Category: News

COMPLAINTS of unsavoury odours in the Smithstown and Ballycasey areas of Shannon are being investigated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Clare County Council. The Clare People can reveal that an investigation has been launched, which involves EPA inspectors carrying out odour checks in the vicinity, in an attempt to isolate a potential source for the smell which has been circulating in recent weeks.

“So far, no particular source has been identified but work continues,” a spokesperson for the EPA told The Clare People .

This has come about amid several complaints about odours in areas including Smithstown, Ballycasey and Tullyvarraga, in recent weeks.

According to some reports, the smell is an unsavoury pungent odour, while other people are complaining of a sewage smell.

Last week, Independent Councillor Patricia McCarthy called for Shannon Town Council to write to the EPA to investigate the issue. She said that it should be addressed as a matter of urgency, after a previous odour was in circulation for two years.

“My concern is the length of time it is going to take to sort out this issue. We have been here before, albeit not the same area. A number of complaints have been lodged.

“They need to sort it out and let the people know what is the cause of it. We need openness and transparency and we need to know when they carry out their checks,” she told The Clare People.

“They need to act straightaway,” said Cllr McCarthy.

Meanwhile, the town’s grading in terms of EPA monitoring has dipped in recent days. Last week, the air quality was deemed ‘very good’, by the EPA, but has now changed to ‘good’. According to the EPA, this arose out of monitoring on August 31.

In March of this year, the EPA put monitoring measures in place and recorded a result of ‘good’ at the time.

The EPA’s mobile laboratory which is located in the town actively analyses the quality of air in the town and surrounding areas. When the EPA announced the measure in March, it indicated that the initiative would continue for up to a year.

The assessment is done via a trailer which is located at the rear of the civic offices in Shannon. Analysers are contained in the trailer and these are read on a regular basis.

There is also a fixed network whereby a number of sites around the county are monitored on a continuous basis.

THE statesmanship shown by Clare president Dr Paddy Hillery in times of crisis has been held up by Fine Gael candidate Gay Mitchell as the template for his style of presidency should he succeed in becoming the ninth incumbant in Áras an Uachtaráin.

Speaking to The Clare People on Thursday during his first visit to the county since being selected to contest the November 27 presidential election poll, Mr Mitchell hailed Dr Hillery political courage during his 14-year stint in office from 1976 to 1990.

Dr Hillery took office following the constitutional crisis sparked by his the decision by his predecessor Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh to refer the Emergency Powers Act to the Supreme Court, which prompted the Fine Gael Minister for Defence Paddy Donegan to label him “a thundering disgrace”.

President Ó Dálaigh resigned in the fall-out from these remarks, and now 35 years later Mr Mitchell, who is bidding to become the first ever Fine Gael president, used his visit to Clare to highlight the crucial role the Spanish Point man played in restoring the honour of the presidency in the wake of the crisis that rocked the office.

“I’m not just saying this because I’m in Clare,” Mr Mitchell said during his visit to Ennis, Kilrush and Shannon.

“I’ve said this a lot of times. Dr Hillery restored the presidency after the resignation of Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh.

“And when his own party came looking for him (in January 1982) not to grant a dissolution of the Dáil to the government of the day, he had the experience and the integrity to stand up to that pressure.

“The president is an important person in terms of the independence of the office. The president is like the sentry in the box. Those are the qualities I will bring to the office. I am an independent soul. I made it very clear that I want the support of more than Fine Gael – I need that. I want to reach out to all of the community not just Fine Gael. I need to do that,” he added.

THE horror of September 11 has been recalled this week by a Doonbegman whose daughter escaped with her life thanks to a decision that changed the course of here life in a number of ways.

Claire Ring, daughter of PJ Harvey from Banhsa in Doonbeg, worked in the North Tower of the World Trade Center – her office with Oppenheimer being on the 34th floor.

Harvey was at home in Hyde Park, New York, when the tower was hit at 8.46am that September 11 morning and for a few frantic hours after learning of the terrorist attack sought the whereabouts of his daughter.

