The Clare People Archive

A NUN who was told by medics that she only had a slim chance of surviv- al was cured of cancer by some “mi- raculous’ reason, after being treated at Mr Carmody’s clinic.

Sr Teresa Healy underwent pho- todynamic treatment twice at Mr Carmody’s clinic in Killaloe, having been diagnosed with breast cancer in AUF

She told the jury of eight men and three women that Mr Carmody “would go to any lengths for a pa- tient. He was totally dedicated to his work. He really cared about his pa- tients.”

Sr Healy, from Malahide, Dublin, said that Mr Carmody initially treat- ed her for ME in 1987 and she visited him again in 2001.

After undergoing surgery in Dub- lin, she was told she had grade three cancer and had a five per cent chance of survival.

‘IT was quite serious,” she said.

She told the 14th day of the trial last Friday that she met Mr Carmody and Dr William Porter at the East Clinic in Killaloe. She was shown slides of breast cancer and she underwent photodynamic treatment.

She told the court that she asked Mr Carmody could he cure her.

“He said he could never say it would cure me. He said we would have to wait and see, we can’t be sure of any- thing Sister,’ she recalled.

She told the court that when she was under the light, she could “see

the cancer cells being zapped.”

“They were just disappearing away as the light shone on them,” she said.

She said she felt the cancer was “oozing” out of her, by some miracu- lous reason.

“IT was just delighted really. I felt I was being cleared of cancer,’ she said.

She said she was very impressed

in him as a doctor. “I could see his dedication in his medical way of life in the way he spoke to me.”

She told the court she said to Mr Carmody, “this seems to be a cure you never told me about,’ to which he replied that he “couldn’t guaran- tee me a cure that I could take him to court if he had promised me a cure.”

Her health is now “very good. I’ve

no cancer now. I’m better than I was for 30 years.”

“Recently my doctor told me my blood results could be framed, they were so good,’ she said.

Another witness Jim O’Brien from Clontarf, Dublin, said that he was diagnosed with sarcoidosis in 1986, a condition that affects a number of the body’s systems, including the

lymphatic and pulmonary systems and the eyes.

He went to Mr Carmody and re- ceived treatment there. This treat- ment was a combination of fluids, drops and tablets, which were de- signed to boost the system. He is now clear of sarcoidosis.

He said that prior to visiting Mr Carmody his opinion of the medical profession had not been very high but he quickly was reassured that “this man could do something for me.”

He said that Mr Carmody also treat- ed his wife and two sons, for various ailments and they were happy with all of the treatments.

He said that Mr Carmody’s instinct was that “surgery was a last resort.”

Another witness, Billy Turkington, from Belfast, told the court that his son Oliver “absolutely benefited” from the treatment he received from Mr Carmody.

Oliver was diagnosed with cancer in 1999 and had part of his leg ampu- tated below the knee.

‘About a year after Oliver had part of his leg amputated, the cancer moved to his lungs. His doctor told him he had six months to live and hadn’t offered him any more treat- ment as he thought it was a hopeless case.” They travelled to Mr Carmody and his son underwent three weeks of treatment, after which he lived for a further seven years but died last year.

PASCHAL Carmody insisted that he never promised any of his patients that he would cure them of cancer.

‘“T never use the word ‘cure’ in any care, with any patient,’ he told the trial, during cross-examination on Friday morning.

He disputed evidence given earlier in the trial by the widow of one of his former patients.

Bernadette Gallagher, from Mullin- gar, County Westmeath, lost her hus- band JJ through cancer of the liver in September 2002.

He underwent photodynamic treat-

ment at Paschal Carmody’s East Clinic in Killaloe in February of that year.

Mrs Gallagher said Mr Carmody told her husband the treatment was ‘just like magic’ and they thought it was too good to be true.

However, Mr Carmody told the court he didn’t say this and also de- nied that he had promised to cure Mr Gallagher.

