The importance of being Clare, Claire or even Clair

THE Clare Volunteer Centre is organising a unique gathering on Sunday at Ennis Cathedral in an effort to break a world record for the largest ever gathering of people of the same name, in the same place at the same time.

A call goes out to all people whose first name is Clare, Claire or Clair to attend the event at 2pm as over 1,000 people are required to set a new world record. Birth certificates are essential.

The event, in association with The Gathering Clare 2013 Steering group, is part of the Ennis Roots Festival taking place over the weekend. The ultimate aim of this weekend is to attempt to break a world record by having the largest ever gathering of persons with the same first name. The current record is held by a group of 1,096 Mohammeds as part of the Dubai Shopping Festival at Creek Park, Dubai, United Arab Emirates on February 10, 2005.

Several local businesses and organisations have rowed in behind this project to offer their support and join in with the festivities. Clare County Library will welcome Irish author Claire Kilroy to the De Valera Library, Ennis on Saturday at 11am. She will speak about how she got her name, as well as doing a reading from her latest book The Devil I Know with a Q and A afterwards.

Following Ms Kilroy’s event, Employability Clare, with Clare County Library, will launch a bookmark in the same venue at 12.30pm. The bookmark has been produced as a result of a countywide competition run by both organisations to come up with a design in keeping with the theme of The Gathering 2013. The winning design was produced by Paula Kennedy from Dereney, Whitegate. Paula entered the competition through a course she was taking in Scariff AEC.

Also on Saturday, genealogists and family history enthusiasts will be presented with a treat when Clare Curtin visits the Clare Museum at 2.30pm to give a talk entitled An American Perspective on Tracing Family.

Clare Curtin was born in Greenwich Village of Irish parents from Clare and is an independent researcher who started out casually in the late 1990s, while on holidays here. Since then, she has compiled vast amounts of information on her family tree and has expanded her research into the area of assisted emigration.

Both of these events are free and all are welcome, especially those named Clare, Claire or Clair. For more information contact the library at 065 6821616 or visit www.clarelibrary.ie. All details are also on www.welcomingclairetoclare.com.