“It was incredible,” Harvey told The Clare People this week. “It changed the face of the free world and changed the face of travelling forever. Straight away I said to myself ‘Claire is at work in the World Trade Center, is she safe?’

“Everyone who worked on the 34th floor got out, but the thing was, knowing Claire she would have waited for her friend Jennifer, who worked higher up and who was pregnant. She would have waited just to make sure she was alright. That’s what happened to a good many people. They never thought the whole building would come down and they hung around waiting for friends.

“We got a call to turn on our television and after that we were frantically trying to track her down. We thought she was gone to work – it wasn’t until around 12 o’clock in the day that we found out that she hadn’t gone to work that day, that she had gone to the doctor.

“What a relief that was. Going to the doctor that day probably saved her life – it was the day she found out she was pregnant. She was 31 at the time – she had a lovely baby boy Kyle and has had three more since. We could just thank God,” he adds.

The 70-year-old, who is home on holiday, worked in New York City for many years and was head of the local 608th union, giving work to many people who were subsequently lost in the Twin Towers attack.

“We lost ten carpenters from our union,” he recalls. “We lost two brothers who were working with the financial company Cantor Fitzgerald. A great friend of mine from Fermanagh lost two sons that day. I remember sending them out as apprentices from the 608th Carpenters Union and they went onto work for Cantor Fitzgerald,” adds Harvey.

THE tender process of the € 12.8 million second phase of the Ennis flood relief scheme is at an advanced stage, a meeting has heard.

Under the scheme, flood defences will be improved along the river Fergus from Bank Place to Doora Bridge. Measures introduced in phase one of the scheme ensured large parts of the Ennis town centre were spared from flooding in November 2009.

According to the latest quarterly progress report on Ennis Town Council projects, “the Office of Public Works (OPW) are awaiting pre-contract documentation from the preferred bidder and the OPW will be in a position to proceed with the award of the contract once this is received”.

The report by Town Engineer Eamon O’Dea also provides details on a number of other flood relief scheme currently underway in Ennis. It states that work will start on the Lough Girroga Scheme (Gort Road Industrial Estate) in September and should be finished by early December.

The report continues, “The part 8 planning procedure for the Fioruisce works started on August 26 and will be on display until October 7 with submissions by October 21. The part 8 planning procedure will be before the Council for their consideration in November. The tender process will follow.”

The report states that site investigation is underway at the Watery Road / Elm Park scheme. It adds, “It is expected that the tender process will be completed b the end of November 2011. The commencement date of works will depend on river levels. The Council has a temporary pumping system for the storm drain in place at Watery Road to cater for high river levels until permanent works are in place. The Council monitors the Fergus and Claureen river levels.”

According to the report, detailed design is nearing completion on the St Flannan’s / Tobertascáin – Ballybeg lake flood relief works. Site investigation is currently underway.

Speaking yesterday at a meeting of councillors in the Ennis Electoral Area, Senior Engineer Tom Tiernan said every area hit by flooding in Ennis in 2009 is covered under the current flood relief programme of works. He said the tender process of phase two of the Ennis flood relief scheme was at an advanced stage. Mr Tiernan said a wide range of works are currently underway to ensure Ennis withstands the effects of any future flooding. “An awful lot is happening. It many not be visible but the work is going on. An awful lot is happening,” he added.

FINE Gael presidential election hopeful Gay Mitchell has pledged to do everything in his power to mobilise the party’s troops in the county to ensure he wins the vote in the Clare constituency in the November 27 poll.

Speaking to The Clare People during his whistle stop tour of the three biggest centres in the county – Ennis, Shannon and Kilrush – said the key to his objective was enlisting the services of members of the Fine Gael election machine within the county at a time when the party is the dominant player in Clare politics at local and national level for the first time in its history.

“It’s very important that I get strong support across the board everywhere. I’m in Clare because I want to build on the support that I have in the county.

“I really need that support,” Mr Mitchell told The Clare People .

