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‘Champion stories make it big

CLARE news stories selected from The Clare Champion feature as part of a new book of best headlines and stories from Ireland’s local newspapers, written by journalist, Ronan Casey. Medium Sized Town, Fairly Big Story features the best, unique and most hilarious stories from Ireland’s local newspapers. Each week, Ronan Casey reads through every local newspaper in Ireland and carefully chooses the stories that have hit the headlines in the towns and villages the length and breadth of the country for his local news slot on TV3’s Ireland AM. The best of those headlines and stories has been gathered together in a his new book, published this week by Gill & Macmillan. Among the County Clare stories that captured the writer’s imagination were Clare Champion articles entitled, Clare Litter Louts To Be Attacked With Drones?, Council Cannot Think Of Anything and Exercise Can Get Your Goat, among others. Medium Sized Town, Fairly Big Story started out with Ronan and Hector …

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‘Bridge raises fifth Green Flag

Cathaoirleach of Clare County Council, John Crowe returned to his alma mater last week to unfurl the school’s fifth Green Flag. He was assisted in hoisting the flag by Aoibheann Kennedy and Emma O’Connor, members of the Green Schools Committee. For a number of years now, Sixmilebridge National School has been participating in the Green Schools initiative, which encourages schools, pupils and families to learn about waste, conservation and sustainability. Every two years or so, they explore a new theme in order to apply for the renewal of their Green Flag. The theme for this year, their fifth Green Flag, was biodiversity and, through the biodiversity theme, students learned how they can all play a big part in protecting the natural world. Two senior members of the Green Schools Committee, Saoirse Downes and Aoibhe Ward Murphy, spoke on behalf of the committee. Principal Gareth Heagney acknowledged the hard work, planning and organisation in receiving this Green Flag. He congratulated all …

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Seamount tresses up for the stage

Seamount College will stage two performances of Hairspray the Musical in Kilcornan Hall, Clarinbridge on Thursday, November 13 and Friday, November 14 at 8pm. There will also be two matinee shows each day at 10.30am. The show will be performed and staged by the school’s Transition Year and second year students, following the tradition of highly successful musicals from Seamount. The show is led by choreographer Cherie Worthington Eyre and musical director Sinéad O’Reilly. The story of this year’s musical is set in Baltimore, Maryland. It follows the life of dancer Tracy Turnblad. Dealing with discrimination in 1960s United States, the story revolves around Tracy’s efforts to get everyone to dance and sing together regardless of gender, body weight or race. Together Tracy and her friends bring the audience on a humorous adventure meeting an array of diverse characters along the way. Aoife Lavelle takes on the lead role of Tracy with Sarah Murphy playing Penny Pingelton, Grace Wallis as …

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Chinese getting a flavour of Shannon Hotel College

Executives of a leading hotel group in the Far East travelled to Shannon College of Hotel Management this week to learn the ‘Irish way’ of hotel-keeping. The senior Gloria Hotels & Resorts Group executives spent a week undergoing an intensive course at the renowned college, which has educated some of the leading hoteliers in the world. The rapidly growing group has 63 four and five star hotels, which are mainly located in China but also in Malaysia and Japan, and employs 15,000 people. It is adding up to 20 new hotels to its portfolio each year. It is the latest international education coup for the Shannon College of Hotel Management, which in 2012 signed a deal with the Seychelles government for all hotel management students from the tourism archipelago to be educated through the college, including with one year in Ireland. Shannon College of Hotel Management has 400 students, almost 50% of which are international students, with 70% of those …

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1916 Rising plans

The 1916 Relatives Association has welcomed the announcements that the Government has appointed John Concannon to head up the National Commemorative events in 2016. A spokesman for the group, which has a membership of over 800, said, “Today’s news is a new dawn and the group greatly welcomes the involvement of An Taoiseach, his secretary general, Martin Frasier and the appointment of John Corcoran. “Our group has spent the past number of months lobbying all key ministers to take the commemorations seriously. Sadly, one piece of the jigsaw is missing, the ongoing issue of the retention of properties on Moore Street. The group believe that the restoration of Moore Street is a central aspect to the commemorations.” The spokessman continued, “In the past, the group has been subjected to and deeply troubled by the various levels of incompetence by officials in the government department. The group has also been subjected to a long line of misinformation and false promises. The …

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Commercial traffic moving in right direction

THE amount of commercial movements at Shannon in September was dramatically higher than the equivalent figure in the same month last year. Also, September was the second consecutive month that Shannon had more commercial movements than Cork. In September Shannon had 2,257 commercial movements, up from 1,738 in September 2013. Shannon had an average of 75 commercial daily movements, compared with 58 last year. Cork had a daily average of 59 movements during September. Total flights in Irish airspace increased by 6.8% when compared with the same month last year. There was an average of 1,664 daily flights in September, with the busiest day being September 5, with 1,833 flights. On a cumulative basis, commercial terminal traffic for the three State airports for period from January to September was up by 6.1% when compared to the same period in 2013. Separately, the Clare branch of the Samaritans is set to share in a €26,000 donation from Shannon Airport, following a …

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Laying the ghost of Biddy Earley’s curse

AMONGST the most intriguing of the items which will be on display at a 1914 All-Ireland hurling exhibition in the county museum in Ennis will be an oil stock used to anoint Biddy Earley when she died. Historian Tomás MacConmara is hoping that this element of the exhibition will finally dispel the belief that Biddy Earley had cursed the Clare hurling team, thereby playing a role in denying Clare an All-Ireland title between 1914 and 1995. “It’s time to refute that story for once and for all. To be fair to Biddy Earley she was an incredibly important historical figure and actually a very liked figure, certainly in her native Feakle,” Tomás MacConmara said. The fact that Biddy Earley died decades before 1914 suggests that apportioning blame to her on the subsequent short comings of the Clare hurling team was stretching things. “To be very clear on it, she died in 1874; the GAA was formed 10 years later and …

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Grease is the word in Scariff

IT has been 20 years since Grease, the musical, was performed by Scariff Community College students and almost 10 years since they last performed a musical but, this November, the T-Birds and Pink Ladies return to the school stage. Scariff Community College’s forthcoming production of the ever popular Grease is directed and choreographed by former East Clare Musical Society director, Tim Landers, with musical direction by Johnny O’Brien. It takes place in Scariff Community College Hall from Thursday, November 13 to Saturday, November 15 and will offer audiences an entertaining evening, full of song, dance and comedy, performed by more than 90 of East Clare’s finest young talents. Taking on the leading roles are Trudy McGonigle as Sandy and Paddy Walsh as Danny. The Pink Ladies are played by Amber Meskell (Rizzo), Alannah Marsh (Frenchy), Fiona Hogan (Jan) and Rachel Allen (Marty), while Rachel Glass plays Patty. The T-Birds are Shane Corry (Keneckie), Josh Maloney (Doody), Oran Treacy (Roger) and …

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