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BRIDGE United A continue their march up the premier division table after this hard fought victory over Lifford. They now sit comfortably in third and will surely be delighted with their position after six games played. Of course for Lifford it’s very different. After seven games they have only seen one win and their total of three points was not altered after this close encounter.

The opening exchanges of this bat- tle was very competitive with but sides showing little hesitation in try- ing to convey who would control and boss this match. Neither goalkeeper had much to deal with in the opening quarter but the threat of a goal being scored on the counter was always an evident reality.

With 20 minutes this goal came. However it was not a direct result of some jaw dropping swift move up the park. Instead like in most games it was a direct result of a set play. Bridge stole the early advantage when defender Jonathan Downes headed home the game’s opening goal from a well judged corner placed danger- ously into the Lifford box.

Was it going to be another of these days for the Ennis club was the burn- ing question on most of the specta- tors’ minds and probably on a few of the Lifford players as well. Credit must be awarded to the team who are rooted to the bottom of the league ta- ble however as they offer a fight back even though ultimately it was to no ZENO

The equalizer again came about from a corner kick. Fabrice Baptista found the vital touch to send the ball past Derek Fahy in the Bridge goal. We certainly had a game on our hands now.

The rest of the first half slowly

passed with very little incident worth mentioning. Both sides seemed to ac- cept the faith of going in level at the break and this was what unfolded.

The second half started in a very similar fashion, very nip and tuck with neither outfit enforcing any great sense of dominance. This was how the game flowed up to the three quarter’s mark and then suddenly the floodgates appeared to be forced open when three goals struck the net in the final fifteen minutes of the game.

Michael Reddan commenced the spree when he restored his team’s early lead. His cross come shot float- ed into the net to the confusion of both the Lifford keeper and defense. His effort was certainly aided by the gale that was in his team’s possession

for the second half. The conditions were definitely another factor that influenced the final result.

Trevor Maxwell then appeared to have wrapped up the game when he made it three one. He finished expertly as he easily got around the centre halves at the rear guard of the Lifford defense.

It wasn’t all over just yet as Lif- ford pulled another one back with five minutes to go. Scot Hennessey blasted to the net after an excellent cross by Ryan Boyle.

Bridge now had a very nervy con- clusion on their hands. These nerves reached breaking point when with almost the last kick of the game Lif- ford had one final chance. However Fahy did not want to be beaten again and his amazing save ensured no

more goals would be added to the final score.

Bridge probably just deserved this outcome but for Lifford it’s the same unfortunate story. I guess they have to return to the drawing board, Neen Oe

RESIDENTS concerned about late night behaviour on the streets of Ennis have reached agreement with management at a local nightclub, a court has been told.

Ennis District Court heard last month that residents on Francis Street were forced to put up with mayhem due to the actions of people urinating and vomiting on the street in the early hours of the morning.

A member of the local residents association told the court that while an application for a dance licence for the Queen’s Hotel was not being objected to, there were serious con- cerns about the behaviour of some late night revellers.

“We are not objecting to the l1- cence. We have a problem with anti- social behaviour that takes place on

our street between 3 and 4am. The majority of the people have been liv- ing there for 70 or 80 years,” said one resident in court, on that occasion.

The case was adjourned for a month. In court last Friday, solici- tor for the Queen’s Hotel, Marina Keane, said that agreement had been reached between the residents asso- ciation and the hotel and there were no issues arising.

A representative of the residents as- sociation was in court on Friday but was not objecting to the licence.

The manager of the Queen’s Hotel, Barry Lee, told the court that there is CCTV on the premises and this is available for inspection by gardai, if este LUN BKSLe

Judge Joseph Mangan asked Mr Lee how long the CCTV recordings are available for and was told four weeks. The licence was granted.

THE next phase of Clare’s prepara- tions for the hosting of the National File Under 14 hurling competition 1s about to crank into gear with the pro- motion aspect ready to be launched.

With just over six months to the arrival of clubs from all across the country, preparations have stepped up a gear and Clare Féile Secretary Declan Hogan, from Tulla, says the third weekend in June represents a massive occasion for Clare.

“It was great news when we were chosen to host the 2010 competition and we’ve been hard at work since the announcement,’ he said _ this week. “But the real hard work is only starting now.

