Tag Archives: Fanore

By John Galvin IN what is becoming a New Year’s Eve tradition for me, I headed for North Clare to meet the RNLI’s Joe Queally and others to walk the shoreline at Fanore. Our destination was the deserted village at Loch an Uisce, which was abandoned in the early 1900s. Up to a few weeks ago, I wasn’t even aware of its existence but from the 1820s, there was a settlement of around 14 families right on the shore. They survived by farming, labouring and, of course, fishing and I’m sure it was a hard life. They eked a living by bartering with Aran Islanders, who often traded with them Poteen, obtained from Connemara. The islanders swapped this to obtain essential supplies of turf, vegetables and other goods that were hard to come by. Sometimes the sea was so rough that the currachs were barely able to land and had to return immediately. In these cases, the Poteen was left …

Gardaí have confirmed that the skeletal remains that washed up on the Fanore coast last month were those of a woman buried at sea in 2016. Superintendent John Galvin of Kilrush Garda Station said the family of the deceased have been informed and they are no longer investigating the matter. He said the deceased woman had been buried off the West coast following her death in 2016. The remains were found by walkers on September 19 last at Poulsallagh in Fanore. Following a post mortem and DNA analysis the identity of the deceased was established and contact was subsequently made with the family.  

Members of the Ballyvaughan-Fanore Walking Club recently completed the Four Peaks Challenge and, while climbing Carrauntoohill, they were instrumental in saving a man, who was stranded near the Devil’s Ladder. With 6.30am starts each day, the group, led by chairperson Mary Clarke and mountain guide Gerry Reidy, from Ennistymon, criss-crossed the island of Ireland in three days, from June 3 to 5. Gerry has more than 20 years’ mountain-climbing experience, having completed four or five of the seven summits, including Denali in Alaska and Mount Elbrus in Russia. The weather was against them over the few days and, on their final challenge, Gerry recalled the difficult conditions and meeting a man in severe difficulty. “There was a waterfall coming down the Devil’s Ladder against us, but we worked as a team and got everyone up and down safely,” Gerry said. When they came across a fallen runner, on his own, wearing only a singlet and shorts, who was suffering hypothermia, …

AN Ennis girl who was holidaying in Fanore recently got more than she bargained for as she was on an expedition to find interesting items on the beach, while on holidays. Sophie Rynne was walking along the beach in Fanore with her mother, Priscilla, searching for something rather unusual, a mermaid’s purse, but uncovered another curious item in the process. “We were looking for a mermaid’s purse. It’s the egg case of a dogfish, which is part of the shark family,” she said. They had found one on the beach in 2010 and have been on the look-out for one again.However, on this occasion, they spotted something else altogether, a plastic bottle with what looked like a note inside. “I said, ‘oh is that a message in the bottle’. I said I’ll walk over and see what it was. We saw there was something rolled up inside it. We weren’t sure and it looked like one of those colouring sheets. …

Clare County Council will provide updates on conditions at the county’s Blue Flag beaches on its Twitter and Facebook accounts from Saturday next. The updates will feature latest sea, water quality and weather conditions, as well as tide in and tide out times for Ballycuggeran (Killaloe), Cappa, Fanore, Kilkee, Lahinch, Mountshannon, Spanish Point, Whitestrand Doonbeg and Whitestrand Miltown Malbay. The updates coincide with the commencement of lifeguard cover at County Clare beaches this June Bank Holiday Weekend. Lifeguard cover will be provided at Clare’s Blue Flag beaches from 11.00am to 7.00pm this Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Cover will continue on Saturdays and Sundays during the month of June, while there will be full-time time cover at these locations as well as at Bishops Quarter (Ballyvaughan) and Seafield Quilty during the months of July and August and the first two weekends of September.

AN inquest has returned a verdict of manslaughter in accordance with the findings of the Central Criminal Court into the death of 43-year-old Ballyvaughan woman Deirdre McCarthy. Just days before the sixth anniversary of Ms McCarthy’s death, Colm Deely of School Road, Ballyvaughan was sentenced to eight years in prison for her manslaughter. He had denied murdering Ms McCarthy but in early March 2017 he pleaded guilty to her manslaughter at the Central Criminal Court. At a sitting of the County Coroner’s Court in Ennis on Thursday, an inquest found that Ms McCarthy’s death was due to asphyxia, with blunt force trauma as a contributory factor. County Coroner Isobel O’Dea said, in holding this inquest, she hoped it “helps to bring some closure to what was a tortured and arduous journey” for Ms Carthy’s family. Superintendent John Galvin, acting as coroner’s officer, offered his sympathies and those of An Garda Síochána, describing this case as something that has “been going …

Gardaí have confirmed the search for a Belfast man missing in North Clare since earlier in the week has been called off following the discovery of a body in Galway. The search for the 22-year-old man from Belfast, who has been missing since Monday afternoon, was stood down following the discovery of a body near Salthill in Galway on Wednesday evening. Drone technology had been deployed during the week in the search for the 22 year-old who was reported missing after he failed to return to his tour bus which had stopped at Ballyreen, on the Wild Atlantic Way, between Fanore and Lisdoonvarna, at the designated time of departure. Volunteers from the Doolin coastguard responded when the alarm was raised around 2.30pm and they conducted a sea search. Land based teams were also engaged in combing the cliff top and shoreline while the Shannon based search and rescue helicopter was also involved. The search was co-ordinated by the gardaí backed …

Once you reach a certain age, New Year’s Eve should be spent in front of the telly, watching whatever rubbish is on, but sometimes you want to do something completely different. This New Year’s Eve, I found myself in a car, heading for Fanore in the company of Joe Queally, RNLI stalwart and Dave Courtney, a former Coastguard helicopter pilot. Our mission was to climb Sliebh Elva and light candles for the souls lost at sea and for our own families. Even leaving Ennis, the rain was coming down but by the time we hit Fanore and joined Doolin Coastguard, Tom Doherty and his partner Celine Kennedy, it was coming down like stair rods. I confess, I wasn’t well prepared. I forgot to bring my waterproof trousers and had to borrow a pair from Tom. My boots weren’t best suited to the conditions either. I really needed wellies to properly deal with the lakes of water that flooded the trail. …