KILRUSH will host no fewer than 43 ambassadors on Sunday, May 12, when President Michael D Higgins visits the town for the 2013 National Famine Commemoration.

ONE of the Clare’s oldest landmark pubs, Durty Nelly’s in Bunratty, which was once valued at €12.5m, has been taken over by Dubliners Martin Scully and Mary McCoy.

The number of dead animals collected in Clare as the result of the worst fodder crisis in living memory has increased by an estimated 60% this year, according to a local farm leader.

THE Hughes & Hughes bookshop in Ennis will operate as an Eason franchise from next month.

Ireland’s first long-distance touring route, the Wild Atlantic Way, is “bound to have an economic spin off” in Clare, according to one TD here. The drive stretches from Donegal to Cork, with details of the route announced this week incorporating the Clare coast from the Galway border to the Killimer ferry.

A REPORT from Retail Excellence Ireland on the first quarter of the year said it had been “a period of mixed fortunes” and a number of people involved in the sector in Clare have said conditions are very challenging.Pat Kelly is manager of SkyCourt shopping centre in Shannon and he said that retailers there are trying to consolidate.

Clare’s top restaurants were named this week at the Munster Regional Final of the Santa Rita/LIFE Magazine Irish Restaurant Awards.

THE environmental engineering measures employed in the design for the €100 million windfarm in West Clare represent best practice standards.