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“A PIONEER of business, a visionary and a gentleman of the old style.”

These were just some of the quotes used this week to describe Michael Lynch Snr who passed away early on Monday morning aged 85. The Newhall native owned, built and operated the iconic West County Hotel for a number of decades and was known throughout Clare and beyond for his business acumen.

Affectionately known as ‘Mickey’ Lynch, he opened the West County Hotel back in the late sixties originally as a twenty bedroom hotel with a restaurant, bar and grill room. Then Minister from Clare Dr Paddy Hillery cut the ribbon on the original West County Hotel on March 15th 1968.

The first manager of The West County was John Madden, who moved from the Gresham Hotel in Dublin to take over the operation of Clare’s newest hotel. He recalls Mickey Lynch as wonderful to work for, a man of enthusiasm, vision and generosity:

“Mickey Lynch was a man of great ideas, a true visionary. He built and grew The West County. He did that with flair, enthusiasm and he was wonderful to work for,” recalled John this week.

“He never went away anywhere without coming back with new ideas for The West County. Mickey really was ahead of his time. Anytime we spoke about the need for additions, like the function room or more bedrooms, something that might attract tour operators, Mickey would get straight to work and deliver whatever was necessary to grow the business.

“The function room was a perfect example. Once he was convinced of the need for it, it went up in no time. Before we knew it we had over a thousand people coming to our hotel weekly for functions, dress dances, dinners and shows. People came from all over Munster to attend events in the West, Mickey was the instigator of all that,” remembers John.

Mickey Lynch was also remembered this week as a proud Clareman, good to his community and generous to a fault. As John Madden pointed out, he was very supportive of his native county and its people.

“If a local organisation was in need, Mickey was first in line to give. He was generous with both his time and his money. He was also very good to his employees. And I suppose one of the qualities I most remember was Mickey’s ability to have a good dis- cussion, disagreement even, then five minutes later we moved on, it was forgotten about. I learnt a lot from Mickey Lynch,” John told The Clare People. Mickey Lynch originally was a builder and set up Lynch’s Joinery across the road from where the West County is now situated. Michael Lynch Limited is now fifty seven years in business and over that time has employed many hundreds of Clare people from all over the county in the various family enterprises.

One of Mickey Lynch’s oldest friends Pakie Tuohy from Tiermaclane in Ballyea remembered Mickey Lynch this week as a business man with the common touch:

“Mickey was a gentleman of the old style. He was a very visible presence in the West County and a wonderful host. Always generous, Mickey was great company, he knew everyone and everyone knew him. It was always ‘hail fellow, well met’ with Mickey,” Pakie recalled this week, going on to emphasise the impact the newly opened West County had on Ennis in the late sixties, seventies and eighties.

“It should be remembered Mickey really brought entertainment back to Ennis with The West County. From dinner dances to music in the bar on Saturday nights, the hotel very quickly became a focal point for gatherings. Always a well run establishment, we had many great nights there and Mickey was on hand for all of them. He really was ahead of his time,” Pakie fondly remembered.

Michael Lynch is survived by his wife Chrissie, sons Seamus and Michael Jnr, daughters Geraldine, Colette, Martina, Annette, sons and daughters in-law and a host of grandchildren. He will be reposing at the family home on the Clare Road, Ennis, on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the house private on Thursday morning. Funeral Mass for Michael Lynch will take place on Thursday at 1pm at the Cathedral in Ennis, following by burial in Drumcliffe.

IT WAS unhappy beginning to the New Year for one Crusheen business when it was the target of a burglary last week.

Thieves failed to remove an ATM from the Mace Supermarket but damage was caused to the premises during the incident, which occurred between 2am and 6.30am on Friday, January 3.

Gardaí explained that the culprits firstly broke into the warehouse and they tried to gain access to the supermarket but failed and they then went and tried the roof but failed again.

Eventually they breached a sidewall and gained entry. They tried to remove the ATM machine but failed and then fled the scene.

Gardaí have issued descriptions of three individuals they believe were involved in the burglary.

One suspect was wearing a shiny jacket with the word “jeep” in yellow writing on the back; he also wore a blue hoody. Another suspect was wearing a grey jacket and a black hoody. Gardaí say the business was damaged in the incident.

The supermarket is open for business but owner Brian Clark said this is not the first time the shop has been targeted by thieves.