Clare Fine Gael have an unprecedented four Oireachtas members in Deputies Pat Breen and Joe Carey and Senators Martin Conway and Tony Mulcahy; there are 26 councillors between Clare County Council and Town Councils in Ennis, Shannon, Kilrush and Kilkee, while party also holds the mayoral chains of of- fice in three of the four town councils.

“I’m out here with the Oireachtas members in Clare and the organisation in Clare is fully behind me,” said Mr Mitchell.

“We are one of the few organisations with people in every corner of the country and I need that organisation out behind me.

“We had a two-day meeting of the Fine Gael Parliamentary and we gave a good part of the meeting to stretegy and getting the vote out in each county – getting the vote out in every corner of Clare. I think that’s very important.”

Mr Mitchell secured the Fine Gael party nomination to contest the presidency on July 9 when winning a three-way contest that also involved Pat Cox, who originally hails from Shannon and fellow MEP, Máiréad McGuinness.

Mr Cox, a former TD, MEP and president of the European Parliament, was eliminated on the first count, while Mr Mitchell received 54 per cent of the vote, as against Ms McGuinness 46 per cent in the second count.

“I wouldn’t have sought the nomination if I didn’t think I could win and win the presidential election,” Mr Mitchell told The Clare People . “I believe I can win. The polls will show that in October.

“The reality is that if a story breaks in New York the farmer on a tractor in Clare will hear at the same time as someone in Dublin.

“Society is changing. Ireland is a small country and I think that I can get the vote out. I will be in every corner of Ireland that I can be. I will be back in Clare several times,” added Mr Mitchell.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, 9.58am. Shaun O’Connell is on a stopped subway train, less than a mile from the World Trade Center, when the South Tower collapses – instantly killing more than 300 people.

Shaun, a member New York’s County Clare Association, is a vice president for AFGE Local 1760 and works within sight of the famous Twin Towers. He has spent all morning moving from delayed train to delayed train, inching closer to Ground Zero, until finally, sometime after 9am, all the trains stop moving.

After spending hours trapped in the underground, Shaun finally arrives to City Hall Station and makes his way on foot to his duty station in 26 Federal Plaza – less than half a mile from the World Trade Center. After being refused entrance to his station by FBI agents with submachine guns, Shaun turns for home – still unaware of the magnitude of what has happened.

Below are extracts from an email sent by Shaun to his friends and family on the evening on September 11, 2001.

“I began walking north by northwest to home. I made it to Church Street, a few blocks north of Chambers Street. At this point, I finally witnessed the magnitude of the attack. I looked for the common landmark that so many New Yorkers used to navigate, but it was gone,” he wrote.

“A large dust and smoke cloud was the only thing there. I could not believe it. I was joined by thousands of other stranded people just walking around in disbelief, staring at the void, standing around parked cars with radios blaring the news, and waiting in line for their turn using a pay phone.

“I started walking north up Sixth Avenue seeing people with ash on them and cars caked with dust. I would stop periodically just to look back at the altered skyline.

“When I reached West Third Street, a man was exhorting pedestrians to donate blood at St Vincent’s. I also saw a motorcyclist ferrying a firefighter on the back of his hog. I proceeded to walk to St Vincent’s and saw a mass of people outside waiting to give blood. I was told to just leave my name and telephone number since they were overwhelmed… so I went to find a place to eat and rest. I stopped at McKenna’s bar and saw the TV images for the first time. I quickly ordered a well-done burger and a stout. I was fixated by what I watched.”

On Thursday, September 13, just two days after the terrorist attack, Shaun returned to work – not at his offices on Federal Plaza but in East Harlem, seven blocks away from Ground Zero.

ENNIS lost out on staging Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann for the first time in 35 years by one vote in a nail-biting selection process that took place at the Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann headquarters in Dublin on Saturday afternoon. The Clare People has learned that the Ennis bid were beaten into second place in the three-candidate election by just one vote on the second count of a selection process believed to the closest contest in the 60-year history of the showpiece of the traditional music year.

The Ennis bid to stage the weeklong traditional music spectacular next August, which would have been brought an influx of over 250,000 visitors to Clare and be worth over € 20m to the county, was edged out by Cavan as the host town for 2012 on 14-13 vote.

