamara has been on the lookout for a rural property to avoid excess media attention. She already owns nearby Lough Derg Hall, which was bought for € 1.7 million and where she has lived on-and-off since 2005.

Tinarana House has attracted a large number of interested bidders since it went on the market earlier in 2012. Bidders from Austria, Holland, Germany and Britain are understood to have been in the shake-up for the property, alongside the Euromillions winner.

Tinarana House itself includes 16 bedrooms and 15 bathrooms and was put on the market on the instructions of receivers PriceWaterhouse Coopers in June of this year.

While the € 3.5 million price tag is considerably less that the € 13 million paid in 2006, it is understood that the historic property needs restoration work which could total as much as € 1 million.

At the height of the property boom in 2006, Tinarana Ltd received planning permission from Clare County Council to construct a major hotel and leisure complex on the site – which also included an 18-hole championship golf course and equestrian holiday village.

An Taisce objected to the development and those objections were upheld by an Bord Pleanála in 2007.

Tinarana House was built by the Purdon family of England in the 1870s as a fishing and hunting lodge. The mansion comprises 14,467 square feet and sits on a small raise overlooking Lough Derg.

STAFF at the Clare County Council recycling facility on the Gort Road in Ennis have been praised for their calm actions after a live grenade was discovered on site last Thursday morning.

The grenade, which is understood to date back to Civil War times, was discovered on the site on Thursday morning.

The explosive device was found among a stash of recyclable metal on the facility and is understood to have been live and a genuine explosion risk.

The supervisor at the facility alerted both the Gardaí and the Defense Forces to the find and Clare County Council closed the recycling centre for a number of hours of Thursday afternoon, while the grenade was being dealt with.

The Defense Force’s Army Bomb Disposal Unit were tasked to make safe the ordinance and arrived at the Gort Road Industrial Estate around 1.30pm on Thursday afternoon.

A small controlled explosion was carried out and the area was declared to be safe just after 2.15pm on Thursday afternoon. It is as yet unclear where the grenade came from and Gardaí in Ennis are investigating the incident.

Clare Green Party councillor Brian Meaney paid tribute to the calm ac- tions of the staff at the centre while a spokesperson from Clare County Council also apologised for any delays felt my members of the public as a result of the incident.

“We would like to thank the public for their patience during the interruption to services at Ennis Recycling Centre.

“We also want to acknowledge the assistance of An Garda Síochána,” said a spokesperson from Clare County Council.

This is the second time that Army Bomb Disposal Unit have been called to a suspect device in Clare in 2012. In January a controlled explosion was carried out on a suspicious device discovered on the strand at Lahinch Beach.

A four foot long metal canister, which was discover on the north end of the strand beside Lahinch Golf Course, was discovered by a walker on the beach just after 7pm on Saturday evening, January 7.

POLICING in rural areas of the county affected by the latest raft of Garda station closures can be enhanced thanks to a new partnership approach between Clare Garda headquarters and new community groups.

That’s the message sounded out by Chief Superintendent of the Clare Garda Division, John Kerin, in the wake of the controversial Budget 2013 decision to call time of eight rural Garda stations in Clare as part of a nationwide cull of 80 outlets.

Superintendent Kerin told a public meeting in Inagh last week that the key to future policing in the eight locations that will lose their Garda sub-stations lay establishing “community fora” that would liaise with the Clare Garda Division.

I’m sending out that invitation to all communities affected by Garda station closures,” said Chief Superintendent Kerin, “that if they were willing to set up a community forum of five or six people affected by Garda station closures, the Gardaí would be willing to meet with them on a monthly basis. The superintendent in those areas will meet with them on a monthly basis – I would be willing to meet with them on a bi-monthly basis,” he added.

Following on the closure of Carrigaholt Station earlier this year, the latest round of swinging cuts of announced in the Budget means that stations in Quin, Inagh, Lahinch, Broadford, Mountshannon, Doonbeg, Kilmihil and Labasheeda are all facing the axe in the new year.

According to Chief Superintendent Kerin the closures can be the catalyst for a new type of working arrangement to emerge between communities and what will be a Garda Division split into a two-district service of Ennis and Kilrush.

“A lot of those areas affected don’t have joint-policing committees,” said Chief Superintendent Kerin, “and I would hope that they set up these fora that would be representative of all strands of society within the community. If we did that, we would know what issues were happening and we would be able to address them,” he added.