Tag Archives: Mountshannon

A DEDICATED helpline to support those cocooning and self-isolating in East Clare has been established. The service, which can be reached at 085-8659889 from 9am to 4pm, is designed to ensure anyone in need of help can access it through the East Clare Covid-19 Community Response Group. The group, which works in collaboration with Clare County Council, is made up of volunteers from Flagmount, Killanena, Feakle, Scariff, Tuamgraney, Ogonnelloe, Bodyke, Mountshannon and Whitegate, and the helpline has been set up to ensure greater coordination and a faster response for those in need. Jim Collins from Mountshannon, who is one of those responding to helpline calls, told The Champion there is now “an army of volunteers” in place. “The support has really been overwhelming,” he noted. “There has been an amazing willingness to help and we have members from every sports and social club as well as the community sector.” To-date, the volume of calls to the helpline has been manageable, …

MORE than 50 families in East Clare will be making alternative childcare arrangements next Wednesday, as staff of Mountshannon Childcare Centre join a protest march in Dublin demanding support for a service that staff say is “at breaking point”. The community-run facility employs 11 staff and caters for up to 70 children from a wide hinterland from Flagmount to Bodyke and as far east as Coos in County Galway. Parents and staff are appealing to Clare General Election candidates to listen to their concerns, and the centre itself has been canvassed by a number of Dáil hopefuls including Deputy Timmy Dooley and Michael McNamara. Like thousands of childcare providers nationally, the centre has joined the Early Years Alliance pre-election campaign. As part of that, it will shut its doors on February 5 to highlight a crisis created by low wages, a lack of staff, increasing costs and a challenging regulatory regime. Staff at the centre told The Champion of their …

MOUNTSHANNON’S Luchia Noyes will take to the Miss Ireland stage this September representing County Roscommon. Luchia was born in Dublin but from the age of four came to live with her Mum in Mountshannon. Having studied film and television in Galway for a year she headed for Australia at 18 for what she thought would be a three month stint. Three months turned into six years, and she now works as a unit manager on Films and TV shows with Eire Films in Australia. Home was always on her mind and two years ago she decided to come back home. Due to work commitments in Australia she is over and back now between the two countries. Last year the actress thought about applying for the Miss Ireland competition as she felt it offered a great platform for young women. Tragically around that time she lost a friend to suicide and her focus changed. “I came home last year for three months …

THE last woman in the country to put through a call via manual exchange has retired from An Post this past week. Mrs Florence Bugler was the postmistress at Mountshannon Post Office in 1987 when the country went fully automatic for telephone calls and she put through the last call from Dr Michael Smurfit to the then Taoiseach Charlie Haughey. Mrs Bugler began her career with An Post, when she left school to help her grandaunt Mrs Florence Veller at Mountshannon Post Office in the late 1960s. Mrs Veller suffered a stroke and was sick for a number of years and passed away in 1972. In 1974 Mrs Bugler became postmistress in Mountshannon. She really enjoyed the work, meeting people and in 1983 she married Gerard Bugler and in when the couple learned the post office in Scariff was vacant and so they applied for it and in 1990 took up the mantel. “We never looked back since, we were …

Sam Gaines and his partner, Sadhbh O’Neill, have experienced first-hand how creativity has healed and given purpose to their lives, following a life-changing diagnosis. TWENTY years ago life changed for East Clare based couple Sam Gaines and Sadhbh O’Neill, when Sam was diagnosed with MS. Both working artists, Sam and Sadhbh have journeyed along a tough road adapting to their changing circumstances. They had no idea what MS was or how it would effect Sam but they never let the illness define Sam or stop them from doing anything. “MS is very personal and effects everyone in different ways. Two years ago Sam’s health plummeted and everything changed again. MS now stopped us in our tracks. Never in our wildest dreams did we think we would end up where we are today. We had plans and dreams for our future, this wasn’t one of them. We have absolutely no idea what tomorrow will bring or how Sam will be. It …

Gardaí in Killaloe have arrested a person in connection with the arson attack on the Holy Island Tours trailer which occurred at Mountshannon Harbour in the early hours of Tuesday morning [June 26] and are currently investigating a second arson in the same location. Inspector David Finnerty of Killaloe Garda Station said they have arrested a “person of interest” in relation to the arson attack at the harbour on Tuesday and are detaining this individual under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984. Under this provision the suspect can be detained for up to a maximum period of 24 hours. The arrest has come as a result of enquiries carried out by garda on Tuesday and due to the cooperation of members of the public. Gardaí received a report this morning, Thursday, of a fire on a boat in the vicinity of Holy Island Tours, however they confirmed that the boat was unconnected to this business. Although it is …

IT was the murder that shocked the nation – a mother, her child and a priest gunned down in an East Clare wood by a mentally-ill man, next week cinemas around the country will release a film exploring the life of the man behind these brutal killings. Property of the State, a film brought to the screens by Mountshannon-based producers Terence Ryan and Susan Morrall, is told from the perspective of Ann Marie O’Donnell, the sister of Brendan O’Donnell, who carried out this atrocity in Cregg Wood, Whitegate, in 1994. Ahead of the film release on October 27 in Ireland and the UK, Terence said it is a film that “needs to be seen”. He said people were “shocked that we would make the film because, to them, it was something they wanted not to see, and not be part of, but once they had been to see the film, they changed their minds completely and realised how important it …