Mr Clark said that while nothing was stolen damage was caused to a wall. “It’s intimidating really,” he said of the break-in.

“It’s not nice. You have to go into your office in the early hours of the morning and get down on your hands and knees and clean up this mess,” added Mr Clark.

Separately, gardaí in Ennis are investigating the theft of equipment from a service that provides psychological supports to Clare schools.

The break-in at the National Educational Psychological (NEPS) building on Francis Street occurred between 10.25pm and 10.30pm on Saturday, December 28, 2013.

Three youths seen acting suspiciously in the multi-storey car park at Dunnes Stores fled when they saw gardaí. A check of the area where they ran from found computer equipment in a shopping trolley, which had been stolen earlier.

The NEPS supports the personal, social and educational development of all children through the application of psychological theory and practice in education.

The service is organised on a regional basis with psychologists being assigned to a group of schools.

A MAN has been charged after he was stopped by gardaí in an area of East Clare in possession of a fuel siphon pump.

It is alleged that Ennis man James Connors (33) had the pump for the purposes of theft, Ennis District Court heard on Friday.

Mr Connors, with an address at Achabaille, Lahinch Road, Ennis, was stopped by gardaí in an area of O’Callaghan’s Mills on November 26, 2013. The offence he is charged with states that when not at his resi- dence, Mr Connors had in his possession an article – to wit – a siphoning pump and equipment with intention that it be used in the course of or in connection with a theft.

Mr Connors denies having the pump for purpose of theft. During the course of a bail hearing, Mr Connors told the court he uses the pump in his work scrapping cars.

“The pump was my own and not used for any crime,” he said.

Garda Darren McLoughlin of Scariff Garda Station gave evidence of arrest, charge and caution. He told the court he arrested the accused at his home on January 2, 2014. The father of six was later charged and made no reply to charge after caution, the court heard.

Inspector Tom Kennedy said the State would consent to bail on condition Mr Connors abide by a curfew between 9pm and 7am.

Insp Kennedy said the State does not accept Mr Connors’ reason for having the pump.

Defence solicitor Tara Godfrey said her client objected to the curfew condition. Ms Godfrey said her client intends to contest the case. She said a curfew would be “excessively punitive” given the length of time it would take for her client’s case to be heard. She said it was open to the State to re-enter the case if Mr Connors came to Garda attention.

Insp Kennedy said the curfew was a “reasonable request”.

Judge Aingeal Ni Chonduin granted bail on condition the accused observe a curfew between midnight and 7am.

Insp Kennedy said the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had directed summary disposal of the case, meaning it will be heard in the District Court.

Mr Connors was remanded on bail to appear at Killaloe District Court on January 7, 2014.

UP TO 10 metres of the land bank of the five star Doonbeg Lodge and Golf Course was lost to the Atlantic Ocean during the weekend storm.

“We got a right bashing but we are living to tell the tale,” said General Manager Joe Russell, who was confident that the Greg Norman-designed golf course would be playable again by Thursday. The picturesque resort was at the mercy of the high winds gusting up to 120 kilometres an hour, but the superintendents at the course were confident that all damage could be repaired.

“We have lost some land back into the ocean, but we have 18 holes in play. It has thrown up a lot of debris from the ocean but that does not affect play,” said Mr Russell.

He said that a clean up is been planned for tomorrow (Wednesday) once the full damage has been assessed and the weather monitored.

The high tides have also taken a few metres of sand from the dunes, which will naturally repair themselves in time.

Mr Russell has warned however against walking over the dunes however as there is now a sheer drop on one side, almost like a cliff, which is extremely dangerous.

SHANNON Airport became the unlikely battleground for the Soviet Union and America in 1983 as the Irish Government yielded to pressure from America to ban Aeroflot civilian flight from landing at the airport.

Records released last week under the 30-year-rule show that then US president Ronald Reagan sent a direct request to Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald (FG) to ban Aeroflot stopovers in Shannon.

The blanket ban was ordered after the Soviet Union shot down Korean Air Line Flight 007 on September 1, 1983, near Sakhalin island in the Sea of Japan after it strayed into Russian air space.

All 269 passengers and crew, including US congressman Larry McDonald, were killed in the attack. In a strongly-worded two-page letter, Mr Reagan tried to rally international opposition to the Soviets and called for co-operation and support among friends.

