The Clare People Archive

A MAJOR rethink on how retail business in Shannon is developing is urgently needed, according to the newly appointed president of the lo- cal Chamber of Commerce.

Jan Barrett, who is vice-president for international operations at Avo- cent in Shannon, has just been ap- pointed at the helm of the business body.

The Galway native, who been in- volved with the chamber for the past five years, joined Cybex in 1999 and remained with the company when it merged with Apex to form Avocent three years later.

As president of the chamber, he will focus on key areas identified by the chamber over the past few years. These include industry and enter- prise, Shannon Airport, developing retail in Shannon, tourism and phys- er UU Rec KINMOCe RUD Kon

“One thing I want to do is estab- lish what is of major relevance to our members. We will conduct a survey in relation to that,” he pointed out.

The chamber has set up three sub- committees – industry and com- merce, living and working in Shan- non and school and youth career Support – and intends to focus on those over the coming year.

A fourth sub-committee is to be set up, to focus on the development of more retail opportunities in the town.

“In relation to retail, I think there is a big opportunity there. Shan- non has lost out to Ennis and Lim-

erick. Years ago, Athlone lost a lot of shopping power to Mullingar, but then two shopping centres were de- veloped and they found people were coming back into Athlone,’ Mr Bar- rett said.

He said that the masterplan, cur- rently being developed for Shannon, should meet the existing needs.

“It needs to be done in an integrat- ed manner and not just provide the same services that are already there.

“There is no point just taking the same spending power and splitting it between the existing and new stores. There is a lack of fashion. If you di- vide it into the range of services, you can bring the spending power into Shannon,” he said.

He said that the decision by Tesco to close its store in SkyCourt was a major worry for the town.

‘Tesco used to be the anchor ten- ant, who got the feet passing by the doors nearby. With the closure of Tesco, Dunnes is now the anchor tenant and there has been a declin- ingfootfall in the older part of the centre,” he added.

‘There is no anchor tenant down that side of SkyCourt. While we are assured they are talking to a couple of people (prospective tenants), in the meantime, our members are lob- bying us to work with Pat Kelly and company (SkyCourt management) and look for an abatement of rents until that happens,” said Mr Barrett.

THE owner and manager of an En- nis business park has appealed a town council decision to approve a proposed three-unit industrial ware- house facility in Ennis.

Last month, Ennis Town Council granted planning permission to John Bonfil to construct the units at the Clonroadmore business park.

In response, Alan Lewis has re- tained planning consultant, Brendan McGrath to lodge the appeal against

the council decision.

In the appeal to An Bord Pleanala, Mr McGrath said Mr Lewis was fun- damentally opposed to the develop- ment because it would undermine the character and operation of the busi- ness park.

“The Clonroadmore business park is being transformed into an urban facility with a distinctive community role. That role is entirely appropriate for this central urban location and should have the support of the local authority. My client accepts that the

site should be developed but wishes to see development that is fully com- patible with the establishing char- acter of the business park and takes account of the fact that there is no suitable access for HGVs.”

Mr McGrath is arguing that the pro- posed development would seriously injure the amenities or depreciate the value of property in the vicinity; would endanger the health or safety of persons occupying or employed in an adjoining structure; or would endan- ger public safety by reason of traffic

hazard or obstruction of road users.

“The proposed development is in accordance with the commercial zoning objective but, in every other respect, 1s contrary to the policy of the development plan.

“The proposed land uses and ac- tivities are inappropriate given the established character of the business park; the proposed access is unsuit- able for the uses proposed and there are related deficiencies in application and assessment procedures.

“This 1s not a typical industrial es-

tate. The majority of occupiers are involved in some form of community activity. The park has a distinctive identity and function and the devel- Opment under consideration would have serious adverse impacts on that identity and function.

“There remains a number of small- scale manufacturing and distribution activities in the park. However, it is intended that the whole of the busi- ness park will be given over to com- munity-type activities.”

CLARE played well on Sunday but there must have been moments when Mike McNamara felt a twitch of panic.

