Category: News

THE company behind some of the Mid West’s biggest tourism attractions is to undergo a “strategic review”, it has been announced.

Consultants are being sought to carry out a review of Shannon Heritage, the company that operates attractions such as the Bunratty Castle Folk Park and King John’s Castle in Limerick.

According to a tender notice posted by Shannon Development, “This review will analyse all aspects of the current portfolio and inform the future strategic direction of the business”.

Shannon Heritage employs close to 300 people during the height of the tourist season.

Shannon Development is currently in transition to become part of Shannon Group plc – an umbrella group comprising Shannon Airport, Shannon Development, Shannon Heritage and the International Aviation Services Centre (IASC).

“To emphasise a more commercially focused property remit, Shannon Development will soon be renamed Shannon Commercial Enterprises Ltd, trading as Shannon Enterprises.

“Shannon Development is focused on delivering competitive property solutions to our customers”, states the company profile.

The company operates from Shannon Airport.

Shannon Heritage is one of the largest operators of heritage products in Europe. It manages a portfolio of seven day visitor experiences and four evening entertainments in Clare, Limerick, Galway and Dublin.

Figures released last year to mark the 50th anniversary of the medieval banquet at Bunratty Castle, stated that Shannon Heritage’s mediaeval banqueting operation contributes to an estimated € 20 million in spin-off revenue annually to the local economy.

It was estimated that over the past 50 years, Shannon Heritage day visitor attractions and evening entertainments have attracted almost 20 million visitors from all over the world.

Shannon Heritage is one of the largest and longest operating tourism companies of its type in Ireland employing almost 300 people at the height of the season.

The company also oversaw the € 4.7 million revamp of tourism facilities at King John’s Castle in Limerick city.

According to figures released last year by Shannon Heritage, over 40,000 people visited the re-vamped King John’s Castle during the first four months of opening in 2013.

THEY’VE a pretty special and select club out in Ballyea now.

In the long history of Clare hurling and most times unrequited love for the game where the winning Munster championships are concerned, the bounty that has been enjoyed by Ballyea these past few years is nearly unbelievable.

Apart from the Munster titles that Tony Kelly has won – it now stands at five – not to mention the three AllIrelands between senior and under 21 there are the personal honours.

The hurler of the year x 2 last year, the All Star and last but not least the honour of captaining his county.

He has done it at minor, under and senior – remember he doesn’t turn 21 until early December.

And, thanks to Wednesday’s win he’s made that select club out Ballyea way.

It’s like this – up until last year there were only three men who’d captained their county to Munster minor and under 21 success. They were Anthony O’Riordan (Limerick), Diarmaid Fitzgerald (Tipperary) and Shane O’Neill (Cork).

O’Riordan’s time was 1984 and ’86; Fitzgerald had his turn in 2001 and ’04, while the final link in this holy trinity was provided by O’Neill in 2004 and ’07.

Ballyea, a club for so long in the shadow of fellow parishioners Clarecastle and others in the hurling environs of Ennis, have well and truly gate-crashed that club now. They’ve made it their own.

Paul Flanagan was Munster final captain at Munster minor and Under 21 in 2010 and ’13 respectively; now Tony Kelly joins him on that pantheon thanks to his captaincy winning years in 2011 and ’14.

All under the guidance of Donal Moloney, Gerry O’Connor et al. Before the final Kelly spoke of giving something back to this management team when he said: “Donal and Gerry gave us a chance at such a young level. We’re just trying to pay them back at the highest level we can and by winning trophies,” he added.

How they’ve done that and more over the past five years at underage level, but Kelly wouldn’t let the occasion of his victory speech pass without thanking them once more.

“To captain a Clare side is a fantastic honour, but to captain a threein-a-row-winning one is something special,” he said. “I would like to pay tribute particularly to the management of Donal Moloney and Gerry O’Connor that put us on the road back in 2010,” he added.

ON ANOTHER day David Reidy would have been man of the match with 2-3 to his name from play.

There was that time in the first half when Shane O’Donnell returned the compliment paid to him a few minutes earlier, by putting a goal on a plate for his fellow Éire Óg Townie.