Three centres were in the running to host the festival – Cavan which staged the 2010 and 2011 events and Sligo, which last hosted Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in 1991 and Ennis, which previously staged the event in 1956 and 1977.

Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireannn sources have revealed that Ennis topped the poll after the first count – garnering ten votes, to Cavan’s nine and Sligo’s eight. However, following the elimination of Sligo from the contest a second ballot saw Cavan edge the vote by the mininum margin.

“It was a great disappointment, because we had obviously done an awful lot of work. We did an excellent presentation and we felt that we couldn’t have done anymore than we did,” said Micheál Ó Riaghaigh, chariman of the Fleadh Cheoil Working Group.

“We were fairly confident. We believed we had done everything to get Fleadh Cheoil. On the other side we were always realistic that we recognised that there were two other strong contenders – Sligo’s was a good bid and Cavan had a very good track record,” he added.

In winning the vote, Cavan will become only the fifth centre to play host to the event for three successive years. The others were Listowel (1985, ’86, ’87), Sligo (1989, ’90, ’91), Clonmel (1992, ’93,’94) and Tullamore (2007 , ’08, ’09).

However, crucially these other centres were automatically given the right to host the festival for the third year in succession because there were no competing bid from other towns.

“There always the chance that we wouldn’t get it and that’s what we were hoping against,” continued Ó Riabhaigh. “It was down to one vote. There are 31 members of the Ard Comhairle and the chairman only exercises a casting vote. There were two or three of the Ard Comhairle who weren’t available for the meeting. It wasn’t on the casting vote.

“We were very close to landing. If we had lost by more than one vote it wouldn’t have reflected the amount of effort, time and commitment given by everybody involved in the whole bid,” he added.

WHEN the dust settles – life must always move on. There are few places in the world which greater embody this spirit than New York City. After the terrorist attacks of September, it would have been all too easy for the people of New York to become paranoid, hard and bitter – always looking over their shoulder for the next potential threat.

But a life lived in fear is no life at all and the spirit of the great melting pot which is New York could not exist without trust and an ability to embrace new people and cultures.

While there has been some who have used the events of September 11, according to Shaun O’Connell, New York is still the city where anything is possible.

“In general, I think that New York is still a welcoming place for people from all backgrounds, but maybe I think that some members of the Muslim community might thing otherwise. At any time where there are moments of fear and moments of the unknown there are certain people who will try to capatilise on it,” he said.

“Like the so-called World Trade Center mosque. I used to do martial arts training in a building two doors down from this Muslim community centre, it does not face the site of the World Trade Center and you wouldn’t even know that you are close to it.

“But we had a lot of right-wing people who were making a fuss of this mosque, which was totally disingenuous. The local people down there were already in favour of the mosque – it had passed muster locally. And then, as soon as the election [the 2008 presidential election] was over, no-one was making an issue about this anymore. So some people have tried to use September 11 for their own aims but for most regular New Yorker this is still a welcoming city.”

While the worlded watch on at the large commemorations and even larger speeches over the weekend, the event was marked for the people of New York in one hundred thousand other small ways.

“I think that as important as it to publicly commemorate this event I thin that a lot of people have been marking this event in their own private way. People will look in from afar and see the larger commemoration, but the things that I notice are a lot more personal that that. Like my neighbour, who is a retired fire captain, he lost scores of friends in 9/11 and was forced to search through the rubble and inhale all of that air when we were told it was clean and safe. He has been forced to retire because of what he inhaled during the rescue,” continued Shaun.

“His wife worked in finance at the World Trade Center and she lost a lot of friends on that day too. Most of the friends that I have in the different Irish organisations are either retired firemen or retired policemen, so they all have a story to tell. So while people might look in from afar and see the commemorations, there are so many personal commemorations going on around the city right now.”

Shaun is a member of the New York County Clare Association. His great-grandfather Patrick O’Connell emigrated from Clooncolman nearly 100 years ago and his nephew Buddy O’Connell, lived on that family farm in Clare until he died five years ago.