Even as Clare blitzed Waterford in the second half and McNamara watched impassively, some doubts must have surfaced.

Clare, after all, hadn’t won a game in Munster in five years. This was uncharted territory. Waterford may have lacked the usual rapier thrust but John Mullane was swatting over points for fun. Was McNamara wor- ried? Even just a little bit?

‘The last time I got worried was 1963 or four, I think, when I was sent off to boarding school,” said McNa- mara afterwards, standing, coinci- dentally enough, underneath a fire “EbweeP

Don’t worry be happy lads, seemed to be the message. And why not. Be- side McNamara, the Clare dressing room glowed with a sense of achieve- ment and with good cause. Clare won by nine points. They scored two goals. The new lads, particularly Mark Flaherty looked comfortable. More importantly for McNamara though, the win went some way to restoring Clare’s reputation in Mun- Nis

He said, “We’ll we’ve prepared for this the same as an All-Ireland final. We had to come out of the hole we were in. Clare hurling was slipping in a bad way. Even our supporters were deserting us in droves. We had to put in a big performance. We trained for this like it was an All-Ireland final because we felt we had to. It would be interesting to know whether there is anymore in us or not, but that’s for another day.”

McNamara was un-sparing in his assessment of Clare’s recent out- ings in Munster. Clare, he said, had reached a point of no return making a win on Sunday essential.

‘“We’ve been close to a disgrace in Munster for a long number of years now. For those of us, who came up in the old school, the old way, Mun- ster was our goal and our ambition and our pride and our honour. We’re proud to be part of a Munster tradi- tion of hurling and we have to put our

best foot forward today. We couldn’t let 1t go down the line any further.”

By the time they had clocked off, Clare’s forwards had put in a solid 70 minutes of hard work. McNamara was pleased.

“It’s the key to success, work rate. If you have a forward line that aren’t working then you can’t win matches, particularly big matches. We spoke a lot about the lost cause and the one ball that they didn’t contest; it may or may not change the whole course of the game. We spoke about it now for a month. Every ball was vital to those lads today and every ball had to be won and that’s they way we saw

it. That’s the way we approached it and as you saw they did it right until the very end.”

The goals, McNamara acknowl- edged were hugely important and perhaps a little surprising.

“Funny enough we haven’t been scoring them, even in training we were missing goals. It was a pleasant surprise that we could get the goals and the goals came today.”

Asked to consider the challenge of Limerick, McNamara’s thoughts drifted back to 1996 and Clare’s de- feat at the hands of their neighbours in the semi-final of the Munster Championship.

“Of course there is always a bite in a Limerick/Clare match. We can go back, was it 12 years ago, here on that famous day, that we might be able to get a bit of revenge. Who knows, who knows.”

About an hour later, on the Coon- agh roundabout, a proud looking Ollie Baker could be seen riding shotgun in the team bus, shaking his fist defiantly, as Clare headed home. Who knows indeed?

JUSTIN McCarthy emerged from the Waterford dressing room and didn’t have to be prompted to offer his thoughts on where it all went wrong for Waterford.

The Waterford manager felt his injury-hit team were outplayed by a Clare side, he reckoned would have beaten any team on Sunday.

Despite posting a more than re- spectable total of 0-23, the crucial CUTS sTOLN Ke) e Mole AN (ole) IMA Nome CUE KM BEls one element inseparable from Water-

ford performances from recent times — goals.

“T felt the way they performed they would have beaten any team” said McCarthy afterwards, ““We came up here with high ambitions but at the end of the day they outplayed us. They got some great scores, from frees and from play. The two goals of course were a big issue. We scored 23 points which wasn’t bad but we needed the goals as well.”

McCarthy wasn’t getting too down though. He is around long enough to know that plenty more twists and

turns lie in the road ahead.

“There is a lot of hurling to be played in August. We’re playing in five weeks time, which is a good gap in between. We’ll regroup and reorganise ourselves and hopefully ZNO MEO stom DON LEDC Sh MAYA 00MM oLomCed (or-B Kore Mel OO), then. Its not going to be an easy road back, there’s no doubt about that. Having said that we’re experienced enough too. A lot of teams will fall by the wayside between now and Au- gust.”

