West Clare

A WEST Clare couple have lent their voices to this winter’s Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) fundraising campaign that shows the sacrifices made by volunteers each Christmas. As the RNLI launches its annual Christmas fundraising appeal, the search and rescue charity is highlighting the volunteers who will be on call over the festive season to save lives at sea. Kilrush couple, Pa Ryan and Liezel Brand both volunteer on the lifeboats but this Christmas only Pa will be on call, as Liezel gave birth to their son Conor, earlier this year. Pa and many more volunteers around the country may have to sacrifice their precious family time over the festive season to save others this Christmas. That is a very real possibility, as over the past five years, RNLI lifeboats have launched 55 times in Ireland during the festive period, bringing 44 people to safety. Liezel Brand came to Clare from Robin Island in South Africa and joined the lifeboat …

DERMOTT Petty’s hugely popular play about the Rineen Ambush and its aftermath returns, by popular demand, to Miltown Malbay next Saturday night, November 26. After a sell-out performance in Miltown in October, Dermott and The Ballycartoon Players have been invited back to West Clare with Two Days in September.  Doolin-based playwright Dermott weaves the story, of the events of September 22 and 23, 1920, in film and theatre form. The drama and traces the ambushing of a British Army convoy by the Mid-Clare Brigade of the IRA. It follows the aftermath of revenge and the sacking, looting and burning of the villages of Ennistymon, Lahinch and Miltown Malbay by the Black and Tans.  “West Clare in 1920 was recovering from a land war, famines, World War 1 and Spanish influenza,” said Dermott. “While a beautiful part of the world it had a troubled past, a proud people and a yearning for change. While Ireland had many revolutions, the War of …

AT Friday’s West Clare Municipal District meeting Councillors Ian Lynch and Cillian Murphy requested that the Council set up a Designated Activity Company to deliver the Maritime Training Centre in Kilrush. However it emerged at the meeting that such a company is already in place, having been established in 2018 as part of an application for funding, and an allocation of resources has been assigned for a business manager. The project has been awarded almost €3.5m in Rural Regeneration Development funding, with €700,000 match funding from the county council. Speaking afterwards Councillor Murphy said that it’s time the company became active and the over €5 million allocated in funding be used. “There is a necessity now for this to be taken off the shelf and activated. It is sitting there as a shell company but now it needs to be activated and directors taken on board. “There was an Enterprise Ireland grant of €1.7 million and somewhere in the order …

THE parents of a Cross teenager, who suffered a rare spinal stroke that occurs in an estimated one in three million, have revealed the strong bond he developed with Dublin Gaelic football All-Star, Dr Jack McCaffrey. In an extensive interview with the Clare Champion, Diane Roche admitted when they first met Jack McCaffrey in Temple Street Hospital, they didn’t recognise him with his face mask, but were quickly informed by a nurse who he was. Her son, Liam was paralysed at the time from his neck down before he received extensive physiotherapy and other treatment in Temple Street and the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dublin placed him on a strong road to recovery. “Liam would be slagging Jack that Dublin senior footballers weren’t playing well and joked Jack would have to come out his retirement. When we saw Jack coming out of retirement, I said to Liam, you put that idea in his head. “I used to say to Liam …

JUNE Curtin from Spanish Point has been named Clare’s Most Inspirational Person by an initiative to shine a light on unsung heroes. The West Clare woman was this year’s Clare winner of the Gala Retail Inspiration Awards, run in association with Virgin Media. June’s extensive and inspirational work in the mental health and charity sectors within the local community earned her the title of Inspirational Person in this year’s awards. June really impressed the judges for her work in the local community and is a worthy winner of the county award for her inspirational efforts. The founder of Snamhaí Sásta, a community of swimmers, June promotes the benefits of sea swimming and the importance of minding your mental health. She also fundraises every December for the Simon Community by swimming three times a day from December 1 until December 21. From a huge volume of nominations, 26 county heroes were crowned. Noreen Murphy, from Bantry in County Cork, was named …

AN EXCITING mix of trad and classical sounds comes to Kilkee on Saturday, October 29, as the West Ocean String Quartet come to West Clare.  Among the programme on the night will be pieces from their latest, and fifth album, Atlantic Edge. Blending traditional and classical elements, the album was recorded in Dublin  over three days in November 2019, and marked the Quartet’s two decades together. The album release was to have been accompanied by a tour of venues along the Atlantic coast in Spring of 2020, but as with so many other cultural events fell victim to Covid. The Quartet’s founder, Belfast musician, composer and television producer, Neil Martin, said that the Quartet is thrilled to be fulfilling the original tour schedule, including Cultúrlann Sweeney on Saturday. The repertoire for their Clare concert  is music from or about the west of Ireland, both traditional and newly-composed.  The Quartet celebrates the deeply rich vein of airs and dance tunes that …

‘THE difficult second album’, a remark that’s often made about artists and the challenge of following up on strong first releases. The opposite is the case for the second album of Miltown Malbay musician Shona Blake who has delivered with ‘A Woman Knows’, her stunning new album. In it, she reveals huge growth as a person and as an artist and it’s no surprise that the plaudits are coming her way.  “This is everything I ever wanted in an album,” she says from her home in Miltown Malbay. “I knew I wanted to take my time and I knew how I wanted it to sound. It started in 2018 exactly one year after my mum passed and we continued to record once a year around her anniversary. She was there, her spirit a guiding light throughout”. Shona’s husband Paul McCabe is her longtime collaborator and he was very much part of the journey. “Everything between myself and Paul was live. …

A PLAY focusing on one of the most intense and dramatic incidents in the War of Independence in Clare comes to Miltown Malbay, on Saturday night (October 8). The drama, entitled Two Days in September, secured prestigious funding support from Clare County Council through the Decade of Centenaries Arts Project Awards. The drama, which has great local interest, premiered in North Clare in June.  Written by Doolin-based playwright Dermott Petty, Two Days in September tells the story of the Rineen Ambush. The drama unfolds, in film and theatre form, and traces the events of autumn, 1920, when a British Army convoy was ambushed by the Mid-Clare Brigade of the IRA. It follows the aftermath of revenge and the sacking, looting and burning of the villages of Ennistymon, Lahinch and Miltown Malbay by the Black and Tans on September 22 and 23, 1920.  “West Clare in 1920 was recovering from a land war, famines, World War 1 and Spanish influenza,” said …