Category: News

THERE were celebrations at Ennis College of Further Education on Friday as over 100 QQI Level 5 Certificates were presented to graduates across a range of courses.

The college is part of the Ennis Community College campus, which has a long tradition of Post Leaving Certificate and Further Education in Clare. The certificates related to courses in Legal Studies, Business Studies, Childcare, Special Needs Care, Nursing Studies, Community & Health Services, Office Administration/Medical Secretary and, for the first time, Health Science, Physiology & Sport.

Friday’s presentations were made by Ms Catherine O’Sullivan, FETAC External Authenticator, who congratulated the group and highlighted the currency of their awards for further education and in the workplace.

Mr John Cooke, Principal of En- nis Community College, praised the class for their dedication and hard work. He highlighted the fact that QQI qualifications open the door to third level for many students as they are accepted by the CAO as part of the Higher Education Links Scheme.

“These courses offer a wide range of employment opportunities and many of this year’s graduates have already secured employment in offices, crèches, nursing homes and sports facilities,” he added.

He also announced two new programmes which will begin in September: Level 6 Early Childhood Care and Education will enable learners to take on a supervisory role in an Early Childhood Education setting; Level 6 Business delves into business management and will offer a strong foundation for anyone wishing to take on a responsible role in business or pursue further studies at third level. These new programmes have been introduced as follow-on training from Level 5 courses.

TRUMP International Golf Links and Hotel Ireland are to lay off staff during the winter months, but this, according to the resort’s manager Joe Russell, has been the practice for the last number of years.

“In fact we will have more people employed on the course this year that we have since we opened in 2002,” he said.

Last week Donald Trump visited his Doonbeg resort where he selected the site for the new banqueting and event centre and asked Mr Russell to proceed with plans for the review.

“Mr Trump’s visit went well. We spent a lot of time on the golf course and around the facility.

“He was very impressed with the facility, its location and the service and hospitality he received.

“Besides the radio and TV interviews he had, he spent a long time in our public areas meeting and taking photographs with people throughout the day,” said the Doonbeg boss.

During these press interviews Mr Trump promised hundreds more “good jobs”.

However after his departure during the week news broke that staff would be let go during the winter months.

“As discussed with all our employees last Wednesday and has occurred in the past number of years, we are scaling back our operations in the winter to weekends only in November and December, and in January and February we will close hotel operations only.

“The Christmas market and Christmas period will be open because they are well attended and when people use their vacation time to visit our facility,” explained Mr Russell.

“This is not something new for us or hotels on the west coast of Ireland given the level of business at this time of the year.

“Check out what my five star star competitors are doing in Kerry,” he said. “As you will have heard, we are doing a lot of work on our golf course due to the winter storm damage and we will continue our work for the season ahead and into the winter. His objective is to make our course the best golf course in Ireland.”

THE storms which battered the Clare coast in January and February have caused Seamus Heaney’s swans to abandon their habitual home on Lough Murree on the Flaggy Shore in North Clare.

Large flocks of both whooper and mute swans have made the lake their home for hundreds of years – with its unusual location as a fresh water lake situated within 20 feet of the ocean attracting bird life of many kinds.

These swans were immortalised in Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Postscript’, in which he said the natural beauty of the area and the swans had the power to “catch the heart off guard and blow it open”.

Following this winter’s storms, North Clare locals reported a dramatic change of colour in the lake, which has turned a black/brown colour. In recent weeks the famous swans have also abandoned the lake.

While the whooper swans traditionally migrate to Iceland around this time every year, the disappearance of the mute swans is being blamed on the discolouration of the lake.

According to John Murphy of Clare Birdwatching, this was possible cause by a large quantity of seaweed being swept into the freshwater late during the storm, effectively pickling the water and killing off the vegetation.

“The reason there are no swans there this year is because of the storms, it was too exposed,” he said.

“I would imagine that a lot of seaweed was washed into the lake [during the storms] that is decaying and causing the change in colour. That will continue to decay and breakdown over the summer month and it will actually be of benefit to some birds in the area.

“Over the summer the salt water will evaporate out and the fresh water will come in and balance the lake out again. If we don’t get any more storms things should go back to normal in the lake and the swans should return in October and November. I think the swans will be back in Lough Murree again come autumn time – both the whooper swans and the mute swans.”

Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney passed away in August of last year. His last public appearance was ay the Merriman Summer School done the road from Lough Murree in Lis doonvarna.

PRESIDENT Michael D. Higgins and Nobel Prize winner Svante Pääbo will participate in a three day event organised by the Burren and Cliffs of Moher Geopark.

The three-day symposium, which taking place in NUI Galway and the Burren this week, will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the naming of Neanderthal by Irish scientist William King.

Delegates attending the symposium, which is entitled ‘From Fossils to the Genome’, will attend a field trip to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher Geopark.

William King’s proposal was to formally designate Neanderthal people as a separate species from ourselves. His suggestion was both extraordinary and revolutionary for its time – Charles Darwin’s masterpiece ‘Origin of Species’ had been published just five years beforehand. William King remains the first to name a new fossil human species, a privilege afforded to very few scien- tists.

The symposium will also feature a presentation from a Nobel Prize winner and one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people, Svante Pääbo.

Professor Pääbo, Director of the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig and the first person to sequence the DNA of Neanderthal people, will deliver the main keynote address of the symposium.

Next Monday, participants will take part in a post conference field trip through the Burren led by Christine Grant of the National Monuments Service, Michael Lynch and Michelle Comber, the Field Director for the Caherconnell Archaeology Field School.

NUI Galway’s Dr John Murray and Geopark Geologist Dr Eamon Doyle will be discussing the geology of the Burren.

“Professor King’s work represents a scientific milestone in the history of our understanding of human origins,” said Dr Murray.

THE Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Kieran O’Reilly, has appealed to the Mi nister for Education to show more “flexibility” when it comes to the issue of small r ural primar y schools.

Dr O’Reilly said concer n over the future of small schools is an issue throughout his diocese.

Addressi ng an audience, that included Minister Ruai ri Quinn, at the opening of t he new Ennis Na – tional School on Friday, Dr O’Reilly urged t he Gover nment to be more sympat hetic to the concer ns of r ural schools.

“I have t he ver y happy task of perfor ming confirmation ceremonies around t he count r y. One of the things that has come to my attention ver y forcefully, and I said I was goi ng to bend the Minister’s ear when he was here. I wasn’t sure if I would do it public but I’m going to do it publicly,” said Dr O’Reilly.

He continued, “It’s the issue of the numbers in small schools. I know you are ver y much aware of it. My only appeal to you and to your depar tment officials would be to see if there is any level of flexibility, even in a small two or three numbers that could be applied. People have spoken here about beauti ful schools, classrooms with whiteboards that are now going to lose a teacher because of maybe one or two students. I know you are const rained and we read it all the time i n the media. But I think having heard it in our diocese, which goes from West Clare up to Offally and into a small bit of Laois, it is a ver y impor tant thing on t he ground and I’m sure your local representatives have said it to you.”

Speaking afterwards, Minister Quinn said he would be meeting with t he Irish National Teacher’s Organisation (INTO) to discuss the issue.

He said, “There are personnel issues, there are capacity issues and there are fal ling numbers in some par ts. But we are tr yi ng to get a sensible solution to it. When you use the pupil teacher ratio as the only measure, which is what I’ve inher ited and is t he only instr ument I have, you can’t have t he flexibility you requi re at a time when some schools are losing population and some are growing.”

Minister Quinn continued, “I’m quite prepared [to be flexible] i n isolated r ural areas where t he schools is essential for the health of the act ual community itself. That is quite different to a place where there is t hree schools in two kilomet res of each ot her. And yet they are both being treated the exact same.”

TAOISEACH and Fine Gael Party leader Enda Kenny said this week that Fine Gael would not increase the Local Property Tax if elected to local government.

In a whistle-stop visit to the Banner County just a week after polls indicate a swing towards independent candidates and people’s dissatis- faction with the introduction of the LPT, Mr Kenny admitted that being in Government was not an easy position.

But as the Mayo man kissed babies, high fived teenagers and shook hands with pensioners it quickly became apparent that he was not about to run into the hostility he was met with an hour earlier in Limerick.

