The Clare People Archive

“AT LAHINCH the sea shines like a jewel”. So the old song goes and on a nice clear day in the Summer – when the throngs mill from prom to strand and the rich salt air fills the lungs – there can be few better places in the eyulee

An ancient outpost on the great Atlantic frontier, Lahinch has a long and proud history. From ancient leg- ends of a secret submerged island in Liscannor Bay, to the birth of Irish golf and then – more recently – Irish surfing, the village has captured the imagination of all those who came.

And now, despite it’s increased size, Lahinch remains very much a village. Not a simple community, bound together with a single shared history and common values, Lahinch is a multifaceted community.

A modern melting pot, where local business people and farmers share bar counters happily with golfer, surfers and artists. Each engaged in the happy pursuit of living life in a

west Clare paradise.

Traditional businesses such as The Corner Stone, Leyden Auctioners, Kennedy’s Centra, Kenny’s Wol- len Mills, the Village Inn, Vaughan Lodge and Fitzgeralds bar provide the backbone of the town’s commer- cial success while new ventures such as the Lahinch Surf school and shop, the Green Room, Ocean Scene and Lahinch Seaworld cater for a new clientele.

When Lahinch is mentioned around the world it is most often spoke of in golfing circles. Ever since 1892, when the Black Watch Regiment dis- covered a secret paradise in the dunes and hills on the Liscannor Road, the village has attracted scores of golfers – happy to judge their skills against the onshore breeze and rough.

Lahinch’s reputation as an inter- national class golfing destination 1s underlined each year by the South of Ireland championships which re- mains one of the premier events on the Irish golfing calendar.

First shaped by Old Tom Morris

and then redesigned by the world famous Alister MacKenzie, the St Andrew’s of Ireland 1s a true jewel in WeTomeruehate

Yet of late, the word Lahinch has gained repute as the home of Irish surfing. While surfing has been prac- ticed in Lahinch for decades, it is just in the last 5 years that it has captured the imagination of the masses.

So these days, a typical Lahinch afternoon in July or August will un- doubtedly include dozens of surfers, each taking their first braze steps (hopefully) into the world of surfing.

And like all of Lahinch’s many communities, the surfers strive to be the best they can for their village. This led the villages surfers to win a place in the Guinness Book of world Records back in 2006 and again a year later for the most surfers ever to surf a single wave.

Proof once more, if it was needed, that the village of Lahinch captures the imaginations of all who visit – leaving the cleansed, relaxed and above all else inspired.

AN ENVIRONMENTAL blackspot is about to be transformed into a ma- jor recreational facility which will provide top class sporting and leisure amenities on the outskirts of Ennis. Clare County Council and Ward and Burke Construction Ltd of Gal- way have signed a contract that will result in the delivery of recreation facilities and the remediation of a

closed landfill site at Doora.

The €1.26m Doora Landfill Reme- diation Contract will remediate the closed landfill, in accordance with the conditions of the Environmen- tal Protection Agency licence. The project also involves the provision of a new entrance and parking area, two playing pitches, scenic nature walks and extensive landscaping works.

Additional works include the cap- ping of the old landfill site as well

as the provision of necessary infra- structure works to facilitate the on- going monitoring of the site.

The plans for the remediation project were drawn up by Tobin Con- sulting Engineers, in conjunction with Clare County Council Environ- NOONE N OE

Speaking at the contract signing, county council acting director of service Sean Ward described the contract signing as “a significant

and positive step forward in both the remediation of the old landfill site and the provision of amenities to the Doora, Gaurus and Ballaghboy area’.

He added that the proposed works were further evidence of the county council’s ongoing commitment to dealing with historic environmental issues. “The inclusion of recreational amenities and nature walks in the project will add excellent value to

the overall scheme.”

Cllr Patricia McCarthy, Chairper- son of the council’s Strategic Policy Committee on the Environment, welcomed the continuing redevelop- ment of the site and said she looked forward to its transition and eventual transformation into an active recrea- tional area.

The contract will commence short- ly and is expected to be complete in 12 months.

FOR the first time ever the Kildysart Show and the Kildysart Festival teamed up for the August bank hol1- day weekend celebrations in the west Clare village.

Members of the Kidysart Show even entered the popular festival pa- rade, combining the themes of both edger aN isT-LBCO) thse

Drawing from the festival theme of the “1960s” the show committee entered a float depicting protesting farmers from the era on a march in Dublin.

