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THE Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of fewer than five additional cases of Covid-19 in Clare along with 11 additional deaths related to Covid-19 nationally. Of the deaths reported today, three occurred in April, one occurred in March, two in February and five occurred in January or earlier. The median age of those who died was 88 years and the age range was 77-94 years. There has been a total of 4,831 Covid-19 related deaths in Ireland. As of midnight, Thursday, April 15, the HPSC has been notified of 420 confirmed cases of Covid-19.There has now been a total of 242,819* confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland. Of the cases notified today: 218 are men / 197 are women 74% are under 45 years of age The median age is 32 years old 147 in Dublin, 41 in Meath, 33 in Donegal, 26 in Galway, 18 in Limerick and the remaining 155 cases are spread across all …

Clare’s ladies footballers will have just one home game in the group stages of the 2021 National Football League. Evan Talty’s side are grouped with the Meath side who ended their championship run last year, along with neighbours Kerry and fellow intermediate side Wexford. The campaign will start on May 23 with a home tie against Wexford, before trips to Kerry and Meath to round off the group stages. Talty has also confirmed his management team for the coming year, with former Mayo ladies goalkeeping coach Donal ‘Doc’ Hughes, former Meath star Odharnaith McKenna (Performance Analysis) and Cooraclare’s Andrew O’Neill (physio) joining the set up. Training is set to begin in earnest next week when restrictions will be lifted to allow elite level sides to resume on field training, with that session being the first time in 2021 that the squad will have met face to face. It will also be the first opportunity for new Clare ladies football chairperson …

MINISTER for Tourism Catherine Martin has announced a major new investment worth €19 million in world-class facility centres at 22 locations across the country, including two in Clare, where water-based activities are a key visitor attraction. Ballycuggeran Sports Activity Facility in Ogonnelloe and Waterworld, East End, Kilkee will see new facilities developed under this scheme, in partnership with Clare County Council. Each centre will provide hot shower, changing and toilet facilities, secure storage, induction spaces, equipment washdown and orientation points. They will be fully wheelchair accessible and built using sustainability best practices such as solar heating panels to meet ‘Nearly Zero Energy Building Standards’*. Pat Dowling, Chief Executive, Clare County Council said, “I am delighted to welcome the news from the Minister on funding for the delivery of two all-weather shower and changing facilities at Ballycuggeran on Lough Derg and Kilkee Waterworld. This is a great opportunity to support outdoor tourism providers who will play a key role in the …

REPORTS of rioting across Northern Ireland have provided an uncomfortable reminder for one Clare resident of the long years of violence prior to the Good Friday Agreement. Now resident in Kilkishen, Anne Stewart grew up as a Catholic in Newtownabbey, a Loyalist stronghold just north of Belfast. It was one of the areas where young people came onto the streets to antagonise the PSNI last week, and the widely-viewed clip of a rioter becoming engulfed in flames was recorded there. Anne feels that Arlene Foster has to take a share of the blame for the recent violence, as she feels the First Minister’s language raised tensions beyond snapping point. “Arlene Foster kind of provoked the situation, she was kind of like Trump there for a while, provoking and getting the young kids out on the streets. “They were throwing petrol bombs at the PSNI, which is ridiculous. I think Sinn Féin are keeping very quiet and picking their words around …

Shannon boy’s mother urges support for children’s charity that has given her son, 12, so much joy WITH Alex O’Shaughnessy having had to battle a rare form of cancer, the pandemic has been a little bit more difficult for his family. Alex, from Purcell Park, is in sixth class at St Conaire’s, and has had a difficult few years fighting the rare condition Rhabdomyosarcoma, but is doing well at the moment, according to his mother Agnes. “He’s good, he’s doing well. He went back to school a few weeks ago and his health is starting to come back, so he’s doing very well.” Alex has had very intensive treatment for his illness, and there was a little bit of normality returning just before lockdown. “Last February we went to Barretstown for a family weekend, and that was the start of us trying to get back to some kind of life, but then lockdown happened. “He was still on treatment until …

GP says risks of getting a blood clot from a vaccine are very low, as date announced for opening of mass vaccination clinic in Ennis. THE GOVERNMENT must reiterate the benefits of vaccinating most of the population against Covid-19 to address “vaccine hesitancy” in the wake of the temporary suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine, according to a local general practitioner. Dr Michael Harty has warned if most of the population isn’t vaccinated, Ireland is leaving itself open to the possibility of a fourth wave, which would delay the reopening of society that in turn would have very negative social and health implications. “The quicker people get vaccinated the better. It is the only way out of this pandemic because Covid-19 isn’t going anywhere and new variants are developing all over the world. “No vaccination is without rare events but from a population point of view if we want to get out of this pandemic we may have to accept this …

THIS Sunday is the 80th birthday of Uachtaráin na hÉireann, Michael D Higgins. Now well into the second term of his presidency, he has generally enjoyed very high levels of public approval. Michael D grew up in Ballycar, Newmarket-on-Fergus and went to the local school there before going on to St Flannan’s. This week his brother John, who still lives in Ballycar, said he couldn’t have envisaged the success he would enjoy in public life. “That’s true, that’s true. Politics is a funny game and a good game.” As a boy the future president was a voracious reader, he recalls. “He’d read a lot of books, whatever books were available in the library at the time.” In 1993 Michael D became the country’s first ever Minister for Arts, and John says that helped bring him to greater prominence, although he had already been a TD for several years. “Eventually Labour got into Government with Fine Gael and that was the …

Secretary of Clare GAA Pat Fitzgerald has claimed that there is a witchhunt aimed at him going on in the county. The comments came during tetchy exchanges at this week’s board meeting, in which issues relating to the still to be completed €4.8 million Centre of Excellence at Caherlohan were once more to the fore. Whitegate delegate David Solan raised the issue when querying the content of an Irish Independent article in recent weeks, which claimed that the pitches at the venue were in “pristine condition”. “It is my opinion that when we got someone in to see what is wrong with the pitches and to cost how much it would be, he came out with a figure of €70,000 per pitch for six pitches which is nearly €500,000. It is what I would call negligence by somebody in the county board, because when you do a sand based pitch, you are given a maintenance plan. We have one in …