Category: News

WEST Clare fared well in the national Tidy Towns results announced yesterday, with two of the three gold medals heading there.

Kilrush and Ballynacally – along with Ennis – took gold medals, having recorded impressive results.

Ballynacally recorded the county’s second highest score of 305 points (Ennis earned 307), which was just five points behind the overall national winners Killarney. Kilrush re- ceived 303 points. Kilrush increased their scores from last year by three and improved in the areas of landscaping, litter control and the built environment.

A three-point increase was also handed to Ballynacally, which increased points in the areas of landscaping, the built environment and wildlife and natural amenities.

The adjudicators were pleased with both areas and described Ballynacally as “a lovely rural village still retaining a good quantity of traditional farm buildings”.

“Ballynacally is a charming village retaining its original character and scale while developing a modern style and outlook,” noted the adjudication report.

In Kilrush, the adjudicators noted the improvement in the town, where “new buildings superbly integrated alongside the fine old structures”. St Senan’s Church and the grotto were pointed out, having impressed the adjudicators, who described the town’s work as a “truly wonderful effort”.

“The Vandeleur Walled Gardens are a unique attraction and the resurfacing of the access road here is an impressive project,” noted the adjudication report.

“Kilrush has a large number of incidental open spaces widely dispersed throughout the town and they are presented to a high standard. The production of bedding plants is an admirable scheme. Your plans to develop more sustainable planning augur well for the future,” added the report.

THE PEOPLE of Bridgetown were over the moon last night after scooping their very first accolade in the national Tidy Towns competition.

Bridgetown won the endeavour award after increasing its score from 254 points last year to 259 this time around. The success was put down to the strong community spirit locally.

The adjudicators visited Bridgetown in June and were very happy with the work done by the small committee in the village which is populated by around 200 people.

Points were increased in a number of categories including landscaping; wildlife and natural amenities; litter control; waste minimisation and also the condition of the residential areas.

Chairperson of the Tidy Towns committee, Mary Duggan said this was the first award during 15 years’ participation in this competition. It comes on foot of the area winning first place in its category in the countywide ‘Clare in Bloom’ competition earlier in the year.

“We are delighted. We didn’t expect anything,” said Ms Duggan. “We have a lovely green area, lovely church grounds and school grounds. They are all top class,” she said.

Mary works closely with Tony Horan, Brid Drew and Aidan Toomey in ensuring the locality looks its best all year round.

“We just kept going with the high standard of what we have been doing over the years. It’s all about commitment really,” she said.

“We focused on grass cutting, keeping the kerbs litter free and painting the creamery,” she said.

The adjudicators were pleased with a number of initiatives undertaken by the local committee and stated that the village green has a “striking appearance”.

“Bridgetown village has an attractive layout radiating out from the old stone bridge on both sides,” the adjudication report noted.

It congratulated the local primary school on securing a green flag. “It was good to see one (Green flag) flying proudly this year. We congratulate all concerned on this achievement,” stated the report.

The Church and adjoining burial grounds were praised, while the Marian Grotto was described as pro- viding a “welcoming atmosphere”.

“The various approach roads are certainly your strength and have a lovely variety of stone walls, hedgerows and mature trees. The Clonboy Estate approach is spectacular and still retains its original formal character. The sloping green at the village centre is a delight and makes an immediate visual impact on the visitor,” stated the adjudicators, in their report.

“Your successful liaison with the local school is heartening and perhaps bodes well for the future,” added the report.

SHANNON improved by three points in their Tidy Towns scoring this year, much to the delight of the hard-working committee.

A core group of four or five people meet at the town hall every Monday night and focus on keeping the town as clean as possible. Their efforts were rewarded when the results were announced yesterday evening, when 275 points were awarded, compared with 272 last year.

Improvements were made in a number of areas including landscaping, wildlife and natural amenities and litter control, while the residential areas impressed the adjudicators. The overall development approach dropped by one point this year – it moved down from 47 points to 46 out of a maximum of 50.

The PRO of the Tidy Towns committee in the town, Olive Bowen, said the result pleased everybody. “We are delighted. It is very, very hard to get a point. We are thrilled. Seven or eight years ago we were losing points. There was a lot of construction then. To go up three is excellent,” she said. “The focus now is back to work, no celebrating! We love doing it. We have great old banter,” said Olive. “Hail, rain or snow, we will meet at the Town Hall at 7 o’clock every Monday night.”