“From a logistical point of view alone it’s a mammoth task. You’re talking about 2,000 youngsters de- scending on Clare for the weekend so even in terms of accommodation, it

will take a lot of planning, but we’ve been tackling that over the past few months.”

According to Hogan, the competi- tion will provide a great shop win- dow for Clare.

“You have to look at it from two angles,” he says. “First, we have the chance to promote Clare as a county to the thousands of people who will be visiting. And second, and most 1m- portantly of all, we have the chance to promote Gaelic Games to the kids of Clare. It’s an opportunity of a life- time from that point of view.”

He said the Féile committee are also looking for support from, the county board and the Bord na nOgs.

‘Take the first Friday of the compe- tition for example. We’ll have in the region of 50 pitches in use that day, so we’ll need all the facilities and all the referees we can get our hands on. It would be great to have a free week- end fixture wise.”

In the spring, the committee will begin to host a number of Under 14 blitzes in a bid to familiarise Clare clubs with the structure of the Féile competition.

A TELEGRAM sent by Eamon de Valera to his wife following his election as MP for Clare has been restored and put on display at Clare Museum in Ennis.

The document, which confirms the former Taoiseach and President’s 1917 by-election victory over Patrick Lynch of the Irish Party, is being ex- hibited along with the first Minute book of Clare County Council re- corded in April 1899. The exhibits form part of a joint conservation initiative between Clare County Ar- chives and Clare Museum.

Commenting on the newly restored telegram, Museum Curator, John Rattigan said that its simple message belies the importance of deValera’s victory.

“It signifies a move away from constitutional to physical force na- tionalism and the beginning of a political career that would last until de Valera’s retirement as President in 1973. In the months after his elec- tion victory, De Valera was named President of both Sinn Fein and the Irish Volunteers.”

Mr Rattigan said that prior to its res- toration, the telegram was in a state of disintegration and was in an unfit state to be exhibited or handled.

‘The printed carbon copy on wood pulp paper had become brittle, dis- coloured and acidic,’ he added.

The telegram is displayed along-

side a comprehensive account of the councils first meeting, which was held in Ennis on April 22, 1899 when Michael A Scanlon was elected as the council’s first chairman. According to County Archivist, Rene Franklin it is clear from the minute book that those present re- garded the new council as a stepping stone to national independence. “This nationalist fervour was the spirit behind a series of motions re-

corded in the minutes and preserved now in the Clare County Archives,” she explained

At the inagural meeting, Thomas Blackall proposed the following motion: “while accepting the Local Government Act [1898] as a tardy in- stalment of justice, and while we are determined to work for the benefit of all classes in our country, we hereby declare that we will never relax our efforts in the National cause until we

see a native Parliament in College Gnio ee

All of the council’s minute books are preserved and available for public viewing by contacting Clare County Archives at archives@clarecoco.ie or 065 6846414.

EXPERIENCED Kerins O’Rahillys defender Barry O’Shea has played in plenty of big games — All-Ireland senior football finals, Munster decid- ers, National League finals, Sigerson Cup finals and two county senior football championship finals — but Sunday’s Munster senior club final against Kilmurry Ibrickane is prob- ably the most important of them all.

O’Shea, who is playing some of the best football he has played in the last two years when he was plagued with injury, admits that this Munster club final will be the biggest day in his ca- reer to date.

“Tt’s always great when you achieve something big with your club and I would think that if we could beat Kilmurry Ibrickane in Sunday’s fi- nal, that would top anything else that I have achieved so far,’ O’Shea said.

‘IT know we won the county final in 2002 but a Munster final 1s another couple of notches higher again so winning would be massive for eve- ryone involved and the entire Kerins O’Rahillys club.

“Anything you win with the lads you grew up with and _ socialise with beats anything you might have achieved with your county or with your school or college.

‘“That’s why there is such a big buzz

around the Strand Road area at the moment because everyone realises that the club stands on the verge of history, but getting across that win- ning line is not going to be easy.”

O’Shea is quick to dismiss the fa- vourites tag and maintains if any- thing Clare opponents Kilmurry Ibrickane should be favourites.

“TI think that the 4/7 being offered about Kerins O’ Rahillys is a joke and in no way reflects the even nature of the contest that will probably go right

down to the wire,’ O’Shea said.

‘The only reason we are odds-on 1s because we are a Kerry team play- ing a Clare team, so they assume that it’s a similar story to the inter-county scene where Kerry would always be favourites to beat Clare.