He also denied saying to the Gal- laghers that when people found out about the treatment for cancer that it would be “like the days of Lazu- rus, they will be banging down the doors.”

He said that his recollection of events relating to Mr Gallagher were very fresh in his mind, as Mrs Gal- lagher went public on the issue in 2002 on RTE’s Prime Time.

“My recollection of events are ex- actly as I describe,” he said.

Referring to another of his former patients, John Sheridan, Mr Carmo- dy was asked had he promised to get him through his illness, as had been claimed previously.

“T don’t recall those words,’ he Cr HOR

Asked by Prosecutor Denis Vaughan-Buckley had he promised a cure for Mr Sheridan, he replied,

“There was no question of a cure. I did not promise a cure for John. I do not use that word in communica- nto) ei

He denied that he had led the Sheridans to believe he would cure John.

Mr Carmody also denied that he had promised to cure Conor O’Sullivan – a 15-year-old boy from Wexford who died from cancer in November 2002 – or at worst, keep him alive.

This was the claim made by Conor’s mother Christina, earlier in the trial.

“No. I didn’t use the word ‘cure.’ I may have put my hand on his shoul- der to reassure the young man and say

‘Pll do my best for him’,” he said.

When it was put to him that he had made a lot of money from pho- todynamic treatment, he said to the Prosecutor, “Since you have started your examination, you’ve repeatedly referred to income without outlay. I want the jury to know the substantial outlay involved was far greater than the income.”

Mr Vaughan-Buckley then asked Paschal Carmody was he telling the jury that he had lost money on the photodynamic treatment (PDT), to which Carmody replied, “I’m telling the jury there was substantial outlay in setting up the PDT centre.”

PASCHAL Carmody told the trial he successfully treated his dying broth- er at his east Clare clinic.

He said that he elongated his broth- er Peter’s life, with his cancer return- ing only after he discontinued the treatment.

Carmody, of Ballycuggaran, Kil- laloe, was accused of 25 separate charges of obtaining ©80,172 from six terminally ill cancer patients and their families by deception between September 2001 and October 2002.

Judge Rory McCabe told the jury on Wednesday that he would be di- recting them to find the accused not guilty on all charges relating to three patients and one charge relating to John Sheridan, due to insufficient evidence.

Mr Carmody told the court that he first became involved in compli- mentary medicine when he saw the benefits of bone setting to one of his patients.

He then went to England to study muscle and joint pain. In the 1980s he went to Germany and “was shocked” by the approach to medicine where the whole body was treated rather Wet 0 MN LORSI MW OComr-BUCorel (10 Mr: B uct

At this time he also worked on the principal of immunise enhancement therapy. He said the first cancer pa- tient he treated was a friend of his brother-in-law who was given one month to live.

“After much argument I agreed I would endeavour to get him one month extra. I put together what I could from the limited information | had at the time,” he said.

He put together a programme of

bio-oxidated treatments, photother- apy, hypertherapy and intravenous immunotherapy.

‘He survived two years. He went from six stone weight up to his own weight of 13.5 stone,” he said.

Mr Carmody said he had reserva- tions about treating Mark Hadden who was in his 20s and told his fa- ther that it was beyond his abilities. He suggested treatment in Germany.

This treatment proved costly and money raised in a fundraiser quickly sec) ome) 0 Lm

Mr Carmody said he then went to Germany and purchased the equip- ment needed to treat Mark and began treating the young man “for almost no cost”’.

He said that while Mark never “looked the healthiest”, his quality of life improved greatly.

The court heard last week that Mr Hadden who was given three months to live in 1996 died just weeks before Welom BME Dm olorer- 00

In 1998 he treated Maggie Porter for breast cancer.

A year later her husband Dr Wil- liam Porter came with Maggie to see Dr Carmody.

Paschal Carmody said they were interested in the work he was doing. He offered them a room in his own clinic, which they renovated them- TO AVone

Mr Carmody said that as Dr Porter had experience with lasers, “it made more sense for him to become in- volved with patients”.

