Category: News

AN Ennis man who is studying horticulture was un-successful in his attempts to grow a cannabis producing plant, a court has heard.

Rory Mythen (25), with an address at Fergus Manor, Ennis, appeared at Ennis District Court on Friday charged with the cultivation of a cannabis plant.

The court heard that when Gardai entered 18 Fergus Manor in August 2010, they discovered the plant along with a small amount (value € 20) of cannabis.

Solicitor for the accused, Daragh Hassett, told the court that his client and his girlfriend had co-operated fully with Gardaí. He said the canna- bis had been for his client’s personal use. He added that the plant discovered by Gardaí “was on its last legs” and would not have been able to produce cannabis.

He said the “ultimate irony” of the incident was that Mr Mythen’s area of expertise was horticulture.

Mr Hassett told the court that his client, who has no previous convictions, had purchased cannabis seeds over the Internet. He said his client had been accepted to study horticulture at college and that cannabis “no longer plays a part in his life”.

Judge Joseph Mangan ordered that the man and his girlfriend make a donation of € 200 to the court poor box. He dismissed the charges under the probation of offenders act.

A JUDGE has described the taking of ladies’ handbags from pubs as “a particularly mean type of theft”.

Judge Joseph Mangan made the comment as he imposed a two month suspended sentence at Ennis District Court on Friday.

Carrie Brigdale (21), with an address at Cappamore, Barefield, and currently living in Cork city, appeared in court, charged with taking a black ladies handbag, valued, along with cash at € 220, from Ciarán’s Bar, in Ennis on December 22 (2010).

The property was subsequently recovered and Ms Brigdale pleaded guilty to the offence.

Solicitor for the accused, Tara Godfrey, told the court that her client had suffered with a significant heroin problem in the latter half of 2010.

She said she is now receiving treatment and counselling for her addiction.

Handing down a two month suspended sentence, Judge Mangan said the theft of handbags was “a particularly mean type of theft”.

He ordered that the defendant enter a bond to keep the peace for two years.

THE number of people signing on to the live register in Clare reduced in every social welfare office around the county last month.

For the first time in more than three years, the numbers signing on the live register last month was lower than the numbers signing on for the corresponding month in the previous year – indicating that the unemployment level in the county may finally be coming under control.

Hope has also been raised that the numbers signing in Clare could fall below 10,000 for the first time since September of 2009 when the May figures are released next month.

In total, 10,419 people signed on to the live register in April, a reduction of 205 from the number who signed on in March. Last month was the third straight month that the number signing on reduced in the county.

The largest reduction was seen in Ennistymon, where 1,610 people signed on last month – a reduction of 87 on the previous month. These reductions were echoed in Ennis, where 5,871 people signed on – a reduction of 80 on the numbers signing on for March of 2011.

Similar reductions were also seen in Kilrush and in Tulla.

These latest reductions means that the numbers signing on in the county has fallen by more than five per cent since the beginning of the year.

A 36-YEAR-OLD woman lost her life when her car left the road and struck a tree near Shannon in the early hours of Saturday.

Aileen O’Brien, who lived in Raheen, Limerick, and worked at Servisair in Shannon Airport, died when her Peugeot 206 smashed into a tree at Hurler’s Cross, shortly before 5am.

The tragic accident occurred on the main N18 Limerick to Galway road, just a few miles from her place of work.

She was pronounced dead at the scene. A post mortem examination was later carried out at Limerick Regional Hospital.

Gardaí are investigating the possibility that she may have swerved to avoid an animal on the road.

Ms O’Brien is survived by her husband Wayne, parents Stephen and Margaret, her brother Denis and sister Ciara. She will be buried in her native Pallaskenry tomorrow, Wednesday. Ms O’Brien was the first person to die on the county’s roads so far this year. She had recently told her family that she and her husband were expecting their first child.

Gardaí in Shannon are investigating the accident and are appealing for witnesses to contact them on 061 361212.

A NORTH Clare river ran dry in May for the first time in living memory following the unprecedented month-long dry spell experienced by the county.

The Cahir River, which enters the sea at Fanore in North Clare, dried up in late April and has remained dry for the last 10 days. The river drains hundreds of acres of the Cahir Valley, located between Ballyvaughan, Lisdoonvarna and Fanore, and is normally a fast flowing river at this time of the year.

According to Fanore native and local historian, Kevin McCormack, the river has on occasion run dry for a few days during a very hot summer – in late July or early August – but has never before run dry so early in the year.

“It is something that has never happened before at this time of the year. The river ran dry and has stayed dry for the last 10 days. There still is a small bit of water in the river further up in the stream but that has all seeped away before it gets down to the lower parts of the river,” he told The Clare People. Meanwhile fire services across the county have been stretched to breaking point in recent weeks as the recent dry spell has caused an “unprecedented” number of gorse, bog and grass fires across the county.