“I think the ref blew the whistle a small bit too early,” laughs Reidy at the memory of his own flash of the ash with a goal at his mercy only for the referee to call a foul on O’Donnell. “It doesn’t matter. The win was the main thing – it was a very good team performance,” he adds.

But it didn’t end there for Reidy – in the 59th minute he snaps a great ball on the shed side of the field and turns for the town goal with the net on his mind, breaking the tackle he’s in the clear and about to pull the trigger when the whistle sounds again for a jersey tug.

“A bit too early again,” he laughs, “but again it doesn’t matter. For me it was about winning and playing my part and to be part of it. It’s been unbelievable – just look at the crowd out there on the field. They’re fantastic, all of this is fantastic and it’s something that I wouldn’t have imagined at the start of the year.

“I was number 37 or 38 last year on the squad, trying to burst in and get into this team. It just wasn’t happening and didn’t happen for me, but I made it onto the senior squad and the extra training that I did pushed me

and I got the break. I think

I’ve taken that chance now.”

What about the goal? Your

part in Shane O’Donnell’s lat

est salvo against the Rebels?

“Once Shane is inside you

know there’s only going to

be one finish,” he says.

“It was an outstanding fin

ish, he took is few steps and

finished it into the back of the

net. You expect nothing else

from Shane. I knew if I could

get the ball into him he’d do

it. I knew we had the game

then. It was brilliant.”

As was David Reidy on his

first Munster final day out

– the three points, the cou

ple of goals that could have

been, his workrate around

the field. Everything, on a

perfect day for the under 21

class of 2014.

SHANE O’Donnell is one of the last to make his way the dressing room – even with his right hand bandaged, bloodied and broken he’s still out on the field for over half and hour after the game.

Signing autographs. Standing in for selfies. On and on it goes. There’s no orderly queue – more like mayhem as they swarm around and look for a piece of him. Look for a drop of his royal hurling blood even.

Eventually, all the demands of the teeming crowds of kids and teenagers are met – all that’s missing is the Garda escort like the one he needed to escape from Sixmilebridge after last year’s Goal Challenge.

He’s glad to get away, elated, but slightly deflated.

Elated to get game time after all his injury woes since April.

“It’s been a long time,” he says. “Almost four months since my last competitive game. It was great to be back out on the pitch, but that’s why you’re training and doing all the re- hab for.

“I never envisioned that it would be that long before I got back playing, but things like that happened and I’m just delighted to be here and part of this out on the field,” he adds.

Elated to rattle the net once more.

“It was on a plate,” he says of his latest flash of the ash. “I called for the ball, but Reidy has unbelievable vision anyway and playing with him at club level we have a decent enough idea of where each other is most of the time. He’s a fantastic player and it was a great ball into me and I couldn’t miss it from there.”

It came at a time when Clare couldn’t miss, racking up a 1-15 to 0-5 interval lead, with O’Donnell’s goal being the decisive blow that finally turned this Munster final into a procession.

“It clicked for us,” says O’Donnell. “We seemed to have our touch right for the first half. We gave Cork every respect as they deserved – if we didn’t they would have been all over us, so we played our game and it seemed to work.

“The message at half time was just to drive on – if we switched off they would be on top of us and they did for a while. For a couple of minutes there it looked as if they might storm into the game but we held them off and played out the last minutes of the game.”

The only downside was O’Donnell’s injury, later confirmed as a hand fracture that consigns him to another stint on the sidelines. A huge loss to his club Éire Óg, but there’s the AllIreland to aim for in the distance.

“We’d love to win the All-Ireland and there are a couple of games to go before that will be in our minds. We have the All-Ireland semi-final and without the seniors that’s all we have in our heads now, apart from the club. Hopefully we can get over the semi-final and then we can deal with all the three-in-a-row stuff after that.”

By which time O’Donnell will be fit and raring to go once more.

AS A member in the prestigious ‘five-in-a-row’ club that carved out their own piece of history with successive provincial crowns at minor (2) and Under 21 (3) levels, Aaron Cunningham was inevitably one of Clare’s leading lights in their latest triumph on Wednesday.

Described as a ‘savage outlet’ by joint-manager Gerry O’Connor af- terwards, chief targetman Cunningham raided for four points as Clare blitzed the Rebels on home soil.

