Tag Archives: Kilshanny

A NEW book by Mary Immaculate College academic and Kilshanny resident, Dr Sarah O’Brien, tells the stories of Irish immigrants in post-Famine America. Of Memory and the Misplaced draws from 30 memoirs written between 1900 and 1970 and shows the prevalence of intimate and taboo themes in ordinary immigrants’ writing, such as domestic violence, same-sex love and famine-induced trauma. Combining literary and historical theory, Of Memory and the Misplaced highlights voices that have traditionally been silenced and offers a rare and unexplored collection of primary source autobiographical texts to better understand the experiences of Irish immigrants in the United States. “In the early twentieth century, memoir-writing was a craze in the US. It became fashionable for older people to write down their life stories,” she said. “Luckily, some of the memoirs written by Irish emigrants during this era survived. They offer a rare glimpse into the remembering mind of those who left after the Famine. “The memoirs I write about …

ASSURANCES have been given on the arrangements for school transport for Ukrainian pupils who have recently arrived in North Clare. Among them are 26 children who have been welcomed into St Augustine’s National School in Kilshanny. They are part of a group of around 500 people to take up residence in Lisdoonvarna in recent weeks. More than 100 children are being provided with educational facilities, based on availability in neighbouring schools. While the new arrivals were provided with private bus transport for a number of days, the Department of Education has not made any formal provision yet and the children have no other way to get to the school, which is around seven kilometres away. Councillor Joe Garrihy said Lisdoonvarna Fáilte are prepared to do all in their power to welcome new arrivals and ease their access to local services. “We have been searching behind every hedge for bus transport and everyone has been really cooperative, however we did have …

A decision on whether or not a discount supermarket can be built on the site of Ennistymon Mart is due to be made before St Patrick’s Day. Clare County Council received an application in the past week from John Spain Associates, on behalf of Aldi Stores, for a proposed shop with 82 car-parking spaces on the mart site at Church Hill and Circular Road. The site has been the subject of controversy in recent years, with local farmers fighting to keep the mart open. In December 2014, officers of the Ennistymon branch of Irish Farmers’ Association, in an unprecedented move in the county, resigned their positions. They took the decision to give up their roles in protest over the sale of the mart to Aldi and what they saw as a lack of support from Clare IFA on the matter. The branch committee members took the united action “to highlight our frustration with the IFA on their approach to the …

KILSHANNY-based Canadian, Kim Hood  has been shortlisted for The Bookseller’s inaugural Young Adult Book Prize for her debut novel, Finding A Voice. The competition was open to writers in Britain and Ireland and the winner of the £2,000 prize will be announced in March. “Basically, it’s a story about friendship. A girl, who is 13, is basically a caregiver for her mother, who suffers from mental illness. Life isn’t going so great for her, between home and school where she kind of has the reputation of being ‘the weird kid with the weird mother’. She volunteers in the special education wing and she meets a character called Chris, who has cerebal palsey and cannot talk. It’s basically about how they both develop a voice through their friendship,” Kim said of the book. Writing for young people comes quite easily to her, she says, while her own teens, difficult as they were, have given her a useful insight. “When I started …