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WOLFE Tones held the finals night of its Johnny Cregan Memorial Tournament last week. The hurling tournament for local national schools was organised to help promote the game with young people in the town, and to commemorate Johnny, who was a well known figure within the club for many years. After a blitz day on June 15, the finals night took place last Wednesday. Wolfe Tones Paul Hogan said, “We wanted to get the schools in Shannon engaged in hurling again, and to promote hurling within the town. “The best way to promote is through the schools and we felt that if we had a Shannon schools championship and get every school in Shannon to enter, it’d be one way of getting exposure of it into every school. “We’re going to do the same for gaelic football later on, after the Cumann na mBunscoil has taken place, but we just said that with the Clare hurlers going well we’ll tackle …

FIGURES released last week show that 2,452 Personal Public Services Numbers (PPSN) have been issued to Ukrainians in Clare, but the numbe of arrivals here may actually be much higher. Orla Ní Éilí of the Clare Immigrant Support Centre said, “We’re a bit confused by the numbers, they’re based on PPS numbers, which people have to have. “But we can tell you in the hotels there are around 2,500 people at this stage and out in the community there are a lot more. We would say that Clare has had 10% of arrivals from the word go.” Should that be the case, then there would be approximately 3,500 Ukrainian refugees in the county. Ms Ní Éilí said that many people are still coming, with around 26 arriving on one day last week alone. Clare Immigrant Support Centre has never had to deal with a situation like this, with so many people arriving at one time, she said, while noting that …

It was former Clare captain Gary Brennan who put it best after the Roscommon game when he said the air was going to get a lot thinner from here on in as the championship really kicked to life from the quarter-final stage. Gary knows. He was there and saw at first hand the difference between beating Roscommon in a final round Qualifier and taking on Kerry in an All-Ireland quarter-final in Croke Park. It was a quantum leap — in footballing terms, but also of the mind, body and spirit. Gary was the man in Clare’s campaign that year as he was for so many years, but for the All-Ireland quarter-final Kerry put Kieran Donaghy out around the middle and it ensured that Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s side had a strong foothold in the area, and from there on it went. Derry are no Kerry you might say, but maybe by the year’s end we’ll be saying that Kerry are no Derry, …

PRIZE money totalling €20,000 is up for grabs for competitors in the South-East Clare Show in Bridgetown on Sunday, July 24. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the show will attract thousands of people for more than 2,500 equestrian, cattle and horticultural entries, feature classes, a pet farm spectacle, children amusements and face-painting. This year, there will be a new focus on farm safety for children using some toy-size farm machinery to demonstrate what can be done to stay safe. A focus is towards providing Farm Safety for children, using some toy-size farm machinery to demonstrate. The announcement of Show 2022 details has kicked off with the sale of raffle tickets for an amazing prize – a Purebred Charolais Weanling Heifer. This animal was kindly sponsored by Limkiln Pedigree Herd. Tickets have been selling fast, allowing people the opportunity to support this annual event together with being in with a chance to win an amazing prize. The South-East Clare Show have again …

A FORMER Bus Eireann inspector from Killaloe has driven to the top of Clare County Council. Councillor Tony O’Brien was elected unopposed as Clare’s next first citizen without a vote as part of the power-sharing arrangement that was first brokered in 2004 at the annual general meeting in Ennis on Friday. The former Smith O’Brien GAA club secretary replaced Councillor PJ Ryan, who was lauded for being a great ambassador for the county over the past year. Councillor O’Brien was proposed by his Fianna Fáil colleague, Councillor Pat Hayes and seconded by Joe Cooney, Fine Gael, while Councillor Gerry Flynn, Independent also expressed his support. Councillor Hayes said his close friend Councillor O’Brien’s years working as a union official for the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) has left him very grounded in reality of how things worked. Since his retirement from Bus Eireann, the new first citizen is challenging planning, housing and budgets in the council, Councillor Hayes said. …

All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Semi Final Clare 0-20 Kilkenny 2-26 A disappointing opening half display saw Clare bow out of the All-Ireland Championship as a ravenous Kilkenny proved too much to handle, reports Ivan Smyth. In a first half where little went as planned for Clare, they gave themselves a proverbial mountain to climb when trailing 1-17 to 0-6 at half time. With John Conlon missing out through injury, the Clonlara’s man experience was sorely missed. The Clare defence held up reasonably well but the Clare attack misfired during the damaging opening half as they struck 11 wides and only six points. In what was only his fifth game in Croke Park with the Clare senior team, Tony Kelly was expertly marshalled by the tigerish Mikey Butler. Kelly was kept scoreless from play while Peter Duggan also held to just a solitary point from a free. With Banner hopes high after the rousing come from behind win over Wexford plus …

CLARE County Council passed a motion calling for a change in national aviation policy at its June meeting. It was proposed by Fine Gael’s John Crowe who said that Dublin’s dominance needs to be lessened. “As it stands Dublin can’t cope with the volume of passengers that it has.” With Dublin having almost 33 million passengers in the year before the pandemic began, Councillor Crowe said there is plenty of scope for growth at Shannon. “What would 10% extra do for Shannon? Balanced regional development, that’s what it’s all about.” In recent years he said that 24 out of every 25 extra passengers to Ireland have come through Dublin, which he said is not sustainable, while the Sixmilebridge man said other countries have dealt with similar problems. “In other EU countries where there was an overconcentration on one airport, steps were taken by Government to push connectivity at the regional airports, which has worked in many countries. This is our …

A WARNING has been issued by the founder of the Clare Pyrite Action Group (CPAG) that defective blocks may be present in every county in Ireland. Addressing the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing last week, Dr Martina Cleary urged members to address the possibility that problems may come to light in many other counties. “I will tell the eminent members of the committee that this problem may not yet be in their counties but it is coming,” she said. “We currently know of defective concrete blocks, or suspicions of same, in 12 counties along the western and eastern seaboards. It is likely a problem in every county. “The decisions the committee comes to and the recommendations it makes will be instrumental in influencing how this crisis plays out among members’ constituents, neighbours, friends and family. “They may have defective concrete blocks in their homes and do not realise it. Do not let the situation play out elsewhere as it did …