Tag Archives: East Clare

REPRESENTATIVES of the Killaloe Municipal District welcomed the provision of speed control signs in Ogonnelloe and Tuamgraney but requests to roll them out elsewhere came with a warning that each sign costs approximately €5,000. Councillor Pat Burke raised the issue in a motion that highlighted the effectiveness of the speed control measures introduced in Ogonnelloe and Tuamgraney recently. He asked would Clare County Council consider installing these measures at other villages, particularly on busy regional roads. Responding to the motion, Pat Henchy, executive engineer at the Killaloe Municipal District, said the council is well disposed to provide further speed warning devices but advised this was “all dependent on availability of funding”. He told members at the meeting he was not entirely sure what the cost was for the electronic signs, which flash the speed one is travelling at, but it was in the region of €5,000 per unit. Councillor Burke said the signs were “very effective warning signs and people …

More than 2,500 visitors have so far flocked to see the white tailed sea eagles from the newly installed viewing and information point in Mountshannon since it was officially opened on July 4. Located at Mountshannon Pier and funded by Clare County Council, the new tourism development features telescopes and information displays about Ireland’s largest and most spectacular breeding birds, including the first of the species to be born in the country in 110 years. The facility is being operated by the Mountshannon Eagle Group, Mountshannon Community Council and the Golden Eagle Trust and will remain open until the end of September. Speaking about this new facility, Congella McGuire, Clare heritage officer, said the introduction of the viewing point “has further increased public interest in the local White-Tailed Sea Eagle population, without disturbing them in their natural habitat”. She said since the birds first arrived in Mountshannon three years ago, the council has worked closely with the Golden Eagle Trust …

CLARE TD Michael McNamara has called on the State to acquire Drewsboro House, the birthplace of acclaimed author Edna O’Brien, with a view to turning it into a writer’s retreat and museum. In a letter to the newly appointed Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Heather Humphreys TD, Deputy McNamara highlighted the cultural significance of the house, which is located in Tuamgraney. The property, which consists of 7.025acres, failed to sell at auction earlier this month and the Clare TD believes if the State were to acquire the property it would represent “good value for the State”. “The primary importance of Drewsboro is cultural. Readers of The Country Girls and many other Edna O’Brien novels are very familiar with the house. In her memoir Edna describes her childhood home as ‘a large two storey house with bay windows, and could be approached by two avenues an old and a new’,” he stated in his letter to Minister Humphreys. He …

CULLAUN Sailing Club, based in Kilkishen, hosted its first ever inter club junior regatta on Sunday last. Participating in the event were sailors from Cullaun Sailing Club, Killaloe Sailing Club and Foynes Yacht Club. Across the three clubs there were over 40 junior sailors represented on the water for the day ranging from 10 to 18 years of age. Commenting on the regatta Jim O’Sullivan of the Cullaun Sailing Club said, “this is the first time an event like this has been organised and judging by the skills and quality of the sailors it looks like it won’t be the last”. This was a mixed fleet of boats with a Portsmouth Handicap being used to calculate the overall winner. There were Lasers, Feva’s, Visions, Omegas and RS200 boats all competing for line honours at the event. Layla Benfredi of Cullaun Sailing Club came in first overall in her Laser and was closely followed by Sean Hynes and Mike O’Dea also …

Clare Fianna Fáil  Timmy Dooley has sharply criticised  mobile phone operators for “lacking any urgency” in repairing problems with poor coverage in East Clare. He commented, “Mobile phone operators in Ireland, including Vodafone, have been overseeing poor mobile phone coverage in many parts of East Clare. Areas like Mountshannon and Whitegate have extremely bad mobile phone coverage. It is part of a wider problem for mobile phone users in the county and it is not being tackled.” Deputy Dooley said it is not good enough to treat customers like this and it reflects extremely badly on these multi-national companies. “As a member of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications, I intend seeking to bring Vodafone and other mobile phone operators before the Committee to explain why they have virtually ignored this problem,” he said.

QUIN was where all the celebrities seemed to be hanging out in the last week, as locals got to meet with Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson and BBC chat show host, Graham Norton. Graham Norton clearly enjoyed the fun side of being in the village, tweeting that he was #lost and #hungover in Ireland, while posting pictures of a statue of a monk at Quin Abbey stating “Oh Brother where art thou? Any ideas? I’d really like to know”. He also included a second picture, one of a headstone which had Rice written on it, to which he commented, “It never stood a chance, [sic Long] live the potato”. Speaking about meeting the well-known television host, Ger O’Halloran, who runs Abbey Stores in Quin, said Graham came into the shop for a bottle of water. “I had an inkling when he walked into the shop of who it might be. He comes across as being much bigger on television …

Visitors to Mountshannon are to benefit from significant developments made by the local community council, in conjunction with the Aistear Field Committee, as the Aistear Tourist Office opened to the public this week. This is the first of a number of initiatives being rolled out by Mountshannon Community Council this month, which are all geared at increasing footfall in the village, as well as catering for tourism. The tourist office was officially opened on Monday, followed by the launch of the Mountshannon App on Thursday. The opening of an exhibition centre takes place on next Monday. Following the successful rollout of Mountshannon.com, a website featuring upcoming events, community pages, tourist information and historical details pertaining to the area, the local council decided to develop an app. This decision facilitated further discussion and out of this came the idea to provide a tourist office. Tom McNamara, supervisor of the CE scheme in Mountshannon, explained how it evolved from there. “We had …

BODYKE National School is taking a giant leap forward as it plans to go digital for the coming academic year, with pupils from the age of five being given a laptop from this September. The board of management, staff, and parents association have decided to embark on a project to ensure that every child from the age of five in this 24-pupil school has a laptop for the coming year. The ambitious proposal comes on the back of the school being one of a number of schools in County Clare to be awarded a Digital Schools of Distinction Award earlier this year. Colm Ó Tuathaill outlined how it came about.  “We sat down as a school, staff and board of management recently and we set about creating a new vision for the school, and that would be an e-learning vision. We could see the benefits of ICT (Information and communications technology) and we were looking at the Department of Education’s …