“T would assess them and with him doing laser I could take on more pa- tients. My purpose was to assess pa- tients. If they were suitable I would prescribe a photosensitiser.”

PASCHAL Carmody was born in Tarbert, north Kerry, 60 years ago. From a family of 13 — nine brothers and three sisters – he attended the local primary school, before board- ing at Rockwell College in Cashel, SoA Ae Bye lae

While in his Leaving Cert year, he had a strong interest in biology and

science and decided to go into medi- cine.

In 1966, he went to university in Galway, where he studied for six years. He passed all but one exam during his years at university. After graduating, he served as an intern at the University College Hospital Gal- way.

During his year-long internship, he served under Dr Murphy for six

months and six months under Dr Bartholomew Driscoll, who special- ised in respiratory, dermatology and AMO Coges (ose

It was while working with Dr Dr- iscoll that he had his first experience with photodynamic therapy.

As the only dermatologist in the west of Ireland, Dr. Driscoll treated dermatology lesions with laser.

Dr Carmody then went to the Jervis

Street Hospital in Dublin where he worked for six months in accident and emergency, six months in the medi- cal wards and a further six moths as a Senior House Officer (SHO).

When he finished in Dublin he worked in Limerick for 18 months. He also worked as an SHO, then spe- cialised in obstetrics and gynaecol- ogy, and later paediatrics.

At the age of 29, he decided to spe-

cialise in obstetrics and gynaecology, but later changed his mind and went into general practice.

In 1976, just as he prepared to emi- grate to take up a position in Mon- tana, the Mid Western Heath Board asked him if he had an interest in taking a position as a GP in Killaloe, or Castleconnell, Co Limerick. He began working as a GP in Killaloe on October 1, 1976.

THE purveyors of doom _ were quick to write Cork’s obituary after their laboured win over Dublin last week. Their lacklustre performance prompted rumours of unrest in the camp and Galway were installed as hot favourites for Saturday’s All-Ire- land qualifier.

But a team is always at their most dangerous when written off and Cork defied the odds and even a numbert- cal disadvantage to overturn a two point half-time deficit and produce arguably their best championship performance in two years.

The final whistle was greeted like an All-Ireland win as players ran the length of the field and thousands of supporters invaded the turf of Sem-

ple Stadium, singing and chanting for over an hour after the game.

Cork manager Gerald McCarthy was equally elated but had also a bone to pick with the media over the treatment of the players in the lead up to the game.

“Tl think whether we won or lost, I think it was very unfair, the press treatment that these bunch of players got from the press during the week. I think the way our players were writ- ten off so completely but not just that, they were ridiculed in some eon

“There were a lot of things said about the style of play, there was questioning whether they would ever last again and some of them mightn’t make it through this year. That was disappointing, that a bunch of play-

ers that they are and what they have given to the game and the determi- nation they bring to their training and everything they do in hurling. Somebody questioned ‘had they lost the love for hurling’ in one of the pa- pers during the week and I think the answer to that was out there for eve- rybody to see today.”

Still, he could understand some of the criticism after the Dublin per- formance but explained that it was fatique that affected his players that day after a hard week of training in order to prepare them for the long road ahead.

“Well it’s easy to do off the back of one or two bad results. People are very anxious to look further down the line and say that this team is fin- ished. When you look at the Tipper-

ary game, we really had that game there for the winning but we went into a valley period after twenty min- utes and that affected us.

“But the way we played for the first twenty minutes, if we could have sus- tained that for most of the game, we certainly would be winning many, many games. SO we were very, very determined and the Dublin game last week really brought the critics out but we as a management took a cal- culated risk. We trained the players hard through that week to look be- yond the game with Dublin and per- haps we could have paid the penalty for it but we had to look at this week to get a bit of rest into the players and that’s what we did. That affected the players against Dublin and that’s not taking anything away from Dub-

lin. They hurled very well and they stayed with us in lots of places but that was the reason for it. Our lads were tired.”