“Look at the facts — Kilmurry Ibrickane were in last year’s final and only lost by a point and they are also county champions in Clare.

“We were never in the final and didn’t win a game in Munster until

we beat Clonakilty this year and we did not win a game in our county championship — we qualified via the club championship, so how could you make us favourites.”

O’Shea, who did a superb marking job on Declan Browne in the Mun- ster semi-final, also points to the fact that of all years for O’Rahillys to reach a Munster club final, this is the year when they have haemorrhaged WEN ace

“T can tell you one thing — if there is a god of football there, then he is not from Strand Road,’ O’Shea laughed.

“When you look at the team that finished the last day against Moyle Rovers, we were missing seven from the team that lost last year’s county final in injury time.

‘Just look at the year we have had. We lost the lads (Tommy Walsh and David Moran) to Australia, Brian Moran and his dad have been sick during the year and now Brian is doubtful for the final having popped his elbow in the semi-final.

“Danny O’Sullivan is out with his cruciate, Pat Madden has emigrated and Giles O’Grady had to miss the semi-final and is an injury doubt for the final.

“T think any club that would have to play without that number of qual- ity players would struggle, yet we are still in there and preparing for a

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“I think that it shows the battling qualities and the resolve of the squad to be able to overcome such adversity and we will be giving it our all the jie. ¢ me rh Val

How does O’Shea, who will be lining up with his brother Morgan alongside him, think O’Rahillys will do in the final?

“It’s winter football this time of the year so it will be low scoring and a battle all the way,’ he pointed out.

“We need to hold onto possession more than we did the last day and also make better use of the ball when we have it.

‘“Kilmurry Ibrickane are a strong side with a good record in this com- petition and they will know that they are only 60 minutes away from win- ning a Munster final.

“We will have to play at the top of our game, take all our chances, work hard as a team to back each other up and hope that we get a break on the day.

‘As I said earlier, the gods have not been on our side since last year’s county final almost 12 months to the day so let’s hope we are back in fa- vour. I would take a one point win this minute,” he added.

THE late Archbishop of Dublin, Kevin McNamara was one of the leading personalities in the Catholic Church in Ireland in his lifetime, but in death he now stands indicted as a figure who singularly “failed to 1m- plement canon law rules on dealing with clerical child sex abuse’.

The Clareman who was 38 years a priest before dying in 1987 after a serious illness has also been ex- posed as a church leader who facili- tated known child abusers such as Fr Ivan Payne and Fr William Carney to continue working as priests in the community.

“Bill Carney is a serial sexual abus- er of children, male and female. The commission is aware of complaints or suspicious of child sexual abuse against him in respect of 32 named individuals,’ the Murphy Report SEA

It adds, “He (Archbishop McNa- mara) restored priestly faculties to Fr Carney despite his having plead- ed guilty to charges of child sexual abuse in 1983 and despite the fact that there were suspicions about him in relation to numerous other chil- dren. He failed to ensure that Fr Car- ney obeyed instructions and allowed him, in effect, to flout the wishes of his superiors’.

Archbishop McNamara’s_ reputa- tion has taken another hammering

with the Murphy Report finding that one of his first acts as Archbishop of Dublin was to promote Fr Ivan Payne to a post of responsibility within the

church.

‘He promoted Fr Payne to the po- sition of Vice-Officialis of the Mar- riage Tribunal despite the previous

refusal of Archbishop Ryan to do so,’ the report says.

Subsequently in 1998, Fr Payne pleaded guilty to charges of indecent

assault on ten victims and was sen- tenced to six years’ imprisonment.

The shocking findings of the Mur- phy Report into child sex abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese published last Thursday has also revealed that Mc- Namara was one of four Archbishops of Dublin from the 1960 through to the 1980s who “failed to report his knowledge of child sex abuse to the Garda”.

“All the Archbishops and many of the auxiliary bishops in the period covered by the Commission handled child sexual abuse complaints bad- ly,’ the Murphy Report says. “Dur- ing the period under review, there were four Archbishops – Archbish- ops McQuaid, Ryan, McNamara and Connell. Not one of them reported his knowledge of child sexual abuse to the Garda.”

TEAM trainer Ger Lawlor wasn’t looking to hear any talk of moral victories or hard luck stories, but you know deep down he felt that this was an opportunity lost.