“The Soviet action represents a challenge to the international com- munity. It would be a tragedy if we do not collectively respond in a resolute and clear manner to this action,” he wrote.

According to reports, the world was on the verge of a nuclear World War Three after a Russian army early warning missile detection system gave a false alarm that the US had launched a strike.

Mr FitzGerald confirmed Aeroflot would be banned from Shannon on September 16, 1983, 10 days before the fault in the Oko missile detection system in Moscow.

Irish and US officials had already had private talks on the issue and considered a ban should initially be 60-90 days or until “the Soviet Union responds to our very real concerns”.

Dr FitzGerald wrote a four-page letter back to Mr Reagan to confirm that Aeroflot would not be allowed to pick up or set down passengers at Shannon Airport on flights destined for Moscow.

He also said the Government had deferred a decision on an application by Aeroflot for landing rights at Shannon for flights coming and going from Lima in Peru and Havana in Cuba.

TODAY (Tuesday) is the fifth day that six families remain isolated from the rest of the county, as part of the Loop Head Peninsula has been rendered an island.

The storm on Friday morning saw the small rural area of Kilcredaun segregated from the rest of West Clare as water gushed in from Rhinevilla. An estimated 300 acres of land is currently under seawater.

The area famed for its lighthouse and Irish school could remain dis- connected for some time with the people marooned on the “island” still unsure as to when the waters will recede enough to let them access the rest of the county.

Pat Gavin, the postmaster in Carrigaholt Post Office, is one of the people unable to leave the area and as a result the local post office must remain closed.

“God knows when we will get off here,” he told The Clare People .

The West Clare man had been able to get to the village of Carrigaholt for a brief while on Friday with the assistance of a neighbour with a trac- tor.

Sunday night and Monday’s waves however have now washed away that road and any access to the six families.

“We are an island surrounded by the sea,” said Mr Gavin.

“We are left cut off. You can imagine no fuel, no food. Except my neighbour coming up on Friday to bring me out of here for half a day to open the post office [we could not have left]. We are a good community. The post office was flooded on Friday and all the community turned up to clean it. We’ll come back bigger and better than ever,” he said.

However while Mr Gavin is marooned on the island with his neighbours, the post office in Carrigaholt flooded again yesterday morning (Monday).

“I don’t know what we will do when we get out, I am not sure what state it will be in.”

He explained that the homes still have electricity and he feels lucky that his freezer has food for now.

He in angered however that political promises made by the present Government to carry out work along the peninsula were not carried out.

THE number of people using the Western Rail Corridor which connects Ennis to both Limerick and Galway continues to drop.

Despite a number of initiatives designed to increase passenger numbers on the route, new figures show that fewer than 200,000 people used the route in the first 11 months of 2013.

Figures for the route, which was reopened at a cost € 106 million in 2010, show that only 197,780 line passenger journeys took place on the line between the beginning of January 2013 and December 1. This compares with almost 250,000 over the same period in 2012.

It is hoped that the introduction of online booking on the rail service will provide a significant boost to passengers in 2014. Nearly two years after the issue of online booking was first raised with the Iarnrod Eireann, online booking was introduce on the line last month.

Passenger numbers on the route have been growing on commuter routes such as Ennis/Limerick and Athenry/Galway in recent years and it is hoped that online booking may also help to promote business from Ennis, Sixmilebridge and Gort.

“We know this is something which our customers and the wider community have been anxious to see provided for some time,” said a spokesperson from Iarnród Éireann.

“Our fares from € 5.99 each way for adults and € 2.99 each way for children are extremely competitive, giving big savings to families at a time of year when every cent counts.”

A MOTHER has spoken of the terror felt by her family when their home was the target of a suspected gun attack in Ennis last week.

Shots were fired at a family home in the Cloughleigh area of the town in the early hours of New Year’s morning. No one was injured in the attack but windows and the front door of the house were damaged.

A husband and wife and seven children including a one-year-old girl were in the house at the time. A 46-year-old man was questioned and subsequently released without charge.

Gardaí in Ennis yesterday issued a renewed appeal for information.

They are interested in a grey saloon type car that was seen leaving the area at the time with two occupants on board. A garda spokesman said that investigations into the matter are ongoing. A large downstairs window and door remained boarded over at the house yesterday.