Clare’s Chief Fire Officer, Adrian Kelly, has condemned anyone who had started a fire deliberately in Clare in recent weeks.

“Such reckless actions have placed the lives of both members of the local community and also firefighters at risk. These fires have also destroyed hundreds of acres of gorse land, forestry and bogs, with negative consequences for property, tourism and wildlife,” he said.

Last month, the highest temperature record anywhere in Ireland was recorded in Clare.

THE business community in North Clare is bucking the national trend with four new businesses in Ennistymon opening their doors to the public over the last number of weeks.

This follows last Friday’s official opening of Banner Books on Parliament Street in the town, an event which comes hot on the heels of the opening of the Twinkle Toes shoe shop, cafe and arts venue The Blue Frog Cafe and the Upstairs Downstairs charity and second-hand shop.

According to Gerry Harrison, owner of Banner Books, the recession can be the perfect time to open a new business.

“There is a saying that there is no better time to start a new business than in a recession because the only way you can go is up.

“I don’t know if that is going to be true for myself or for the other new businesses in town but it is certainly encouraging to me to see that four new businesses have opened in Ennistymon in recent weeks,” said Gerry.

“I like Ennistymon very much and this is the fifth premises that I have looked at in the town. What I found was that, despite the recession, land- lords were extremely unwilling to drop their rents.

“You would assume that, given the recession and the fact that a lot of units are empty, people would be willing to drop their very high rents. It was difficult to find somewhere that was affordable.”

Banner Books will sell a large selection of second-hand books as well as a large selection of new local books and books about the Burren.

“The shop won’t be anything like a high street bookshop. Myself and Marcia, who has a lot of experience selling second-hand books in San Francisco, will not only greet the customers a little bit more warmly [than major high street booksellers] but will also have a large amount of knowledge about all the books which will be on the shelves,” continued Gerry.

“As well as that, we will have jazz playing on the sound system to help make people who want to come in and browse a little bit more comfortable.

“It is something a little bit different for Ennistymon and for County Clare. It is something a bit off-thewall and a bit non-typical.”

Gerry is a former Labour Party politician in London but moved to Clare to open a bookshop with his wife in 2006.

THE hero bus driver who jumped into a Kilnamona river to save a 60-yearold-woman from drowning says that anyone would have done the same thing under the circumstances.

Mike Goggins was taking a busload of American tourists from the Cliffs of Moher to Ennis when he came upon a serious car accident on the N85, at a location which was described yesterday as the “worst stretch of national secondary road in Ireland”.

Mike, who works for Paddywagon Tours, came upon the single-vehicle accident in which a car had left the road and landed, upside down, in the Shallee River. The bus driver leapt from his bus and down a 10-foot incline into the river where he freed the woman who had become trapped in her car, which was taking on water.

“There wasn’t any time to think but when you come across something like this, you don’t need to think, you just go. I was the first one down there but I think that if someone else had been there they would have been straight down there too,” the Kerry based driver told The Clare People yesterday.

“I jumped out and went straight down the bank. I thought the car was a large people carrier – so I was shouting into the car, asking were there any children inside. I could hear muffled sounds from the woman who said that there weren’t any children. The car was wedged perfectly into the river and the woman could not open the doors. I went around the back where the window was smashed, cleaned out some of the glass and went in. She was upside down and wedged in between the two seats and hanging from her seat belt.

“I tried to get her to stop moving because I wasn’t sure if she had a spinal injury but she was struggling and mov- ing a lot so I knew there wasn’t anything wrong with her spine. I got her out of the back seat and out of the back window of the car.”

According to Cllr James Breen (IND), a Kilnamona native, the road where the accident took place will claim a life in the future if safety works are not done.

“This is without doubt the worst stretch of national secondary road in Ireland. This road has been brought to the NRA’s attention in the past and they need to allocate some money for essential safety works before a very serious accident takes place here.” CLARE LADIES football team were resigned to being without star forward Eimear Considine for their Division 3 final against Fermanagh last Saturday as Eimear had exams in the University of Limerick on the morning with the game scheduled for a 1.45pm throw-in. A prolific scorer, the PE and Irish student in UL had played a starring role in Clare’s march to the final. But cometh the hour, cometh the Armada! John Burke of the Armada Hotel came to the rescue, flying Considine from the University of Limerick to Weston Aerodrome via helicopter before she was whisked to Parnell Park in time for the 1.45pm throw-in. It was worth the trip as the Kilmihill star hit 1-1 from play over the hour to more than play her part in Clare’s narrow win. It was a double celebration this weekend as Eimear also turned 20 on Sunday. For confidential enquiries call:

SHANNON Airport chiefs have turned to the business public for ideas and input into the formulation of a new masterplan for the development of the airport over the next decade.

