Tag Archives: clare county council

EMBRACING creative urban design, community engagement and best practice will help ensure that Ennis emerges from the Covid-19 crisis as an even better town in which to live. That’s according to a new local community group, Better Ennis, which is advocating for “healthy and happy streets”. The group’s first campaign centres on the allocation of space for people walking and cycling in Ennis. They say the pandemic has highlighted the impact of the public realm on public health and they are aiming to help reimagine Ennis’ public space to ensure that people stay healthy and keep connected. . Inspired by a number of national and international initiatives during the pandemic, the Better Ennis is looking to Clare County Council to ensure people have safe streets to enjoy while still maintaining physical distancing when moving about the town. This week saw the council implement the first stage of a Mobility Plan for the town, diverting traffic from a number of streets …

A total of €138,000 in funding is to be rolled out to three separate harbours in Clare for essential works. Clare County Council has been granted the funding for works in piers at Carrigaholt, Ballyvaughan and Bournapeaka. The grants are part of an overall €3.1 million package for coastal local authorities to carry out improvement works at these developments. The biggest sum of €51,750 has been granted to Bournapeaka Pier in Ballyvaughan, which will go towards underpinning the mid-section of the pier; removing and replacing a cracked section; the removal of a section of deck and removing and relaying a cracked stone along the pier edge.Nearby Ballyvaughan pier has been awarded €48,750 for the installation of flood gate and three flap valves, as well as the provision of rock armour to protect the pier wall. The final grant of €37,500 has been awarded to Carrigholt pier for essential repair work and the reconstruction of section of old pier wall. “I …

A NEW lobby group hopes to distribute another batch of scrubs to a long term residential care facility later this week. Nursing homes in Clare have been the big winners of a new campaign to provide additional supplies of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) thanks to work co-ordinated by a new support group. The Mid-West Hospital Campaign group estimates that hundreds of cotton face masks have been made inside the last seven days by 37 sewers working voluntarily on behalf of this new lobby group. Clare PPE co-ordinator Hilary Tonge confirmed that nurses in St Senan’s Nursing Home in Kilrush received newly- made scrubs on Tuesday. She hopes that the group will have another large batch of scrubs ready to benefit another nursing home later this week. Three health care workers in Ennistymon received scrubs, face masks and hand sanitiser from the group on Tuesday. The group has collected more than €3,000 in financial donations to date and would welcome more …

CONCERN at ongoing delays in upgrading the water service in the Miltown Malbay area has prompted one local woman to go public on the matter, saying that a fourth outage in as many weeks, has put her family and her livestock at risk. In a letter to The Clare Champion, Dolores Murphy of Rineen described a litany of issues that she and her neighbours have endured in recent years. While Irish Water has apologised for the situation, the utility has confirmed that it will be 2021 before all works to secure the supply are completed. Last week, a burst water main led to an outage affecting Miltown Malbay, Mullagh, Spanish Point, Cree, Cooraclare and those on surrounding Group Water Schemes. Commenting on the situation, Mrs Murphy, wrote: “It has come to the point where I can no longer sit in silence. In the past month (four calendar weeks) we have been without water four times. The latest interruption to service …

THE recently-formed Clooney Spancilhill Community Development Group have been making major strides lately in enhancing amenities in their area. A subcommittee, tasked with looking after local heritage, have completed the restoration of two stone bridges at Carrahan and Rylane, and are already planning future projects. The aim of the Heritage Group, which has around ten members, is to record and protect the history and heritage of Clooney-Spancilhill, and the bridge restoration project got under way after Clare County Council engineers conducted a survey and gave the green light. “People living locally could see one side of each bridge only because of the amount of vegetation that had grown over them,” explained Betty Murphy, a member of the Heritage Group. “There used to be a slipway at the bridge in Carrahan but that was completely overgrown and there had been a problem with dumping in that area too. There was a lot of hard physical work involved in uncovering the stone …

THE national Tidy Towns competitions may be cancelled, but that hasn’t stopped the dedicated band of volunteers who have been keeping Ennis looking its best all year round. Just one of a number of initiatives underway locally has seen Ennis Tidy Towns join forces with the little ninjas of Ennis Coderdojo, asking them to develop Tidy Towns themed games and apps. The local Tidy Towns committee are looking forward to adjudicating what the youngsters come up with later this month. “If we don’t have actual Tidy Towns, we have virtual Tidy Towns,” smiles chairman of Ennis Tidy Towns Cormac McCarthy. He admits that there was disappointment in the community when it was announced this year’s contest would not be going ahead. The Ennis team, who have been hugely successful in the national contest, put in a “very strong submission” this year having worked right through the year. However, Cormac believes it was the right decision given the current Covid-19 crisis. …

CLARE’S young people are being urged to show they have the write stuff by getting involved in a new county-wide competition. Clare County Library have launched a creative writing competition for children and teenagers. “With schools currently closed and students working remotely on assignments set by teachers Clare County Library would like to offer a different type of exercise to children and teenagers aged between 7 and 15 who like to write stories,” explained a spokesperson. To enter, all you have to do is write a story up to 700 words based on ‘County Clare 2020: A Day in My Life’. Entries must be in before 12 noon on May 12. All entrants are asked to type their name and age at the end of their story and email their entry to library_mailbox@clarecoco.ie When sending entries include the words Creative Writing Competition as the email subject. The shortlisted and winning entries will be posted on www.clarelibrary.ie on June 3 and …

TESTS undertaken by Clare County Council laboratory technicians have revealed that an unusual white scum on large tracts of the banks of the River Shannon is “non-toxic”. Former O’Briensbridge Community Group chairman, Jack Byrnes requested Clare County Council, Waterways Ireland and EPA to investigate the origin of a massive spider’s web of white scum, which is left on vast tracts of land from the Pattern Weir all the way to Castleconnell after the last flooding. Mr Byrnes said the worst example of this scum was underneath his house, which was deposited all over the river bank about five feet above the normal water level. “It is like someone got a paint brush and painted all the river bank down along from Parteen Weir to Castleconnell for more than four kilometres. It is like a whitewash but you can’t get it off the stones. “I have contacted farmers who have animals as I am concerned it could be toxic. It could …