McCarthy said and lingering feel- ings of despondency will be well and

truly purged by the time Waterford enter the qualifiers.

“If you win youre on a high, if you lose you’re on a low. At the end of the day, these things come and go over a matter of days. You’ve a different outlook coming into the next game will be Galway or Antrim. We’ll just have to take every step as it comes and who knows what the outcome will be in the long run.”

The All-Ireland that everyone in Waterford yearns and hungers for.

Not on the evidence of this tired

display though.

THE win may have been unexpected but Clare manager Kevin Kennedy never for a moment doubted the com- mitment of his players.

Sunday’s victory over reigning Munster champions Waterford, owed everything, Kennedy said afterwards, to character and pride.

“All I can say is that we have a panel of 24 there and they are 24 of the finest fellas you could get,” said Kennedy, standing near the entrance

to the player’s tunnel.

‘There were fellas asked to play for Clare. Some fellas refused, we had more that were injured and unavail- able. Fellas refused to play for Clare. These lads didn’t. They were proud to wear the Clare jersey and I am re- ally proud of them. Simple as that now, they gave it everything.”

Preparations may not have been ideal and Kennedy acknowledged that everyone within the panel knew getting past Waterford presented a major challenge.

“It’s a great win. Waterford were in the All-Ireland final last year. We knew ourselves, we were up against it, but I am absolutely thrilled for those fellas. There were evenings there this year, when we had only the bare 15. They proved they were up to it. They were proud to play for Clare today, proud to win.”

Last year Clare defeated Cork, then Munster champions in the first round before losing to Waterford in the pro- vincial semi-final.

A year on Kennedy hopes the win

can be a springboard to greater suc- cess in the grade. Clare have never won an intermediate title, since it was elevated from the status of a jun- ior championship.

“Anything is possible now. We weren’t given a chance there, in fair- ness we thought we were up against it. We got the lads right. The last four or five games, I knew things were improving. I knew the attitude was good and that was it. They are decent lads. Good club hurlers and proud to get a chance to play for Clare.”

The Clare manager felt Clare’s work-rate and willingness to hunt in packs was the winning of the game.

“We hit and we chased in fours and fives. When a team is playing like that, they are very hard to beat. We felt we could beat Waterford. Clare lads feel they can beat Waterford anytime’, added Kennedy just as Clare’s senior hurlers ran onto the pitch for the day’s main event against Waterford.

Maybe he knew something we oleln ae

GHOSTS banished. Demons laid to rest. A win against Waterford, his- torically, wasn’t something to get excited about.

But judging by the roar at the end and the sense of relief outside the Clare dressing room, this meant something.

More than winning, this was about wiping the slate clean and starting again. Conor Whelan, captain when Clare capsized in troubled waters down in Waterford last year, knew that for a long time on Sunday, it looked like Clare were charted to- Se NUGK-MCTOO ODE ED as EelKon

“Things didn’t look great for us,” Whelan, stand-on captain this year, admitted outside the Clare dressing room. “The lads got back into it. A great interception by Gordon Kelly was a real turning point in the game. We went up the field and got a point and then the point from Stephen Hickey closed the day out.

“We know we played very poorly in the first-half. We weren’t expressing ourselves on the ball. We just didn’t play right. We, as players, know that. Frank Doherty told us too. It was really laid on the line to us and we were happy that we rose to the chal- lenge in the second half. *

Sitting in the stands, injured, this

year’s captain Michael O’Shea kicked his heels in frustration as the errors continued to mount.

“Tt’s frustrating when you are look- ing out because you can see what is going on. You’re sitting in the stand and you can’t do anything about it.

‘“We’ve a lot to improve on. We made a lot of stupid mistakes. Our ball handling was very poor at stages, especially in the first-half. Our move- ment up front wasn’t up to standard. We weren’t creating enough oppor- tunities for ourselves. Saying that, a couple of the lads showed good bot- tle towards the end. They stood up and were counted when a couple of Scores were needed, but we’ll take the positives.”