Even the late Charlie Haughey was represented by a highly disguised po- litican.

Rumours circulated that the man behind the mask of the controver- sial Taoiseach was a local Fine Gael councillor, as Fianna Fail councillor PJ Kelly was ruled out when he was welcomed to the village by the im- personator.

Locals were also celebrating big wins at the ever popular show on SE TMUD KOE NA

Vincent O’Callaghan from Lissey- casey secured an impressive hat trick when his horses took home the titles

of Champion Young Horse, Reserve Champion and Champion of Lunging – a competition for three-year-olds. Despite the numerous entries from around the country it was Kildysart man Tom Casey that won the coveted two-year-old All Ireland Filly Cham- ey Cover eny oy

Seamus Waffer from Wicklow came second in the competition, which was one of the biggest of the day, while the third place prize returned to Kildysart and Jimmy Casey.

Champion bakers on the day were Kildysart ladies Lucy Finn and Phi- lomena O’Shea.

SINEAD Garvey is a woman on a mission. Her mission, and she has decided to accept it, 1s to find herself some grain in County Clare.

As climate instability and the glo- bal switch to bio-fuels continues to drive food costs through the roof, the Inagh woman is attempting a world first: to create a banquet for 300 peo- ple featuring food grown exclusively btm Oat buss

A simple task you might think but, as Sinéad has discovered, one with many unseen challenges. While the county is undoubtedly self sufficient in beef and milk, there is precious little tillage and, so far at least, no wheat or grain to make any flour or py usreXOe

“The first problem that we came across was that there was no sugar – but we were able to find some Clare produced honey so that will work Okay. The next thing that we discov- ered was that there is no oil. There isn’t a bit of oil anywhere in the county so we will have to use butter for everything instead,” she said.

“The whole thing started to be like a bit of a treasure hunt. I have been scratching my head, along with the chef, trying to figure out what we would be missing – the one we couldn’t get away from is bread. Clare has a load of excellent bak- ers, but there is just no one growing wheat that we can use.

“We are really struggling on the bread issue and if anyone out there knows of any we would love to hear from them. Bread is our staple – we have bread with everything. So we are still looking and you never know, we might just find enough grain to make some bread.

“They must have grown bread in Clare not so long ago. There must have been mills in Miltown Malbay and in lots of other places I’m sure – so there must have been something erown locally.”

With the growth of family gardens and home farmers markets in recent years, Sinéad has already lined up a number of Clare producers willing to supply the food.

“When I started, the first thing I needed to do was find was a chef. I met a friend of mine from Shannon, who has been a chef for more than 20 years down in Kinsale. His name 1s Jim O’Brien and he said he would do

it. At the moment he is helping out at an organic farm so he is getting a feel for every aspect of the local pro- duce,’ continued Sinéad.

“A lot of farmers markets have sprouted up all over the country and people are beginning to recognise the benefits of growing our food locally. It’s becoming a real social WebNeTSar R/S) 0B

‘People are coming out to the mar- kets, buying their food, and having a good chat with people. That beats walking around a big supermarket in silence as far as I am concerned. It’s a real social occasion for the people who come to the market.

“It is expensive, there is no denying that. People are getting more aware of local food but there are still a lot of people, who have a lot of kids, and

they just can’t afford to do it. The thing is that the more people who decide to buy locally, the cheaper it will get.

‘Peoples tastes are changing. I re- member when I was selling goat’s cheese in the market ten years ago you could tell that eight out of every 10 people wouldn’t like the taste of it. But now everyone likes goats cheese – it’s become a lot more normal for people.”

The Clare Banquet will take place in the Falls Hotel in Ennistymon on September 19. The banquet, which will strictly use only products grown in Clare, is a fundraising event for the Asral Charity, an Irish-based or- ganisation that works poor people in Mongolia.

“I was trying to think of a new idea,

something that would be that bit dif- ferent. Originally I had thought that we could run some sort of Clare har- vest – something with food only from the county. I heard that the average meal travels 23,000 miles before it lands on our plate. I started talking to people about the idea and people really seem to like it,” she said.

‘Everyone who works for the char- ity is a volunteer, so every penny that the charity gets goes directly to the people who need it. It’s a very for- wards thinking charity. We have set up a number of craft businesses over in Mongolia so the local people can make and sell their own garments. A lot of these garments will be on dis- play on the night so people can get a feel for what they do.”

