Shannon

IT may be high summer, but the usual activities are being run by Clare Youth Service in Shannon. “We’ve decided to continue on our programmes throughout the summer because the attendance at them is still quite high. Usually with people going away and doing different things you’d see a drop off, but because young people are still engaging with the programmes we’ve decided to keep them going and add in a few other ones,” said youth worker Thomas O’Hara. Young people about to start secondary school are being catered for, he said. “We’re starting our transition programme this week, our transistion to first year programme with groups of young people moving from sixth class to first year. That’s on Wednesday afternoons and it’s all based on discussions around what they can expect going into first year. We’ll be running through different communication games and exercises and stuff like that, a bit of team building and introducing them to the programmes …

STUDENTS from across Clare and the MidWest have been inspired to develop creative, innovative and entrepreneurial skills for life as part of this year’s EMPOWER programme. The free programme, designed and developed by Mary Immaculate College (MIC) and the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS), saw Transition Year (TY) and Fifth Year students tasked with finding innovative solutions to some of the mobility challenges facing society. Now in its sixth year, the EMPOWER programme partnered with Jaguar Land Rover to give students a real hands-on approach to the tasks they faced. Held from June 7 to 17, the theme of this year’s programme was ‘The Future of Mobility’. The participating students spent a day at Jaguar Land Rover’s (JLR) R&D Software Engineering Centre in Shannon where they took part in a Hackathon, mentored by JLR engineers, to give students a first-person experience of handling their own Future of Mobility projects. According to Patricia O’Sullivan, Enterprise and Community Engagement Manager at MIC, this year’s programme was hugely successful. “EMPOWER …

CLARE Independent TD Michael McNamara has said he has received confirmation from the National Car Testing Service that two locations for an NCT centre have been identified in the Shannon area. In May the NCTS confirmed that the development of an NCT Centre at the Smithstown Industrial Estate Smithstown halted “due to significant contractual difficulties.” Deputy McNamara, who has been pressing for a second NCT Centre for County Clare, said he has received confirmation from the NCTS that two alternative locations have been identified. “Construction work on the new centre had already commenced at the Smithstown Industrial Estate as far back as last summer, including the erecting of the centre’s steel structure, and it was expected that the centre would be operational by the end of 2021,” he said. “It was disappointing to hear that the development would not be proceeding at the site. However, I am delighted to learn that two new site locations are currently being evaluated.” Deputy …

FIANNA Fáil spokesperson on Aviation Cathal Crowe is calling for strong consideration to be given to the establishment of a hydrogen fuel farm within the Shannon Airport complex. He said this would see the airport establish itself as a world leader in terms of sustainable aviation, at a time of significant change in the sector. The Clare TD said he had written to the Shannon Estuary Economic Taskforce, outlining his proposal to plan for a hydrogen fuel farm at Shannon Airport. “The Green Atlantic Windfarm planned off of the coast of Clare provides for a €50 million Synchronous Compensator, will convert electricity generated via the wind turbine infrastructure to storable hydrogen fuel. All of this will happen on site at Moneypoint, just 65km west of Shannon Airport. “Meanwhile, a fuel farm was developed at Shannon Airport in the 1970s and has the capacity to store 33,000 metric tonnes of aviation fuel. “It would make perfect sense for the hydrogen generated …

WOLFE Tones held the finals night of its Johnny Cregan Memorial Tournament last week. The hurling tournament for local national schools was organised to help promote the game with young people in the town, and to commemorate Johnny, who was a well known figure within the club for many years. After a blitz day on June 15, the finals night took place last Wednesday. Wolfe Tones Paul Hogan said, “We wanted to get the schools in Shannon engaged in hurling again, and to promote hurling within the town. “The best way to promote is through the schools and we felt that if we had a Shannon schools championship and get every school in Shannon to enter, it’d be one way of getting exposure of it into every school. “We’re going to do the same for gaelic football later on, after the Cumann na mBunscoil has taken place, but we just said that with the Clare hurlers going well we’ll tackle …

THE inaugural Wings Music Festival came to its end last Sunday night, with a raucous session at the Shannon Springs. The festival began six days earlier and saw music and performance at a number of venues around the town, including Saturday night’s show at the Leisure Centre, which featured Luka Bloom, Cyril O’Donoghue and Mickey Dunne. Wings was the brainchild of Damian O’Rourke, who put in a great effort to organise venues, musicians and to get the town engaged with the festival. Speaking this week, he said that the first and last sessions, both open to all musicians and held at the Shannon Springs Hotel, were the highlights for him. “The opening session on the Monday, and then closing on the Sunday, they were pretty special, people just came in and played songs. “On Sunday we started at 1pm in the Shannon Springs and it was going for 11 and a half hours. “I’d say it was the longest recorded …

SHANNON Musical Society has announced plans to hold what will be its first show since 2020 on the week of February 12-18 of next year. The Society’s production will be Little Shop of Horrors, which it had planned to perform some months ago but decided to cancel due to continuing concerns about Covid-19. Director of the show will be Aodán Fox and he said they are looking forward to getting down to business once more. “Basically the new committee was elected and they decided that they’d continue with Little Shop of Horrors, which we were supposed to do in February just gone. “We’ve a slightly new production team in that our musical directors Carmel Griffin has stepped down and Shane Farrell is our new Musical Director. “Shane is from the Tuam area and he’d be well known from Operation Transformation. He’s just after winning a national AIMS award as best musical director for a production of Little Shop of Horrors …

FIFTY-THREE years after its foundation, Shannon Town United officially opened its new clubhouse last weekend. “It’ll cost over €300,000 by the time the furniture and fittings and so on are done, well in excess of €300,000,” said the club’s chairman Ger Kelly. The clubhouse has four changing rooms, a referee’s room, kitchen, two reception rooms upstairs, a public toilet and an office. “We first put in the planning permission about four years ago, but when that planning application went in it was only for two dressing rooms. “Then with the growth of the schoolboy teams and girls teams we knew we needed bigger facilities, so we went from two to four. We also decided to convert the upstairs into a function room and a meeting room,” says Ger. The clubhouse means a major improvement to the facilities. “We’ve had a prefab, we have a steel shed down at our other pitch at Corrib Drive, but for over 50 years we’ve …