They included a rattling good per- formance from David Connole, who, along with John Hayes, O’Shea said, provided Clare with mobility and strength going forward.

Plenty of work and plenty to think about, then, ahead of the Munster semi-final against Kerry.

O’Shea, who Doherty said after- wards would add a different gear to Clare’s running game, is hopeful of being fit to face Kerry.

“We’ve three weeks and we’ll be doing everything we can. That’s a day you really don’t want to miss. Playing Kerry down in Killarney. We’ll be doing everything we can.”

IF any Clare footballer was in doubt about what was expected of him on Sunday, he need only have looked at the number written on his arm. Be- fore the game, Clare decided to em- broider each jersey with ‘100%’ to represent the effort required.

A second championship defeat to Waterford in 12 months was unthink- able for Clare and though they skated perilously close to the edge, Clare managed to find a way through, to the relief of manager Frank Doherty.

“To be honest I’m just delighted to get over this hurdle because after last year, we needed to win’, said Doher- ty on the sideline afterwards.

“It was a morale booster to the county as such. We needed that go- ing forward, because if we had lost today, it probably would have driv- en Clare football back another bit. We’ ve had enough of knocks over the last few months, so hopefully this is a step in the right direction.

“Clare was a year waiting for this day to come. Them lads were hurt- ing over last year. Obviously I wasn’t there but I know what they went through, because when you lose a championship game you hurt. I knew they would keep going.”

Clare operated well below the re- quired mark for long periods and while rejecting the effect of the swirling breeze, Doherty acknowl- edged Clare’s shooting wasn’t up to

Nore te

“Tl tell you the truth. This whole breeze stuff I don’t believe in. Some- times teams play better against the breeze. We were knocking ball into our forwards in the first half and it was running away from them. We

were using the breeze too much. I felt if we carried the ball more directly and ran at them, and had overlaps and then kicked the ball, it would hold for our forward, and it would be a disad- vantage to the Waterford backs.

“We were shooting erratically at

times. It was decent enough ball go- ing in, but it was coming out just as fast. We had to cool things down.” Yet, for his first championship win as an intercounty manager, Doherty took heart from the way his team – particularly the younger members,

– stood up when it mattered.

“David Connole was man of the match in my opinion today. He’s only 18, he’s doing the Leaving Cert and he’s an absolutely fantastic young lad. I said the whole time that I’d love to play either him or Gordon Kelly at six. When David came out to six, it CHUN DE (orem Neto 8 ee

Doherty also thanked Waterford manager for his pre-match com- ments, damning the state of Clare football.

“I’m delighted with Kiely, with all his nice words during the week about Clare football. I didn’t have to say too much and I do appreciate his words of wisdom, fair play to him.”

Kerry, the All-Ireland champions, are now in Doherty’s sight-lines.

“It will be a privilege to the young- er lads. It’s going to help their game playing against the best team in Ire- land,” said Doherty

‘As far as ’’m concerned, you could pick the best players in Ireland and they wouldn’t beat Kerry. We’ll go down there and we have nothing to fear. We’ll go out and we’ll give it a lash, we’ll try our best and it will be great experience for the younger lads – for next year in Division 4 and that’s what we’re building on.”

No prizes for guessing what will be required in Killarney. Just think of a number and double it.

IT was the victory that finally lifted Munster into the patheon of the great sides of Europe. Munster’s triumph against Biarritz in 2006 registered them among a host of teams who had produced one great year. The two final defeats mattered for little, they needed a second Heinekin Cup tro- phy to secure their place among the elite, to be called a truly great team.

For the 65,000 Munster support- ers that crammed into the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff, this final meant everything. Winning well or win- ning ugly didn’t matter to the horde of red who sang, cheered, screamed and lifted their heroes to the final whistle.

They just craved a win by however means necessary and were made ex- perience the full spectrum of emo- tions as Munster clung on to their

slender lead in the final stages.

