Tag Archives: East Clare

By CAROL BYRNE EAST Clare councillor Pat Hayes is calling for the Department of Social Protection to roll back on its decision to streamline community welfare services. “The services in the rural communities and smaller towns and villages are being centralised again and people are expected to come into the main towns all the time. In the circumstances the people involved don’t always know they might need community welfare services at the end of a week. I know people who didn’t get their wages and they would have been hungry by the weekend,” he said. Councillor Hayes was responding to the revision of community welfare services which came into effect on January 20 last, when a decision was taken to close 22 community welfare clinics across the county. The Department of Social Protection has made alternative clinics available to those facilitated at the 22 clinics and these are located at five principle locations countywide. In East Clare community welfare clinics …

IN 2011 Killanena woman Anna Moroney grabbed the bull by the horns and joined Weight Watchers to try to and do something about her weight. The 24-year-old teacher was then 21 and weighed 26 stone 25 pounds. Her decision to lose weight was arrived upon following an incident on a night out. “I was working at the time in New Look in Galway and I was out, enjoying myself and having a ball. My friends were chatting with a few guys and one of the guys pulled me aside and said to me ‘what are you doing to yourself?’ “I would have got comments before about being overweight and being a whale, hideous comments, some really horrific ones but they would always have bounced off and wouldn’t have any impact. But this guy, he was a total stranger, just got me in the gut and got me thinking, what am I doing with myself? He said ‘you seem lovely, you …

RAHEEN Wood Steiner National School has a new chairman of its board of management, clinical psychologist, broadcaster and author, David Coleman. The Ogonnelloe resident has recently taken on the new role at the Tuamgraney-based school. Mr Coleman is well known for his award-winning television programme Bullyproof, the series Families in Trouble, Teens in the Wild and more recently his ongoing project 21st Century Child, which is running on RTÉ One on Tuesdays at 10.35pm. Mr Coleman’s three children attended Raheen Wood Steiner National School and his wife, Michelle, who is the chairperson of the parents’ association, has been actively involved with the school since their eldest started there. “He started in the local national school here in Ogonnelloe and then after two years, he moved into Raheen Wood Steiner School when my wife discovered Steiner education. We decided to make the shift and all three have either been through or are going through the school,” he said. What struck a …

THE lack of ATM services over the Christmas period and banking services in general in East Clare has the potential to become “a serious crisis”, according to local councillor, Pat Hayes. Councillor Hayes highlighted the issue after the two primary towns in the area, Scariff and Tulla, experienced intermittent outages of ATM services over Christmas and into the new year. “The Friday before Christmas, the ATM in Scariff in the bank and outside the bank were out of service. All over the place, there seems to be huge closures of services to the public. It is a continuous thing. “There are two ATMs in Tulla, the one inside the bank was out of order over Christmas and there’s the one in Supervalu, where there is a maximum withdrawal of €120. There were a lot of complaints about it. There were issues still the following Monday and they were out of order several times since,” Councillor Hayes said. He continued, “What …

KILKISHEN couple Catherine Desmond and Trevor Maxwell’s son Kyle decided he wanted to make a grand entrance and as his parents could hear fireworks ringing in the new year, he decided it was time he joined in the celebrations. Catherine and Trevor were over the moon to welcome baby Kyle Kevin Maxwell at 1.33am on January 1 at University Maternity Hospital, Limerick, making him the first baby born in the Mid-West in 2014. “It was a nice surprise, definitely I didn’t expect it. He was actually late. He was due on Sunday, December 29. My last boy came early so I was expecting him around Christmas Day but he decided he wanted to make a big entrance and wanted to be known. The fireworks started going up and Trevor got to look at them for a few seconds before he had to get back here to me,” Catherine said. She added that she was due to go into the maternity …

RIVALRY is hotting up among 10 local women as they prepare to make a successful bid for the coveted new crown of East Clare Farmerette Queen next March. The line-up for the contest has been completed following the addition of another two contestants to the initial group. They include Tulla duo, Angela Lynch and Katie McInerney; Muirne Donnellan, Feakle; Aileen Thornton, Scariff; Clare Jones, O’Callaghan’s Mills; Aisling Callinan, Crusheen; Orla Burke, Whitegate, Martina Skehan, Kilkishen, Ellen Collins, Ogonnelloe and Cassandra McKenna, Bodyke. People from all over East Clare will flock with a great sense of anticipation to the Powerhouse Bar, Tulla on March 15, for what promises to be a great night of entertainment. The contestants have already started fundraising ahead of the event, which has been organised to help defray the cost of upgrading the Oak Ward at the National Children’s Hospital, Tallaght. This is a 24-bed ward catering for children with acute medical conditions, including respiratory, asthma, endocrinology, …

RESIDENTS at Dooras, O’Callaghan’s Mills have been “trapped” in their homes since water levels began rising on the road outside their homes at Christmas. Some locals opted to abandon their homes taking up alternative accommodation, while others who had managed to traverse the flood in jeeps and tractors over Christmas week, are now unable to leave as water levels hit upwards of three feet. Flooding on this narrow stretch of road, which is a cul de sac, has been a feature of the area for many years, with residents having to resort to boats, or abandoning their homes until it subsided. However, in previous years the water abated much quicker. There are four houses on this stretch of road. Residents say although their houses have not been flooded the road servicing the properties is completely submerged and is extremely dangerous to even attempt to travel on as there is an eight to ten feet drop on either side of the …

The East Clare based national charity, Irish Seed Savers, was dealt a financial blow in recent months arising from funding cuts, which led to redundancies at the facility. Last month it launched an online campaign at www.indiegogo.com to raise funds to help save the facility and secure its future. Although nowhere near the €100,000 it needs, funds are trickling in and to date, over €4,000 has been pledged. Irish Seed Savers Association was set up in 1991 to save Ireland’s heritage and heirloom vegetable seeds, potatoes, grains and fruit trees from extinction. Since then it has grown to a stage where it has over 800 varieties of organic, open pollinated heritage seeds in a purpose seed bank, which was opened in 2012 by President Michael D Higgins. Speaking at that time President Higgins said, “From little acorns, oak trees grow and from modest beginnings in 1991, the Irish Seed Savers Association has grown to such an extent that impressively it now …