So what about the prospect of meet- ing Clare for the fourth time in as many years?

“Tt will be tough, Clare are always tough but to be honest, we hadn’t re- ally looked past Galway. But I can tell you, we are on the crest of a wave and we are going to drive forward. We are not just satisfied with beating Galway, we want to go all the way in this championship and we are quite capable of doing that.”

The fighting spirit is back in Cork. They tore up the script with their teeth on Saturday after the press had fueled their motivation.

Rebels by name, Rebels by nature.

A COUPLE and their two young children have been forced out of their Lahinch home because they could no longer put up with abuse from their 68-year-old ‘neighbour from hell’.

As their next-door-neighbour was jailed for six months for harassment of the couple, he was ordered by a judge to “end the bullying”.

The revelations of the abuse emerged in a case before Lisdoon- varna District Court last week, where both husband and wife spoke of how they had to leave their home and put it up for sale.

Robert and Eleanor Kennedy gave evidence in the case of Michael Mc- Namara, of Moymore North, Lahi- nch, who was charged with harassing them, between May 2005 and Janu- ary 2006.

In imposing sentence on McNama- ra, Judge Joseph Mangan said, “It’s time to end the bullying.”

Robert Kennedy, a businessman in Lahinch, told the court that he and his wife Eleanor and their two young sons – then aged five and two – moved into their new home at Moymore North, Lahinch, in January 2005.

He said that prior to buying the house, the previous residents had claimed to him that the next-door- neighbour had abused them. How- ever, he and his wife loved the house and the area and had never met Mr McNamara so they decided to go ahead with the purchase.

He said that everything was fine for the first three months, but when a friend of his went to put a fence around the house, Mr McNamara – a retired builder who hailed from Limerick – became aggressive to- WeNnelaveeee

Mr Kennedy said that Mr McNa- mara later shouted “abuse and ob- ee NLS Coes Ob Nee e

“He called me a w***er, a f***er, a black b***ard and that I should f*** off back to where I came from,” he ALOR

He said this behaviour prompted him to be concerned for the safety of his two young boys.

“My wife feared for her safety. We had to move house. We couldn’t take any more of the shouting, the abuse,’ he said.

“I had a strong fear for the safety of my children. There were cameras pointing over to our yard where our

children were playing,’ he said.

Mr Kennedy denied a suggestion by McNamara’s solicitor Charles Foley that he had moved his client’s fence without his permission.

He also denied that he had hit Mc- Namara. “I didn’t touch Mr McNa- mara,’ he said.

Mr Foley said “the reason the bad blood arose between the parties was because Mr Kennedy erected a high fence.”

Robert’s wife Eleanor told the court she could not believe their neighbour could be so aggressive.

She said McNamara started putting newspapers up on his windows and the only time the abuse would let up was when he was sick.

She said they moved away from the house and after they put it up for sale, McNamara painted his gable wall five or six different colours.

Referring to the fence, she said, ‘People put those fences up in Moy- more. The fence is fine. People actu- ally want privacy nowadays.”

Retired Sergeant Michael Gallery, who investigated the matter, said that in an interview with gardai, McNa- mara said the allegations were all lies. He denied shouting obscenities

and spitting at Robert Kennedy and denied staring at Eleanor.

‘I did not harass her or her husband in any way,” he told gardai.

He was asked, “Did you hear of the term ‘neighbour from hell’?” and re- plied, “If they were telling the truth, I’d say I was the neighbour from hell.”

Judge Joseph Mangan convicted McNamara. Inspector Michael Gal- lagher, prosecuting, said, “This is an awful situation the injured parties found themselves in. You wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

He said the Kennedys would ap- preciate if McNamara cleaned up his house, so that they would be in a po- sition to sell their home. “They want some finality to this,” he said.

Mr Foley told the court that his cli- ent was in poor health and suffers from heart disease.

‘He has no previous convictions in this entire life. He is a single man. What happened was he got upset at the high fence,” he said.

He said his client would undertake to clean up his house.

