SHANNON Airport has been shortlisted for a prestigious global award. It is one of five airports on the shortlist in the under four million passengers category at the World Routes Awards 2013, which will be held in Las Vegas next month. The annual awards provide the airline community with a chance to reward the airports they feel provide the best overall marketing services to them. The other finalists are airports in Australia, Russia, Tanzania and the Ukraine. Shannon has added new routes to Chicago and Philadelphia this year and airport CEO Neil Pakey feels this is why it is being recognised. “It’s recognition of achievement in terms of route development and market development. I think what we’ve done in the US this year is why we’ve been shortlisted.” Mr Pakey said he thinks the nomination will boost the Clare airport. “You get profile across the industry and when you meet the carriers they know about it and it all helps. …

‘Champion reporter Nicola Corless spent two months volunteering in Guatemala this summer. Here, she speaks about everything from buses to bugs, environmental threats, rain water harvesting and developing a niche Spanish vocabulary. ‘Champion reporter Nicola Corless spent two months volunteering in Guatemala this summer. Here she speaks about everything from buses to bugs to environmental threats, rain water harvesting and developing a niche Spanish vocabulary. Earlier this year, Ennis resident Nicola Corless learned she had won a partially paid scholarship to spend two months volunteering on environmental sustainability projects in Guatemala. At the time she wasn’t even certain what ‘environmental sustainability’ really meant. Even now, she says, it is a bit vague. Nicola and another Irish woman Elaine Doyle were recipients of Global Awareness Awards from EIL Intercultural Learning based in Cork. Within weeks Nicola was saying goodbye to her husband at Shannon Airport and venturing to Central America where she would live and work with local people in rural …

A SOUTH Galway mother is calling on the Government to provide more support for parents of children with special needs, who she says are at breaking point. Sonja Luan Devine’s son, Ché O’Grady, is 11-years-old and suffers from cerebral palsy. Since he was born, as well as being his mother she is also his carer but because Ché’s needs are so great, Sonja is unable to work and finds it difficult to make ends meet. “People have no clue how tightly families with children with special needs are squeezed. Even the fact the dole is the same as carer’s allowance is, quite frankly, insulting on a very deep level. Because I have a partner, I get half the carer’s allowance so I get €100 per week. A trip to the hospital in Dublin could cost €150,” she says. Even if she had the time to work, Sonja doesn’t believe anyone would hire her. “I don’t think I’m employable at the …

Updates start Sunday

OPINIONS may be divided as to who will claim the All-Ireland senior title but all are agreed that there will be little between the sides. Tactics are a dominant topic. Will Clare continue with the sweeper system that was so effective in the wins over Galway and Limerick? In the event of this happening, what will Cork do to counteract the ploy? Will Brian Murphy return to the Cork starting line-up having missed their semi-final win over Dublin due to injury? If so, will he again be assigned the role of marking Tony Kelly, which he did so effectively in the Munster semi-final? What is certain is both management teams have put hours and hours of thought and planning into what tactics they will put into practice on Sunday. Two months ago, few would have predicted a meeting of the Rebels and the Banner in the final. Clare were comprehensively beaten by Cork in the Munster semi-final. The Leesiders then …

Who’d have thought you’d hear former British prime minister, Maggie Thatcher and Davy Fitzgerald mentioned in the same breath? Well, that’s what happened when five hurling experts got talking in Cairde, Barrack Street, Ennis. Peter O’Connell let the conversation flow as smoothly as the tea and coffee Compare how this panel has prepared to your own day? Jackie O’Gorman: I remember we had a Saturday morning session once in Ennis [1970s]. It was on at about 12. [Mick] Moroney came late, of course. We were going round the field and I said ‘Moroney, you’re dodging it today’. ‘Christ, I’m not,’ he said. ‘There’s rain promised this evening and I had to put 2,000 bales in before I came down’. That couldn’t happen now. The farmer, the blocklayer, the plasterer. It just couldn’t be done. Seánie McMahon: It was only when I gave up hurling [2006] that I realised how much time was going into it. And I’d say it’ll be …

INADVERENTLY, Davy Fitzgerald drew unhelpful attention upon himself and Clare by not attending the All-Ireland press night in Ennis. In a year in which most of his important decisions, relating to what happens on the field, have been vindicated, that was a poor call by the Clare manager and his advisers. The only way Clare will avoid being rounded upon by the national media is if they win on Sunday. While Fitzgerald might justifiably feel he is entitled to make up his own mind if he attends these events or not, in effect he turned a negative focus on Clare by staying away. In contrast, Jimmy Barry Murphy was available to all sections of the media at the Cork press day in Pairc Uí Rínn. That level of co-operation guarantees nothing and will mean nothing if Cork lose but it does suggest the Cork manager is more comfortable dealing with an All-Ireland final build up. By not making a fuss …

IT’S a first senior final for every Clare player but as well as playing, manager Davy Fitzgerald has managed a team in an All-Ireland before. It’s presumably something he does not look back on fondly; Waterford met a Kilkenny side at the peak of their powers and were beaten 3-30 to 1-13. Dan Shanahan was involved and while he doesn’t look back on the game fondly either, he doesn’t lay the blame with the management of the time. “We’d a lot of work done and to the credit of Davy and the selectors, they took a lot of limelight off us. Everything was organised but Kilkenny were very good that day,” he says. “When you get to the All-Ireland, you have to go and get measured for suits and things like that and we got it done fairly quick. It was just on the day that our tactics didn’t work.” On the day, some Waterford players made rather unsuccessful early …