Category: News

A CLARE woman is saving the lives of hundreds of Clare dogs each year by rehousing unwanted Clare animals in Wales. Ennis woman Deirdre Ryan set up Rover Rescue in 2008 and has prevented more then 500 Clare dogs from being destroyed over the last three years.

The charity works by taking in stray Clare dogs, giving them a com- plete medical check, and then transporting them to new homes in Wales or elsewhere in the UK. Stray dogs have virtually been eliminated in the UK over the last ten years meaning that there is now a demand for unwanted Irish dogs.

“These dogs are literally on death row and there is no room for them. Frankie [Cooke, Clare Dog Warden] could have 10 lovely dogs brought into him on one evening and he only has five kennels. So if a home can’t be found quickly for them they will have to be put down. Those are the dogs that I prioritise,” said Deirdre.

“I am doing this in my own home – I live in a terraced house and unfortunately I don’t have lots of room so I depend on a number of dog fosterers who take dogs for days at a time when there is too many. I can keep four or five dogs here and after that I am dependent on help from dog fosterers and from Frankie to hold the dogs until they are ready to be shipped over to the UK.”

Rover Rescue gets a lot of help in preparing animals for transport from Second Chance, Clare Animal Welfare, the Clare SPCA and the Clare branch of the ISPCA.

“I am sending them to quality rescue centres in the UK. If it hasn’t been done already, the dogs will be neutered and will have a full health check before they are placed with a family in the UK. The group will also micro-chip all the animals and will conduct a home check to make sure they are being looked after.”

Deirdre works is the Peter Barks Dog Grooming Parlour and is also the founder of Ennis Dog Club. Anyone who wishes to donate money can lodge funds into the Rover Rescue bank account in Ennis at account number 54547426 and sort code 935387.

Anyone who wishes to help or become a dog fosterer can contact Deirdre on 065 6848684.

A MAN who was involved in a spate of crime in West Clare has been handed a 12-month prison spell.

Stephen Bourke (21), of Moyglass, Crusheen, admitted breaking into two mobile homes and stealing property at Rahona Caravan Park, Carrigaholt, in June 2010.

Kilrush District Court heard that a range of electrical items including a television, DVD player, X-Box and several bottles of alcohol were stolen in the break-ins.

The accused also admitted damaging a car on O’Curry Street, Kilkee, on June 4, 2010.

Garda Ken O’Day told the court that two alloy wheels and spotlights were taken from a car which was parked on O’Curry Street, Kilkee, on the evening in question.

He said that they were later recovered.

“Later the same night, two mobile homes were broken into at a caravan park,” said Gda O’Day.

He said that most of the items were later recovered, except for some of the alcohol.

The court heard that the accused had 80 previous convictions.

Defence solicitor Eugene O’Kelly told the court that his client’s parents had a caravan in the area, but they have been “put out of the caravan park because of the trouble their son has caused”.

He said the accused “has had considerable difficulties with the law over the years. A lot of that has been aligned to addiction and to drink”.

He said that a number of others were in his company on the weekend in question.

“He was not able to resist the promptings of the others to cause trouble,” he said.

Judge Joseph Mangan imposed two six-month jail terms and fixed a bond in the event of an appeal.

GARDAÍ have expressed concerns that an ongoing dispute in Kilrush will escalate.

The comments were made by the head of policing in West Clare, during a court sitting in Kilrush.

Three people are charged under the Public Order Act, arising out of an incident in Kilrush on St Patrick’s Day.

Claire Clancy (45), of Ballynote West, Kilrush; Clare O’Sullivan (23), of O’Gorman Street, Kilrush, and Oliver Dullaghan (19), of Willow Green, John Paul Estate, Kilrush, are all charged with engaging in threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour, at Market Square, Kilrush, on March 17 last.

At Kilrush District Court on Wednesday, Superintendent Gerry Wall said there was an ongoing issue and he was concerned it would escalate.

“The two parties are abusive to each other verbally and are threatening each other. It has history. It’s an ongoing issue.

“I am concerned at the level of the verbals. I have a strong view that these verbals are getting stronger,” said Supt Wall.

He said the allegations concerned “loose talk of a personal nature to each other”.

