East Clare

Walkers from across Clare are expected to descend on East Clare this weekend as the inaugural East Clare Walking Festival gets underway. The event has been organised by East Clare Tourism and participants will be given a unique opportunity to take in the stunning East Clare countryside on their choice of guided walks.There are six walks in total taking place over the course of the weekend to choose from and each is graded from A to C, according to difficulty, A being the most difficult. Each walk covers different aspects of the East Clare terrain.A welcome evening will be held in McNamara’s bar in Scariff on Friday at 9pm where there will be traditional music and refreshments. That evening participants will be able to meet members of the East Clare Walking Club, who will guide the walks over the weekend and walking routes will also be available for viewing. Registration for all walks takes place in McNamara’s from 9am each …

LADIES in Feakle are doing it for themselves as a new ICA guild has been formed, with modern and exciting plans already underway for demonstrations, classes, groups and even pole dancing lessons.The ladies of the newly established ICA guild in Feakle are pushing the boundaries to modernise and expand the traditional image of the Irish Countrywoman’s Association in their community and among their fun plans for exercise classes is pole dancing.President of the new guild, Breda Collins, is behind the endeavour and together with likeminded women in the community and members of the former Feakle ICA, the group aims to bring people closer, forging new friendships and improving life locally through its proposed community initiatives.“Since we started this a few ladies have said they know no-one in the area, even though they might be living in the area for between three and five years and they are so excited about having a social group,” Breda said.She explained there was a …

Clare County Council is on target to complete its current roadworks programme in East Clare by the end of this year, according to a local authority engineer.

To help forest owners make decisions about thinning, Teagasc and the Forest Service will showcase Steps to Thinning and Marketing your Timber next Tuesday in Feakle.

EAST Clare councillors have supported the establishment of a new task force to formulate a plan for job creation and tourism development in the locality.

TOURISM-related developments in areas such as Holy Island on Lough Derg could be adversely affected by a re-designation of a Special Protection Area (SPA) for birds, Mayor of Clare, Councillor Pat Hayes has warned.Councillor Hayes has expressed concern that the classification of all of Lough Derg as a SPA for birds will impose even more restrictions and obstacles for people who want to seek planning permission for new tourism enterprises on the shores of the lake.The mayor said people in West Clare were extremely concerned the SPA designation would hinder development on the Shannon Estuary.“Lough Derg is the equivalent of the Shannon Estuary for people in East Clare. I am not happy to see all of Lough Derg designated as an SPA. We don’t have too many areas open in East Clare for new projects and I don’t want to see any more obstacles being put in front of local residents and business people,” he said.He proposed at a recent …

All routes lead to Mountshannon from this week as it is the site of Ireland’s newest fully licensed airport, a development with multimillion euro potential for the region.  The Mountshannon base will be the primary location of operations for Harbour Flights Ireland seaplane operation, which is also Europe’s first European Aviation Safety Agency-approved float plane training facility. The Irish Aviation Authority presented the four-team partnership that makes up Harbour Flights Ireland with their licence at an event held at their base in Mountshannon on Tuesday. It is now expected that in three years’ time Harbour Flights will employ up to 60 people nationally. Ronan Connolly, a director with the company, has indicated that how much the seaplane operations is worth to the region depends on the level of support it gets locally. “It is speculative to come up with a figure but multi-million would not be an exaggeration,” he said. It took four years to get the idea off the …

Tuamgraney-born author Edna O’Brien has scooped the top prize at one of the world’s largest international short story awards this week for her book Saints and Sinners. O’Brien’s publication came out on top from the six shortlisted authors for the 2011 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award announced at a ceremony in the Metropole Hotel in Cork on Sunday. She is the first Irish author to scoop the €35,000 prize fund since it was established in 2005.The East Clare woman was one of two Irish authors shortlisted for the prestigious award, Colm Tóibín being the other, and she was up against American resident and Beijing-born Yiyun Li, Canadian debutante Alexander MacLeod, American debutante Suzanne Rivecca, and American author Valerie Trueblood. Born and raised in Tuamgraney, she has lived in London for many years.Since her debut novel The Country Girls, O’Brien has written over 20 works of fiction along with a biography of James Joyce and Lord Byron. She now adds …