Tag Archives: Williamstown

SCARIFF businessman Mike Rodgers still lives in the house where his famous granduncle was born. Pictures of Alphie Rodgers and his family hang on the wall of the house in The Square where the man who was to become one of the legendary Scariff Martyrs came into the world in 1897. Alphie was one of a family of four and grew up alongside his brother Gerald – Mike’s grandfather – and his sisters Gertie and Kathleen. As respected shop-keepers, with a wide and loyal customer base, the family could never have imagined the devastation the events of the War of Independence would bring to their home. “Alphie was a bit of a golden boy,” Mike told The Champion. “We have letters that he sent when he was a pupil at Rockwell College, thanking his mother for sending him sweets. He was as good boy, but must have had a strong personality too.” Alphie was just 23 when he was fatally …

ON a quiet Tuesday morning of November 16, 1920, a steamer docked at Williamstown Harbour in East Clare, after making the relatively short journey from Killaloe. Locals who caught sight of the Board of Works vessel though little of it, believing ‘The Shannon’ had arrived to carry out much-anticipated harbour dredging works. Most people would have returned to their daily routine. Some getting ready for the fair the following day in Killaloe. Everyone was anxious to live as normal a life as they could. The second year of the War of Independence was drawing to a close. Tensions were high and the rhythm of rural life was in chaos. An attack on the RIC barracks in Scariff two months previously had triggered raids and reprisals by Crown forces and a number of IRA volunteers were on the run in the locality. Three of them – Brud McMahon, Alfie Rogers and Martin Gildea, officers of the Fourth Battalion of the East Clare …

WILLIAMSTOWN Harbour in Whitegate has been sold for a figure believed to be just shy of €1 million and the new owners have plans to develop the location, to return it to its former glory. Lough Derg boating firm, Shannon Sailing Marina, whose general manager is Kilkishen man, Denis Dillon, has acquired Williamstown Harbour, which had been in receivership. Shannon Sailing Marina is a company set up 28 years ago in Dromineer, County Tipperary, directly across from Williamstown on Lough Derg. It is expected that the expansion to County Clare will see jobs created locally at the new site, as well as spin-off jobs during a planned construction phase. The sailing company’s base at Dromineer consists of a fully serviced workshop where the company carries out complete overhauls on boats. It includes a chandlery shop, where it sells boating equipment, and it also operates an ISA training school, where they teach people how to drive motor cruisers, drive power boats, …