North Clare

A CONSERVATION project in North Clare, as well as benefiting local farmers, will also generate employment, it was revealed this week.

A SIGN featuring a map of Corofin as well as details of its historical and natural features could become a prototype for other villages nationwide, it has been claimed.As well as showing a map, the sign also has extensive information on local history, angling, folklore and nature.

BURREN Alpaca Stud, first importers of alpacas to Ireland 10 years ago, celebrated this anniversary by winning both the supreme champion and reserve champion awards at the Alpaca Association of Ireland National Show recently. Run in conjunction with the Tullamore Show, the competition between alpaca classes was a big attraction for many of the 60,000 people to visit the one-day event.

OVER the past 50 years, author Donál Donnelly has gone from scaling the walls of Crumlin Road Gaol to becoming the president of the Irish Institute of Purchasing and Materials Management. This week, he launches his memoirs in Ballyvaughan.

A GROUP of North Clare residents are hoping to develop a wellness centre on the edge of the Burren, which could employ between 12 and 18 people, it emerged recently.  Fintan O’Brien, Kieran Casey and Brian O’Shaughnessy applied to Clare County Council to construct a wellness centre with a manager’s apartment or office, 15 ‘wellness’ tourist accommodation units, a storage shed, gazebo, waste water treatment, 32 parking spaces and associated works at Ranaghan, Ruan, four and a half miles from Corofin. According to a document in the planning file signed by Michael Corey for architectural and environmental consultants Corey Stevens and Associates, Ennis the proposed development would be “a unique tourism product” with a wellness centre at its core. The wellness centre would specialise in magnetic or purification products with built-in temperature controls incorporated into the building fabric, furniture, water and air supplies of all the tourist accommodation. “In a nutshell, it [the wellness rejuvenation rooms] is a complete magnetic …

IN shades of yester year, Lisdoonvarna this weekend plays host to a music festival. Nine bands will take to the stage over two nights to entertain music lovers from all over the county and to raise money for charity Haven. Behind the festival is Dublin born Jonathon Fitzgerald, a regular visitor to the North Clare village. “My dad lives in Clare. When our band started, Sons of Gingerbread, Peter Curtin in the Roadside Tavern let us play in his pub. Since then, I’ve been helping him out sourcing music and he’s been holding gigs. Together we managed to set up a bit of a music scene there and there is great music appreciation there,” Jonathon explained. This weekend’s festival takes place in the Pavilion and features music from Absolutely Curtains, Cujo Family, Niwel Tsumbu and Loudest Whisper, Sons of Gingerbread, Elastic Affair, New Secret Weapon, A Band Called Wanda and Trevor Hansbury with the Tezers. On Sunday night, there will …

PEOPLE lived in the Burren thousands of years before the time of Christ and there are dozens of sites of archaeological interest dotted throughout the North Clare landscape.

The work of the Burren Chernobyl Project in Belarus is set to be documented through a series of photographs, which it is hoped will be exhibited both here and in Minsk.