“It’s a brilliant achievement for everyone and for a few of us, that is our fifth Munster title back-to-back so that’s kind of unheard of in Clare and we’re delighted with that.

“And definitely doing it in Cusack Park in front of a home crowd is what we’ve always wanted to do and I’m sure if it was on down in Cork, they would love to be playing in front of their home crowd.

“In fairness, the last couple of occasions when we’ve been playing here, the crowd have been the 16th man for us and have really got behind us.”

The crowd didn’t have to be as influential as the Tipperary match as Clare led with a degree of comfort from start to finish in another consummate display.

“We were always confident but I would never say we were cocky. We always know we have more in the tank but we never took Cork for granted at any stage there, even with ten minutes to go.

“The supply to us in the forwards was excellent. In fairness to the lads out the field, they’re unbelievable at picking out the pass inside and I suppose when Cork took their sweeper out midway through the first half, it opened up a lot more for us inside so the ball coming in was of a higher standard.”

However, their unprecedented suc- cess in recent years has also provided a large dollop of experience not to take any team for granted in their pursuit of a three-in-a-row of AllIreland titles.

“It is the ultimate goal but we aren’t even thinking about a third All-Ireland because we know the upset that Antrim caused in semi-final against Wexford last year and we certainly won’t be taking them for granted at all. So we will be only focusing on that game in the next few weeks.”

THIS was the night that the Munster cup was handed over to Clare for the third successive year. As such it was a coronation, with a party atmosphere wrapping around Cusack Park when provincial chairman Robert Frost handed the silverware over to Tony Kelly.

But in real time out on the field and amid all the hoopla that’s building up all around him, joint-manager Dónal Moloney seems able to take a few steps back. Steps back two weeks to the day in fact.

He defaults to the Tipperary game.

“Tipperary nearly put paid to this,” he says, “and when we reflect back on that night, that was the night the Munster Championship was won. We displayed enormous courage when we were flat. When we weren’t playing well we displayed enormous courage and that was the night the championship was won.”

But what about this night? The shock and awe of that first 30 minutes!

“These guys have created certain standards over the last few years,” begins Moloney. “In the first half they surpassed all of that. We knew there was a huge performance in them, but they really expressed themselves in the first half and it was a joy to watch them. We are so fortunate to have such talented guys available to us, players with the capability and the capacity to do that. “It’s not easy to come out when you’re red hot favourites. There’s a lot of talk about three-in-a-row, you’re playing Cork who have just dumped Waterford out and for those guys to get their focus exactly right to turn in a performance like that – there’s some credit due to them. “Right from the full-back line, the way they were creating space and moving the ball. Cork were struggling and gaps just opened up. We hit a purple patch for seven or eight minutes and the game finished as a con- test at that point in time,” he adds.

With that it was just about holding firm – a case of enjoying the journey, without doubt the easiest of Clare’s five provincial titles over the past five years at both minor and under 21 level.

Mention of those five provincial titles, not to mind the two All-Irelands, and it’s no wonder that Moloney et al are nearly at a loss for words to explain it all – but not quite.

“It’s been an incredible journey and to be quite honest with you, it’s been a fairytale,” he says. “We never thought any of this would happen to us. The reality is that we’ve been very fortunate to come across not just some of the most talented players that the county has ever seen, but also guys who had a massive desire.

“It isn’t always that you find the two in the one package, but we have a whole bunch of guys who have both. We should really cherish that because it won’t last. It won’t last, we won’t have underage teams turning out that kind of performance. They’ll be very competitive, but we won’t have them turning out that kind of performance every year,” he adds.

Two more will do for this year as Clare now home in on more glory.

The Munster three-in-a-row bagged; now to repeat the dose at All-Ireland level.

SEANIE McMahon take a bow.

Your influence stretches long beyond your status as one of the greatest hurling men to ever have the number six on your back.

“Has there ever been a better centre-back in the world” thundered Michéal Ó Muircheartaigh in one of his commentaries on Clare back in the day.

It was rhetorical, of course. And it was preaching to the Clare converted, even all the way out Miltown Malbay way, deep in football country.