The Clare Banquet will feature mu-

sical entertainment from the legen- dary Tommy People among others.

Potential food suppliers are asked to contact Sinéad on 085 7607037 as soon as possible. Tickets, at a cost of €50, are available from Sinéad, the Falls Hotel on 065 7071004 and Un- glert’s Bakery in Ennistymon.

A NORTH Clare business has just won two “food Oscars” for it’s selec- tion of smoked salmon. Birgitta Hed- in-Curtin of the Burren Smokehouse in Lisdoonvarna, returned from Lon- don last week with two gold prizes from the prestigious Great Taste Award 2008.

The awards, which are known as the “food Oscars” were presented to the smokehouse for its Hot Smoked Irish Organic Salmon with Honey and Dill and Superior Farmed Smoked Irish Salmon products.

“We are delighted with this award. Winning a Great Taste Award rec- ognizes the craft and dedication that goes into making superb food and drink,” said Birgitta.

“We only use the finest of salmon from the west coast of Ireland. When you start with a quality product all you have to do is to enhance it with our slow oak smoking and low salt content.

“The honey, lemon and dill mari- nade is very complimentary to the organic salmon adding a fresh herb and natural zangy flavours.”

Besides the recognition of your

peers, winning a Great Taste Award is recognised as one of the most powerful tools to help grow business in the speciality food sector.

In just three weeks last September, the excitement created by the 2007 results increased sales to the tune of €640,000 in 524 guild members’ stores.

Founded in 1989, the Burren Smokehouse is a family business run in Lisdoonvarna by Peter and Bir- gitta Curtin.

CLARE is in the top one third of county’s benefiting from CLAR funding for non-national roads.

The local authority will receive a total of €376,399.43 for improve- ments to the county’s road infra- Seu llelauh ica

The CLAR programme is a target- ed investment programme for rural areas that suffered more than a 35 per cent drop in population between Por: tierce ee

Under its 208 programme a sum of €3 million each is being provided by the Department of Transport and the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs for works to local secondary and tertiary roads in these specially designated areas.

Minister of State Tony Killeen said that Clare County Council’s alloca- tion was determined by the county’s percentage of the total population in CLAR areas.

“The grant allocation will enable the local authority to fund local sec- ondary and tertiary roads projects. The council may also use the funds to replace, widen or strengthen bridges on local secondary and local tertiary roads, subject to the prior approval of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government,’ he said.

“The funding announcement is concrete proof that the Government is determined to revitalise declining rural areas. Significant progress has been made in recent years in terms of improving national infrastructure.”

BUSINESSES are moving out of the Parnell Street area because of problems with parking, it has been claimed.

As one business re-located to the another part of the town this week, traders are saying that the shop was forced to relocate because of the dif- ficulties with parking caused by the work going on to secure the area against flooding.

CEO of Ennis Chamber of Com- merce, Triona McInerney said that traders are “struggling to cope espe- cially if they are in the type of busi- ness which requires people to carry things in and out of a premises. They need to have a car nearby in that case.”

McInerney said there is “huge pres- sure on parking. People are trying to

manage. There wasn’t a lot of park- ing in the area to begin with and the work that is going on has exaccer- bated the situation.”

She added, “It’s temporary and we have to live with it, but looking at having this situation continue for another year is not good.”

McInerney said that while some business people will re-locate rather than try to struggle on with the situa- tion, others who were already feeling the pinch have closed.

“T can think of six businesses who have closed up shop in the Parnell Street area in the last three months,’ she admitted.

“Some of them were having dif- ficulty already and in some cases, a drop-off in customers because of the parking difficulties may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back”.

NORTH Clare is going Nordic this weekend with the arrival of the Finn- ish Ambassador Seppo Kauppila to Ballyvaughan on Saturday.

Ambassador Kauppila will be the guest of honour at the Burren Col- lege of Art to launch “Due North’, the first ever exhibition of Finnish and Swedish art to take place in the west of Ireland.

‘Due North’ is the fifth in the an- nual series of exhibitions to take place at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan. The exhibition, which will be curated by Jan Kaila, will fea- ture some of Scandinavia’s foremost photographic artists and open to the public from Sunday, August 10.

It will feature the very best of Finn- ish and Swedish artists including Pekka and Lea Kantonen, who look at the favourite places of a group of

indigenous teenagers; Pertti Keka- rainen who explores the concepts of space and memory through pho- tography; Johanna Lecklin who will show a three-screen video-work and Jan Svenungsson will presents a se- ries of chimneys pictured over the last 25 years.

