SIVE set for Ennis stage
Clare clip Cody’s Cats in the Park
Ennis Players turn to a John B Keane classic for their annual production
Banner hurlers get league campaign back on track with win over visiting Kilkenny
Special Feature
Get your car in gear for spring PAGE 8
TRUE BLUE Volume 15 Issue 06 Tue 05 February 2019 €2.20 (UK £2.00)
www.clarepeople.com
Joe Garrihy answers the call as Fine Gael goes on election war footing.
FARM FIGHT TO SURVIVE Desperate Clare farmers considering running election candidates in attempt to protect rural way of life
ANDREW HAMILTON ahamilton@clarepeople.ie
RURAL Clare will become an abandoned “wasteland” if the county’s 4,200 beef farmers are allowed to go out of business. That is according to Hugh Doyle, the co-founder of new farming organisation Beef Plan, who are considering running election candidates in Clare in the upcoming local and general elections. Beef Plan is now the fastest growing political organisation in Ireland, and has gained 800 registered members in Clare over the past four weeks. “If beef farming is allowed to die, rural Clare will be a wasteland. The shops
won’t be able to survive, the lorry drivers, the pubs,” Mr Doyle told The Clare People yesterday. “This needs to be made a voting issue. I don’t understand why the Government doesn’t take action.” West Clare farmer and chair of Beef Plan in Clare, Joseph Woulfe, says that the identity of rural Clare is on the brink of destruction. “There are people in Clare who face losing their farm and losing their history. Your farm is where you were born and grew up. I was born here and we have lived here for 350 years. It’s a big thing to be faced with, losing your [family] history and recognition. You’re losing who you are as a person,” he said. PAGE 20
SPRING HAS SPRUNG...
Teresa O’Brien from Miltown Malbay with her St Brigid’s Cross at St Brigid’s Well in Liscannor on Friday.
Natasha Barton
Differing accounts heard at Cree man’s inquest RONAN JUDGE rjudge@clarepeople.ie A JURY has returned an open verdict at the inquest of a 59-year-old father of two, who died as a result of head injuries he sustained after getting out of a car in West Clare two years ago.
At the inquest into the death of Gerard Tubridy at Cork Coroner’s Court last Thursday, assistant State pathologist, Dr Margot Bolster said the cause of death was extensive brain injury due to blunt force trauma. Mr Tubridy sustained injuries to his right temple and left eye and,
in her evidence, Dr Bolster said the interpretation of the case is difficult, due to the nature of the head injuries. Paramedics attended the scene of the incident on a quiet rural road to the north of Cree in the early hours of March 18, 2017. PAGE 14
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