The raucous roars of the Munster faithful willed them to victory, con- tinually drowning out the attempted cries of the 5,000 or so Toulousains who made the trip across the chan- nel. Equally, the hordes of Munster fans’ total silence at times had a sim- ilar effect on the French side no more so than for Jean-Baptiste Elissade’s first kick as the deafening silence ap- peared to unnerve him.

For Munster, they are used to such support from their loyal fans. The tension, the emotion, the pressure, the nerves, even the occasion did not sway the team’s unrelenting focus on the grand prize. The did it the hard way, coming through the so-called group of death before knocking Eng- lish champions Gloucester and even Alan Gaffney’s Saracens on their way to their second Heinekin Cup success. Two wins in three years

makes for satisfying reading. And they couldn’t have done it without the 16th man. Or perhaps it should now be 17th considering the 65,000 plus who swarmed the Millenium Stadi- um and its environs at the weekend.

CLARE camogie captain Deirdre Murphy was in Croke Park yesterday to help launch the 2008 Gala All-Ire- land Camogie Senior, Intermediate and Junior Championships.

President of the Camogie Associa- tion, Liz Howard, was joined at the launch by the captains and managers of all 27 counties competing in this year’s Championships.

Speaking at GAA _ headquarters, Murphy said Clare have some mo- mentum to build on this year.

“Winning the League this year was a great achievement for Clare but we really want the championship,” she said. “The way we lost the junior last

year to Derry by a last minute goal was very hard to take. We had played really well and it came down to a bit of misfortune on our part.

“This year we hope to go that one step better. We’ve drawn against difficult teams in our group like Of- faly and Antrim but we are confi- dent enough. At the minute we are a long way from Croke Park, our first game is against Offaly on 29 June and that’s all we’re thinking about,” Murphy said.

Reigning Champions Wexford will be hoping to retain the crown they won last year for the first time since 1975. There will be several sides aiming to relieve them of the O’Dutfy Cup including last year’s

runners up and 2006 winners, Cork.

The Gala All-Ireland Senior Cham- pionship action begins this weekend. Last year’s Champions Wexford have the weekend off with the six remain- ing teams all in action. 2007 run- ners-up Cork will travel to Dublin as they hope to get their champion- ship off to a winning start. National League champions Kilkenny will host Tipperary, while Limerick, who are new to the Senior Championship after their All-Ireland B Final win last year, will travel to take on Gal- way.

SPORTING achievement comes in every shape. From the brutal speed of the sprinters to the sheer physical wartare of front-row rugby, victory in sport is a beautiful lady with many reece

Never was this more in evidence than in Ballyvaughan on Saturday. At 7.17pm the last of the Challenge Marathon walkers made their way through the finish line at the Burren Coast Hotel.

Aching beyond pain, they finished their ordeal with pride and honour. Standing straight with chests out, their joy was just as sweet as the six mile runners who completed their race almost 10 hours earlier.

Launched at 9am by Hollywood actor Brendan Gleeson, the walk- ers were welcomed into port by the encouraging words of Fr Des, with news of Cardiff and rugby ringing in the salty air.

“All the ingredients for a great spec-

tacle were there; the atmosphere, the weather, the people — it all clicked to- gether on the day,” said Gerry Reidy of the Ballyvaughan Fanore Walking Sitley

“We had a lot of runners who were taking on the six mile course and they would have been finished in 35 or 40 minutes. But at the same time we had walkers who completed the full marathon an it would have taken then more than eight hours to finish altogether. But that was their chal- antexonee

More than 850 people actually took part in the marathon. The number would have been greater had it not been for the rail strike in Cork which kept a number of people away.

“When you think of last February, we were aiming for 300 back then and to get three times that amount was fantastic. Everyone up there was impressed, even a lot of the locals who would never have walked the route before were gobsmacked,’ con- WNEOM OEM

“We will review everything that happened, but I feel that when we do have a look at the event we will de- cide to host it again next year.

“We had Fr Des Forde acting as commentator for the day at the finish line, he was keeping the whole thing going. And of course we had Brendan Gleeson there to stat the event which We TOS NO BE:ROLm

“We had an army of volunteers out during the day and the support we got from local people and from the sponsors was fantastic.”