East Clare

LAURA Cullen, a member of the Quin Taekwon-Do Club has become the sixth woman in Ireland to be promoted to fourth-level dan black belt at the Irish Taekwon-Do Association’s (ITA) black belt testing held in Ennis recently.

Daring volunteers will be going to hell and back as they fundraise to maintain counselling services at East Clare Community Co-op and they are calling on others to get involved in the challenge. A group of six brave East Clare people will take on Hell and Back Ireland’s toughest 10km challenge, which was specially designed and tested by an ex-member of the Elite Army Ranger Wing. The group will push their way through a river, struggle through a mud avalanche, wade through a swamp, crawl through barbed wire, scale walls and battle an obstacle course on the grounds of Killruddery Estate, Bray, County Wicklow, in the new year. The initiative has come about following a threefold increase in the numbers using the counselling service at the Scariff-based East Clare Community Co-op, in the past year. The increase has come at a time when the grant aid supporting the provision of the service has been cut and so to avoid having …

Family, neighbours, friends, musicians and fans of the late, great Robbie McMahon came through the Cross of Spancilhill this past week to pay their respects to the legendary singer and songwriter. Funeral mass was held for Robbie on Sunday last at Clooney Church, with burial afterwards in Kilraghtis Cemetery, Barefield parish.It was with great sadness that the East Clare Community learned of his passing on December 13. A Spancilhill man through and through, Robbie was an institution in his local community and was held in high esteem across the county and further afield, as was evident from the massive attendance at his funeral over the weekend. His funeral mass was celebrated by Fr Michael Collins PP Clooney Quin, Fr Micháel McInerney AP, Fr John Hogan, Fr Joe McMahon, Fr Dan Spaight and Fr Paddy Conway. The first reading was read by Labhrás Ó Murchú, the director-general of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, while Mr McMahon’s daughter, Dympna, read the second reading. During …

RESIDENTS and businesses on the Spancilhill-Clooney Group Water Scheme can return to regular consumption of their water supply as a month-long boil notice comes to an end.

There are three too many houses at 1 Main Street, Whitegate, a meeting of the Killaloe Electoral Area councillors has heard. According to Councillor Pat Burke, there are four No. 1 houses on Main Street, Whitegate, and following the need for emergency services recently at another house, of which there are three houses with the same address, he decided to raise the issue.Councillor Burke called on Clare County Council to name and provide signage for the two local authority estates in Whitegate village. The proposed names are Cregg View Road for the older estate and Lakyle Park for the newer estate.He explained that an ­ambulance attended the wrong house recently, as there were three such addresses in Whitegate and he said there was nothing to distinguish the houses between each other for the emergency services.“While the postmen do ­generally know where people live, we need something to establish which estates are which. “It appears that addresses were never sorted out, …

An East Clare county councillor has described the location of newly erected speed limit signs in Whitegate as “baffling” and has called for the signs’ location to be reviewed and changed at the earliest opportunity.

While the community of Kilkishen is actively pursuing the development and restoration of the disused Church of Ireland to a community cultural centre, one committee member is trying to achieve the same goal on an international scale.

Mountshannon’s Kevin Chesser, aka Miss Graded, was crowned Miss Dainty Daisy 2012 at the finale of the Mid-West Rape Crisis Centre fundraiser, which was held last Saturday.