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MET ÉIREANN have issued a status orange wind warning for Clare tomorrow Sunday, as well as for Donegal, Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Sligo, Cork, Kerry and Limerick. The warning comes into effect at 10am Sunday morning and remains in place until 10pm Sunday night. Southwest winds with mean speeds of 60 to 80 km/h with severe gusts of up to 120km/h are expected, with strongest on exposed hills and coasts. There will also be a risk of coastal flooding. Storm Dennis is currently undergoing cyclogenesis (strengthening to a cyclone) to the south of Iceland, and is one of the biggest storms ever seen in the North Atlantic. It will skirt past Ireland to the north but will bring with it heavy rain and high winds.

POLL-topper Violet-Anne Wynne has pledged to donate her estimated rent arrears of €12,000 to a mental health charity following her eviction from social housing a few years ago. The Kilrush-based mother-of-five created a political sensation by becoming the first Sinn Féin candidate to win a Dáil seat in almost 100 years after securing 8,987 first preferences in the General Election. Rural Resettlement Ireland (RRI) took a case against Violet-Anne Wynne and her partner John Montaine to respond to a claim notice issued for the sum of €12,126 being the amount of four years’ rent arrears up to June 3rd, 2016, according to court documents. RRI were granted a decree for the repossession of one of their dwellings in Tullycrine, Kilrush by Ennis District Court on July 28, 2017 with a two month stay. A weekly rent of €63.64 was set under a letting agreement dated December 1, 2011 and the family remained in the Tullycrine house until December 2017. Ms …

Ennis native, Brigadier General Adrian Ó Murchú has taken up his appointment as Assistant Chief of Staff (ACOS) following the retirement of previous ACOS, Brigadier General Peter O’Halloran. Brigadier General Ó Murchú joined the Permanent Defence Forces in 1982 as a member of the 59thCadet Class and was commissioned as an officer into the infantry corps in 1984. Prior to joining the Defence Forces, Brigadier General Ó Murchú spent several years in the Army Reserve (22ndInfantry Battalion FCA) in his home town of Ennis. On commissioning, Brigadier General Ó Murchú served in the 6thInfantry Battalion, the Army Ranger Wing (Ireland’s Special Operations unit), Military Intelligence and the Military College’s Infantry School. Later appointments included Company Commander and Second in Command of the 5thInfantry Battalion, Chief Instructor of the Cadet School, Head of European Security Section in Operations and Plans Branch Defence Forces Headquarters (DFHQ), School Commandant of the UN Training School Ireland and Commanding Officer of the Defence Force’s Central Medical …

NEW Clare TD Violet Anne Wynne has distanced herself from previous comments on vaccination. Following her election comments she had made on social media about vaccination were unearthed, but following much criticism, Ms Wynne said her views have changed. “Past comments in respect of the HPV vaccine were old remarks and do not reflect my current views or Sinn Féin policy. “The points that I made previously in relation to vaccinations were not in line with party policy and predate my election as a TD by a number of years. At the time there were a number of people that raised concerns about vaccines and I was simply relaying those concerns,” she said. “I want to make it clear that both I and Sinn Féin support the work of the National Immunisation Office in their efforts to ensure we have a first world public health response to infectious diseases. That is underlined by Sinn Féin’s manifesto commitments to roll out …

Clare County Council and the HSE have issued a ‘Do Not Drink’ Notice to customers of the Kilmaley/Inagh Group Water Scheme which serves over 2,000 homes across nine parishes. Operational problems at the Water Treatment Works are resulting in above recommended levels of aluminium and turbidity, which is a measure of the cloudiness in the water. The notice will remain in place until further notice. Customers are urged to not use water for drinking, preparation of salads or similar foods, cooking food or vegetables and the brushing of teeth. Tankered water will be available at four locations – Inch, Inagh, Kilmaley and Connolly. Members of the public can fill water from those tankers if they are unattended, but are advised to boil the water before use. 

1. The sudden emergence of Sinn Féin Violet-Anne Wynne was a mere footnote in last year’s local elections, way off the pace in the Kilrush Municipal District. However, the Sinn Féin surge saw her take an incredible 8,987 number ones and while she still had to wait until the final count, she was always odds-on from that point to take a seat. 2. The changing of the guard As the new year dawned, most people felt that Pat Breen and Timmy Dooley both had a very good chance of retaining their seats. In the weeks coming up to the election, it was still felt that Mr Dooley would be ok. There was a view that Fine Gael could lose a seat but many felt that would be Joe Carey, rather than Mr Breen. However, Mr Carey managed to keep his nose in front of his colleague from the first count on. Mr Dooley did make it to the last count …

THE performance of Sinn Féin was the story of the election in Clare, with Violet Anne Wynne winning the party’s first seat here for a century, as the county’s two longest serving TDs fell from grace. En route to the Falls Hotel on Sunday morning everyone heard the same information on the radio programmes; exit polls showed it was going to be a great election for Sinn Féin. As the early tallies came in they showed that the Sinn Féin surge was putting Ms Wynne close to the top and despite having heard the national story, there was still huge surprise around the count centre. “I heard Sinn Féin were doing well, but I really didn’t think it’d happen here,” said one woman involved in compiling the tallies. Many other people around the count centre were making similar comments. How could anyone have seen it coming? Just last May she won a mere 385 first preferences in the local elections. …

GENERAL Election poll topper Violet-Anne Wynne has chosen to remain tight-lipped on a request to make a donation to a homeless charity of her estimated rent arrears of €12,000, following her eviction from social housing. The Kilrush-based mother-of-five created a political sensation on Monday by becoming the first Sinn Féin candidate to win a Dáil seat in Clare for the first time since 1917 after securing almost 9,000 first preferences. Last week, Deputy Wynne claimed the person who decided to publicise information about her court case with Rural Resettlement Ireland (RRI) was “politically motivated” to negatively impact on her campaign. Speaking after her sensational election, she said the Clare Champion’s lead story actually helped her to win a seat. “I think people felt they could relate to me, I got a lot of messages of support, a lot of people saying they’ve either been in that situation or they know someone who has been in that situation before. A lot …