Among those who help out every week are founding member Tess Barry, her son Fintan, Olive Bowen, Gerry Fogarty and Joe Hogan.

The adjudicators’ report congratu- lated the committee on liaising with the local schools to improve the area. The hotels and restaurants were praised for their various features and colour co-ordination.

“Your committee has undertaken an impressive amount of planting. The flower beds along Bóthar Mór provide a nice splash of colour and impress the visitor on arrival. The town has vast areas of green spaces and parks and these were generally well maintained and presented to a high standard,” noted the adjudicators. “The landscaping presentation at the Town Hall was excellent and set a very high standard. A fine feature of the town is the many well presented Irish name signs,” added the report.

The information board on flora and fauna near the Wetlands project was also congratulated and was described as “educational”.

“As a rural town, Shannon is rich in natural wildlife, green areas and habitats and perhaps a good way of raising awareness of environmental issues amongst the local community would be for the committee to further liaise with the local schools to encourage local wildlife surveys,” advised the adjudicators.

The committee was congratulated for its efforts on litter control. The residential areas throughout the town were also praised for their good standard of presentation and maintenance. “Your ongoing promotion of estates competitions is a very good initiative and can only have an increased beneficial effect over time,” stated the report.

THE Tidy Towns Committee in Corofin has seen a massive influx of new members over the past 12 months. These new members, along with a core group of experienced locals, have helped guide the village to an impressive 254 points in this year’s competition.

“We have managed to pack about five years’ work into one year so we are very happy. It’s been a great year, a lot of new people have come on board and that has really helped take it to the next level,” said Marie Nealon of the Corofin Tidy Towns Committee.

“We’ve also had a lot of skilled local professionals, stonemasons and wall builders, who gave their time for free to the Tidy Towns which re- ally helped as well.

“It is great to have the competition to focus on. These results will help us get an idea of what we need to work on for future years. They will give us something to build on and something that we can aim to improve on next year and the year after.”

The Corofin Tidy Towns group meets every Tuesday and Wednesday evening in the car park beside the Corofin Hostel from 7pm. Everyone is welcome.

A LIBYAN man who has lived in Ennis for almost 12 years has recalled how he made a dramatic escape from the fallen regime of Muammar Gadaffi.

Salaheddin Attia Elkurdi, a former aircraft engineer with the Libyan air force, recently returned to Ennis af ter spending a couple of weeks in his home town of Benghazi, providing logistical support for the rebel army there.

Despite the volatility and danger that still exists in parts of Libya, Salaheddin says, “I returned to my country to see what happened and to see my family. I found everything okay. People need to help the country.”

A former student at Clare VEC adult education centre, Salaheddin moved to Ennis after escaping the Gadaffi regime in the late 1990s.

After studying in the Soviet Union, Salaheddin became an officer in the Libyan air force. In 1981 he and members of the armed forces were accused of plotting a coup. He spent eight years in a Libyan prison before being among a group of hundred or so prisoners released in 1988 following pressure from the United Nations. He lived in Libya but remained under the watch of the regime. After being interrogated by Gadaffi forces in 1997, Salaheddin feared for his life. He fled to Turkey and eventfully made it to Ireland in 1999. He admits that he is lucky to be alive.

He was one of the first refugee students to study at the adult education centre in 2001. Salaheddin, who has since gained Irish citizenship, studied electronics with FÁS and was offered a place at Limerick Institute of Technology.

A married father of two, both of Salaheddin’s children attend primary school in Ennis. He says, “Ireland is my country. The hospitality from people in Ennis is very good.”

Salaheddin hopes to return to live with his family in Libya.

He adds, “The people are okay. The people are excited. When it started, the people fight for freedom and they die for freedom. They don’t think about themselves. They fight and many of our friends die. Our family also have some people that died, but it’s nothing for the freedom of Libya. I think if a million people die in this war, it’s nothing for Libya.”