Instead, supported by the party faithful, a two person anti-abortion protest outside the Temple Gate all but went unnoticed, while the mother of a disabled child who lost her medical card had her say in a peaceful manner.

Among those waiting to meet the leader of the country was Noel O’Driscoll, originally from O’Callaghans Mills, whose late father became secretary of the local Fine Gael branch in 1922 and was there until he died 56 years later.

Mr O’Driscoll showed the Taoiseach an original Land League membership card owned by his great grandfather.

Flanked by MEP Sean Kelly, local election candidates and the county’s two Fine Gael TDs – Pat Breen and Joe Carey – Mr Kenny was remaining coy on how he believes his 16 local election candidates will fare in Clare come May 23.

“Far be for it me to guess what the good people of Clare are going to do when they go to the polls but I will say this for our party we offer a very strong team of candidates.”

“Whoever the people elect for the county council elections they need to understand that these candidates and these councillors are being given responsibility that has never been handed out before to councillors. They are going to have to make decisions about the expenditure for property charges. The Fine Gael candidates will not be voting to increase them, they will be reducing them where possible. They will have to make decisions about rates and about property charges and development plans for their own areas,” he added.

“It is not about electing people to sound off at council meetings. It is a case of electing people to make decisions, the authority being displaced down to the councils.”

CLARE County Council has been allocated € 368,000 under the Government’s Special Resolution Fund (SRF) for Unfinished Housing Developments.

The Department of Environment, Community and Local Government has approved the council’s application for funding to enable works to be undertaken at two local housing developments, namely the Aisling Estate on the Lahinch Road in Ennis and Bruachlan/An Grianan in Westbury.

Clare County Council says it will now commence a period of engagement with the relevant stakeholders at the locations concerned with a view to commencing works.

Mayor of Clare Councillor Joe Arkins welcomed the funding announcement, adding, “Engagement from all key stakeholders is critical to progressing the proposed resolution of these sites. I believe the funding enables Clare County Council to provide a solution to these unfinished estates which have been deteriorating over the past number of years and impacting negatively on the residents and the landscape in the area.”

Commenting on the background to the funding allocation, Bernadette Haugh, Administrative Officer, Planning & Enterprise, stated, “The successful application is part of the council’s ongoing focus on unfinished estates throughout the county. A team from the Planning & Enterprise section of the council has been focusing on this issue and will continue to work towards solutions on the many developments where difficulties are being experienced throughout the county.”

Ms Haugh explained that Clare County Council will now engage with the Bondholders AIB, NAMA and the owner of the land in relation to the Aisling site to agree how the proposed site resolution will be progressed. Similar discussions will be undertaken with Grant Thornton who are the appointed receivers in relation to the Westbury site.

“The drawdown of approved funding will commence immediately in order to advance the early execution of the works. Once the programme of works has been agreed Clare County Council will organise an information session with residents in the area of these development to outline how the proposed resolution process will proceed. The condition of the funding requires that the proposed works are completed by the end of 2014,” added Ms Haugh.

ONE of the biggest primary schools in the county is set to go Gallic this week as it plays host to a group of students from the south of France as part of a ground-breaking exchange programme.

The students from the town of Bressuire, which is half-way between Nantes and Potiers at the lower end of the Loire Valley, will be spending a week at Ennis CBS primary school.

The project is being overseen by Ennis CBS teachers Anne Ó Béarra and Colm Daveron, with the relationship between the two schools having been fostered a number of years ago while she lived and worked in Bressuire.

“What happened was that when I was living in France the school there approached me to know if I could get my Irish school involved in the Caminus Project in June 2010,” she reveals.

“The Caminus is a project between six countries that concluded in June 2012, but afterwards we maintained contact with this school and as a result there are 28 students and four teachers coming over. They’re going to integrate into the classes during the week,” she adds.

The cultural exchange is the second one undertaken by Ennis CBS in recent years, while it is hoped that as part of this latest venture that students from the school will undertake a visit to Bressuire next year.

“The idea of it is to continue to foster the link between the two towns,” says Ms Ó Bearra.

“They students arrived in Ennis on Monday evening, are attending the school from this Tuesday and while they’re here they’ll be doing their bit for Clare tourism and are going to be brought on a walking tour around Ennis where the history of Ennis will be explained as well going to places like the Cliffs of Moher and the Ailwee Caves.

