Tag Archives: Tulla

By CAROL BYRNE CLARE County Council has given the green light for the development of a new secondary school building in Tulla, subject to 11 planning conditions. The Board of Management of St Josephs Secondary School in Tulla applied for the planning permission, which will see the construction of a new two storey 650 pupil post primary school building in the East Clare village. The development comprises of a building with 26 specialist classrooms, 10 general classrooms, a P.E Hall, general purpose hall, kitchenette and servery, offices, staff areas, two class base special needs unit, sanitary and ancillary accommodation. The works also include the demolition of an existing derelict farm compound. Proposed site works were also to include the provision of 48 car parking spaces including accessible parking via new proposed vehicular in-out access from R462 public road including pedestrian access and drop-off and pick-up facilities. External works include covered bicycle racks, five ball courts, GAA playing pitch, SNU play …

By CAROL BYRNE THE competition is heating up as ten contenders for the inaugural East Clare Farmerette contest will give their best on stage performance this Saturday night in the hopes of becoming Farmerette Queen. The event takes place on March 15 in Powers Bar, Tulla with all proceeds from the night are to be used to upgrade the Oak ward at the National Children’s Hospital in Tallaght. This is a 24 bedded ward catering for children with acute medical conditions, including respiratory, asthma, endocrinology, diabetes, neurology, cystic fibrosis and mental health issues. The ten girls competing for the crown come from all over East Clare and include: Cassandra (Cass) McKenna from Bodyke who is studying home economics and Irish in Sligo;  Aisling Callinan from Crusheen who works as a support worker for the Brothers of Charity in Ennis and who also plays football and camogie with Crusheen; Katie McInerney from Tulla who also is a camogie player with Tulla, …

IT has been a busy week in the Coughlan household, as father and son, Fergal Snr and Jnr, captured Munster titles. On Wednesday of  last week,  Fergal Snr captured Clare’s first Munster title of the yea, when he defeated Cork’s Denis Quinn to take the Provincial Masters A singles title in Galbally, Limerick on a scoreline of 21-16, 21-11. His son, Fergal Jnr, who at just 16 years-of-age, captured the Munster minor title in defiant style in Tuamgraney on Monday evening in front of a packed gallery. This was an extra special final for County Clare handball follower,s as it was contested between two of Clare’s brightest handball talents, Colin Corbett of Tulla and Fergal Coughlan of Clooney. Both players got off to a tentative start with serves and aces exchanging hands on numerous occasions before Coughlan won the first game by the narrowest of margins, 21-20. In the second game Corbett started the best and maintained a strong lead …

A TULLA woman, is leading a research study looking at new speakers in a multilingual Europe and one of the focus sites of the study is County Clare. Bernie O’Rourke, who is based in Scotland and is a reader in Sociolinguistics at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh is co-ordinating this EU-funded COST project. Originally from Tulla and a daughter of Tulla Pipe Band honoary president Michael O’Rourke, Bernie said she would classify herself as a new speaker of Irish, she have been intrigued by this growing phenomenon in the case of Irish. “I always had a strong interest in Irish, inspired very much by father’s interest in the language and his encouragement to speak it. I had also often heard my mother talking about her grandparents from West Clare who were Irish speakers. I also had a very inspirational Irish teacher in Tulla, Sr Eileen Callinan,” she said. The project involves researchers from 17 European countries and is aimed at finding out …

ST Patrick’s Pipe Band will perform at a specially organised traditional music session in The Mills Tavern, O’Callaghan’s Mills on Saturday, with proceeds going towards their trip to the New York St Patrick’s Day Parade. Also known as the Tulla Pipe Band, St Patrick’s Pipe Band have been invited by the New York Clare Association to join them in celebrating their 125th anniversary at the annual St Patrick’s Day Parade in New York. The fundraising concert takes place at 9pm on Saturday and Paula Carroll will be the MC. The event has been organised by Councillor Joe Cooney and Carmel Hall, whose son, David, is in the band. Speaking about the support that people are showing for the band, Pam O’Reilly PRO for St Patrick’s Pipe Band said, “It is amazing and wonderful for the band to realise that their years of service have not gone unnoticed and that everyone is behind the band”. “Just last week, the Tulla Vintage …

TULLA resident Jane Halloran Ryan was presented with the Ireland Reaching Out Volunteer of the Year award at a ceremony held in Limerick at the weekend. Born and raised in Connecticut, Jane’s Irish ancestral connections are in Clare, Cork, Sligo and Antrim. Having always had a keen interest in genealogy and family history, she became involved in the Ireland Reaching Out project in 2011. Speaking about the award, Jane said, “It’s great. I am delighted to be acknowledged but, at the same time, I have to be honest, all of us are great volunteers. The organisation has terrific volunteers working for it. I’m also delighted for Tulla and we joked at the event about it being another All-Ireland. It’s been a great year for us in Tulla and Ireland Reaching Out is a terrific project on so many levels. I think it will go from strength to strength with not only the heritage work but with tourism and with business …

ST Joseph’s Secondary School in Tulla is one step closer to moving to a new site. A planning application for their proposed 650-pupil school was lodged with Clare County Council last week. The secondary school, which has been educating young people from the heart of Tulla village since 1985, is set to move to a new green-field 10 acre site on Chapel Street, 700m south-west of the existing site. The project, which is part of a public-private partnership and is part of the school bundle four programme facilitated by the National Development Finance Agency, is expected to start in the last quarter of 2014. Construction is expected to take up to 18 months, with an outer completion date of March 2016. The capital value of the school bundle four programme, which covers the development of six schools, is €65 million excluding VAT. School principal Margaret O’Brien said the reality of what is to come is starting to sink in among …

A bizarre fixtures wrangle, involving Kilmaley and Tulla GAA Clubs, was resolved on Wednesday afternoon following an emergency meeting of the Clare GAA Fixtures Committee. After their 5-12 to 0-20 defeat to Tulla in Sunday’s Group 1 Senior Hurling Championship fixture, Kilmaley left Clarecastle believing they had finished third in the group, while Tulla were convinced they had finished bottom, on scoring difference. Tubber, Kilmaley and Tulla all finished on two points in the group, which was topped by Newmarket. Tubber qualified for Sunday’s quarter-final against Sixmilebridge on the basis that they had the best scoring difference of the three tied clubs. Based on scoring difference, Kilmaley were third and Tulla fourth. This system has applied for the last number of seasons in both the county hurling and football championships. The Clare Champion learned that the basis for a decision made on Monday was that by virtue of making the last eight on scoring difference, Tubber were removed from the …