Tag Archives: Mountshannon

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 …

A Mountshannon farmer has received a suspended three year jail term and ordered to pay a €3,000 fine after it was uncovered using DNA tracing that he was responsible for three separate thefts of a total of 15 cattle from his neighbour. Ahead of delivering his sentence at Ennis Circuit Criminal Court, Judge Gerald Keys told Padraig O’Brien, (42), of Magherigh “what you have done to your neighbour is unforgivable”. O’Brien had pleaded guilty to 15 counts of theft of the cattle worth €17,000. The offences involved the theft of five in-calf heifers from Bohatch, Mountshannon between January 17 and 18, 2015; the theft of six heifers from Kilrateera, Mountshannon between May 23 and 24, 2013, and the theft of four cows from Bohatch between December 8 and 9, 2013, a total of 15 charges. The court heard that gardaí were led to O’Brien after they found “sporadic hoof marks on the ditches” in frost, leading to his farmyard in …

EAST Clare gardaí and the Department of Agriculture were today [Thursday] commended for what was described as “without question the most outstanding piece of police work” in a cattle rustling case. Remarkably the comments were made by the defence counsel for Padraig O’Brien, (42), of Magherigh, Mountshannon who pleaded guilty at Ennis Circuit Criminal Court to 15 counts of theft offences relating to the animals worth €17,000. The offences involved the theft of five in-calf heifers from Bohatch, Mountshannon between January 17 and 18, 2015; the theft of six heifers from Kilrateera, Mountshannon between May 23 and 24, 2013, and the theft of four cows from Bohatch between December 8 and 9, 2013. Gardaí and the Department of Agriculture used DNA testing to trace the stolen cattle through their progeny providing links back to O’Brien. Presiding Judge Gerald Keys commended the gardaí for their “Trojan work” highlighting that this country’s system of tracing cattle is “one of the best in …

BISHOP of Killaloe Fintan Monahan extended a warm welcome to visit Clare to his Holiness Pope Francis during his Ad Limina visit to the Vatican. On Friday, Bishop Monahan, along with the 26 other diocesan bishops, met with Pope Francis, where they got to raise a number of issues with him directly. Each of the bishops got to individually speak with the Pope and Bishop Monahan said he used that time to invite him to the Diocese of Killaloe and, hopefully, to Holy Island, when he visits Ireland in 2018. He also spoke about the previous visit to County Clare by Pope John Paul II in 1979, highlighting his stop-off in Shannon. Bishop Monahan said he knows the decision is ultimately out of his hands as to where the Pope will visit when he comes here for the Meeting of Families, but he said he can do no more, having extended the invitation. Children of Mountshannon National School were also …