CONFIRMATION that the opening of Loophead Lighthouse as a visitor centre has been the story of the 2011 tourism year in Clare was heralded this week with the news that over 17,000 people have paid into the facility in the six weeks since it was opened to the public. The Clare People has learned that the new tourism venture at Clare’s most westerly tip has netted over € 50,000 in revenues since it was opened to the public on July 18 last – a huge surge of numbers and revenues that has prompted the project promoters to keep the facility opened for a further month.

The lighthouse was due to close on Sunday last, September 4, but will now remain open for the rest of the month as tourism in West Clare reaps the benefits of opening of the facility to the public that was two years in the making after it was first suggested by way of a motion to Clare County Council by Loophead councillor Gabriel Keating in July 2009.

The opening of the lighthouse to visitor traffic for the first time in its 117-year history is a pilot project being pioneered by Clare County Council in conjunction with Loophead Tourism, Shannon Development and the Commissioners of Irish lights.

Traffic figures secured by The Clare People this week have revealed that over 17,000 people have paid € 3 a head to visit the tower of the lighthouse helping push revenues past the € 50,000 mark while over 20,000 have grounds of the Commissioners of Irish Lights owned facility.

“We believe this is another major step in enhancing West Clare’s tourism product offering,” said Shannon Development’s tourism officer Siobhan King said this week.

“Our work on the Loop Head Lighthouse project is part of a range of initiatives that we have undertaken this year in West Clare which include new loop walks in Lissycasey and Kilkee, with more proposals in the pipeline. We look forward to welcoming an increased number of visitors to the area,” she added.

IRELAND’S last living matchmaker, Willie Daly, says he is the man to find a fourth husband for lovelorn singer Sinead O’Connor.

O’Connor, who says she is looking for an older man, with “leather trouser-wearing gardaí” and farmers a special fancy, last month admitted that she would have joined an online dating service long ago but feared that the media would find out and scupper her chances of love.

With the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival just getting underway, Willie Daly believes that he would have no problem finding a match for O’Connor.

“Over the years, quite a lot of celebrities have come and attended the festival. They would be surprised themselves about how much they would be attracted by a lot of the people attending the festival. The men and women who come to the festival do get on very well together and maybe people can be reluctant to go up to someone who might be that bit famous,” said Willie.

“Sometimes people are put off by the bit of celebrity but Sinead O’Connor seems like a lovely person. She sounds like a very down-to-earth person and that is what the people who come to the festival are looking for. Lisdoonvarna is a real holdinghands kind of place. Maybe later on in the night they might have other thoughts but early in the evening it is a very romantic little town.”

This year’s festival got underway over the weekend and will continue for the next five weeks. According to Willie Daly, the people contacting the matchmaking service this years are more serious and more interested in marriage.

“The festival builds up bit by bit each week and we did get a lot of people already this weekend. We got a lot of serious people, people looking for marriage. In the past, anyone who would come early might have been looking for fun but it really seems like marriage is back in a bit way, much more than in the last four or five years anyway,” said Willie.

“I think that the need for security has crept back in. If people are on the dole or they have low incomes, I think that maybe they feel that two incomes are better than one. We did a lot of introductions last weekend we introduced a lot of people on Saturday and Sunday night.

“We’ve had a lot of women down this weekend. Maybe there will be more men as the week goes on. We are looking for a nice balance but at the moment we have a lot of women interested.”

WEST Clare tourism has received a huge shot in the arm this week thanks to the decision by Shannon Development to keep the its tourist office in Kilrush open for a month longer than previous years.

The move by the state agency to keep the tourist office that located on Frances Street in town comes on the back of what was a good tourist season in West Clare and the expectation that this strong showing can continued for the month of September.

Shannon Development, which has responsibility for operating tourist centres in Kilrush, Kilkee and Ennis, confirmed that extended opening hours had been put in pace in at the Kilrush centre “to meet a demand that’s out there for the service”.

And, The Clare People can reveal that the success of the Loophead Lighthouse initiative has been the main driving force for ensuring that tourism in the West Clare catchment area has been boosted in 2011.

“The Kilrush Tourist Information Office was due to close at the beginning of September but with the phenomenal success of the Loop Head Lighthouse in attracting visitors to the area we have decided to extend the opening until the end of September,” revealed Siobhan King, Shannon Development Tourism Officer for the county.

