*The Cloister car park.
IMPROVEMENTS were carried out to the Cloister car park over a two-day period last week by Clare County Council with officials in Clare GAA saying it will next year before the tender stage for the overall development is completed.
When a memorandum of understanding was signed between Clare County Council and Clare GAA in February 2024, both parties outlined that development works would commence “in the coming months” before reaching their completion in 2024. Twenty one months on, no such works have even commenced.
Instead, the local authority over the course of two days carried out repairs and levelling works to the existing surface to address issues of localised flooding. “These works were carried out to ensure that the car park is in the best possible condition as we approach the busy Christmas season. We will keep an eye on the car park in the coming weeks and will re-visit again if needed,” a senior Council official informed elected members of the Ennis Municipal District.
(Images of the Cloister car park in September 2025)
Lack of progress with the car park had caught the attention of elected members of the County Council.
Raising the matter at a sitting of the Killaloe Municipal District, Cllr Pat Hayes (FF) said the need for improvements have been evident at recent games in Cusack Park. “People couldn’t park there because of pools of water, I presume some of the €7m will be to sort out the car park, I know there was a memorandum of understanding but nothing seems to be done,” he said when referencing the €6.9m in Thrive funding to refurbish the Cloister building.
“That is not a question for this Municipal District, move on, let Ennis look after that,” responded Cllr Alan O’Callaghan (FF) when trying to diffuse the debate. “There was pools of water everywhere,” Cllr Pat Burke (FG) noted.
At County Board meetings, the matter has been regularly flagged by Kilmihil delegate, Gerard O’Neill, most recently at the September meeting.
Responding to O’Neill’s latest query on when the development of the Cloister car park will be completed, Clare GAA Chairman Kieran Keating stated, “the Council has reached the tender process stage but it will be next year before it is competed. When completed there will be close on 200 parking spaces which will be near double what is there at present”.
As part of the deal between both parties, the Council have agreed to lease the car park from Clare GAA, a move which Treasurer Brian Fitzpatrick explained that the provision of a guaranteed recurring income stream “was one of the most important aspects” of the arrangement.
Fitzpatrick outlined “one of our big KPIs was generating revenue from a car park like this and something we could dial into the budgets every year because we know financially that the cost of teams and facilities is going up so this project was a win win in that Clare County Council and the town of Ennis needed parking spaces and for us we could turn this piece of real estate into a revenue generation asset”.
(The Cloister car park following improvement works last week)
