Tag Archives: Sixmilebridge

HISTORY, culture, sport and memory were combined in Sixmilebridge last weekend, when both Scariff and Smith O’Brien’s intermediate hurlers wore black armbands to mark the centenary of the Scariff Martyrs, who were murdered by British Crown Forces on Killaloe Bridge in November 1920. The idea was proposed by the East Clare Memorial Committee, as part of their Scariff Martyrs 100 programme of commemorative events. The group have been commemorating the Scariff Martyrs, Alphie Rodgers, Michael ‘Brud’ McMahon, Martin Gildea and Michael Egan for many decades and are currently finalising plans for the 100th anniversary. According to the historian, Tomás Mac Conmara, who is part of the Memorial Committee, the unique encounter between Scariff and Killaloe, both areas so closely related to the story, presented a unique opportunity. “Our aim is to create as much awareness as possible of the Scariff Martyr’s story and its context in the War of Independence,” Dr MacConmara said. “It was unique that Killaloe and Scariff …

WHILE there may be no national Tidy Towns competition this year, that doesn’t mean that local groups around the county are sitting on their laurels. Quite the contrary. Since lockdown ended, most groups have never been busier and many have seen a bump in membership, because people have been spending more time closer to home. In Kilkishen, the Tidy Towns group is close to ticking another project off its ‘To Do’ list. That is the renovation of the old forge building, which dates back some centuries. “The forge building goes back to the 1700s, but we don’t officially know the date it was built,” Elizabeth Brady of Kilkishen Tidy Towns outlined. “It was built without plaster. It’s across the road from the old blacksmith’s house, which is in private ownership. That’s very quaint and Éamon de Valera visited it in the 1960s. It was a spontaneous thing. He saw it and asked his driver to stop. The locals who had …

Last year’s senior football finalists, St Joseph’s Miltown, the winners, and neighbours and old rivals Kilmurry Ibrickane will lock horns in the opening round of this year’s championship. The repeat pairing was the notable first round draw made by county board chairman Joe Cooney at Clareabbey on Wednesday evening. It is an intriguing tie given that last year a replay was required to determine the outcome. The football championship throws in the August bank holiday weekend. In hurling, kingpins Sixmilebridge face a daunting challenge in the opening round of their title defence when they face old adversaries Éire Óg. In last year’s campaign the sides met in the quarter-final where the Bridge were hard pressed to get the better of a Shane O’Donnell inspired Ennis side and in a game which could have gone either way. No doubt the Townies will be thirsting for revenge when the championship throws in on the weekend of July 24-25-26. Broafdford, who return to …

HAD it not been for Covid-19, Ali Alabbas would have been in Semple Stadium and Páirc Uí Chaoimh this summer cheering on the Banner. “The first time I saw hurling was when I came to Ireland and I liked it. I’m a fan of Clare. I’ve been to a lot of places to see them play. Wherever Clare play I go, me and my son. I go with a friend who lives here in Sixmilebridge,” says Ali, a refugee who wound up in a Clare hurling heartland, after having to flee the chaos that swamped his native Syria. Ali and his wife Douma are happy in Sixmilebridge, where they live with their daughter and three sons, who range in age from nine to two years old, with their young boy having been born in Ireland. Due to the conflict in Syria, they arrived here as refugees, meaning they did not have to go into direct provision. Instead, they were sent …

CLARE has been ranked fifth highest of Irish counties most exposed to “significant economic disruption” caused by the Covid-19 outbreak with more than half of the commercial units in the county likely to be affected. Cooraclare economist John Daly has conducted a study for the three Regional Assemblies of Ireland which found 50.5% of Clare’s commercial units were operating in sectors likely to be worst affected by Covid-19. This represents just over 2,500 businesses in Clare. The analysis found that 51% of units in Newmarket-on-Fergus were at risk, 47.7% in Ennis, 43.8% Kilrush, 42.6% Sixmilebridge and 32.6% in Shannon. Coastal and rural counties are more likely to be exposed due to their reliance on commercial units that generally require human interaction and cannot be operated remotely, the study outlines. The GeoDirectory commercial database has been used in identifying each area’s reliance on sectors likely to be affected by measures designed to curtail the spread of Covid-19. Sectors determined as likely …

MAKING wishes come true for terminally ill patients is the focus of a fund-raiser taking place in Ennis later this month. Sixmilebridge woman, Vicky Ward, has organised the Dance for Wishes event to thank the Limerick-based charity, Clare’s Wish, who helped to make her late sister’s final wish a reality. The organisation was founded by Kevin Clancy following the loss of his own father. “My dad passed away in 2011, after a six months battle with his illness and he had a wish at the time that we couldn’t really do. He wants to be on plugged basically and brought home. We couldn’t do that because he was too sick. When he finally passed away, it was a small bit of research to see who and I know we’re granting wishes for the likes of my dad and I was shocked to find there was nobody out there.” A few years later, Kevin set about addressing this deficiency and set …

A Clare couple were toasted Lotto success on Monday in the National Lottery Winner’s Room after claiming a cheque for €1 million and revealed that the winning ticket was kept safe inside a cushion in their bedroom for more than two weeks The husband-and-wife syndicate won €1 million after winning the top prize on Lotto Plus 1 from the draw on Saturday June 22. They waited until the news had properly sunk in before claiming their windfall. This winning ticket was sold at Reddan’s Store and Sixmilebridge Post Office, in Sixmilebridge. The husband said: “I occasionally buy my tickets in Reddan’s Store as I pass by on the way to work. It was the Sunday when I checked the ticket and when the app told me to contact the National Lottery we knew it was us. We haven’t told anyone so we just unzipped one of the cushions in the bedroom, put the ticket inside, and then put the cushion …

THE body of a man has been recovered from the Shannon Estuary. The body was found while a search was being carried out for a Sixmilebridge man on Friday morning. The search was launched when John O’Gorman, who was last seen on Wednesday evening, failed to return home. Two fishermen found the body about 8km south-west of Shannon Airport. The body was removed to University Hospital Limerick for a post-mortem.