“We are doing this to facilitate additional visitors who are being drawn to the area. To-date almost 15,000 visitors have been attracted to this wonderful heritage site and we intend to do all we can to maximise on this.”

The tourist office was to close last Wednesday, August 31, but will now remain open for seven days a week on the back of the success of the Loophead initiative. It’s opening hours are 10am to 1pm and 2pm to 6pm from Monday to Saturday and from 10am to 2pm on Sundays.

Meanwhile, the Shannon Development operated tourist centre in Kilkee has closed after a three-month season. It re-opened on June 1 last and operated from 9.30am to 5.30pm from Tuesday to Saturday of each week, despite fears locally that there would be reduced opening hours which would eventually lead to its permanent closure.

Now after a successful season, the local Chamber of Commerce is set to ramp up its campaign to have the tourist office moved from its traditional O’Connell Street home to the newly renovated Sweeney Memorial Library, which is set to re-open in 2012.

AIR QUALITY issues have emerged yet again in Shannon, according to local residents in the town.

The town has been plagued by concerns over unsavoury smells emanating in recent years. In March of this year, the Environmental Protection Agency put monitoring measures in place and recorded a result of ‘good’ at the time. This was upgraded to the top possible result of ‘very good’ last month, and the latest figures are set to be made available later this week.

The EPA’s mobile laboratory, which is located in the town, actively analy ses the quality of air in the town and surrounding areas. This is part of a comprehensive assessment of air quality in all major cities and towns in Ireland.

However, Fine Gael Senator Tony Mulcahy, who first brought the issue to the public’s attention several years ago, said that there have been several complaints in recent weeks over odours. “We have a very bad sewage smell and an unsavoury pungent odour. I have had complaints from Smithstown and the lower half of the town; Ballycasey and Tullyvarraga. I am getting a very bad sewage smell myself,” said Mr Mulcahy, who lives in the town. “I am getting complaints about a pungent odour at weekends. A few people have rang me with the same thing,” he said.

“If it is a sewage issue we need it cleaned up as soon as possible. We need it identified,” he said. “Up until now there hasn’t been an issue but in the last two weeks there has been a smell. We had a similar issue last year. It is something we need to resolve. We need to establish where they are coming from,” said Mr Mulcahy.

When the EPA announced the measure in March, it indicated that the initiative would continue for up to a year. The assessment was started, on foot of requests from local town councillors. This 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.

In addition to the trailers that are moved from one location to another, there is also a fixed network whereby a number of sites nationwide are monitored on a continuous basis. One of those sites is Ennis. Concentrations of oxides of nitrogen, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and benzene and toluene are being measured. The index is based on four parameters – sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone and particulate matter.

According to data from the EPA, there was one exceedance of particulate matter to-date this year.

THREE local companies will be rewarded for their ingenuity this Thursday with the first ever Innovation in the Community Awards. The awards, which are being organised by Gort solicitor and cleric abuse campaigner Eileen McMahon, aim to recognise local businesses who use the natural resources available in the west of Ireland to good effect.

The identity of the three shortlisted business are as yet unknown but they are drawn from more than a dozen local companies in Clare and South Galway.

“One of my interests in dealing with people who suffered from trauma. When I set up my complementary health business, I tried to source products from Ireland and the local areas and there wasn’t really anything around. I had to import everything from the UK. I think we should be using more of our resources and trying to creat things which are based locally. That is what sparked the idea,” said Eileen. “I was interest in any ideas from the community. Whether someone is a cleaner or the head of a million pound company, there is no telling where the good ideas will come from. Often times it is people in the front line of a business, people who are dealing with a problem on a daily basis, are the people who are able to find a good way of getting around that problem.”

The awards night will take place at the Lady Gregory Hotel in Gort this Wednesday from 7pm. The guest speakers on the night will include Bobby Kerr from the Dragon’s Den, Eileen herself and Richard Griffin, who is a specialist in power generation. “The idea of the competition is to get people to think. For them to look around their area and think how they could survive if they couldn’t get something from outside their area,” continued Eileen.

“The idea is to help local people who have good ideas to be able to take that idea forward. A lot of companies are coming into Ireland and setting up, and that is fine but I think we need to look more about creating something for ourselves.”

Winners of the competition will be announced on the night. For information or to book a table for the finals night call 091 632426.