KINVARA is to host a benefit concert featuring members of Buttons and Bows and the complete Brock Maguire Band this weekend. The concert is to raise money for the medical costs of Sergio O’Connor, the Dublin-born baby, who was born with an incomplete oesophagus.

HOPES that the Glaise na Rinne affordable housing development would be complete by the end of the month look, at the time of writing, as if they will be dashed.

A unique photograph of a lamprey hitching a lift on a bottlenose dolphin calf was captured last week in the Shannon Estuary. The photo was taken by Joanna Barker, a researcher with the Kilrush-based Shannon Dolphin and Wildlife Foundation.

ONE of the highlights of the Scariff Harbour Festival will be the performance of Jack L, who will do an outdoor show at the Fair Green on August 5.Armed with an extremely distinctive voice, Jack L has been prominent in the Irish music scene for over a decade, with a string of popular tunes.Speaking to The Clare Champion last week, he said that not only has he performed in the Banner County before, he’s actually performed in Scariff. “I’ve played in Scariff in the old Merriman, I’m often down around there.”Of all his songs perhaps the best known is Georgie Boy, which showcases his own vocal talent and has a very engaging story. “I suppose it was funny, when we did the Metropolis Blue album we didn’t consider it as a single really because it was in the wrong time signature. The radio just picked up on it and it’s still played to this day. It’s a song that everybody …

VOLUNTARY groups in East Clare can obtain insurance discounts of up to 60% to cover the day-to-day operation of their community centres once they achieve charitable status by affiliating to Muintir na Tíre.

‘FAR away hills are always greener’ goes the saying but for some people at least, there is satisfaction in knowing they really are.One of these is former Shannon employee Andrew O’Gorman, who only recently turned his hand to screen writing. Amazingly, his very first film script has been accepted for production by a major Midlands filmmaker.“My dream was always to be a writer but in my earlier life, perhaps, I did not always believe that it was a viable choice. I suppose it was a self-confidence thing. Now that I am a bit older and have some life experience under my belt, it has become something more tangible. I have always been a major movie fan and see story-telling as a basic human trait, especially in Ireland.“My first breakthrough as a screen writer came when I attended a Script Writing for Beginners course, in 2010, led by Eleanor McSherry at the Limerick Writers’ Centre (LWC). The course was invaluable for …

Members of Ireland’s high-performance swimming squad, including Shannon’s Chris Bryan and Olympic hopeful Gráinne Murphy, will plunge into Lough Derg in September to compete in the i3 Open Water Swimming Festival in Killaloe.

LIMERICK Printmakers’ Studio and Gallery are hosting Turning Point, an exhibition of work by Martina Cleary, which has previously been on show at Glór in Ennis. The show was officially opened by Breda Lynch, artist, lecturer and curator recently and will continue until August 9.Speaking about the work, Ms Cleary said, “The work presented at Limerick Printmakers’ Studio and Gallery is part of an extended project carried out during the period 2008-11, supported by the Create Phase 1-Artist in the Community Scheme and the Irish Arts Council. “The works are tableau vivant in style, using the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone as a metaphorical device to address the psychodynamic of recovery from abuse.“While earlier work in this project was of a more documentary nature, the decision to use this allegory as a starting point came from a need to preserve anonymity, to offer cohesion or potential for meaning in events that often seem to have none. “The work was …