Tag Archives: Miltown Malbay

MILTOWN Malbay based author, Darragh McKeon, was one of the highlights of this year’s Ennis Book Club Festival. Now based Clare, he grew up in Offaly and his debut novel All That Is Solid Melts Into Air was published in 2014 to international acclaim. It was translated into nine different languages, was a New York Times Editor’s Choice and in France it won the Lire Prize for Best International Debut. His second novel Remembrance Sunday was published last year to further acclaim, with the Irish Times stating that the book’s “imaginative storytelling and fine prose of Remembrance Sunday puts McKeon in the big leagues.” Born in 1979, he is just about old enough to have a vague memory of the IRA bombing of Enniskillen on Remembrance Sunday, 1987, which saw 12 deaths. It was one of the worst atrocities of the Troubles and saw an outcry across Ireland and the UK. However when he first began work on what would …

Clare Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign Clare (IPSC) is organising another opportunity to catch a free screening of the film GAZA, this time at the Miltown Malbay Community Centre on Tuesday, March 5 at 8pm. The film which was released in 2019, was directed and produced by two Irish men, Andrew McConnell and Garry Keane. GAZA describes the unique world, rich with eloquent and resilient characters, offering us an inspiring portrait of a people, living with hope and leading meaningful lives against the rubble of perennial conflict between 2014 and 2018. The award–winning film has real value as a compassionate human document, showing ordinary people who courageously have to keep going, somehow, in what then seemed like the grimmest of conditions, in a world where there is a “wall between the people of Gaza and life itself”. The directors bring us a revealing film showing the common frustration at living an abnormal life, under siege. You will meet, amongst others, a young …

Five people were taken to hospital following a road traffic collision in Clare on Sunday evening. The two-car crash occurred at around 6.30pm on the N67 Spanish Point road out of Miltown Malbay about 500m from the town’s square and outside the local GAA field. Units of Clare County Fire and Rescue Service from Ennistymon station responded to the scene along with National Ambulance Service paramedics and Gardaí. A total of five people were injured in the collision while firefighters had to use specialist cutting equipment to help free the injured from the wreckage. It’s understood there were four people travelling in one vehicle and just the driver in the second. All five were transported by ambulance to University Hospital Limerick for treatment. It’s understood that one person was seriously injured but his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening. The others are not believed to have been seriously hurt. The road remain closed overnight while a technical examination of …

ON the advice of the HSE, Clare County Council has today issued bathing prohibitions at both Spanish Point and White Strand, Miltown Malbay. The red flag will be flying at Spanish Point until further notice. The restrictions have been introduced as the results of routine bathing water samples taken at both locations had elevated levels of bacteria. Run-off from the catchment after exceptionally heavy rainfall has resulted in elevated levels of bacteria being identified in the water. In accordance with An Taisce’s Blue Flag programme, the Blue Flags at both bathing areas are being removed until such time as the water quality improves.

GENERATIONS of students and the wider community will benefit for years to come, thanks to an ambitious project to invest €250,000 in an astroturf facility at St Joseph’s National School, Miltown Malbay. An information and fundraising campaign for an all-weather pitch will be launched at the school at 2pm on Friday (February 3). The event will showcase the multiple benefits for pupils, local clubs and sporting organisations, as well as the Miltown community as a whole.  Principal of the 113-pupil school, Mr Aidan Looney said that while significant work had been done on the school building over the years, the outdoor facilities were in need of an upgrade. “Part of the school building dates to 1963 and the second phase was done in 1973,” he outlined. “In 2008, I secured funding for an indoor refurbishment, but there has been no real development of the outdoor playing facilities in all of that time.” Thanks to a funding boost of €50,000 from …

‘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 …

A MILTOWN Malbay father who died in an air crash at the weekend has been remembered as a “gentleman” with his loss described as a “terrible tragedy” ahead of his funeral mass this Thursday. Michael Flynn of Kilcorcoran, Miltown Malbay lost his life when a powered hang glider he was piloting crashed in a field off the Ballard Road about a kilometre from Miltown Malbay on Sunday. Family and friends gathered for an emotional goodbye at his funeral mass on Thursday in St Joseph’s Church, Miltown Malbay. Speaking to the Clare Champion Fr Donagh O’Meara said Mr Flynn “was a lovely character, a lovely man, just a gentleman. He was very well got in the community, very well liked.” Mr Flynn’s death has sent shockwaves across the local community. He was well known in the local area and worked as a plumber as well as being involved in farming. “It has been an awful shock for everybody. It is just …