East Clare

By Seamus Hayes CLARE went into last year’s National Hurling League campaign under the radar but it’s a different situation this year, according  to  defender Brendan Bugler, winner of All star awards for the past two years at right wing back. Brendan is completely focused on hurling. Acknowledging that there are a lot of demands on inter county hurlers, he  said, “It’s a lifestyle now not just a hobby. We are well used to it. It’s like a full time job. At the end of the day, we are very privileged to be involved. We enjoy it.” Last year Bugler led his club Whitegate back to senior ranks in Clare when he captained the team to the intermediate title, beating Feakle in the final. Sunday’s game has particular interest for the Whitegate man, who is a member of the teaching staff at Callan Community School in Kilkenny. He said “It’s a mouth watering fixture. Kilkenny are sore over the way the …

IN 2011 Killanena woman Anna Moroney grabbed the bull by the horns and joined Weight Watchers to try to and do something about her weight. The 24-year-old teacher was then 21 and weighed 26 stone 25 pounds. Her decision to lose weight was arrived upon following an incident on a night out. “I was working at the time in New Look in Galway and I was out, enjoying myself and having a ball. My friends were chatting with a few guys and one of the guys pulled me aside and said to me ‘what are you doing to yourself?’ “I would have got comments before about being overweight and being a whale, hideous comments, some really horrific ones but they would always have bounced off and wouldn’t have any impact. But this guy, he was a total stranger, just got me in the gut and got me thinking, what am I doing with myself? He said ‘you seem lovely, you …

WATER levels in Dooras, O’Callaghan’s Mills have risen to a new high this week, as flooding along the access road reached the four foot mark. With only a few days reprieve, residents of the four houses on this stretch of road have endured five weeks of surface water surrounding their homes. One family moved out over the Christmas period and a second family has now made the decision to also move. Of those who remain, an 88-year-old woman remains trapped in her home. Her son, Ger Mulqueen, is living with her and trying to maintain a farm, while another resident, James Peppard, continues to live there to look after his animals. Locals have had to resort to using a boat to access their homes and to bring in meal and nuts to their cattle, as the road remains submerged and the bog behind them becomes more dangerous to traverse, with each rain shower. Helen Mulqueen, whose mother-in-law is 88 and …

A TULLA woman, is leading a research study looking at new speakers in a multilingual Europe and one of the focus sites of the study is County Clare. Bernie O’Rourke, who is based in Scotland and is a reader in Sociolinguistics at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh is co-ordinating this EU-funded COST project. Originally from Tulla and a daughter of Tulla Pipe Band honoary president Michael O’Rourke, Bernie said she would classify herself as a new speaker of Irish, she have been intrigued by this growing phenomenon in the case of Irish. “I always had a strong interest in Irish, inspired very much by father’s interest in the language and his encouragement to speak it. I had also often heard my mother talking about her grandparents from West Clare who were Irish speakers. I also had a very inspirational Irish teacher in Tulla, Sr Eileen Callinan,” she said. The project involves researchers from 17 European countries and is aimed at finding out …

ONE of East Clare’s leading young sportsmen died in a traffic accident on the M7, near Roscrea on Sunday night.  Eighteen-year-old Barry Nash from Tobarnagoth, Scariff was a noted  hurler and handball player, excelling in both codes. Barry was an All-Ireland and world champion in handball and a key member the Scariff senior hurling side. A brother of international handballer, Diarmuid, Barry was travelling back to college in Dublin with three friends, when the accident happened. Barry’s death has caused great sadness in the East Clare community. He reposed at his home and his funeral mass will take place at Scariff Church on Thursday, after which he will be buried at the New Cemetery, Moynoe.        

A YOUNG man from East Clare died in a single car traffic accident on the north-bound lane of the M7 motorway near Roscrea last night. The deceased has not yet been officially named but is from a well-known family in the East Clare community, where the news has been treated with shock. He and three other passengers were returning to college in Dublin after a weekend at home. The man was pronounced dead at the scene and removed to Limerick Regional Hospital where a post mortem is due to take place today. The three other occupants, two young women and a man, were taken to Portlaoise Hospital but were later released. Gardaí carried out a technical examination of the accident scene close to Jct 22 ( Roscrea) and issued an appeal for any witness to contact them at Roscrea or any garda station.

CLOONEY-Quin guild of the ICA is inviting the local community to their night of drama at Quin Community Hall on Friday next. Now in its 34th year, the guild will present On the Couch, which is a new departure for the group, as they expand their annual drama night. The production now involves a split stage, which will facilitate the staging of two one-act comedies, an interview segment, music, song and storytelling. The two plays are the work of local woman, Anita O’Loughlin, who has been writing short comedies for Clooney-Quin ICA, and Spancilhill Drama Group for many years. “Both are short comedy acts. The first one, The Time of The Month, is about winter and specifically the three months in winter, November, December and January, and there is a sketch about each month, which are extremely comical. It starts with the holy souls in November, then it goes to the office Christmas party of Love Bites Limited and then …

By CAROL BYRNE A REVISIT to the budget estimate by Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney has resulted in an unexpected financial fillip for the East Clare-based charity, Irish Seed Savers Association. “We have revised the estimate for Seed Savers and we have upped their budget by 15%. There are very few examples in my budget where I have made a decision to increase any budget by that amount,” said Minister Coveney. He was responding to a question posed by Clare Deputy Michael McNamara who had asked him to consider providing a multi annual funding approach for the East Clare based charity. Deputy McNamara said while he was grateful to the minister for the increased funding, which is subject to EU approval and for the interest he had shown in the organisation, “a large part of the difficulty they encounter is not just because of a reduction in funding”. “It is also because there is a reduction in sales, which they rely …