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WITH the new River Fergus Walk and Cycleway already proving to be a great success with locals and visitors to the Ennis area, attention is now turning towards potentially extending the route. Clarecastle Community Development are endeavouring to secure funding for a feasibility study to be carried out into the possibility of bringing the walk and cycle way as far as Clarecastle Quay. Speaking at a recent meeting of the Ennis Municipal District, Councillor Paul Murphy requested the local authority “row in behind Clarecastle Community Development’s aspiration of extending the Fergus Greenway onwards to Clarecastle Quay”. He outlined there is currently a live application for low level Outdoor Recreation Infrastructure Scheme (ORIS) funding that will allow a feasibility study for this project to be carried out. Eamon O’Dea, Senior Executive Engineer, responded, “A joint application has been made by the Project Management Office and Clarecastle Tidy Towns to the Department of Rural & Community Development, under the Outdoor Recreation Infrastructure Scheme …

DANCE Artist Rob Heaslip, is reviving the old cultural tradition of The Strawboys and will take them to Clare, Kerry, and Galway this summer. Strawboys which is an energetic outdoor performance blurs the lines between traditional and contemporary dance and music and pays homage to the traditions and costumes of the Wren Boys who once paraded through the streets, towns and fields of Ireland. From July 21 to July 24, pop up performances of Strawboys will take place all over Clare in town centres and rural settings such as village squares, carparks and forests. Unsuspecting audiences will see a Strawboy enter a location, before being joined by the rest of the cast to perform a highly percussive and visual work where lively Balkan musical vibes match their colour popping costumes. Strawboys features professional dancers Sophie Hutchinson who is based in Feakle in Clare, Favour Odusola, Aneta Dortová and Salma Ataya. Composers Zoe Katsilerou and Eilon Morris infuse lively Balkan vibes …

IN the Dáil this week, Clare TD Michael McNamara called for progress on the transfer of Shannon Heritage to Clare County Council, claiming that the matter is being “bounced around Government Buildings.” Addressing the Taoiseach on Tuesday, Deputy McNamara said, “The day Deputy Micheál Martin was elected as Taoiseach, I raised the issue of Shannon Heritage sites with him and the need to take them out of Shannon Group, which does not want them, and give them a new lease of life. “I have raised it several times since. The last time, the Taoiseach said Clare County Council just needs to get on with it. I understand the council very much wants to get on with it but the proposal is being bounced around Government Buildings.  “At the moment, it is between the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the Department of Transport and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Can the Taoiseach, as Head of Government, tell …

A KILLALOE long distance swimmer negotiated a treacherous strait of water with mixed current during a 45.866 kilometre swim around the Big Apple in the United States of America. Wearing a Munster red togs with FOLEY 8 on the back and an Irish flag on the front, Rosie Foley and her best friend Andrea Newport swam together in tandem under all 20 bridges around Manhattan Island. They swam 28.5 miles in eight hours and 28 minutes. To make sure Rosie and Andrea were safe in the busy waters, they were accompanied by another close friend Fionnuala Walsh from Cappa near Kilrush, who swam this route eight years ago, on one of three support boats. There was also a kayaker beside them from New York Open Water and they had plenty of support on dry land. “My husband Pat, who was born in New York, and three children Oisin, Brendan and Siofra plus Andrea’s partner Alex were on land,” said Rosie. …

THE partner of former Sinn Fein TD, Violet-Anne Wynne, John Mountaine was a ‘no-show’ in court this week as he is currently homeless and living in Co Longford. At Kilrush District Court, solicitor for Mr Mountaine, Patrick Moylan told Judge Mary Larkin his client’s whereabouts when explaining why he wasn’t in court to face seven alleged offences under the Road Traffic Act including allegedly driving with no insurance and driving without a licence last October. Mr Moylan said, “Mr Mountaine contacted me yesterday to say that he is in Longford and is homeless and doesn’t want to plead guilty.” Seeking a date for a hearing into the case, Mr Moylan told Judge Mary Larkin that Mr Mountaine’s defence “is based on the same argument we had before”. When the case first came before Judge Larkin in May, she had asked Mr Moylan, “If he was stopped on October 21st last why hasn’t he produced his documents?” Mr Mountaine (40) formerly …

LOCAL woman Carmel Peacock has been awarded a long service medal having put down 40 years in the local Order of Malta branch. Speaking to the Clare Champion Carmel said that she hadn’t expected to receive the award at the time that she did. “We had 19 new officers being commissioned on Sunday and the awards were given out on the back of that. I was included in those.” While she has been involved in the organisation since she was a national school child, last week was one of the busiest in all that time, before it was capped with the award. “We had a very, very long week, to be fair. There was a Cadet camp on the previous weekend, the cadets participated in that on Saturday and Sunday. There were cadets from all over Ireland and that was on up in Co Fermanagh, I drove the cadets up there on the mini bus. “Then we were straight into …

ADVANCED paramedics should be permitted to use their clinical judgement to treat patients for non-life threatening injuries in their own homes when they deem this is safe and appropriate. That’s according to Councillor Cillian Murphy, who has claimed patients are being brought to the ED in University Hospital Limerick (UHL) for relatively minor injuries or illnesses, which could be treated elsewhere. However, the HSE West Forum member stressed because of the current HSE system ambulance personnel haven’t the authority to treat people in their own homes and must bring them to a public hospital. “If you have a patient that is transported in an ambulance for something that could be treated in a Local Minor Injury Clinic, and the ambulance is now gone from West Clare for three and a half or four hours, this could be very serious for someone with a life-threatening condition. “This also has an impact on overcrowding in ED after recent figures I obtained show …

ST TOLA’S National School has been praised in the Dáil for providing an example of how students with disabilities should be catered for. During the course of a debate on the provision of education for children with special needs, Clare TD Cathal Crowe said, “I will commend St. Tola’s National School in Shannon on being one of two schools in the country that has a multi-disability class. “The body politic always talks about ASD units, and that is so important, but it is only one disability across a spectrum of disabilities. The model in St. Tola’s is one we need to replicate throughout the country.” St Tola’s opened its class for pupils with multiple disabilities in May, with over €250,000 having been spent on providing a prefab and facilities for the children. At the time of the opening, school principal Mary Dunlea Fitzgerald said, “The children have multiple disabilities so they have challenges in relation to communication and movement and …