ENNIS will play host to Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann at some time in the future, as befitting its status and reputation as being one of the primary homes and melting pots for traditional music in Ireland.

That’s the defiant message being aired this week by members of the broadband coalition of forces that came together to spearhead the county capital’s bid to play host to the 2012 staging of the event.

“It’s a big blow,” the chairman of the Fleadh Cheoil Working Group, Micheál Ó Riabhaigh, admitted this week, but he added defiantly “I would certainly believe that we will come back again.

“We have an excellent location for it. We have done an awful lot of the work. We have proven that we are regarded very highly in terms of a location, so I think it’s inevitable that Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann will come to Ennis,” he added.

“Ennis has a well deserved national and international reputation as a centre in which to enjoy superb tradition Irish music and we still believe it is a perfect fit for this wonderful event. This is not the end of our efforts to secure this prestigious event for Ennis, we will try again,” the Shannon Development chairman, Dr Vincent Cunnane told The Clare People .

The Ennis bid was officially launched last April, after the initial moves to bring the Fleadh back to Clare for the first time since 1977 were first proposed by the Abbey branch of Comhaltas Cheoltóirí Éireann in August of 2011.

The ambitious plans were subsequently backed by Clare Comhaltas, while Shannon Development, Clare County Council, Ennis Town Coun- cil and Clare GAA also rowed in with support.

“Meetings will be held fairly shortly to see where we go from here,” revealed Mr Ó Riabhaigh. “Our working group will meet later this week and we will do a review of the whole thing. The Abbey branch of Comhaltas that put in the initial bid will meet and there will be a meeting of the county board as well.

“I think people will give due consideration to the whole issue and to where we go forward from here. While we have been bitterly disappointed, the amount of work that we have done has been enormous and it has been a huge insight into the whole thing for us. We learned a great deal.

“It was mentioned by Labhrás Ó Murchú at the meeting that both Sligo and Ennis would have been two fantastic venues to stage Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann and while they couldn’t give a commitment that they could allocate it to either town, immediately or in the near future, they felt very much that any one of the two towns would have been deserving winners,” added Mr Ó Riabhaigh.

PARTICIPANTS are gearing up for the 22nd annual Clare Garda cycle, which will set from Ennis on Saturday.

Members of the Clare Garda division will be joined from colleagues in Mayo and Galway for the cycle, which will take in an 84 mile round trip from Ennis to Gort.

This year’s event will raise money for Sláínte an Chláir – Clare Cancer Support – a Kilnamona based group that provides provide support for people living with cancer, their families and friends in a safe, positive, caring and confidential environment.

Clare Cancer Support provides access to information about diagnosis, treatment and care..

Crusheen based Garda Declan Keavey said as many 40 Gardaí will take part in the cycle. He said people could contribute money at their local Garda station or to passing cyclists.

Previous cycles have raised money for Cahercalla Hospice, Clarecare and the Irish Wheelchair Association.

Garda Michael O’Halloran, one of a group Gardaí who organised the first cycle from Ennis to Salthill in 1989, explained that Sláinte an Chláir was chosen this year in memory of two colleagues Mick Mulryan (Scariff) and Sgt Michael Haran (Ennis) who passed away in recent months.

He said the Clare Garda division was delighted to be associated with the group. He said the event had been strongly supported by the Clare public.

“People in Clare are brilliant, absolutely fantastic. Without them it wouldn’t have been a success”, he added.

Ennis woman Teresa Gilmartin, who is in recovery from cancer, praised the high standard of support on offer at Sláinte an Chláir.

“There is a lot of loneliness around after the treatment. It’s like being in a new body to be honest.

“You don’t know what these symptoms mean because they are all different. You’re body has totally changed. Its great to chat to somebody who has been there just to get the re-assurance.”

She added, “Anything they can do they will do. They are just so supportive. They are just the most wonderful people.”

Martin McMahon, treasurer of Sláinte an Chláir, explained that 600 people in Clare are diagnosed with cancer every year.

For further information on Clare Cancer Support, call 1850 211 630 or 087 691 2396 or email admin@clarecancersupport.com