Lifestyle

RUGBY star Eimear Considine’s Clare wedding may have grabbed the headlines last week, but romance was also in the Banner County air for another Irish athlete. Flame-haired wrestler Sheamus gave new meaning to the term ‘King of The Ring’, by making use of the grand stage afforded by the Cliffs of Moher to propose marriage. View this post on Instagram A post shared by 💛 Isabella Revilla-Farrelly (@isabella.revilla) Four-time WWE world champion Sheamus popped the question to finacée Isabella Revilla in front of O’Brien’s Tower at the Cliffs during a week-long visit home. Isabella revealed the night Sheamus proposed, a wedding photographer from Sligo who just happened to be at The Cliffs with his family, observed them and took the photos which she posted on Instagram. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sheamus (@wwesheamus) She added in a further post, “When I was pining to go to Ireland as a young girl, I would tell people it …

WITH less than a week to go to the closing of entries it’s emerged that Clare has received 15 nominations for the ‘Best Place to Live in Ireland’ 2021. The Irish Times launched its search for the Best Place to Live in Ireland last month and invited people from all over the island to nominate their favourites. Fifteen nominations puts Clare outside the top 12 counties for nominations received, behind Wexford on 16 but ahead of Kildare on 14. Neighbours Galway and Limerick have been nominated 49 and 39 times respectively. To be in with a chance to claim the title for your homeplace, all you have to do is to write a short submission of 300 words explaining what makes it so special. Full details are available at www.irishtimes.com/bestplace Any Clare people swelling with pride in their locality and who would like the rest of Ireland to know, will have to get cracking on their entry, however, as the …

ONE of Ireland’s premier celebrity couples have been living it up in the Banner county in recent days. Brian O’Driscoll and Amy Huberman have been busy making their appreciation for Clare known via their instagram accounts. Recent posts by the couple have attracted a huge amount of attention and a thousand welcomes from Clare users of the platform The former rugby international sought dining recommendations on his Instagram stories. Actor Huberman has also been busy posting highlights of her trip. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Amy Huberman (@amy_huberman) Clare people were quick to weigh in with suggestions to O’Driscoll’s request and some al fresco dining on Kilkee beach ensued. Huberman’s picture of her chips from Nolan’s attracted over 17,600 likes.

THE UL Hospitals’ Group is supporting an initiative to help Clare people reduce the possibility of contracting skin cancer when the intensity of sunburn producing ultraviolet radiation (UV) is greatest, writes Dan Danaher. The Irish Skin Foundation (ISF), Dr Sinead Field, Consultant Dermatologist at University Hospital Limerick, the HSE’s National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP), and the Healthy Ireland SunSmart campaign have joined forces with the group to launched a series of five video animations. Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in Ireland, with more than 13,000 cases diagnosed annually. This is twice the number compared to 10 years ago, and is projected to more than double again by 2045. Yet, most skin cancers could be prevented. Dr Field, Consultant Dermatologist, University Hospital Limerick, said traditional health promotion campaigns have had to be reimagined in light of Covid-19 public health restrictions. “Our aim in developing these animations was to bring the SunSmart messaging to life by creating a …

THE Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival has been cancelled for the second year in a row due to the impact of Covid-19, it has been confirmed. The event, which takes place in the north Clare town every year and attracts tens of thousands of visitors from across Ireland and the world, had been due to take place across the whole month of September. Festival organiser Marcus White said, “As the Government have advised that there should be no large-scale indoor events until the whole population has been vaccinated, this year’s Lisdoonvarna Festival has regrettably been cancelled.” He noted that many people, especially younger ones, will not be fully vaccinated before the end of September. “All our events are staged inside including the country music marquee which can accommodate up to 2,000 people which is not permissible under current guidelines,” said Mr White. “We would not be able to manage the very large crowds that normally throng our small town for a month.” …

THE best of County Clare will be broadcast into millions of homes across the United States this autumn as part of a popular travel series. Peninsula Television will be filming at multiple locations throughout the county this week, from Tuesday to Thursday, June 22 to 24, as part of its ‘Ireland: County by County’ series, which has been viewed by millions of US viewers since its launch in 2020. The 30-minute programme will air on the Create/PBS television network and will be fronted by Irish television presenter Ciara Whelan, who is best known for hosting Virgin Media’s prime-time travel series, ‘The Holiday Show’. The production will concentrate on various cultural, sporting, social and heritage aspects of County Clare. Filming commences this Tuesday with a focus on Ennis and Clare’s international reputation as home to some of the best golf courses in Ireland. The production crew will depart to Shannon Airport to highlight this key asset of the county, before taking …

A CLARE artisan producer of utensils and kitchenware will feature on a popular RTE cookery programme tonight. The current series of How To Cook Well, with Rory O’Connell draws to a close tonight and will showcase the work of Éamonn O’Sullivan of Hewn in Ennistymon. Éamonn works with greenwoods, using traditional techniques and tools to create some of the most tactile kitchen utensils on the market. Hewn makes vibrant and characterful wooden utensils and kitchenware, and the Galway-based Michelin star restaurant Aniar serves up some of its dishes with Éamonn’s signature spoons. Éamonn describes his work as a reaction to mass production and the lack of character of everything you see in a shop. You can now join a virtual queue for spoons at https://t.co/yHVvvh1b3q. I'm trying to bring some class tranquility to the process of buying a spoon…let's all be chill. pic.twitter.com/IpeD20ow7n — Éamonn O'Sullivan (@HewnSpoons) December 2, 2020 Popular chef Rory’s sixth series of ‘How To Cook Well …

Motor Neurone Disease (MND) is in the spotlight for the month of June as people are asked to host virtual fundraisers for vital services. Here, Andy Minogue from Ardnacrusha shares his experience of the disease. IS OUR fate or destiny decided when we are born or does it evolve over the years? I had my palm read by a lady when I was in my late teens. I didn’t pay for it and I can’t remember where it was, except I think it was in a fair or something like that. She told me that there was a definite break in my lifeline that indicated a very dramatic or life-changing event. I didn’t think too much about it but it didn’t sound good to me. After that, if anyone ever told me that they were going to a fortune teller, I would advise against it, as a bad forecast would have you worrying and if something bad is going to …