In her sitting room, the mother of eight, who was present in the house on the night, relived the horror of the attack.

The couple were upstairs watching television having just returned from a New Year’s Eve party when they heard the sound of windows breaking, according to the woman.

“We looked out and saw three men well known to us driving a silver private car. We shouted down at them,” she said.

The woman, who did not want her name to be published, said shots were then fired at the front door and at the upstairs bedroom window where her husband was standing while “rocks came through the sitting room win- dow”.

The couple’s daughters (ages eight, three and 16) and one-year-old grandchild were asleep upstairs at the time. Their three sons were asleep in a downstairs bedroom.

“We were terrified but the kids were probably more terrified,” the woman said.

The incident may be linked to a recent court case in Ennis, which the family had no direct involvement in.

The woman says the family’s car has previously been damaged while she says her son was the victim of a serious assault in Ennis last June.

She said, “We feel like our lives have been taken away from us. We are afraid for our children.

“We know nothing about any feuding that’d be going on in this town. We have nothing to do with anything like that. My husband has never been in trouble in his life. All we want is justice for this.”

Members of Ennis Town Council will meet in private today to discuss the incident in Cloughleigh.

Independent councillor Paul O’Shea yesterday warned that lives will be lost if violent incidents in Ennis do not stop.

IT IS estimated that almost one third of Clare babies are delivered by caesarean section.

According to a Health Service Executive (HSE) survey of the country’s 19 maternity units, the c-section rate at Galway and Limerick maternity hospitals is almost twice that recommended by the World Health Organisation.

At the Regional (UCHG) Maternity Hospital Galway as many as 29.56 per cent of deliveries were by caesarean section in 2011, and 27.43 per cent of births at Limerick Maternity Hospital.

The WHO recommends that the nation birth rate by caesarean section should be no higher than 15 per cent. The highest caesarean birth rate was in St Luke’s Hospital, Kil- kenny, at 38 per cent, almost double of that in Sligo General Hospital at 19.3 per cent.

As well as showing a wide regional variation in caesarean section deliveries, the survey released under the Freedom of Information Act, also revealed that Limerick Maternity Hospital had the lowest breast-feeding rate in the country.

The 2011 figures show that 32.5 per cent of babies at the Limerick hospital were exclusively breast fed on discharge. Just 38.6 per cent were combined fed – bottle and breast.

In Galway the figure for mothers exclusively breast feeding on discharge was at 39.8 per cent, with the majority of mothers – 59 per cent – opting to combine feed their new borns.

Limerick hospital had a higher rate of non-instrumental deliveries in 2011 at 55.98 per cent compared to Galway at 52.92 per cent.

AT AROUND 6.30am on Friday morning John O’Connor grabbed his two children and ran upstairs to safety.

It was pitch dark, so all the young family knew for certain was that there was water waist high in their home.

The former Kilmurry Ibrickane footballer’s family were terrified, and unsure himself what had just happened, he called his next door neighbour Danny McCarthy.

It was only then that Danny realised that the sea had engulfed the homes along the coast road at Tromoroe Castle, Seafield. He waded through the water, which was now waist high on a man, and towards the next-door house. The whole of the downstairs of the house, which had just been fitted with a new extension, was under water.

“We didn’t know was the sea still coming because we were up to our waist because it was dark. It was frightening. It was terrifying for the children,” said Mr McCarthy.

“John, his wife and the children were up stairs and that is what saved them. This really, really was seri- ous.”

The men called the Kilkee Coast Guard, who brought a raft in the front door and took the children to safety.

“Since then I can’t sleep or nothing,” said a very upset Mr O’Connor, who has still not been able to return home as the sea continued to break on the back of his house, his gardens and the nearby field he had transformed into a football pitch for his children gone.

“The kids keep asking when will they go back into their house, I don’t know will we ever be able to go back in,” he added, the enormity of the situation hitting home.

Danny and his partner and daughter were also evacuated, and he remains hopeful the sand bags will safe some of the rooms from the flooding.

He praised the work of the Kilkee Coast Guard.

“They were here in half an hour. They gave us confidence and a sense of security,” he said.

The local community of Kilmurry Ibrickane has also rallied around offering sheltered to those displaced with the natural disaster.