Yes, there was always a bit of a hurling enclave here thanks to Tom Malone’s Clonbony, while there was a county hurling final played there in ’99. And, it’s there that Conor Cleary would have seen Seanie McMahon in hurling flesh.

“It was Seanie, Seanie McMahon,” he says minutes after becoming a Munster championship winning centre-back like his hero. “I took to him as a young lad and it was the team he was a part of and the success that they had that got me interested in hurling.

“To be part of a Munster championship winning team! Growing up seeing the likes of Seanie McMahon and the lads doing it in the late 1990s, it’s just a dream come through. Little did I think when I started hurling that I’d end up here. To win a Munster title on the field of play – it’s incredible, it means so much,” he adds.

The first Miltown man to win a Munster hurling medal on the field; Martin Flynn and Karl Walsh were part of the football win in 1992; Clare is the latest in a long line of Munster champions from Miltown that includes famous names like Eddie Carroll and PJ Killeen, who were on the 1917 football team and Georgie Comerford was the hero of the 1929 minor football team.

“It’s all the people who have helped me down through the years,” says Cleary. “It was my father, the people in Kilmaley and there’s great thanks to Davy (Fitzgerald) for bringing me into the seniors this year. For a while I didn’t know where I was going with my hurling and being in the senior panel really brought me on a lot.

“Paul Kinnerk always says to us, ‘at the start of every game, get your hands on the ball as early as you can’. That happened for me and we tried to set down a marker, not to let any ball pass the half-back line. Nine times out of ten it worked. It’s incredible to be part of this.”

Incredible too that Clare’s hurling revolution is now touching the west Clare coast.

Thanks to Conor Cleary, who can take a bow with Seanie McMahon.

THE heartbroken family of a grandmother who died in a tragic accident outside a shopping centre in Ennis have thanked members of the public who attempted to save her life.

Josephine Lucas (74) died after she was rolled over by her reversing silver Mazda car in the car park of Aldi Shopping Centre on Francis Street on February 23.

Members of the public, including an off duty nurse, off duty fireman and off duty paramedic, were on the scene and attempted to resuscitate.

Ms Lucas, who had been shopping with her two young grandchildren at the time, was pronounced dead at the scene. An inquest into her death yesterday found she died from acute cardio respiratory failure secondary to multiple traumatic chest injuries. A jury of four men and two women at Clare Coroner’s Court returned a verdict of accidental death.

At the end of the hearing, the Lucas family’s solicitor William Cahir said the family were extremely grateful for the efforts of those that tried to help Josephine.

He said the family wanted to extend thanks to all the first responders who helped on the afternoon.

In her deposition to the inquest, Mairead Doohan, an off duty nurse, said she was coming out of Aldi at around 13.33 when she noticed a car reverse and hit a footpath.

She said she saw a body lying on the ground. She said the woman had a cut on her head, had no pulse and was unresponsive.

“She was lifeless,” Ms Doohan explained. Ms Doohan said she performed CPR and tried to create an airway for Ms Lucas to breathe.

Gearoid Blake, an off duty station officer at Ennis Fire Station, was also in the area on the day.

He said he phoned an ambulance and performed chest compressions on Ms Lucas as he awaited the arrival of the emergency services.

Andrew Long, an off duty paramedic, said Ms Lucas was initially unresponsive but started to breathe again following CPR.

Mr Long said he went to get basic resuscitation equipment but when he returned, Ms Lucas had stopped breathing. Garda Niall Cosgrave of Ennis Garda Station said he studied CCTV footage of the area to retrace Ms Lucas’ final moments.

A report by pathologist Dr Elizabeth Mulcahy found that the cause of death was acute cardio respiratory failure secondary to multiple traumatic chest injuries consistent with a road traffic accident.

The jury returned a verdict of accidental death. County Coroner Isobel O’Dea said that a Garda report referred to the incident as a “freak accident”. She extended her sympathies to the Lucas family. She said the difficulties experienced by the family went “beyond description”.

Inspector John O’Sullivan extended sympathies on behalf of the gardaí on this “tragic accident”. The forewoman of the jury also extended the jury’s sympathies.

