South Clare

A KILLALOE man has landed himself paid employment in a local shop after proving to himself and a potential employer where his strengths lay.

Clare Vocational Education Committee (VEC) is seeking a meeting with the education minister to secure a badly needed extension for St Anne’s Community College in Killaloe.

Hopes that the new €660 million road tunnel under the River Shannon would open almost two months ahead of schedule this Friday have been dashed by the National Roads Authority (NRA).

FUNDING totalling €66,000 for an approved playground in Cratloe Woods will be lost if residents lodge a planning appeal, a local committee has warned.Clare County Council recently granted planning permission for a new playground at the entrance to Cratloe Woods on Gallows Hill.The planning authority gave the playground the green light despite a strong objection signed by 86 residents, who claimed this site is totally unsuitable, as it attracts a large amount of destruction to cars and ongoing theft of property.“Many people don’t feel safe in the forest park not to mind the concern for the safety of children of the parish and beyond. The site is proposed to be alongside a busy secondary road with a large volume of fast moving traffic.“We feel that the wood will provide the perfect refuge for perverts with the worst of intentions for young children, as it is a poorly supervised area,” the residents claimed.A residents’ spokesman confirmed an appeal may be lodged …

CALLS for a community garda sub-office in the Westbury area were supported by a high-ranking garda this week.Speaking at a joint policing committee meeting in Clonlara Community Centre on Monday night, Superintendent Frank O’Brien said he would not be against locating a garda in a community centre or in an office room for a specific period of time, similar to an initiative on the south side of Limerick City.Stationed in Henry Street, Superintendent O’Brien, who has jurisdiction for policy matters in South-East Clare, noted that as Ardnacrusha Garda Station is a rural station, it has limited opening hours.During any eight-hour shift, he explained gardaí had only one quarter of its overall complement on duty and this included coping with deploying resources for court work, where gardaí could be tied up for a number of days.“We have to prioritise our resources. If a garda patrol car does not come to an area in an hour or two, very often gardaí can …

RESIDENTS in South-East Clare should be able to escape the inconvenience of public water rationing introduced by Clare County Council in Ennis and Tulla, thanks to a €30 million upgrade of a water treatment plant in Limerick City.The expansion and refurbishment of the Clareville Water Treatment Plant facilitates the daily provision of 660,000 gallons of treated public water for householders in Parteen, Meelick, Westbury, Shannon Banks and Clonlara.Limerick City Council sanitary services engineer, Dave Keane, revealed the treatment plant is designed to cater for the growing needs of Limerick City and parts of Clare over the next 20 years.In fact, Mr Keane confirmed the plant had the capacity to treat an additional 3.74 million gallons of water daily, along with the requirement to provide 19.6 million gallons of water for the city and parts of South-East Clare.Asked if the new plant could supplement public water supplies in parts of Clare where shortages are causing huge problems, he pointed out the …

A specially designed cross, believed to be made in Jerusalem, was presented to a retired Parteen parish priest last week to recognise his great devotion to the annual Lourdes pilgrimage.Lourdes pilgrimage director, Fr Donal McNamara from the Limerick Diocese, gave Fr Liam Kelly the cross to mark his 54th consecutive visit. The former Limerick senior hurler also got a religious artefact from a youth group in Parteen to mark the 50th anniversary of his ordination.His commitment to visiting Lourdes stretches back to his clerical studies where he quickly fostered a love for looking after people with disabilities.He never lost this desire and even managed to maintain his faithful pilgrimage a month after he was “left for dead” as a result of a vicious knife attack, when two people broke into the parochial house on May 24, 1998.The then Bishop of Limerick was very anxious that Fr Kelly could go to Lourdes, even though it was only four weeks after his …

GOVERNMENT sanction for the expenditure of €337 million on the Limerick City regeneration project has provided a welcome lifeline for the first phase of a major three-kilometre ring road bypassing the city.