In addition to the jail term, McNa- mara was fined €3,000. A bond was fixed in the event of an appeal.

THE Clare managerial diaspora had at least one success story on Satur- day as David Fitzgerald guided his Waterford side to victory over Of- faly. While it wasn’t a vintage Wa- terford performance, there were still significant signs of improvement since the Sixmilebridge man took over. Iwo successive victories in as many weeks has instilled a renewed optimism amongst the Waterford faithful but with less than a week to go before their next challenge in the quarter-final against Leinster fi- nalists Wexford, manager Fitzgerald acknowledges that there is still room for refinement.

‘No-one needs to get carried away yet because both on the sideline and on the field, we have stuff we can improve on and if we are to battle Wexford, we are going to have to im- prove.

“You can’t fault the lads workrate. If they weren’t up for that game, Wa- terford were out of the champion- ship. You could see by Offaly how up for it they were, the good scores they got were some of the best scores I’ve seen all year so we did well to come out of that, I can tell you that but we will have to improve.”

The most significant change that the three time All-Star has made since his arrival in the aftermath of Wa- terford’s 2-26 to 0-23 defeat to Clare in June has been the switch of Ken McGrath from centre-back to full- back. It has received constant media scrutiny but Fitzgerald is more than content with his defensive line, who have not conceeded a goal since his hoy eLeyesleeetesel

“I am happy with the boys back

there. We did give away too many scores but as I have said, a lot of their scores were good scores.

“Listen Offaly were awesome and do you think it will be any different against Wexford the next day’? It’s go- ing to be the same ding-dong again. Pll tell you it’s a lot easier being out-

side there 1n the field than it is stand- ing up on the sideline, that’s for sure. It’s a win, I enjoyed it but I am not fooled. I know we are far from the finished article and we would be well down the peaking order as regards the contenders for the All-Ireland.’ Wexford have been knocking at the

door for several years now without making any real substantial head- way. They have contested the last eight Leinster finals but with Kilken- ny’s total dominance in the province, their only final victory came in 2004 when they defeated Offaly. Last year, they surprised many by beating Tip-

perary to reach the All-Ireland semi- final and having played against them for Clare only two years ago, Fitzger- ald knows the potential danger that they possess.

“For Wexford, we know ourselves we will have to improve if we are to beat them. We know that, we are not stupid. They are a decent team but in saying that, we won’t be throwing in the towel too easy ourselves.

“The one thing that the lads prom- ised me is that they will fight every game for seventy minutes and I ex- pect that out of them. If I’m driving down from Clare, the one thing I have asked for is to give seventy min- utes of honesty. If they are honest for seventy, then I believe they will be there or thereabouts with a chance.

‘These boys are very anxious to do well and maybe put too much pres- sure on themselves. We will see next Sunday what the story is. All I am focused on is Wexford next Sunday and I know they probably won’t be too afraid of what they have seen to- day but we will give it a go.”

If anyone doubted David Fitzger- ald’s full commitment to the Wa- terford cause, they were certainly convinced last Saturday. Five min- utes after half-time, a brief wrestling match broke out after a hefty chal- lenge by Ger Oakley on Eoin Mc- Grath in which both Fitzgerald and Offaly manager Joe Dooley got in- volved. In typical passionate fashion, Fitzgerald jostled with Dooley before turning to the crowd and lifting his arms to inspire the crowd. Waterford may not be the finished article yet but they certainly won’t lack spirit and determination under Fitzgerald’s watch.

GER Loughnane has witnessed many ups and downs in his managerial ca- reer but perhaps none were as bewil- dering and demoralising as Galway’s defeat to Cork on Saturday.

Rumours of intense preparation were backed up by a National League final appearance in May and opti- mism was widespread in the stands on Saturday that Galway finally had a side to match the likes of Kilkenny.

That confidence only grew by haltf- time as Galway led by two points with the strong wind to come, and Cork had been reduced to 14 men af- ter Donal Og Cusack was dismissed for a second yellow, but with only Joe Canning proping up a toothless attack, Galway failed to emerge after the break.