Judge Joseph Mangan refused free legal aid in the cases of the three accused and adjourned the case for two months.

The court was told that the two females are on one side and the male is on the other.

Supt Wall applied for a bail condition to be attached – that the separate parties stay away from each other.

This was granted by the judge.

A NORTH Clare man has given the Irish film industry a major boost by helping secure the first major international award for Irish documentary The Pipe .

Ennistymon native Eoghan McGuire emigrated from North Clare during the last recession in the 1980s and, after spending some time in America, he went on to live in Würzburg in German.

Once settled in Germany he set up a GAA club, St Kilian’s, and over the past decade a film society has developed in the club during the winter months. In recent years, Eoghan has become very involved in the prestigious Würzburg Film Festival and this year he managed to convince the organisers to bring Irish documentary The Pipe to Germany.

The film was shown at the festival last week and was followed by a talk from director Risteard Ó Domhnaill. The film went down so well that, despite the language barrier, the film was voted Best Documentary by the German audience – the film’s first international award.

“I had heard about The Pipe a long while ago and I managed to get to a screening and to meet the director in Galway. I felt that there was a profound message there and a message that could translated to a German audience,” said Eoghan.

“It is a tale that is definitely worth telling and the theme of a small community up against a big multi-national is something that I though would appeal to the audience over here. This is an audience award, which means it was the film goers and not critics or experts who picked it, so that is important.

“I think that this can be a stepping stone for the film. Once you win an award in one European festival it makes it easier for it to be shown in other film festivals and hopefully that will be the case for The Pipe .

“I normally look for an Irish film that would appeal to the crowd. We like to scout out up and coming Irish films that otherwise might not get the chance to be on the film circuit in Europe. It is as much about encouraging small Irish films into Europe as it is about the festival itself. We don’t have strict criteria; it’s really about bringing quality films over here,” he said. The Pipe beat out competition from a number of German documentaries as well as films from Canada, Switzerland, Finland, Belgium and France to win the award.

SECONDARY school students in Ennis have been learning about the skills needed to succeed in cutting edge world of information technology.

Employees working at Avocent, Shannon, are committing to an initiative which will provide a firsthand insight into the world of work, to senior cycle students from Ennis Community College as part of the Skills @ Work Programme. This programme has been facilitated by the Schools Business Partnership (SBP) and is an initiative of Business in the Community, Ireland (BITC Ireland).

Employees of Avocent will talk to the students about the real-life skills required in the workplace, such as CV writing and interview preparation. They will run ‘A Day in the Life’ session, amongst others, to assist the students in recognising the value of completing the Leaving Certificate and help them explore possible career paths. The students will also be brought on a site visit to the Avocent premises in Shannon and witness the many career opportunities that exist in the industry.

Yvonne Walsh, Leaving Cert Vocational Programme Coordinator (LVCP) at Ennis Community College, explained, “This programme will really help students in fifth year to focus on their strengths and interests and to work towards achieving results that will help them in the next stage of their life whether it is work or further education. We are looking forward to developing the partnership with Avocent over the coming year.”

Barry Healy, HR Manager, Avocent, said, “Avocent are delighted to be partnering with Ennis Community College, to support the students in their final year. Our employees are excited about getting involved and giving the students a taste of our real working lives. It also gives them an opportunity to develop themselves in areas such as team-building, interpersonal and communication skills.”

Dr Eleanor Walsh, Limerick / Clare Regional SPB Co-ordinator added, “In BITC Ireland we are delighted to welcome Avocent to the growing number of companies participating in our programmes and recognise their commitment to the local community. Considering that Avocent is based in Shannon, we are delighted that the students will gain valuable knowledge of the career paths and job opportunities available in their locality.”

Funded under the National Development Plan, The Schools Business Partnership aimed to match 158 post primary schools in Ireland with a local business and achieved that goal in 2009.

APPROACHES will be made to local landowners to see if there is land available to provide a new car park for Killaloe. Angry traders from the lower end of the town attended a meeting last week to demand action on the complete lack of parking for clients, business owners and staff.

The council painted double yellow lines at the bottom of the town late last year to improve traffic flow. But the move left local traders in Royal Parade and Abbey Street with just two set-down spaces for cars.

