News

This week a gathering will set out on the county’s first Clare-based pilgrimage walk, the first stage in a proposed Camino de Santiago de Compostela (the Way of St James)-style walk that aims to link the county’s holy places. Set up by the newly formed Clare Pilgrim Way Group, stage one of the proposed walk has been mapped out to take in a variety of West and North Clare sacred places and will take place over a four-day period starting on Thursday, August 11.Local poet Brian Mooney explained the idea behind the walk and revealed that his interest in ecclesiastical sites date back almost 20 years when he discovered 11th century sites in his native Kilfenora. “The Camino idea has become very popular. The journey without, to the journey within, is our thing. How I got interested was a daughter of ours did the Camino about 10 years ago, then I did it and then the rest of our family …

THE marketing of Lough Derg and tourism in the Mid-West could be transferred from Shannon Development to Fáilte Ireland, if the Government supports a new proposal from Deputy Michael McNamara.Deputy McNamara believes Fáilte Ireland should market tourism in all of the country, including the Mid-West, as Shannon Development does not have an adequate budget to carry out this function properly.Acknowledging that Shannon Development has been involved in a number of good tourism products in the Mid-West, Deputy McNamara explained it is very hard for the agency to properly market the region without having adequate funding.  If the radical overhaul takes place, he claimed it would give the company an opportunity to concentrate on its asset management and job creation in the region. He said Kerry and Galway seem to be very well marketed by Fáilte Ireland but claimed there doesn’t seem to be much effort to market the Sliabh Aughty. He also hopes to organise a meeting of all the …

Domestic car sales in Clare are down by over 43% in July compared to the same month last year, the latest figures reveal. The drop in Clare is well above the national average of 35%, but below neighbouring Limerick. Car sales in the county are up overall in the year to date.The drop in new car sales last month is mainly due to the ending of the Government scrappage scheme which saw discounts of €1,500 initially and then €1,250, off Vehicle Registration Tax on cars 10 years or older. “The fact the scrappage finished on June 30 would have pushed a lot of people who were going to change their cars forward and we had expected to find that July would fall flat after that,” explained Eddie Rynne, general manager, T Sheils & Co. Ltd, Ennis. “Taking Ford in Clare, our market share I believe we are running 3% to 4% above the national average so we were punching well …

NORTH West MEP Marian Harkin is to host a meeting in Ennis to encourage opposition to the introduction of septic tanks inspection charges.The meeting is set to take place on August 12 at 7pm in the Templegate Hotel in Ennis.Speaking on the issue, Ms Harkin said, “Those who use septic tanks for sewerage treatment have provided them at their own expense and service them at their own expense. Urban dwellers on the other hand have had billions of euros provided to install and maintain sewerage services completely free of charge to them. The reason for introducing this inspection regime is attributed to a European Court decision but it is interesting that no such regime is imposed in the six counties of Northern Ireland.“The inspections are to be carried out by a corps of engineers to be trained by the EPA and the plan will be for septic tanks owners to fund them and any subsequent remedial works.”She claimed that local …

The long-awaited Shannon bridge river crossing and associated link roads in Killaloe and Ballina, costing an estimated €40.6million, have finally got the green light.

Public representatives are calling for “fair play” after it emerged that a tourist attraction in North Clare has more than twice the number of publicly-funded signs pointing tourists towards it as a competing attraction.

Gardaí are on the hunt for two men believed to have been involved in a road traffic incident where a garda was struck and had his leg rolled over by a grey Honda Civic in Ennis town centre on Tuesday afternoon.