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Scariff youth club take time out to recreate Eden

A Scariff youth group were busy last weekend, helping their local Tidy Towns group and residents of the Connaught Road housing estate, create their very own Garden of Eden. Members of My Time Foróige Junior Youth Club joined with the Connaught Road Residents Association, Scariff Tidy Towns and the Irish Seedsavers Association to plant apple trees and fruit bushes provided by the Garden of Eden Project. In September 2013, the new Foróige youth club came into existence, catering for 10 to 12-year-olds, and has been going from strength to strength in the past eight months. Youth club leader, Tracey Doyle outlined how the group came about and what they have been involved in. “I’m involved with the older group, Scariff Foróige Youth Club, and they will be 10 years next year. This group is for 12 to 18-year-olds. My Time Foróige Youth Club was born out of many knocks at my front door, by people suggesting I start something for …

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Election 2014

Slow start to Ennis voting

POLLING was relatively slow at Waterpark House in Ennis late this morning. One retired gentleman said that Sinn Féín’s Liadh Ní Riada was getting his number one in the European election. He said that in his opinion voting is crucial and that it will be his first time voting Sinn Féin. “Always and ever I voted, my background would have been Fianna Fáil but I’ve changed my voting pattern in the last few elections. I voted Fine Gael in the last election and I can’t see myself voting for them ever again.” He has been very unimpressed by the Government and said that the performance of Labour has been very poor. “Their default position in any argument is ‘sure look at the mess we were left with’. They created voting fodder out of the middle classes, the Guards, the nurses, people like that, for Sinn Féin.” Nuala Rice also said it’s important that everyone with a vote uses it. “Of …

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Feather’s fly as eagles celebrate new arrival

The Mountshannon white-tailed sea-eagle pair, Saoirse and Caimin, has welcomed a new addition to their feathered clan, as the first white-tailed sea eagle chick is born in East Clare under the national re-introduction programme this year. The Golden Eagle Trust has confirmed that the sea eagles had been minding two eggs in their Mountshannon nest for over a month and, two and a half weeks ago, they believe the eggs hatched. One of the chicks has survived and the Trust confirmed this week that the surviving chick is doing well. The pair created history in 2013, when they reared the first chicks to fly from a nest in Ireland in over 100 years. A new nesting pair at Glengarriff was the first pair to hatch chicks this year, in late April. Unfortunately, the breeding efforts of this pair and a pair nesting in Killarney National Park failed, probably due to a combination of poor weather and inexperience. The East Clare …

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Shannon joins world free zone group

SHANNON Airport has scored another remarkable first as its chairman, Rose Hynes becomes  one of the founding board members of the World Free Zones Organisation. At its launch in Dubai this week, Ms Hynes was also appointed to the key role of  founding treasurer. The inaugural board gathered on Monday evening at the Jumeirah Emirates Tower Hotel in Dubai for the launch by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. Shannon is one of only two European free zones on the inaugural board, along with Barcelona. Speaking from Dubai, Ms Hynes said that the launch was another prestigious moment and one that offers great opportunity and promise for the Shannon Free Zone. “The Shannon Free Zone, as the first free zone in the world, has been replicated as a concept the world over in the 55 years since it was founded. It is an honour to be …

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Safety award for Clare Fire Service

By Dan Danaher Identifying workplace hazards and assessing and controlling fire hazard risk has helped Clare firemen scoop a major national award. Clare Fire and Rescue Service  joined 31 private and public sector organisations from across Ireland to receive service quality awards – OHSAS 18001:2007 certification, from the Minister of State for Small Business, Deputy John Perry recently. Mayor of Clare, Councillor Joe Arkins, Adrian Kelly, Clare Chief Fire Officer and Ger Hartnett, senior executive Health and Safety Officer, Clare County Council attended the awards’ ceremony in Dublin. The “Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems’ standard was first published by the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) in 2007. The standard, which is the only auditable international standard for health and safety, sets out a preventative and proactive approach to identifying workplace hazards and assessing and controlling risk. Councillor Arkins said that maintaining health and safety standards to the highest level is “critically important for both fire service personnel and …

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Ardnacrusha youth’s golden game

AN Ardnacrusha youth has claimed first prize in the junior category of the Scratch Coding national finals. Liam O’Brien, who is a first-year pupil at St Munchin’s College, Limerick, developed a Golden Pixel RPG game, involving a man who is on a quest for the Golden Pixel. The game triumphed in the first to third-year age level for second-level students. In the game, the man fights monsters, completes quests, earns coins, buys or wins upgrades, conquers castles, plays minigames and unlock levels and defeat bosses in his quest for the golden pixel. The game is divided up into three stages – grassland, desert and beach. The man has health, money and strength. His health is what keeps him alive. He starts with 20 units of health and loses his health when enemies hit. Each type of enemy has different amounts of health and strength. There are pink and blue blobs that block his way. There are also skeletons which he …

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In search of a doomed Portuguese galleon

By Peter O’Connell JOHN Treacy likens what happened in West Clare 426 years ago to two fully-loaded 747s crashing, within hours of each other. On Friday, September 20, 1588, the San Marcos and the San Esteban went down off Mutton Island (Quilty) and the White Strand (Doonbeg) respectively. In the region of 780 people were drowned, while the approximate 70 survivors were executed. Both ships were part of the Spanish Armada, whose initial aim was to help the Duke of Parma’s army to cross from France to England and, having accomplished this, the Armada’s second objective was to wipe out the English fleet. In recent months, the San Marcos Project, which is headed locally by John Treacy, a postgraduate researcher and Mary Immaculate College PHD student, has started its quest to elicit if the wreck of the doomed 790-tonne Portuguese galleon can be located. When it sailed from Corunna, it carried 33 guns, 409 men, including 292 soldiers and 117 …

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