Their overreliance on Canning was well founded as the teenager racked up 2-12 over the 70 minutes and de- servedly took the man-of-the-match award but it was a poor reflection on the rest of the forwards who only managed three points between them.

Standing by the team bus, Ger Loughnane appeared a shellshocked

figure. In full view of his players from their seated position on the bus, dis- illusionment was the key phrase he repeatedly used to describe Galway’s collapse but he was just as willing to praise Cork’s qualities.

“At half time and even early in the second half when we were four points up, it looked good but you have to hand it to Cork. The fellas they have, the drive they have, the physical power, the quality of their hurling and their support play.

‘That is the most susceptible mar- gin of all time, two points, because at least twelve points would have been the real difference between the two teams because only that we had Joe Canning, we would have been beaten off the field.

“It was a complete and utter col- lapse when you think of the amount of training that we have done, the quality of training that we have done, to see a team going down like that, it is absolutely disillusioning when you produced a display like we produce in the last 25 minutes when the game was really there to be won and lost.

“So it was very, very disappointing but you had to admire Cork. When

their backs were to the wall, all their big men came up trumps and that’s what champions do. Unfortunately, only one of our big men performed and he gave a fantastic display at full-forward but too many other of our players just didn’t perform on the day.

“Now you can as have as many reasons as you like for that. I know that they will all say about having no matches but that’s for another day. But I suppose when you see Cork getting beaten by Tipperary and then having another game against Dublin and we play just Antrim and Laois, I mean that is crazy, absolutely cra- zy. Io go into a game of that inten- sity, the players didn’t know what hit detoye0 a

The subject inevitably turned to where he and Galway go from here.

‘“That’s for another day but the road back for the players I think de- pends on the decisions that the hurl- ing board will make now. Are they going to go for matches early on in the year or are they going to cling to this system of just dropping in a team at the end of July when every other team has already played one or two

or three big matches and hoping that you will pull off one big display and get on the road after that.

“What was I was hoping there at the end is that we would get a draw and then you would have a replay and then you would see where you are going.

“But we didn’t deserve a draw, there is no question of deserving it, it would have been total robbery if we had got a draw.

“I’m just totally and utterly disil- lusioned. Completely disillusioned. You know we have had disapoint- ments before with teams but that was inexplicible when you see how we were playing in training and the qual- ity of the hurling in training and then to come down and play like that, you just look out and say ‘this isn’t the team that has been training with us for the last seven or eight months’.”

Another probing arrow came from the pack, enquiring whether he re- gretted saying when he took over the job that it would be a failure if Gal- way didn’t win an All-Ireland in two years?

“No. I don’t regret it whatsoever. It is a failure. There 1s no other way of

saying it. I went up to Galway for two years and I said I would give it two years to win an All-Ireland and we didn’t even win a quarter-final, we didn’t even get to a semi-final, we got nowhere in two years.

‘The very same problems as we had in the league final against Tipperary where only one or two forwards per- formed, happened again today after all the training we have done so in any man’s language, that’s a failure.”

The final missile was launched when he was questioned whether he would give it a third year, to which Loughnane quipped.

“Have a guess.”

With that, more tactical questions ensued but the bus wasn’t willing to wait any longer and with a beep of the horn, Loughnane promptly exited through the doors in what appears to be his last journey with Galway.

A FAMOUS victory for Clare last night as they totally outclassed hot favourites Cork in the Cadbury Mun- ster U21 hurling semi-final at Pairc Ui Chaoimh, setting up a final meet- ing with Tipperary on Wednesday Nelo)

This was a brilliant display by the Banner boys who no doubt will sav- iour this victory especially as the counties meet at senior level in a few days time. The home side tried eve- rything to turn the tide, but such was the solid performance from the visi- tors, there was very little they could do.