A LIMERICK man said he caused noise and disturbance in Ennis Courthouse yesterday because he only got potato wedges and chicken nuggets for lunch instead of a snack box.

Eddie O’Sullivan (25) was in custody awaiting sentence for stealing money and a bus pass from a disabled man in Ennis last August.

Shouting and banging could be heard from the cell area below the courtroom where Circuit Criminal Court sat on Monday.

When Mr O’Sullivan was called for arraignment a prison officer told Judge Carroll Moran that Mr O’Sullivan was naked. Judge Moran asked that the accused be brought into the courtroom to inform him how he intended to plead to the charge.

Mr O’Sullivan subsequently appeared wearing just boxer shorts and a pair of socks. “I know I’m not dressed appropriately, I’m sorry,” Mr O’Sullivan told Judge Moran.

Mr O’Sullivan, with addresses at Parkview Apartments, Limerick and, John Street Limerick, pleaded guilty to theft of wallet, cash, bank cards and bus pass from a 50-year-old partially paralysed man at Newbridge Road, Ennis, on August 31, 2013.

Mr O’Sullivan represented himself having dismissed his legal team last week. Judge Moran told Mr O’Sullivan his case would be dealt with later in the day.

“Put on some clothes Mr O’Sullivan, you’ll feel more comfortable,” he said.

Mr O’Sullivan reappeared in court some hours later wearing a white striped hoodie; black t-shirt, jeans and runners.

Garda Cyril Paige of Ennis Garda Station said the victim, who walks with the aid of a walking stick, had stopped to rest near the Club Bridge. He said Mr O’Sullivan approached the man, distracted him and stole the items.

A passing motorist witnessed the theft. Gardaí were alerted and Mr O’Sullivan was arrested at the nearby Ennis Swimming Pool.

The court heard the accused has 121 previous convictions. Prosecuting counsel Stephen Coughlan told the court Mr O’Sullivan was on bail when he committed the offence.

Mr O’Sullivan told Judge Moran he had suffered the loss of a number of family members including the recent death in Limerick of his aunt.

Asked by Judge Moran why he had made such a racket earlier in the day, Mr O’Sullivan said he had received wedges and three chicken nuggets while other people in custody got snack boxes. He pleaded with Judge Moran not to impose a consecutive prison sentence. Noting that the accused will spend the next 18 months in prison serving another sentence, Judge Moran adjourned the case to September for a probation and psychiatric report.

THE Lisdoonvarna Spa Well has been reopened for the first time in nearly four years, with members of the public now free to enter the historic premises and take some of its famous mineral waters.

The well, officially re-opened last week, will be staffed by paid employees from Monday to Friday with members of the newly reconstituted board of Lisdoonvarna Fáilte volunteers to staff the premises at the weekends.

The famous mineral water already helps to attract around 10,000 German tourists to the Spa town each year and it is hoped that the reopening of the Spa Well could increase that number dramatically.

A fund was also launched last week to begin raising the estimated € 1.3 million needed to redevelop and reopen the famous sulfur baths, which once made Lisdoonvarna one of Europe’s premier spa destinations.

These changes follow a change in the management structure of Lisdoonvarna Fáilte in January with a large number of new people taking up positions on the board of management.

A public meeting will take place in Lisdoonvarna this Wednesday, when members of pubic are invited to hear updates on the recent progress of Lisdoonvarna Fáilte and comment on the future direction of the company.

“The Victorian pump-house is reopened so people can go in and take the water. People come from all over the world to take the water and now people can come in for free and take the waters,” said Paddy Dunne of Lisdoonvarna Fáilte.

“The wells themselves is a longer term project. We launched the Spa Wells Restoration Fund on Monday and that went great. We raised € 1,500 in a few hours. We have a long way to go. Hopefully if we can raise a good amount the Government might be able to come in with matching funding.

A public meeting will take place this Wednesday, May 14, at the Pavillion Theatre from 8pm.

“The meeting is about updating members of the community about the developments and to share ideas about how things might proceed in the future,” continued Paddy.

“We want to keep this process as open and transparent as possible and to involve as many people as possible. We are still looking for people with a background in tourism or finances to get involved with the board of management.”