Business people say the parking ban has had a huge impact on custom and footfall in that part of town.

Business owners have also now learned that the council plans to pedestrianise John’s Lane – which cars are using as a rat run to the traffic lights – and to address parking and safety issues at the boy’s national school. Car-poolers who meet Between The Waters and leave their cars there while commuting to Limerick and Ennis make it difficut to find any parking at the bottom of the town during the day.

TD’s from Clare and Tipperary North who attended the meeting indicated that it is very unlikely that any capital will be made available from the Government’s coffers to provide a car park.

The meeting heard that it was previously suggested that Dean’s Field, which is currently owned by the Church of Ireland, might be a suitable site. This would provide room for about 150 cars.

Officials agreed that they would approach local landowners to see if there is any land available to lease or buy before grappling with the thorny question of funding.

Former councillor, Tony O’Brien, said that the difficulty is that parking is badly needed but road traffic considerations also come into it.

“People want to be able to park and to have parking for their customers at that end of the town but there needs to be a short-term and a long-term solution,” he told The Clare People .

Another meeting will be called when the council engineers have found out what is available.

LONG waiting times for marriage counselling and the lack of a dedicate Clare Family Mediation Service centre is hampering Clare married couples from getting the help they need to save their marriages.

That is according to the Clare Citizen Information Centre (CIC) who believe that Clare marriages are being pushed to the brink of collapse unnecessarily as a result of delays in getting help.

The centre, which this week reported a marked increase in the number of marriage related enquiries over the past seven months, believes that more funding needs to be made available to end waiting lists and cre- ate a branch of the Family Mediation Service in Clare.

“We would be anxious for there to be an end in the waiting times for couples who are looking for counselling. People are waiting longer than they should be and that is not good for a couple whose marriage is in difficulty,” said Paul Woulfe of the Clare Citizens Information Service.

“The services that exist are doing an excellent job but we need to extend the services to Clare and work to end these waiting lists.”

At present any Clare married couples who wish to use the Family Mediation Service must travel to either Limerick or Galway to access free counselling.

Couples counselling is also avail- able from the Accord Agency in Ennis. According to Accord, it takes the majority of people (54 per cent) more than six months to begin relationship counselling after a serious problem has been identified.

The vast majority of people who attend Accord counselling (more then 70 per cent) have young children aged 11 years or younger, while 73 per cent of those who take part in Accord courses felt that they had gained a deeper understanding of themselves through the experience.

Accord in Ennis can be contacted on 065 6824297 or by e-mail at accord.ennis@eircom.net. The closest Family Mediation Service can be contacted in Limerick on 061 214310.

REPRESENTATIVES of the Ennis Development Forum and Ennis Chamber, met with the Minister for Enterprise Richard Bruton TD at the Temple Gate Hotel in Ennis on Friday.

This meeting was organised by the Fine Gael TDs in Clare, Joe Carey and Pat Breen, in order for the business community to discuss the issues affecting enterprise in the county as well as to highlight the initiatives and ideas from businesses to stimulate the economy and so that County Clare is the first county out of recession.

Minister Bruton was presented with the topics which were discussed by the Business Forum in their first meeting with the recently elected Clare TDs held last month. Under these topics Ennis Chamber CEO Rita Mc Inerney and President John Dillane raised the concerns in relation to the Cost of Doing Business and the Retention/Creation of Jobs and in particular the struggle facing businesses to keep their doors open with many not taking a wage and the need to address theses costs through reviewing of how commercial rates are charged, the reduction of bureaucracy for businesses and the need to support new developments in the county.

Brian O’Neill of the Rowan Tree Hostel commended the Government’s review of the Joint Labour Committees in relation to the hospitality industry and the need to incentivise people to work while Martin White of AAA Taxis promoted the idea of buy-back for taxis, the development of Triangle of Clare Tourism Routes and the need to support Shan- non Airport.

Aoife Madden, Chairperson of Ennis Development Forum, explained the Create the Magic customer service initiative for County Clare in how, thorough workshops and collaboration, a pilot group of businesses are setting about making Clare Ireland’s friendliest town.

