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COMMUNITIES in South-East Clare were united in mourning last weekend when news filtered through of the sudden death of young Ogonnelloe man, writes Dan Danaher. A serving soldier, Private Gerard McMahon (24), had just returned home from a six-month tour of duty with the 63rd Infantry Group in Syria. The death of Mr McMahon following a tragic accident while on holidays in Spain has left his heartbroken family and Ogonnelloe residents devastated. A postmortem is expected to take place at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Malaga. Gerard was a skilled marksman, winning brigade and all army competitions during his military career. Described as a keen sportsman, he participated in a number of sports notably hurling, football and rugby. At the time of writing, no definitive date was known for the arrival of the deceased’s body back to his residence in Ballyloughnane, Ogonnelloe, which is located a short distance from St Mary’s Church where it is expected a military funeral …

CAMPAIGNERS supporting imprisoned Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will hold a ‘solidarity stall’ in O’Connell Square, Ennis this Saturday from 11.30am. This is part of an Irish Day of Solidarity with Assange, which will see a whole series of activities from Derry to Kerry in support of the imprisoned Australian journalist and publisher. It is organised by Free Assange Ireland in co-operation with other campaign groups and organisations for peace and justice. IRISH DAY of SOLIDARITY WITH JULIAN ASSANGE.SATURDAY, 23 OCTOBER: Check out our FB pagehttps://t.co/MfKUplGyCs#JulianAssange #JulianAssangeOurHero — Free Assange Ireland #1 (@assange_1) October 16, 2021 More than 20 events are being held ahead of Assange’s extradition proceedings which are set to continue in London’s High Court from October 27/28. Assange is currently in isolation at Belmarsh High Security Prison in London.

GREEN Party Senator Róisín Garvey is calling for multi-faceted approach to the ongoing problem of flooding. The Inagh native introduced a Private Members’ Motion to the upper house to calling for a multi-faceted, catchment-based approach to managing flooding. Senator Garvey introduced the motion, which recommends a multi-faceted response to flood management while maintaining a multi-annual investment programme managed between the OPW and the local authorities. “I’m raising this motion because of what I’ve seen happening first-hand in my own county of Clare over the last few years and across the rest of Ireland,” she told the chamber. “The climate has changed and so has our rain fall in both frequency and ferocity. I am deeply worried about what lies ahead if we don’t take action.” “International best practice demonstrates that catchment-based solutions, using a combination of natural flood management approaches and hard engineering, are the best way forward and cost less than using only hard engineering solutions.” The motion calls for …

Fiona McGarry heard calls at the Clare JPC to tackle people moving up the ladder in drug dealing DRUGS kingpins are living like Pablo Escobar and openly flaunting the proceeds of crime, Clare’s Fianna Fail TD told the Garda Commissioner this week. At the Joint Policing Committee (JPC) meeting, Deputy Cathal Crowe questioned whether the law is too soft and failing to prevent people moving up the ladder from small-time dealers to global gang leaders. Denying the claim that the criminal justice system is not rigorous enough in tackling drugs, Commissioner Harris said there had been a large number of successful operations in Clare over the last year. He said hundreds of thousands of Euros worth of drugs and tens of thousands of Euros in cash had been seized in the county, and he undertook to provide a written report to JPC members. In a written question to the Commissioner, who attended the JPC meeting at the invitation of its …

A COUNTY Clare family is seeking answers from the HSE concerning the care it provided to a man who took his own life hours after being released from hospital, writes Gordon Deegan. An inquest in Ennis has heard that on the afternoon of December 17 last, the body of the 56-year-old farmer was found by neighbours in the shed on his lands between Miltown Malbay and Lahinch. The grim discovery was made only hours after the man was released from Ennis Hospital at around 4am. The previous day, the man had phoned ambulance control to say that he had access to a knife and a rope and was feeling suicidal. In a sworn deposition at the Clare Coroner’s Court, Garda Bríd Troy of Ennistymon Garda Station said that she arrived at the home of the man on December 16 shortly after, in response to the ambulance call. Garda Troy stated she has received a call at 13.50 concerning the man …

NATIONAL ambulance personnel from Clare were in Northern Ireland carrying out Covid-19 testing while an ambulance was sent 175km from Galway to provide treatment to an injured motorcyclist, a local Dáil Deputy has claimed. The lack of ambulance drivers to deal with serious incidents was highlighted in the Dáil recently by Deputy Michael McNamara, who expressed concern about the dispatch of an ambulance from the Carraroe base in County Galway to an incident in Kilkee, two hours away A motorcyclist was hospitalised following the incident which occurred in Kilkee shortly after 4.30pm on Sunday, October 10. The collision, which happened on Gratten Street in the West Clare resort, involved a car and a motorcycle. It is believed there was no National Ambulance Service (NAS) resource available in Clare or Limerick at the time, which resulted in the requirement to draft in an ambulance from Galway to provide the necessary medical assistance. Firefighters from nearby Kilkee fire station were requested to …

A MAN has appeared in court charged in connection with the seizure of suspected drugs in Doonbeg last weekend, writes Ronan Judge. David Rogers (33), with an address at Baltard, Doonbeg, appeared before Kilrush District Court on Tuesday, October 19, charged with two offences contrary to the misuse of drugs act. Detective Garda Paul Heaslip of the Clare garda division’s drugs unit gave evidence of arrest, charge and caution. Detective Heaslip told the court he arrested Rogers last Saturday at Baltard, Doonbeg, before conveying him to Kilrush Garda Station. The accused made no reply to either of the two charges after caution. Detective Heaslip confirmed to counsel for Rogers that he was happy for the accused to be remanded on bail. Sergeant Aiden Lonergan said the court would see from the charges that this is a very recent matter and directions as to how the case is to proceed are yet to be obtained from the director of public prosecutions …

Foreign Minister open to full-time role for Padraig Ó Ceidigh in Shannon Group, writes Dan Danaher FOREIGN Affairs Minister Simon Coveney has defended the government’s record on supporting Shannon Airport in the wake of claims it could be doing more to assist the Shannon Group and airport from the havoc wreaked by Covid-19. “This has been a devastating period for the aviation industry. The Shannon region is so impacted by the activity or the non-activity in the airport. “We have seen this in Cork Airport too, but more so in Shannon because of the linkage between the connectivity at the airport and so many businesses in a very wide radius of the airport. “Transatlantic traffic has collapsed because the US has effectively banned EU citizens from flying to the US. For a period US citizens were not allowed into Ireland either without Covid-19 certification,” he said. Although Pádraig Ó Céidigh is being appointed as part-time non executive chair of Shannon …