AN 18-year-old South Galway man had Sharon Corr on her knees recently when he serenaded the Louth singer song-writer on RTÉ’s hit programme The Voice of Ireland.

MARGARET Joyce from Ballina, just across the Shannon from Killaloe, was in Dáil Éireann on Tuesday evening to hear Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s apology to the women who had been forced to spend many years in the Magdalene Laundries.

THE Clare Champion’s John Kelly was named winner of the news section at the Press Photographers’ Association of Ireland (PPAI) awards last Friday night.It was the seventh time that the Mullagh man has won a PPAI award. he has also been second three times and third once.The picture he won the award for was taken in August following the tragic deaths of Michael Galvin and Noel Dickinson.It was one of the saddest stories covered in The ’Champion last year and Kelly found it difficult. “It happened two miles from where I was brought up and a lot of the people involved were from my own parish. When I’m normally back there it’s for football or something and it’s far happier. “I knew the significance of the event and the scale of the disaster and I wanted to do a picture that would be different from what we normally do. Rather than showing people up close grieving I tried to do …

THE Shannon Pastoral Council’s financial statement for last year showed an excess of income over expenditure of €53,746.

THE Oscars take place this weekend and as well as having Irish interest in the nominees, there is additional excitement about this country’s fashion input.Irish designer and Galway Technical Institute fashion design graduate, Laura Jayne Halton will dress Oscar nominee Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly for the awards taking place in Los Angeles on Sunday night.The commission came about as a result of an interview with Ms Cronin O’Reilly on RTÉ 1’s John Murray Show on January 23, where the film producer spoke about her Oscar-nominated Best Short Animated Film, Head Over Heels and her desire to wear an Irish dress on the red carpet.Maynooth woman Laura Jayne, who also studied furniture design and manufacture in Letterfrack, was listening to the interview and heard the West Kerry native say she hadn’t settled on a dress yet.“I looked up Fodhla’s email address and just sent her a quick paragraph to congratulate her first and sent her a link to my website and ‘Look …

Concern is mounting in East Clare arising from a leaked draft report from the Department of Transport that seeks the abolishment of the 35 community-based rural transport companies, one of which is the East Clare-based Clare Accessible Transport.

OXFAM is calling on the people of Clare to join hundreds of others all over Ireland by hosting an Oxfam Get Together for International Women’s Day on March 8 and help raise money to support women living in poverty worldwide.An Oxfam Get Together can be anything from a coffee morning to a movie night or even a karaoke night. At the heart of the idea is to get together with friends, family and colleagues and do something that you love – while raising money for Oxfam’s work. And if Friday, March 8 doesn’t suit you, simply pick a date that does.Speaking about her recent trip to Tanzania, Sharon Corr, Oxfam Ireland ambassador and judge on RTÉ’s The Voice of Ireland, explains, “Meeting some of the women who have benefited from Oxfam’s work in Tanzania was truly inspiring. The majority of people living in poverty are women. It’s fantastic to see how Oxfam can help women reclaim their rights and make …

A receiver has been appointed to one of Clare’s largest construction firms, which ceased trading last month, with the loss of 20 jobs.