Local councillor Johnny Flynn profiled the concept of developing Clare as the Low Carbon County through promoting of the Mid-West Corridor as the centre for renewable energy given the resources that already exist in the county such as connection to the national grid and location for wind / hydro power. Revitalising the construction industry was outlined by Michael Leahy of Leahy Conway Architects through introducing grants and streamlining the planning system.

ENNIS is set to reap a major economic benefit from the All-Ireland and International Irish Dancing Championships, which continue in the town this week.

Figures from organisers of An Comhdail show that in 2009, when the competition was last staged in Ennis, the benefit to the local economy was € 5.2 million.

The figure is based on the total level of direct and indirect expenditure that takes place in Ennis and the wider Shannon region during the duration of the event.

The championships, which run in the West County Hotel until Saturday, have also brought about a welcome boost to the hotel industry, organisers say. The total number of bed nights increased steadily between 2007 and 2009, with 12,123 bed nights being recorded when the championships came to Ennis two years ago.

The championship sees the highest standard of solo and team dancing for ages 10 up to senior level. It is an annual event, which runs every year during Holy Week.

Almost 3,000 solo competitors from all over Ireland, England, Scotland, the USA and Slovakia are expected to take part in the championships. Approximately 8,000 to 10,000 friends, relations, teachers and other Irish dancing enthusiasts will support the competitors during the weeklong event. The level of participation in the event has risen over the past number of years.

According to organisers, the economic benefit that the dancing cham- pionships will bring to Ennis and the Shannon region is enormous, with hotels, restaurants, retail outlets, travel agencies, transport companies and other leisure facilities all benefiting from the huge influx of visitors.

The region won the contract ahead of stiff competition from many other Irish regions, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England.

Events, conference and banqueting coordinator at the West County Hotel, Deborah Coughlan explained, “It is great to see the event coming to Ennis. The fact that the motorway is open and that you have the airport (Shannon) so close by was a really big thing. The airport was key.”

Ms Coughlan added, “It has had a very positive impact. I came through the town on Saturday and it was alive and buzzing.”

THINK of tourism in Clare and for many there’s that default setting which doesn’t allow them look much beyond flagship products like the Cliffs of Moher and Bunratty Castle, or the rugged beauty of the Burren or spots along the west coast of Clare from Loophead to Blackhead. But there’s much more – call them hidden tourism/heritage treasures in the eastern part of the county. Hidden because for many outside the east Clare catchment, places like Holy Island, Mountshannon and Killaloe go unnoticed and, to a large extent, untapped.

Maybe it’s precisely because of the fact that the tourism/heritage sector in East Clare doesn’t garner as much publicity as other parts of the county that the Clare VEC saw an opening and opportunity.

“There would be courses done on tourism around the county,” says course co-ordinator Rita McCarthy. “In West Clare and in Ennis, but this one was more specifically related to heritage. It was an introduction to heritage in the area – an introduction to the whole idea of eco-tourism and tourism. In East Clare, there is a lot of interest in the whole eco-tourism side of things. It was to try and work in with that and see where employment opportunities might be in the future. It was important to bring the course to the people.

“If you are unemployed and if you are on unemployment benefit, having to travel into a place like Ennis is very difficult. Travelling costs of € 30 or € 40 is a substantial amount of money. It’s to make it as easy as possible for people,” she says of the VEC Outreach programme.

The pilot project is now nearing its conclusion, with McCarthy attributing its success to the diversity in the participants – the different qualities they brought to the course as indi- viduals working towards their own individual goals, while always working in a team environment.

“The thing about a diverse group is that you get a good social mix,” she says. “You get people who wouldn’t normally meet each other. It brings together knowledge, talent, ability and all sorts of different things. There is the whole thing of networking and getting to know one another. When you go into local areas, you get more dispersed groups and you will get diversity.

“We were looking at this course in the hope that the results would see progression. We wouldn’t have seen it as a course that was going to start and finish. The plan was always to put on another course out there to take it to the next step.

“We tried to focus it around a particular subject – the goal would be that the people on the course would progress on to other types of education. I know one of them said very clearly that he wanted to learn more about computers and learn more about business studies and be much more focused in that area. When you hear that from people and you see the difference in them, that’s when you really know that it has been a success,” adds McCarthy.