The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
THE fall of the Berlin Wall and the dilution of Soviet influence over much of Eastern Europe was closer than people realised, when Mikhail Gorbachev, who died this week, visited Clare, in April of 1989. The previous week’s Clare Champion’s lead story had the headline ‘Council sees Red on Gorbachev visit plans’. “Wednesday’s adjourned Council meeting made it clear that nothing less than FULL COUNCIL REPRESENTATION would be acceptable, even though up to the time of the meeting no invitation to either the chairman Pat McMahon or to the Council as a body had been received.” The following week’s paper showed that that issue had been resolved, as the Newmarket man had been on the runway when President Gorbachev arrived, while that week’s front page photograph was of Gorbachev shaking hands with the Taoiseach, Charles Haughey. The lead story focused on the fact that President Hillary was in Ennis but not at Shannon when Gorbachev arrived, while it said that …
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