West Clare

Doonbeg will host the 10th annual Willie Keane Memorial Festival on the October Bank Holiday weekend. The festival will commence on Friday, October 23 and will conclude on Sunday, October 25.

West Clare artist Carmel T Madigan has been invited to attend and feature in a premier international arts event in Florence in December alongside 800 other specially selected artists from 74 countries worldwide.

Kilkee Town Councillor Claire Haugh has expressed her disappointment with how Allenders Field, located in the East End of the town, just off the Miltown Malbay Road, has not fulfilled its role as a recreational green walking area in the town.

A TOTAL of €22,678 was raised from the 10th annual kidney support group charity walk in West Clare last May. The money was presented to the Irish Kidney Association (IKA) at a function in Tubridy’s, Cooraclare, last Saturday night.

A request from Kilkee Town Council last April for submissions to revamp Kilkee Courthouse met with what town clerk John Corry described as a “very basic” response and not what could be called a full submission. The future of the courthouse, which stores Kilkee’s town records but is not in use, was addressed at the September meeting of Kilkee Town Council.

Kilrush town engineer Derek Troy told last week’s monthly meeting of Kilrush Town Council that several factors have combined to create regular instances of flash flooding in the town in recent years.

THE first citizens of Clare and Kilkee, Mayors Tony Mulcahy and Lily Marrinan-Sullivan were on hand for the Clare Inclusive Research Group’s first public interactive drama performance of Leaving Home at Garrihy’s Bar, Moyasta last Thursday afternoon, which was organised by the Brothers of Charity, Kilrush. There was an air of expectation in the community on the eve of the Nell Galvin Festival but all eyes at the packed function room were firmly fixed on the research acting troupe.Following a forum theatre format, first devised by Brazilian social dramatist Augusto Boal to help landless farmers stand up for their rights, the audience or as Boal termed them, the “engaged onlookers”, are drawn into the drama to suggest ways of solving a problem; in this case the problem of people with a learning disability overcoming over-protective families, officious social workers and the long arm of the law. After “spectactors” Teresa O’Dea and Orla MacMahon tried to placate a forbidding potential mother-in-law, …

The class photograph taken at the recent Kilrush CBS 1959-2009 50th anniversary celebration in Kilrush. Sixteen of the original class of 27 attended, while all members of the class were represented by a family member. Peadar Nugent, who organised the event, produced a booklet, which includes a biographical piece on each of the 27 ex-Kilrush CBS students. Back row, from left: Tommy Connors (England), Joe Taylor (Tralee), John Cussen (Kilkee), Flan Kiernan (Dublin), John Doyle (Australia), Michael Donnellan (Sligo), Senan O’Driscoll (Limerick), Peadar Cunningham (Kildare), Don Hamilton (Ennis – for his brother George, Spain) and Peadar Nugent (Galway). Middle row, from left: Alice Crotty (Dublin – for her husband Martin RIP), Jane Coughlan (Kilrush – for her brother Kenneth Humphries, London), John Saunders (Kilrush), Con O’Leary (Kildare – for his brother Fr John, Peru), Seosaimhín Uí Dhomhnalláin (Lahinch – for her husband John Donnellan RIP), Dympna Reidy (Kilmihil – for her brother Joe Devine, Florida), Brendan Daly (Cooraclare – for …