The seven point differential didn’t tell the story of this Munster final, of that he was convinced, albeit he didn’t really say so directly in his post-match reflections.

“We were back in it when it was down to two points. They were hav- ing a real go but they came back and hit some great points near the end,’ he said.

“If we had got a goal in the second- half we could have won this Munster title. We had them under the cosh. We took them on but at times were afraid to take them on and we went for a few impossible scores when we could have worked our way in more towards goal,” he added.

Mention of goal and he came to Spa’s goal, but at either end of the first-half that represented the two biggest hammer blows to Cratloe’s hopes of becoming the first side to win a Munster intermediate title.

“We gave them too much respect starting off. We stood off them too much in the first ten, 15 minutes of the game.

“We let them get the ball first, showing too much respect for them

– whether it was because they were from Kerry, I don’t know. You can’t do that with a team from Kerry and they punished us with that first goal that meant we had a terrible start. “They’re natural footballers” – they’re playing football since they’re out of the cradle and they’ll punish you if you give them too much space as we did at the start. The goal before half-time really killed us. We should

have only been two points down at half-time.

“But you have to admire our lads. They showed great determination and heart. They never gave up and you couldn’t ask them for any more. They’re unbelieveable. They’re great. A credit to their club and credit to their families.

They all stood up in that first-half when coming back and again in the

second-half.

“It was always going to be very hard to recover from five down but we brought it back to two again and with seven or eight minutes to go I really thought that we could kick on ANG MY eU0mHsom BLO loe

“We were playing the better foot- ball and they were getting very edgy, but it wasn’t to be when they kicked a few points.”

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A SMILE still stretched across his face, Sean O’Sullivan, Spa manager tells it like it is. A Munster interme- diate title that the club never dreamed about, a scoreline that probably flat- tered the Kerry champions and a Spa full-forward that the Kerry manage- ment must call upon.

“This win will take a while to sink in,’ he says. “We never dreamed we could even get this far but we worked so hard.

“I’m sure Cratloe are the same and my heart really goes out to them because losing a Munster Final like this is difficult and I don’t know how I would handle it if we were beaten here today because it means so much Comte

“The bottom line is I’d have to congratulate Cratloe after the year they’re after having and Id have huge respect for them. Huge respect.

‘As for ourselves, we had a target and a game plan coming up here and we were always going to stick to it. We’re after picking up a couple of bad injuries and we’ll have to assess that damage but right now the cup makes up for it.”

There were some shaky moments, O’Sullivan says, when Cratloe clawed their way back into the game and put Spa under pressure. But he identifies Mike O’Donoghue’s second goal of the game, just before half-time, as an important score.

“The second goal came at a cru- cial time. And no better man than Mike O’Donoghue. He really stood up to the pressure today. Even when we lost Andrew Garnett, that was a savage loss, as was the loss of Niall O’Mahony and Brian Gleeson, but after we lost Andrew, Mike inter- cepted a ball and got a savage point out of it.

‘That was another big score for us. We needed it then and Mike stepped up and looking back on that game, that was a serious turning point. The bottom line is that Jack O’Connor should be seriously looking at this ner eb

“But we did lose our way a small bit in the second-half. At half-time we knew we were in a decent posi- tion, up a few points, but I saw Crat- loe play Valley Rovers in Clarecastle last week and I knew that they can play well against the wind.

“I knew we were going to be up against it in the second-half. We had to consolidate our win but they made us work very, very hard and we did pull away in the end but that score- line might be a small bit flattering.”

And off he goes into the half-light of the dressing room, the short road and bonfires on the edge of Kuillar- ney laying in wait.

GARDAI are investigating claims that a 14-year-old boy was sexually assaulted in a graveyard in Clare.

A complaint was made at a garda station in the county last week, in re- lation to an alleged incident in recent weeks.

It was alleged that a man sold fire- works to a boy and when insufficient money was paid, the boy claimed he was sexually assaulted. It was alleged that the boy was sexually assaulted at a graveyard in the county.

An investigation was immediately set up and a 50-year-old man was ar- rested on Friday.

The man, who is living in Clare, was questioned at a garda station and was later released without charge. When the garda investigation 1s completed, a file will be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions, who will decide whether he will be charged.

This was the second – separate – investigation into an alleged sexual offence in the county over the past week. Several gardai have been in- volved in the investigations, both of which are of a sensitive nature.