Tag Archives: Loop Head peninsula

BUS Eireann has been accused of selecting a “dangerous junction” for a new collection point on the Loop Head Peninsula that leaves two local secondary school students without a home collection. Philippa Doherty has claimed there is no safe place to park her car at Crotty’s Cross as she waits for her son to be dropped off from a school bus coming from Kilkee Community College. Crotty’s Cross is a small crossroads and the last junction before Loophead lighthouse on the Wild Atlantic Way, which attracts heavy tourist traffic. “There is nowhere to pull in safely, one way is blind so you cannot see oncoming traffic and the bus should not be turning at this junction for safety reasons. The safest way for the bus is to continue down the L2000 from Crotty’s Cross down Fodera and back to Kilbaha village so the bus would not have to turn around at any point,” she explained. She is being supported by …

DISTURBING new figures have revealed that the projected number of enrolments in seven West Clare schools, in just three years’ time, will just be sufficient to fill a single classroom. Additional statistics also found that there is significant decline in full time residents living in Doonbeg village, with only 41% of houses occupied permanently. According to information obtained by the Clare Champion, the combined influx of Junior Infants in the three most westerly parishes on the Loop Head Peninsula, Kilkee, Carrigaholt and Cross, will be just above 30 pupils in 2021. Co-parish priest of Kilkee, Cross, Carrigaholt and Doonbeg, Fr Gerry Kenny warns that more national school amalgamations will have to be considered in the peninsula, unless there is a dramatic increase in population. Fr Kenny expressed grave concern about the generation gap, pointing to the lack of young people in their 20s and 30s, settling down to live in West Clare. “While urbanisation will always be a factor, current …

CLARE County Council has reversed its initial decision not to open Loop Head lighthouse, on a daily basis, until the June Bank Holiday weekend. The lighthouse will now open on Saturday and will remain open daily (10am to 6pm) until the end of September. In last weeks Clare Champion Kilbaha businessman Bernie Keating said that the lighthouse should open “every day from the month of May,” as he felt visitor numbers warranted it. In 2013 the lighthouse opened on St Patrick’s Day. Clare County Council manages the lighthouse in conjunction with the Commissioners of Irish Lights. It is one of two Signature Discovery Points in Clare along the route of the recently launched Wild Atlantic Way and attracted 19,000 visitors during the six-month opening period in 2013. The figure represents an increase of 2,000 on the same period in 2012. “The public opening of Loop Head lighthouse will provide a significant boost to the local tourism sector and the economy, …