The unprecedented decision to turn to business leaders in Clare in an effort to come up with the best possible plan to drive the airport going forward comes in the wake of the worst passenger figures recorded at Shannon in many years. The Clare People has learned that the new initiative, being spearheaded by Shannon Airport management, with the imprimatur of the DAA that governs the airport, began on April 28 last when business groups in Clare and beyond were invited to a think-tank aimed at kickstarting renewed development at Shannon.

“The new masterplan will provide a framework to ensure timely delivery of infrastructure,” documentation secured by The Clare People this week says.

“The Master Plan is required to enable DAA to provide a clear direction for the Airport to ensure it develops in a strategic way so that the potential of all aspects of the business are optimized,” a Shannon Airport spokesperson said on Monday.

“A key element in drafting such a plan is to elicit the opinions of airport stakeholders,” he added.

The move to plan for Shannon’s future has also been heralded in light of the fact that the current blueprint for the former hub of the aviation world is over a decade old and, in that time, passenger numbers have fallen sharply.

In February, confidential Dublin Airport Authority figures revealed that passenger numbers at Shannon dropped dramatically and were approaching levels not seen since the early 1990s. In January, 92,000 passengers passed through the airport, a 37.4 per cent drop on the same month in 2010.

This figure comes on top of a similarly poor performance at the airport for the full 12 months of 2010 when 1,755,900 passengers used the airport, 37.2 per cent down on the 2,794,563 passengers that used the facility in 2009.

Shannon has experienced a 52 per cent drop since its peak in 2006, when 3,639,046 passengers used the airport, and 2010 passenger numbers were similar to 1996 levels.

The figures also forecast that if the rate of decline experienced in January continued throughout 2011, then the airport will only handle 1.1 million passengers for the year, a figure not experienced in 20 years. The Clare People can reveal that strict criteria have been laid out for the formulation of the new plan. Business groups in Clare have until this Friday to make submissions to the airport authorities.

Under the timeline schedule set down by the airport authorities, the identification of Shannon’s future requirements will be formulated in June in time for the completion of a draft plan in July, while the final masterplan will be completed and published in September.

A GROUP of Clare parents have vowed to continue to fight to improve services for children with diabetes.

It is estimated that 3,500 children have type one diabetes; almost 100 of who are from Clare. Those children are referred to Galway or Limerick for treatment, while several are sent to Dublin.

Last Wednesday, a national campaign was launched in an effort to improve support for children with diabetes and the Clare branch is playing an integral role in this.

Secretary of the Diabetes ac- tion Advocacy Campaign in Clare, Gráinne Flynn is involved in a campaign to improve services for people with disabilities.

“Type one is the type of diabetes that just comes out of nowhere. It is the less common type. It is a grass roots campaign in that it encourages people in the community to encourage others to get involved,” said Ms Flynn.

She said the campaign is aimed at ensuring more resources are made available to assist children with type one diabetes.

“In Clare, children with type one diabetes are either referred to the diabetes pediatric centre in Limerick or Galway and because the services for children with diabetes in Ireland are generally very poor, the services in Galway and Limerick are under resourced,” she said.

“Parents need a more complete service,” she added.

“When parents start to demand better care they are referred to the three centres in Dublin and they can’t cope with the added pressures. It’s a vicious circle,” she said.

“We are looking for the establishment of eight diabetes paediatric networks to deliver care in Ireland. That would mean that the centres in Limerick and Galway are properly staffed and resourced. They are not at the moment,” she added.

“Children and adolescents with diabetes should attend a hospital four to five times a year to monitor their diabetes. Because some children are referred to Dublin, they have to take a full day off school to attend their appointments,” she said.

“The fact that these centres are not fully resourced means that 50 per cent of the children with type one diabetes will develop long-term complications of diabetes like kidney disease, eye damage or nerve damage,” she added.

THE Killone Group Water Scheme will be forced to cease production in the coming weeks due to a lack of funding, the scheme’s chairman has warned.

Murt Redington said the scheme is in a “severe financial predicament” and he has described the situation as “becoming critical”.

The Killone plant, which was built at a cost of around € 900,000 in 2007, serves an estimated 3,000 homes, farms and commercial businesses in the wider Clarecastle area.

Mr Redington’s concerns are outlined in a letter to councillors, TDs and officials at Clare County Council.

He writes, “It appears from our projections that water production will have to cease in or about mid-May unless the subsidies held and capital works grants due to us are paid to us. As we intend to hold an EGM / AGM in the near future, we will be informing members of the group scheme of these difficulties.”

In the letter, Mr Redington requests the support of local representatives as a “matter of urgency”.

He adds, “As mentioned above, our current projections are to midMay but, in the event of unforeseen circumstances, we may be forced to cease pumping due to funding insufficiency.”

The matter of funding for the scheme was raised by Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) at yesterday’s meeting of councillors in the Ennis East Electoral Area.

Ennis Town Manager and Director of Service at Clare County Council Ger Dollard, told the meeting that discussions are ongoing between representatives from the Killone Group Water Scheme and the Council’s water services section.