Tag Archives: shannon

AFTER 41 years of service to Shannon Airport, most recently as Operations Director, Niall Maloney will soon be departing. Mr Maloney is set to be succeeded as Director by Niall Kearns, who will lead the airport’s Operations and Commercial team. Being Operations Director at Shannon involved responding to countless challenges and in a previous interview with the Clare Champion Mr Maloney said, “In our business there are challenges every day. Some of them are quite minor, some of them are a bit more detailed and you have to treat each passenger’s needs on a case by case basis. “You have people who have died, you have people who are going to a wedding, people who have left a passport behind, people who have lost a set of keys, people who don’t know the country at all and want some help and service. “You’ve a whole myriad of various issues, some of them quite serious, some of them less than serious, …

A SHANNON councillor is calling for ‘Action’ in promoting the positives of the town. Councillor Donna McGettigan has proposed that the Shannon Municipal District create a video showcasing Shannon and involving community volunteer groups, drone and photo footage. “Our town has some beautiful spots such as the loop and pump track for people to come to visit,” she said at a meeting of the Shannon Municipal District. The councillor stated, “A lot of time people tend to focus on the negative, but we need to focus on the positives.” She pointed out that Shannon has a number of community groups “who help make our town what it is” including Tidy Towns and Meals on Wheels who could be featured in the video. She added that Shannon is also home to sporting world champions who could also make an appearance in the video “and talk about growing up in Shannon.” She said the video would be a means of “showing Shannon …

GRAVE concerns among the local community in Shannon visiting Illaunmanagh cemetery were highlighted at a meeting of councillors where it was confirmed plans are underway for a new footpath and improved car parking. Councillor Gerry Flynn, at a meeting of the Shannon Municipal District, highlighted “big entourages” of vehicles attending services at the crematorium parking in spaces provided for the graveyard. Illegal encampments have led to the closing of the parking area near the main entrance, he added saying this is “causing a massive inconvenience”. While sight lines when exiting on to Slí na Mara, “a very busy road, is causing safety issues”. Responding to the motion, Tom Mellett, Senior Executive Engineer Shannon Municipal District stated, “Shannon Municipal District will be installing a new footpath and improved public car parking area in the Illaunmanagh area. “The works include the installation of new drainage infrastructure, kerbing, a new macadam footpath, a new car parking area and improving the entrance to the …

SIEMENS Digital Industries Software has annnounced it will invest €7m in a new software research and development group in Shannon. The multimillion-euro investment will focus on High Performance Computing (HPC) in the Cloud for semiconductor design and is expected to create 25 jobs over three years. The project, which is supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland, is the first ‘Cloud EDA’ R&D group to be established by Siemens Digital Industries Software globally, and enhances Ireland’s already strong reputation of in Cloud Software Development and HPC R&D. This division is expected to create more than 25 new and highly impactful R&D roles in Shannon over the next three years, focused on delivering cutting edge cloud HPC environments for Siemens EDA workloads. Tánaiste & Minister for Enterprise Trade & Employment Leo Varadkar said: “This is great news from Siemens, investing €7m in Shannon and creating 25 new highly skilled jobs over the next three years. It really demonstrates the skill …

PARISH priest Father Arnie Rosney is celebrating the 25th anniversary of his ordination, with a silver jubilee mass at Ss John & Paul Church on Saturday evening at 6.30pm, followed by a parish reception at the Oakwood Hotel. Entering the priesthood is a major commitment, opening the door to one way of life while closing other doors, and as Father Arnie made his way through Maynooth in the early to mid 90s, he increasingly realised that it was for him. “I’m not sure it (becoming a priest) was something I always wanted to do, but I always thought it was something worthwhile doing. I saw it as a good way to spend my life. “When I was going through Maynooth I never expected to see the whole thing through, I never expected that. But as you went up along and got closer to it, you got more settled into it and you suddenly realise this way of life is for …

LOCAL woman Carmel Peacock has been awarded a long service medal having put down 40 years in the local Order of Malta branch. Speaking to the Clare Champion Carmel said that she hadn’t expected to receive the award at the time that she did. “We had 19 new officers being commissioned on Sunday and the awards were given out on the back of that. I was included in those.” While she has been involved in the organisation since she was a national school child, last week was one of the busiest in all that time, before it was capped with the award. “We had a very, very long week, to be fair. There was a Cadet camp on the previous weekend, the cadets participated in that on Saturday and Sunday. There were cadets from all over Ireland and that was on up in Co Fermanagh, I drove the cadets up there on the mini bus. “Then we were straight into …

ST TOLA’S National School has been praised in the Dáil for providing an example of how students with disabilities should be catered for. During the course of a debate on the provision of education for children with special needs, Clare TD Cathal Crowe said, “I will commend St. Tola’s National School in Shannon on being one of two schools in the country that has a multi-disability class. “The body politic always talks about ASD units, and that is so important, but it is only one disability across a spectrum of disabilities. The model in St. Tola’s is one we need to replicate throughout the country.” St Tola’s opened its class for pupils with multiple disabilities in May, with over €250,000 having been spent on providing a prefab and facilities for the children. At the time of the opening, school principal Mary Dunlea Fitzgerald said, “The children have multiple disabilities so they have challenges in relation to communication and movement and …

A TENNIS programme is being run throughout July for Ukrainian refugees who have arrived in Shannon. It started last week and is being run by Wesley O’Brien, who said it came to Shannon after something similar began in Meelick a few weeks earlier. “About three weeks ago I started a similar programme at the Radisson Hotel for the families there,” Wesley told The Champion. “A lady called Siobhán Boyd reached out to me, who’s with a group in Shannon, and she asked if I’d do something for the families in Shannon so I said no problem.” He was very pleased with how it had begun. “It went very well, we had good numbers considering it was the first day. We broke it into different age groups, there were five to ten-year-olds from half two to half three, 11 to 17 from half three to half four and then 18 and over from 4.30 to 5.30pm. Considering it was the first …