Regional

GORT Community School pupils will bring audiences to 1950s America this weekend as they stage the hugely popular musical, Grease. More than 100 pupils have been working hard since September to bring the fictional Rydell High School of more than five decades ago to the stage. The story follows the fortunes of a group of teenagers as they find their way around love, rebellion and growing up and features hit songs including Summer Nights, You’re The One That I Want and Hopelessly Devoted To You. Music teacher Tara O’Carroll is the director and choreographer of the production. “One hundred and four students are involved in the show. Some are on stage, some in the band and others have been involved in different capacities. There will be about 80 students on the stage on each of the nights,” Ms O’Carroll explained. For 17 years, Gort Community School has held concerts to exhibit the musical talents of its pupils but this is …

RESIDENTS and business people along the Clare coast have spent the past week cleaning up after the recent storms. Clare County Council is looking for more than €23 million in funding from central government for work on public infrastructure but extensive damage was also caused to private property, including homes, by Storm Christine. Now, people with houses and businesses along the coast are wondering and worrying how they will pay for the damage done to their property. Noel Sexton owns White Strand Caravan Park outside Miltown Malbay. “I will have to pay for the damage myself,” he told The Clare Champion. “There are a lot of stones washed up onto the caravan park and sections of it were washed away with sea. The stones will have to be brought back down. I will have to get a machine in to do that. I will have to pay the man with the machine. The part that washed away was about a …

THE  sand has never been so scarce on Kilkee’s famous strand, according to Mayor Paddy Collins, who has also warned that the town’s luck will run out unless the seawall is maintained. “Sand levels at the moment in Kilkee have never been as low. Whether that sand is all pooled out in the middle of the bay and is going to come in on the next big tide, we don’t know,” Councillor Collins said at Monday’s meeting of Kilkee Town Council. “At a meeting we had here with Paul Moroney [environment section Clare County Council], we were talking about the sand shifting,” he added. Kilkee beach is hemmed in at either side by spectacular cliffs. The town mayor said Kilkee escaped the worst of the recent flooding in West Clare but said consistent high tides are a persistent threat. “We were very lucky in the storm. We were only an hour either side when the wind turned. Every tide this …

EU funding for storm damage will cover both private and public infrastructure in Ireland, that is otherwise uninsured, which is a new departure from previous applications under the EU Solidarity Fund. That was confirmed by Sean Kelly MEP after his meeting with Regional EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn in Strasbourg today. Mr Kelly, who is Ireland’s only full member of the Parliament’s Regional Development Committee which oversees the Solidarity Fund, said Commissioner Hahn was very positive and supportive of Ireland making an application under the solidarity fund. “In a new departure, the fund will cover private and public infrastructural damage. So I am calling on all city and county councils to immediately prepare a comprehensive overview of the damage caused and the cost of repair so that the government can prepare an overall application under the fund. The deadline for the application is 10 weeks – but that is from the end of the storm, not the start, which gives us …

Luke Charleton and David Hughes of Ernest and Young have been appointed joint receivers to The Lodge at Doonbeg and Doonbeg Golf Club in West Clare. The property is one of Ireland and Europe’s most distinguished five-star luxury resorts. “The Lodge and its facilities are recognised as one of the premier golf and leisure destinations in Ireland and Europe. The Lodge at Doonbeg and Doonbeg Golf Club will continue to trade as normal, with all employment being maintained and suppliers being retained. Additionally, there will be no change in the status of members of Doonbeg Golf Club,” Luke Charleton commented. There will be no disruption to services as a result of the appointment, events booked will go ahead as scheduled and all deposits and gift vouchers will be honoured. Mr Charleton said he was aware that interest has already been expressed in the property and is hopeful of concluding a sale as a going concern within a short time frame.

A FILM following a West Clare couple as they travel to India to fulfill their dream of starting a family together was broadcast on RTE One on Monday night. Over the course of a year, from conception through birth, Her Body, Our Babies captured the trials and tribulations of an emotional process fraught with legal complications and ethical dilemmas. Fiona Whyte and her partner Seán Malone, from Miltown Malbay,  had been trying to have a child together, since they met eight years ago. Although parents, they wanted a child from their relationship. Sean has a son from his previous marriage. Fiona was also married and raised two boys in Dublin before returning home to Clare to be with Seán. For couples who cannot have children together, fertility treatment offers hope, but no guarantees. In recent years, an increasing number of Irish people are opting for surrogacy as a last hope of having a child. But it’s a costly and complicated process – which poses …

HARSH words and some insults were traded at Tuesday night’s meeting of the town council, as the emotive issue of high commercial rates for businesses was aired yet again. Independent Cathy McCafferty put forward a motion calling on the county council to rescind fees charged at recycling centres, significantly reduce commercial rates and calling on the Minister for either Finance or the Environment to clarify which specific local services the local property tax is supporting. However, her own voting record was queried by Councillor Patricia McCarthy, who noted that the Derry native had backed increasing the town charge for Shannon from what was originally proposed in the draft budget for 2014. Councillor McCafferty was one of a majority of councillors who last month voted to reduce the town charge from 2.11 to 2.06. However, the original proposal from the council executive had been to cut it to 1.90, before a majority of the members opted to up it, to provide …

THE construction of the proposed €100 million Limerick Northern Distributor Road (NDR) through a flood plain on the back road to the University of Limerick is “madness”, a local resident has claimed. Normally, Miriam McCormick, Shravokee, Clonlara cannot see any water when she looks out her front door, as the River Shannon is about a half a mile away. Now she is looking out at a “lake” where the NDR is proposed to go between her house and the neighbouring O’Briens. The road is planned to follow the electric wires near her home. “The general public need to know what madness it is to construct the Northern Distributor Road down through these fields that regularly flood. Hydrologists speak about the ‘stone in the bucket effect’ where if a bucket is full of water and you place a stone in it, the water will have to go somewhere. The same principal will apply to a floodplain when a major construction is …