Lifestyle

A CLARE lottery player who won €500,000 on a scratch card has admitted they didn’t realise at first just how much they won. “When I first scratched off the panels, I thought that I had won €5,000 which I was absolutely delighted with,” the winner admitted. “And then I looked at it again and thought it was €50,000. It wasn’t until I looked at it for a third time shortly after that I realized it was €500,000. “I was in total shock and probably sat there looking at the scratch card in disbelief for about five minutes.” The winner is going to think carefully about what to do before making any big plans. “I won’t be rushing out to spend it just yet. I am going to take my time and plan what we should do – I never expected to win an amount like this so as you can imagine, I’m still taking the news in. It’s all quite …

FOR many of its members the Irish Wheelchair Association’s “Think Ahead Think Housing campaign” has really impacted them and struck a chord, writes Dan Danaher. In 2015, Liz Leamy was just 42 when she suffered a stroke that brought dramatic changes to her health and quality of life. At the time her third and youngest child was just six years old. While she regained much of her mobility at first, Liz regrets not thinking about housing and her long-term housing needs sooner. “I was laid back thinking ‘oh it’ll be fine I’ll get better’ but it was the other way around. “I should have started getting everything in place the year I got my stroke. Not waiting years down the line.” Liz is very eager for people like her to think about their home and whether it is adapted and safe. After her stroke, Liz and her husband couldn’t renovate their rental home to make it safer for her and …

Fish stocks in Irish seas are reducing. Bridget Ginnity highlights changes we can all make to reverse the situation CLARE man Ken O’Sullivan brought the wonders of our seas to our living rooms with his film Ireland’s Deep Atlantic (see trailer below), as did David Attenborough with Blue Planet. Despite the plentiful sea life off west Clare, those who have fished for decades don’t need statistics to know there are a lot fewer fish in the sea nowadays. Locals talk about salmon leaping up the rivers when they were young, but these stories are becoming a distant memory and wild salmon for dinner is a novelty. Is there anything we can do to help matters, to have our seas and rivers filled with fish again? There are a lot of reasons for the decline including pollution and climate change, but most fingers point to industrial scale overfishing. Are there plenty more fish the sea? A complex system of quotas governs …

Conor Clohessy looks ahead to the Tour De Munster passing through Clare next week DOWN Syndrome Ireland will be looking forward to having its 21st Annual Tour De Munster cycle fundraiser from August 5 to 8, having already raised a staggering €3 million since 2010 for the Munster branches of the charity alone. Because this year is different and the usual avenues for fundraising locally, such as collecting money in buckets, is far more difficult, the Clare branch of Down Syndrome Ireland has created a raffle in conjunction with the Tour De Munster to help them in their efforts. The prize of the raffle is a Corratec Dolomiti racing bike worth €1,600, donated by the family-run triathlon shop Planet-Tri, and within the first 24 hours the raffle had raised over €1,000. Treasurer for the Clare DSI branch Laura Cahir said: “The shop is very good for community involvement, always doing work for different charities. “Last year we had a donation …

AN EXCITING collaboration has taken place in East Clare bringing together the natural beauty of the landscape and the rich heritage of the Irish design and craft sector, writes Fiona McGarry. With the support of the Design and Craft Council of Ireland’s #MadeLcoal 2021 campaign, the 12 O’Clock Hills Project has teamed up with a locally-based designer and maker to celebrate their achievements to-date in developing the region as a destination for walkers and hikers. The group has commissioned a limited collection of unique baseball caps hats and beanies produced by skilled artisan Ailish McElroy at her design studio in Bodyke. The aim of this collaboration is to celebrate and support Irish makers and their work, calling on consumers to shop local and consider the breadth of Irish-crafted, high-quality products available here. It also promotes the hiking and walking amenity and celebrates the achievements of the 12 O’Clock Hills Project to-date which has developed three walking and hiking trails for …

A CLARE mother is preparing to face her fears by jumping out of a plane thousands of feet in the air to raise money for a charity close to her family’s heart. Jane Quinn, who lives in Sixmilebridge, will be doing a tandem sky-dive in aid of My Canine Companion, an Irish charity providing accredited service dogs to people with disabilities, predominantly autism. The family have seen first hand the positive benefits of a service dog having recently welcomed puppy Woody into the life of daughter Zoe, who was diagnosed with autism at four years of age. Jane is hoping that by doing the sky-dive she will be able to raise enough funds for the charity so that another family can experience the “life changing” effects of having a service dog. Jane is aiming to raise €10,000 from the sky-dive which is set to take place in Kilkenny this Friday, July 30. She admits she is “absolutely terrified” of flying, so why get …

Dan Danaher on a remarkable silver replica of Ardnacrusha Power Station links the prime movers in Ireland’s great power project THE story behind one of the most remarkable pieces of silver ever commissioned in the country links two men who played a powerful role in constructing South-East Clare’s “Eighth Wonder of the World”. Moves are afoot for the extraordinary silver model of Ardnacrusha to be moved in the near future from the power station to public display at the Hunt Museum in Limerick. The commissioning of this historical replica ties in two key ESB men, Joe O’Farrell and Dr Thomas MacLaughlin, prominent in the development of the Shannon Hydroelectric Scheme, which had been hailed as the “Eighth Wonder of the World”. Having joined the Shannon Scheme in September 1927, O’Farrell was just the fourth person employed by the fledgling ESB. He played a key role in the construction of Ardnacrusha Power Station, and later ESB Networks working as senior engineer, …

NESTLED deep in the heart of the Burren, Caher Bridge Garden in Fanore has over the years been wowing garden enthusiasts from all over the world, even bringing some to tears of joy. The award winning garden has appeared in magazines, newspapers and the Top 100 Gardens of Ireland book among other esteemed publications. So, it is surprising to discover that this Thursday (July 22) will see the garden make its very first television appearance, featuring on RTÉ One’s latest series Ireland’s Garden Heroes. The show, which will be broadcast at 8.30pm reveals the hard work and imagination ordinary people have put into their gardens across the island. Carl Wright, the man behind Caher Bridge Garden tells us that he never intended to be a gardener, but once he started he couldn’t stop. Describing the hidden gem as an “obsession”, he says, “I don’t think there is another garden in the country like it”. Originally from Devon, Carl first began …