CLARE hurling manager Davy Fitzgerald was on home ground in Sixmilebridge last Friday when he unveiled a plaque to mark the achievement of Bridge Kids, a community-run childcare service, in becoming the first childcare facility in the county to meet nationally set quality standards.

THE farming community is fighting a rearguard action at a time when they should be going full-tilt at their normal seasonal work for this time of year.

The utter pointlessness of the violence inflicted on the people of Boston is hard to believe. The only suspect left alive has been charged but many lives have been irrevocably changed. Media reports indicate that the suspects might have been motivated by religious beliefs which, if proved correct, will make the whole tragic series of events all the more dismal.

THOSE people who have been running the show in the IMF and the European Commission have some cheek. They tell us now, when it is too late, that austerity has not worked and they say it as if it was somebody else that was running the show.

A public representative has called on Galway County Council to pursue the National Roads Authority in relation to improving an area left in a terrible condition after the completion of the M18 from Gort to Ennis.

A research study into the benefits of set dancing to Parkinson’s sufferers is being undertaken on the back of a chance encounter observed at the Feakle Traditional Music Festival by an Italian researcher and doctor.

THE potential for the creation of an environmental and tourism hub at Ballyalla Lake is set to be discussed at a public meeting in Ennis next week. A meeting has been organised for next Thursday in the Auburn Lodge Hotel with the aim of setting up a working group to progress the development of the local attraction.

HUNDREDS arrived at the Oakwood Arms last Saturday night for Shannon Kickboxing’s fight night, which saw Joshua Vincent win the Irish cruiserweight belt and numerous other local fighters in action.