Lifestyle

Domestic violence does not discriminate by age, socio-economic status, marital status or cultural background. One Clare woman, who suffered more than 20 years of physical, sexual and mental abuse, tells her story to Dan Danaher in an effort to get more victims to come forward and seek help “Looking back, our relationship first turned sour when I became pregnant in the late-’70s outside of marriage. From the outset, my partner didn’t want me to have a baby and instead proposed an abortion. I decided to stay with a relative for the last few months of my pregnancy,” said Ann*.The first incident of physical abuse occurred shortly after their marriage, just months after moving into their home. “At the height of an argument, he started bashing my head against the door and in self-defence, I hit him to get him off of me. He went ballistic. He got me down on the ground, kicked me in the stomach. I kept calling …

Since they met at university in Nigeria, Albert and Chinwe Obadeyi have done everything together, sharing a life as a married couple, as students, as work colleagues at GE Money in Shannon and on Sunday, they will both be ordained pentecostal reverends of their church, Foundation Ministries in Ennis.

Owen Ryan talks to the director of the Ennis and Clare branch of the Samaritans on the eve of her departure from the position THE ending of a decade is a landmark for everyone, but New Year’s Day 2010 will have extra significance for Mary Lynch.As of January 1, her three-year term as director of the Ennis and Clare branch of the Samaritans will be at an end. While Mary says she has found the unpaid role very fulfilling, one would understand if she felt like a load was being lifted from her. The branch has more than 100 volunteers, operates 365 days a year and fields more than 500 contacts a week from the public. Obviously, there’s a good bit of work involved in keeping things going and, while Mary doesn’t run everything on her own, there’s a lot of responsibility resting with the director.The Samaritans operate a three-year rule for officers and Mary admits that she had a …

WITH some Christmas parties managing to survive the economic crisis, The Clare Champion looks at ways to reinvigorate wardrobe must-have the little black dress (LBD) and get more than one outing from it this festive season.

SIBLINGS Katie and Conor McEnery packed their bags last September and headed back to their roots, in Tanzania from where they had emigrated to Ennis a decade ago.

Military Past IN the formative stages of my military career, I had the great good fortune to serve under the command of JAO Leech at Lifford Military Post.

The song God Save Ireland was the anthem of the Fenian movement and was basically the Irish anthem, until the adoption of Amhrán na bhFiann.

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