West Clare

DEFENCE Forces Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Seán McCann will open the 13th annual Doonbeg Jazz Festival at 9pm on Friday in the Igoe Inn.Lieutenant General McCann joined the Defence Forces as an Army Cadet in 1970. A cavalry officer, he was previously Deputy Chief of Staff (Ops), Director of Operations and Director of Cavalry, as well as instructing in the Military College and the United Nations Training School. He is a graduate of University College Galway (UCG) and of the United States Command and General Staff College (Fort Leavenworth).On October 6, 2011, Lieutenant General McCann was formally inducted into the International Hall of Fame (IHOF) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.The jazz festival will run throughout the upcoming bank holiday weekend. This year the festival will feature 10 bands from Germany, the UK and Ireland in a 29-performance programme.Among the groups travelling to Doonbeg will be Jazzonahz from Trier, Germany; Jazz Main from Edinburgh; The Bourbon Swing Band from Northern Ireland, …

ON Sunday, June 3, Kilmurry McMahon will stage the parish’s first marquee in approximately 30 years. The first marquee was staged in 1963 and it realised a profit of £874, 15 shillings and nine pence. The expenditure was £581, six shillings and three and a half pence.

MONDAY’S Kilrush Electoral Area meeting heard that the West Clare Economic Task Force, established in July 2010, is to review its initial targets and come up with fresh objectives. However, a schedule has yet to be devised with regard to establishing new task force aims.

THE extent of the collapse in construction has been illustrated by Kilrush Town Council figures showing that the amount of development contributions received in 2011 was over 98% down on the 2007 figure.

Just over €5,000 is available for grass cutting in Kilkee 2012, which will allow for 10 cuts over the summer season.

A MEMORIAL service to mark the 25th anniversary of the deaths of Ian Benson and JJ Harrington, as well as remembering the two other deceased members of the Kilkee Marine Rescue Service, was held on Tuesday night.Prayers were also said for all those who have been lost off the coast of County Clare.The service has been in operation for 31 years and Manuel DiLuica is a founder member currently holding the positions of PRO and chairman. He said the service was to honour the memory of Ian Benson and JJ Harrington, as well as Michael O’Gorman and Seamus Byrne, who lost his life while trying to save another.“On April 14, 2002 a diver got into difficulties at the base of the cliffs at the West End in Kilkee. They had got separated from their group and tried to get ashore and they got into difficulties, in front of Seamus’ house. He went to assist but there were up to two …

THE Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) is putting a project worth hundreds of millions of euro in jeopardy and preventing the creation of hundreds of jobs, a special meeting of West Clare councillors heard last Friday.Executives from Shannon LNG, the company that has received planning permission for a €600 million LNG terminal and which is also looking at developing a €400m power plant (both at a site in Ballylongford), addressed the members. They voiced their concern at CER proposals that all gas suppliers be required to pay tariffs for the interconnectors, which bring gas from Britain to Ireland. They claim they shouldn’t have to pay towards those interconnectors, as they will not use them.At the meeting, former Kerry footballer and Shannon Development executive Óige Moran said there are plans for an LNG gas terminal on the Kerry side of the estuary and that during construction up to 650 jobs would be created, with 50 permanent direct jobs and 50 indirect …

It was the equivalent of being beaten by a last-minute point in an All-Ireland football final. Talented amateur thespians in Doonbeg were left pondering what might have been after Letterkenny Drama Group, Donegal, pipped them by one single mark in the All-Ireland Drama Festival finals held in Shercock, County Cavan, last week.Adjudicator Walker Ewart, who said the standard of production and acting were exceptionally high, admitted he debated “long and hard” when it came to choosing first and second in the coveted decider.While Doonbeg producer Mary Egan admitted the group was disappointed to lose by the narrowest of margins, Letterkenny 93 to Doonbeg’s 92, she said members were pleased to have performed so well. Their performance of The Weir, a one-act play by Conor McPherson was all the more noteworthy when the number of people living in the Long Village is compared to a very large urban centre such as Letterkenny, which has a population of over 18,000.Most of the …