ONE of five Clonara men to play a part in Clare’s epic 2013 All-Ireland final win, John Conlon has long dreamed of this day. The 24 year old Clonara man, who hurled with ferocity and poise in what was a momentous 70 minutes of hurling, set his sights on hurling in Croke Park, long before he wore a county jersey. “I remember when I was younger sitting in the Nally Stand and looking out. I was wondering ‘will I be here one day?’ You train, train and train. You have the bad days and these are the amazing days,” Conlon said afterwards. He watched the 1997 All-Ireland final from the Nally Stand and speaking on Saturday evening, he found it hard to comprehend that he was now an All-Ireland winner himself. “This is the stuff of dreams. I remember being out in the back garden when Limerick played Wexford. (1996) I was looking at the TV inside the window saying …

By Seamus Hayes Days like this are what dreams are made of, a delighted Clare captain Pat Donnellan said shortly after lifting the McCarthy cup on the steps of the Hogan stand following Clare’s magnificent victory. “Going up the steps of the Hogan stand there was absolutely unreal. this is what you think about when you are a young fella. This is just reward for the amount of effort these fellas have put in all year. They deserved to get their day in the sun and we had it today”, the O’Callaghans Mills clubman commented. Asked if he was worried at any stage in the game, he said “you don’t get worried but you are conscious that you must answer what they are doing. We did that today and score for score we tried to answer them as much as possible. when they drew level, we kicked on again”. “Cork are a class team and they were never going to …

By Seamus Hayes Clare 5-16 Cork 3-16 What a day for Clare hurling. All-Ireland senior hurling champions for the fourth time in the county’s history after a truly memorable game. In the lead up to Saturday’s replay with Cork, analysists everywhere argued that Clare would need at least a goal if they were to win the LiamMcCarthy cup for the first time since 1997. Another of the big debating points for the past two weeks concerned whether or not Clare would make a change to the starting line up. Two hours before throw in time news emerged that nineteen year old Shane O’Donnell would start ahead of Darach Honan ahead of full forward. to say that he repaid the faith the management showed in him would be an understatement. He delivered a man of the match performance hitting 3-3,  the goals coming inside the first twenty minutes Clare had run up some hugely impressive point tallies in this campaign but …

By Dan  Danaher The payment of over €3.6 million for 13.8 acres of land for social housing in Ennistymon has been condemned as “astronomical” by a local councillor. Councillor Bill Slattery has expressed grave concern about the amount of money paid for less than 14 acres of land for social housing in 2007, most of which was never used for the purposes of which it was intended. Councillors agreed to support the transfer of two parcels of land at Glen North, Ennistymon to the Housing and Sustainable Communities Limited under the Land Aggregation Scheme (LAS). It is expected that this decision will be rubber stamped by members at a full Clare County Council meeting on Monday. Clare County Council paid Matt O’Dea €2,634,596 for 9.12 acres at Glen North, which included the purchase price, legal and auctioneering fees. Interest on the loan of €494,822 has been charged to the end of last June. The council is obliged to start making …

  By Seamus Hayes All-Ireland final replay weekend got off to a bright start for Cratloe and Clarecastle when they catured the junior A and under 21 B hurling championship titles respectively on Friday evening. Through to the final since early May, the under 21 players from Clarecastle and Feakle-Killanena finally played their final at Dr. Daly Park in Tulla. The magpies led by three points, 1-8 to 1-5 at half time. Feakle-Killanena fought back to within a point of their opponents ten minutes into the second half but the magpies pulled away in the final twenty minutes to secure the title. Meanwhile, at Sixmilebridge, Cratloe scored a narrow win over St. Josephs to claim the junior A crown. The sides were evently matched throughout but a goal in each half proved decisive for Cratloe who won on a final scoreline of 2-11 to 0-15. Liscannor will continue in senior football in 2014 after they secured their status with a …

By Carol Byrne THE chief executive officer of Harbour Flights Ireland Ltd, which runs a seaplane operation in Mountshannon, may be forced to ground future flights because of the commercial unviability of the base. According to CEO Emelyn Heaps, the decision as to whether Harbour Flights Ireland Ltd pulls out of Mountshannon is to be made at an extraordinary board meeting. He said the four directors and five shareholders will meet this weekend when “one of the main questions to be raised will be the high costs of maintaining the seaplane base in Mountshannon and the viability of maintaining the high overheads in Mountshannon”. Mr Heaps said ultimately the board will make a commercial decision as to the viability of maintaining the base there and he said there is a real possibility that the operation will be pulled from Mountshannon. However he stressed that if the operation base was to relocate outside of the county he would resign as CEO. …

John Galvin, managing director of the Clare Champion presents Louise Dunworth of Tulla and her son Harry (2) with a pair of tickets for the All-Ireland hurling final replay in Croke park, first prize in the Clare Champion facebook competition. Log onto our website clarechampion.ie for live updates during Saturday’s match and follow us on twitter @clarechampion

By Dan Danaher Well-known Clare INTO activist Seán McMahon has thrown down the gauntlet to Clare’s six Oireachtas members by requesting their unequivocal opposition to estimated Budget cuts of €100 million in education. Addressing a public meeting organised by the INTO in The West County Hotel, Ennis on Thursday night, the INTO vice-president cautioned that investment in education should not be sacrificed to pay for the greed of Celtic Tiger bankers and speculators who walked away with obscene pensions, lump sums and bonuses. The meeting, which was attended by over 350 primary school teachers and parents, heard calls from numerous speakers for the Government to abandon plans for further cuts to the education system. In fact, Mr McMahon proposed that tax loopholes and tax breaks for the higher earners would generate enough income to avoid the planned education cuts of up to €100 million. “I call on the Government to stop injecting worry and anxiety into communities throughout County Clare …