The exhibition also has a local fla- vour including Heli Rekula who will show a number of large-scale photo- graphs based on the Irish landscape; Sami van Ingen who will show a vid- eo in which he and his grandmother return to the place where her father lived during the filming of Man of Aran and and Martina Cleary, Head of Photography at Burren College.

The exhibition runs until August 26 and has been put together with the support of the Finnish Arts Council, the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, the Finnish Institute in London and Clare County Council.

ENNIS firemen claimed yesterday that lives lost in the River Fergus could have been saved if they had proper training and equipment to Lau COMO MUR MLSE oe

A spokesman also revealed that firefighters have to perform their du- ties without the most basic of equip- ment — a defibrillator for victims suf- fering cardiac arrest.

Without the training, firemen have- to stay six metres back from the riv- er’s edge in a river rescue operation.

“If we see someone in the river in trouble and want to go rescue that person, we are told “if ye go into the river, ye are fired”.

The spokesman said that on aver- age, Ennis firefighters received five river rescue call-outs each year.

“We need this training, especially with the amount of river rescues we are having. If we were allowed into the water, a lot more people could have been saved. That is a fact.

“We can have a boat in the water in six minutes and in that time you have a fair good chance of saving people.”

The fire service’s shortcomings were exposed in the recent rescue at- tempts for young Martin McDonagh who drowned in the River Fergus last month.

“We carried out CPR on him for 20 minutes because we had no defibril-

lator. A defibrillator was essential WN Komee

The fireman said that itis not known if having a defibrillator would have saved young Martin’s life as it is not known how long he was in the river before being taken from the water.

He said fire service management had a wrong set of priorites where it spent €100,000 on training and equipment for a chemical incident where there has been only two call- outs over the past two years.

Clare Fire Chief, Adrian Kelly said they hadn’t refused funding for a de- fibrillator or river rescue training.

‘The level of equipment, fire appli- ances and training provided is on a par with the best in the country.

“The HSE ambulance service pro- vide advanced first aid, including de- fibrillators and we have been in talks with the HSE regarding how call-out arrangements could complement their services while still maintaining our primary function of providing fire cover.

“All firefighters have received water awareness training, mainly for their own Safety but it also included tech- niques in river rescue. We are there to assist the gardai who are responsible for co-ordinating any such rescues, and the coastguard who are highly trained in water rescue. Equipment, including flotation devices and throw bags, were also purchased for this purpose.

AN AMBITIOUS €30 million plan to double the size of Kilmihil has been dramatically scaled back in re- sponse to local concerns.

Last September, Kilmihil Con- struction Ltd lodged plans for 150 residential units, 15 commercial units and a two-storey 50-bed nurs- ing home.

Gerry Johnson of Kilmihil Con- struction said at the time that those choosing to live in Kilmihil would be “halfway to Heaven” being 15 min- utes from a host of beautiful beaches and only 20 minutes from Ennis.

However, the plan comes against the background of the village hav- ing little or no growth in population in recent years with the 2006 census showing that the village’s population increased by just two in four years from 576 to 578 — during the 1996 census period, the village suffered a drop in population of 62.

Kilmihil Community Develop- ment Ltd expressed concerns over the plan and arising from the local opposition, the council asked the de- velopers to submit revised plans.

The company has now scaled back the number of houses from 147 homes to 100 — a drop of almost one third.

The original plan also included 14 commercial units and the revised plan comprises of eight shop units, a supermarket, a warehouse, a tutorial centre, a créche and two offices.

SW slemeveyenl or henmereniconeKmsst-lm leew Kom vised design prepared in response to the further information request fully satisfies the guidance contained in the Urban Design Manual circulated by the Dept of the Environment.

In a fresh objection against the plan, Patrick J O’Connell and Ange- la O’Connell state, “We have grave concerns with a proposal of this type and stature which is not in keeping with a rural traditional village like

Kilmihil as it would overdevelop this area far too quickly.

They add, “We see this occurring in our larger towns and we have no desire to see it occur here. Currently we have a further 80 homes with planning permission for construction and we see that as being more than adequate.”

They add: “It is an accepted fact that the sewerage treatment plant is currently at full capacity and the do- mestic water supply is another con- cern. This proposed development will lead to total chaos.”

A decision is due on the applica- tion later this year.