This article is from page 15 of the 2014-01-14 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 15 JPG
HUNDREDS of people descended on Lahinch and Liscannor over the weekend to help in the biggest cleanup operation ever undertaken in the county.
More than 200 people took part in a two-day clean up of the Promenade organised by the West Coast Surf Club on Friday and Saturday. With people travelling from all over Ireland to take part, the club was able to send groups to Liscannor, Kilmacreahy and Cregg to help with the clean-up operations in those locations.
Both the Old Course and the Castle Course at Lahinch reopened for business last Friday following a major clean up by volunteers on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week. As of yesterday, 14 holes are playable on the Old Course with all hole playable, excluding bunkers, on Castle Course.
Two time major winner, Greg Norman, also mentioned the storms impact on Lahinch and Doonbeg on Twitter last week.
“Amazing photo of waves and wind pounding the beautiful town of Lahinch in Ireland last Thurs. My course at Doonbeg is okay,” he said.
Meanwhile, the gym at Lahinch Seaworld reopened for businesses yesterday and management are hoping the the pool facility will be open to the public again from next Monday, January 20.
According to Cliodhna Fawl of the West Coast Surf Club, locals and people from all over the coun- try have been doing their bit to get Lahinch back on its feet.
“People travelled from Dublin and all over Ireland to help with the clean up. We had about 80 people working with us on Friday and another 100 people came on Saturday, so we got a lot of work done,” she said.
“We collected a massive amount of rubbish and debris from Lahinch and we were able to send out groups to other areas on Saturday. A lot of debris and stone was removed from Liscannor, we still have some work to finish in Cregg which we will hopefully get to soon.
“We would like to thank Clare County Council and Clean Coast for providing the gloves and bags and to John and Jessie who drove up from Ennis with lots of food for all the workers.”
Lahinch Seaworld is hopeful of reopening fully from next Monday, but no official date can yet be given as it takes the pool between seven and fourteen days to warm up after a complete shutdown.
“The gym reopened today and we’ve had a great crowd in already this morning. People have been very supportive,” said Joe Garrihy of Lahinch Seaworld.
“We are working on the heating system at the moment and we should be able to turn that on tomorrow with a view to reopening next Monday but we will have to wait how long that will take to heat up the water.