Clare were on top all over. Note- worthy though was the contribution of full forward Caimin Morey who finished with a very healthy 1-8 while outside him wearing the number 11 shirt Ger Arthur swung over three magnificent points in the second half (four in all). They pulled the strings too at midfield where Damien Browne and Nicky O’Connell stood out, and a very solid defensive per- formance yielded just 1-5 from the Rebels, that goal came right at the ler Tdee

A brilliant first half display by the Saffron and Blue resulted in an in- terval 1-9 t O-5 lead, and it was no more than they deserved. They were

literally on top in all sectors conse- quently it was a lacklustre Cork who had three county seniors on their side — Cathal Naughton, Patrick Cronin and Patrick Horgan. They only man- aged one point from play in the open-

ing 30 minutes, which came from corner forward Stephen Moylan on three minutes.

GUE Tees eben ore marcanlaeubetcmcle-DamLUD ESC ing ahead by three points after five minutes with full forward Morey fir-

ing over a pair of frees and a beauti- ful long-range effort from midfielder Browne. They increased this advan- tage to 0-6 to 0-3 before a splendid lengthy delivery from O’Connell out around the middle of the park was whipped to the net by Morey to put them comfortably ahead by five points with 10 minutes to go to the eee

Twice they denied Cork goal op- portunities when firstly goalkeeper Donal Tuohy came off his line and then Gary O’Connell stopped a blis- tering shot from Naughton. The visi- tors finished the half strongly with a trio of points from Arthur, Morey and Colin Ryan who had switched from the corner to full forward.

Significantly, Clare maintained that momentum for the new half. They gained valuable breathing space when a Horgan penalty was expertly saved by outstanding keeper Donal Tuohy. And when Eamon Glynn darted out of defence to find Arthur, you could sense something special was about to happen. The sides swapped points, but entering the final quarter, Clare had raced 1-15 to 0-9 in front.

O’Connell and James McInerney pushed on from the half back line, and some impressive shooting from Morey, John Conlon, Sean Collins and sub Conor Tierney ensuring there was no way back for Cork.

Clare were ahead now by more than double scores before Horgan finally got through for a late, late consola- tion goal.

THE second annual Outdoor Land- scape Painting Competition takes place this weekend in Lisdoonvar- na. After hosting Ireland’s first ever competition of its kind last year, the organisers have decided to expand this year’s event into a full weekend of activity.

The weekend artsfest, which 1s be- ing organised by the Burren Painting Centre, will attract 30 aspiring paint- ers for the competition and countless other for the weekend’s festivities.

“Last year was the first year and we ran a very successful competti-

tion on the Saturday. But this year we have tried to make it more into a weekend so we have more events organised which are taking place all over the weekend. So it’s going to be more of an artsfest this year,’ said Chris O’ Neill of the Burren Painting Centre.

“On the Friday evening we have a demonstration by the oil painter Fergal Flanagan from Wicklow. We are going to use the newly renovat- ed Town Hall for this. We will go straight from the demonstration into an exhibition of local artists curated by Doreen Drennan.

‘We have several professional art-

ists from this area who all paint in the Burren. So most of the art will be very relevant to north Clare and the Burren area. This exhibition will be on for 10 days and will be the first art exhibition in the new art space in the Town Hall pavilion.”

The competition will kick off on Saturday morning with painters be- ing whisked off to three secret lo- cations in the Burren to begin their ernonlmuetce

“We have 30 people at this stage and many of those will be doing nu- merous works. After registration we will give them the coice of the three locations, which are secret up until

that point,’ continued Chris.

“We give them a bit of advice and a map and off they go. That whole process is quite exciting – it’s like we have a bit of orienteering before we start painting. All paintings must then be in by 6pm for the judges to start their process.”

Judging will take place on Sunday morning while a drawing workshop will be conducted by Frank Sandford in the Burren Painting Centre.

The winning paintings will be dis- played at the King Thomand Hotel for a prize giving lunch where 12 prizes will be handed out. For more www.butrenpaintingcentre.com