AN unemployed electrician whom a court heard spent € 700 a week on drugs has been sentenced to 11 months in prison.

Shane Kerin (26) became involved in drug dealing in order to fund his own habits, Ennis District Court heard on Tuesday.

Mr Kerin, with addresses at Connolly Villas, Ennis, and Stonecourt, Ennis, pleaded guilty to multiple drugs offences committed between April and October, 2013.

He pleaded guilty to being in possession of cocaine at Ennis Garda Station on April 9; possession of cannabis for sale or supply at Connolly Villas on April 25 and possession of cannabis and possession of cocaine also at Connolly Villas on April 25;

He further admitted charges of possession of cannabis and possession of cannabis for sale or supply at Gort Road, Ennis on October 13.

He pleaded guilty to a charge of driving without due care or attention

Detective Garda Dominic Regan of Ennis Garda Station explained Mr Kerin drove away from gardaí at speed when they attempted to stop him on the night in question.

The court heard he was eventually halted near the Aughanteeroe hous- ing estate. Mr Kerin pleaded guilty to using a forged prescription at Flynn’s Pharmacy, Gort Road, Ennis, on October 15. The court heard he altered the prescription to include the addition of 90 xanax tablets.

He further admitted a charge of having cocaine for sale or supply at Sandfield Hall, Ennis on October 24.

Defence solicitor John Casey said his client’s father died in tragic circumstances when he was young. He said Mr Kerin left school at 16 but qualified as an electrician. He said Mr Kerin, normally a nice, quite young man, started smoking cannabis before moving onto prescription drugs, cocaine and then heroin.

Mr Casey said his client’s condition deteriorated in recent months.

“He has gone down. And the only way I can describe it is like speaking to someone under water,” Mr Casey explained.

He said a report furnished to the court disclosed that Mr Kerin was spending € 100 a day on drugs.

Judge Patrick Durcan said there was no evidence Mr Kerin had won the Lotto. He said the € 700 had to come from somewhere. Mr Casey said Mr Kerin sold drugs in order to support his habit.

He urged the court to follow the recommendation of the Probation Services and adjourn the matter for three months to allow his client to re-engage with addiction treatment services.

Judge Durcan said he was not impressed that the accused had not engaged fully with the services to take the steps required to deal with his addiction.

Asked for his view on the accused’s situation, Det Gda Regan said Mr Kerin has a “serious heroin addiction”. He said he could not see Mr Kerin’s life improving until he beats the addiction.

Judge Durcan said this was a young man who committed “very serious offences”.

The Judge said that he was not satisfied on the basis of the evidence that Mr Kerin has engaged in any meaningful way with the services.

He said he was not prepared to accept the recommendations of the Probation Services, neither was he compelled by the arguments of the defence.

In sentencing, Jude Durcan also noted the accused was spending € 700 a week on drugs.

He said he was drawn to the conclusion that that burden was in some way borne by society.

He imposed sentences totalling 11 months and fixed recognizance’s in the event Mr Kerin decides to appeal.

A WEST Clare farmer has won rave reviews for developing a tractor that can be operated by remote control, allowing him to farm the land from the comfort of his own home.

Miltown Malbay man Michael Shannon has combined his passion for farming and machinery to develop his remote controlled tractor in what has been a labour of love over many years.

In what has been hailed as an unbelievable feat of engineering, Mr Shannon has taken a tractor that’s over 30 years old, remodelled and modified it so it can operate at the flick of a switch.

Now the 1983 registered Massey Ferguson MF250 is fully operational using a remote control device and can be let loose to work away on his family farm in Miltown Malbay.

It was Michael’s ambition when he gave up being a tractor dealer ten years ago to develop a fully working, reliable remotely operated tractor.

The farmer, along with son Tony, totally overhauled the engine and hydraulic systems as well as painstakingly redoing the wiring to make his dream possible. Not only can it be used remotely and with a human physically sitting on it, it can also run with the use of a Garmin GPS unit.

If a field is digitally mapped, you can let this tractor off by itself and it’ll spread fertilizer using GPS coordinates. “Once it’s set up to go the machine will spread to the required width and then return to the gate and stop in order to be driven home by a human on the road,” Mr Shannon revealed.