News

THE Gathering 2013 will quite literally shine a light on what the Banner County has to offer over the next 11 months. More than 2,000 people attended the Clare Gathering 2013 official launch and expo at Glór in Ennis at the weekend. The event featured exhibits on 100 of the estimated 230 Gathering festivals and events taking place throughout Clare during 2013.One of the centrepieces of the event was the lighting of Solas an Chláir (The Light of Clare), a commemorative limestone piece by Corofin stone mason John Goggin, with design inputs from sculptor Shane Gilmore, a draw was held to determine what events The Gathering symbol will be present at during the 11 remaining months of the year.The first Gathering to welcome Solas an Chláir on its journey around Clare will be the Concertina Cruinniú in Miltown Malbay, in February. March will see the Ennis Phoenix Twinning host the piece, which will stay in Ennis again in April for …

You will be glad to have it confirmed during the week that stroke politics is still alive and well. Fine Gael and Labour promised us before the last election and while they were still in Opposition that things would be different once they were elected to power.They were going to do away with the old-style politics as practised by Fianna Fáil down through the years. Enough of us believed them to give them a record number of seats at the general election.We had heard it all before and no doubt we will hear it all again. You might change parties but nothing changes. Health Minister James Reilly has shown us once again that he is as adept as Fianna Fáil ministers ever were when it comes to pulling strokes. Once again, he was caught out and once again he will get away with it. What he did on behalf of his cabinet colleagues Phil Hogan of Kilkenny and Brendan Howlin …

DONNAGH Gregson of the Bunratty Cookery School is the new chair of the Clare Tourism Forum, succeeding Barbara Faulkner in the role.She says it is important to promote what the Banner County has to offer, adding that much work has been done on making The Gathering a success in Clare. “I suppose that what we would be facing is that everyone is trying very hard to promote their county and we have to try and show that Clare is the county to come to above others. We are handling the Gathering quite well and I think we have the fifth-highest amount of events in the whole country, so we’re doing quite well on that.”She said the forum is drawing expertise from across the public and private sectors. “We have some quite successful tourism business people and it’s a mixture between private and public sectors. We have Shannon Development in and we’d also have people like myself and Mark Nolan from …

THE collapse in the property market has been blamed by a local developer for the non-construction of 169 houses planned for the Roslevan area. An application by Finn Properties to extend planning permission for the development of houses and a distributor road at Oakleigh Wood, Knockaderry, Tulla Road, has now been refused by Ennis Town Council.Finn Properties had originally been granted permission in 2007, subject to 41 conditions, for the development consisting of a number of different house types, pump houses and associated drainage, continuation of existing access road and all associated site works. However, no development work has commenced on the site. The granting of planning permission expired in November of last year.An application was made by Finn Properties for the planning permission to be extended by another five years, with the developer stating they expect the project could recommence in 2015.According to the developer’s application to Ennis Town Council for the extension of permission, “The property market collapsed …

SHANNON has secured its first new route as an independent entity, with Wednesday’s announcement of a new Flybe service to Glasgow, to commence on May 2.The new flights will operate on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and are expected to generate some 10,000 additional passengers for Shannon this year.Flybe is Europe’s largest regional airline and Shannon Airport Authority chairman Rose Hynes welcomed the new route. “We said that the immediate focus of an independent Shannon would be passenger growth. This is a good start and there will be more to come.”Shannon’s managing director, Mary Considine, said it was an important development and that securing a link with a new airline is significant. “This is excellent news for Shannon Airport as it not alone delivers a new route to Glasgow but also a new airline customer to the premier gateway airport for the West of Ireland.“The Glasgow route was last operated in October 2011 and we are delighted to restore links there …

Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) has claimed that new research from NUI Galway and the Marine Institute published in the Journal of Fish Diseases shows sea lice infestation is unlikely to be a significant factor influencing the conservation status of salmon stocks. This research was carried out over a nine-year period (2001-2009) by the Marine Institute and NUI Galway and involved more than 350,000 fish, released into eight different rivers in 28 separate experiments. It investigates the impact of sea lice on the marine mortality of Irish salmon smolts and assesses the extent of sea lice-induced mortality in Irish Atlantic salmon stocks.In this long-term study, one group of salmon smolts were treated with a commercial agent, which protects them against sea lice infestation for eight weeks after going to sea. The return rates of controlled or unprotected mirror groups of fish were compared with the ‘protected’ fish to see if they suffered any additional sea lice-induced mortality following release into the …

PRESIDENT of the Irish Hotels Federation, Michael Vaughan, has described the announcement of the sale of the West County Hotel as a relief to the hotel industry. News of the sale of the iconic Ennis hotel to the Waterford-based Treacy Hotel Group has been widely welcomed in the region, with hopes that the 90 jobs at the hotel will be secured.Speaking to The Clare Champion, Mr Vaughan said, “In hotel circles, we are very relieved at the sale because in the first instance it concludes what was a very lenghty receivership and receivership in general isn’t a good thing for the industry. This now begins a new chapter for the hotel and we wish the new owners well. We would now hope that the new owners would put the funds that are required into the hotel to bring the West County back to the eminent position it had in its heyday.”He described the hotel as a “critical piece” of the …

Iarnród Éireann’s explanation for why tickets cannot be booked online between Ennis and Galway has been described as “an insult to the people of County Clare” by one Mid-West MEP. However, Iarnród Éireann subsequently confirmed to The Clare Champion that it will be possible to buy tickets online for the service later this year.Fine Gael’s Jim Higgins, MEP for Clare and Ireland’s member of the European Parliament Transport Committee, branded the attitude of Iarnród Éireann to the Western Rail Corridor (WRC) as “pitiful”. “It’s as if Iarnród Éireann are doing everything they can to make it difficult for people to use the reopened Ennis-Gort-Galway line. “I cannot understand how it is you can book every intercity bus service in the country online but you cannot book a train service because it starts in Ennis,” he stated.However, following on from the MEP’s correspondence with Iarnród Éireann, a spokesperson for the company stated, “Our current online booking system is fully integrated with …