Arts & Culture

ROMANCE novels and cookery books were among the top books borrowed from Clare libraries in 2013, according to details released by Clare County Library this week. Almost 545,000 items were borrowed from Clare County Library in 2013 but while there is an increase in demand for electronic resources, 92% of the items borrowed were physical books. In the adult non-fiction section, Rachel Allen’s cookery books claimed four of the spots on the list of the 10 most popular non-fiction books borrowed from the county library in 2013. As further evidence of the increased popularity of home cooking, two other cookery books, Avoca Café Cookbook 2 and Jamie’s 15 Minute Meals, also made the top 10 list. As has been a pattern for many years, The Official Driver Theory Test – Questions and Answers topped the most popular list. Memoirs were also popular this year and among the ones most in demand was those by retired politician Mary O’Rourke and author …

NATION and Blackwell Bluegrass Band, which features Dolly Parton’s band leader, is heading to Sixmilebridge next week to headline a fundraising concert for the local school development fund. The event takes place in the Mill Bar, this one-off concert will feature the band, which previously played in the village as the Curtis Blackwell Bluegrass Band. The group, from Georgia in the United States, will offer classic, hard-driving bluegrass. Nation and Blackwell is made up of Curtis Blackwell, Chuck Nation, Gary ‘Biscuit’ Davis and Susan Nation on bass and vocals. Curtis is a member of the Atlanta Country and Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and is a former member of the legendary Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys, replacing Peter Rowan. During his 40-year career, he has performed on the Grand Ole Opry and travelled extensively throughout the eastern US, performing at many of the historic bluegrass festivals during the 1960s and 1970s. In June 2010, he was honoured by the International Bluegrass Museum …

A TULLA woman, is leading a research study looking at new speakers in a multilingual Europe and one of the focus sites of the study is County Clare. Bernie O’Rourke, who is based in Scotland and is a reader in Sociolinguistics at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh is co-ordinating this EU-funded COST project. Originally from Tulla and a daughter of Tulla Pipe Band honoary president Michael O’Rourke, Bernie said she would classify herself as a new speaker of Irish, she have been intrigued by this growing phenomenon in the case of Irish. “I always had a strong interest in Irish, inspired very much by father’s interest in the language and his encouragement to speak it. I had also often heard my mother talking about her grandparents from West Clare who were Irish speakers. I also had a very inspirational Irish teacher in Tulla, Sr Eileen Callinan,” she said. The project involves researchers from 17 European countries and is aimed at finding out …

TWO Clare students have been shortlisted in a prestigious national student competition. Eric McNamara, from Ennis and Kevin O’Sullivan from Cratloe, are in the running to win prizes in the DARE2BDRINKAWARE.ie competition, organised by the alcohol social responsibility organisation drinkaware.ie. DARE2BDRINKAWARE.ie challenges third-level students to develop creative campaigns that highlight responsible drinking. The shortlisted teams receive up to €2,000 each to implement their proposed campaigns, and each team has been assigned a high-profile champion to mentor and support them over the coming months. Eight teams have been shortlisted for the 2014 competition, including Eric McNamara and Kevin O’Sullivan’s team, whose project is titled Don’t Ape it – Escape it. Editor of her.ie, Michelle McMahon from Clare, was assigned as their champion. Eric and Kevin, along with fellow team-members, attended a special media event at the Digital Exchange in Dublin last week when the shortlist was officially announced. Their project is a multifaceted campaign with an interactive mobile application based product …

HAVING spent 28 hours at the head of a very orderly queue, Norah Murphy from Kilkishen finally got her just rewards at nine o’clock on Thursday. First into The Irish Shop, Ennis, Nora purchased six tickets for the Saturday night Garth Brooks’s concert in July. The valuable as gold tickets are for the sixth tier of the Hogan Stand; she had no great choice in the matter as all the standing tickets had already been whipped up. Well, who’s going to enjoy the tickets along with Norah? “My boyfriend, Martin Owen Walsh; my sister and her fiance and my parents, Eamon and Mary. I’m really looking forward to the event, she said. “It was well worth wait”, she added. David and Eileen Woodford, of The Irish Shop had Ticketmaster personnel on hand to ensure that the computer sales went like clockwork. They were very impressed at how the queue had worked and the fact that everybody was in great humour. All three dates for …

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GARTH Brooks fans began queuing outside the Irish Shop in Ennis at 5 o’clock this morning to ensure they can get their hands on precious tickets for his Croke Park concerts in July. That’s despite the fact the the tickets don’t go on sale until 9am on Thursday morning. By late Wednesday evening, the queue was tailing back to The Market area. Keeping warm by wrapping up in layers of jumpers and blankets,  fans were in high spirits, singing countless Garth Brooks hits. Restaurants in the town are planning to open early to facilitate those who will be joining the long queue overnight. The Croke Park shows, two special performances before his worldwide tour, which is due to start later this year, are called The Garth Brooks Comeback Special Event. Over the two nights, Garth and his fans will celebrate his legendary career – a career which saw him named the No 1-selling solo artist in US history, sell in …

CLOONEY-Quin guild of the ICA is inviting the local community to their night of drama at Quin Community Hall on Friday next. Now in its 34th year, the guild will present On the Couch, which is a new departure for the group, as they expand their annual drama night. The production now involves a split stage, which will facilitate the staging of two one-act comedies, an interview segment, music, song and storytelling. The two plays are the work of local woman, Anita O’Loughlin, who has been writing short comedies for Clooney-Quin ICA, and Spancilhill Drama Group for many years. “Both are short comedy acts. The first one, The Time of The Month, is about winter and specifically the three months in winter, November, December and January, and there is a sketch about each month, which are extremely comical. It starts with the holy souls in November, then it goes to the office Christmas party of Love Bites Limited and then …