CONTINUING our News Year in Review series, today we bring you the good, the bad and the ugly from 2022 along with a ‘behind the scenes’ look at 2022 from The Clare Echo perspective.
It’s time for the 2022 News Year in Review: Part 2.
Developing stories in 2022
The future of Shannon Heritage
THE importance of Shannon Heritage sites to County Clare’s tourism offering can not be understated. Bunratty Castle & Folk Park, Knappogue Castle, Crauggownen and a retail outlet at the Cliffs of Moher are mojor cogs in the local tourism economy however its future has been cast in doubt this year following news that the Shannon Group is to transfer the ownership of Bunratty Castle and Folk Park to Clare County Council.
In June, Shannon Group confirmed that the employment rights of all of Shannon Heritage’s 200 employees would be fully protected in the transfer, however uncertainty followed the announcement with Clare County Council seeking up to €15m from the Government in order to take charge of the Shannon Heritage tourism sites – a request which up until this point has fallen on deaf ears.
Protesting earlier this year, Shannon Heritage workers told The Clare Echo they were “terrified about January” and the risk of becoming unemployed with the absence of €15m in State funding. Earlier this week, Deputy Cathal Crowe (FF) promised that a funding package is to be announced “soon” to facilitate the transfer.
Pyrite redress scheme sparks frustration, and progress
IT FEELS like a long time ago, however it was only announced that the presence of pyrite in Clare was proven “beyond reasonable doubt” in June of this year, by senior officials in the local authority who pushed to have the county included in the revised redress scheme. Between 620 and 678 properties were potentially affected in Clare, the Council estimated however a study unveiled by Clare Pyrite Action Group in July found that 1,025 homes plus eleven public and private buildings had defective blocks. Homes are affected in 38 locations across the county including Newmarket-on-Fergus, Ennis, Kilkee, Kilrush, Sixmilebridge, Cratloe, Feakle, Kilkishen, Shannon, Clonlara, Crusheen, Inagh, Miltown Malbay, Doolin, Doonbeg, Fanore, Ennistymon, Quin and Tulla.
Ultimately, Clare has been included in a €2.7bn scheme for defective concrete blocks which will be open to affected homeowners in the first quarter of next year however founder of the Clare Pyrite Action Group, Dr Martina Cleary, has been critical of the Government’s handling and communication on the pyrite issue.
3 little reasons to be thankful for 2022
- The fans were let back in: Clare’s GAA teams gave us a summer to remember
- We no longer need Zoom to socialise with friends
- Nobody is doing the Jeruselema dance anymore
…and 3 reasons to say goodbye to 2022
- Rapid inflation has driven up our cost of living
- Getting on the property ladder is harder than Chinese arithmetic
- Hospital services and waiting times are at their lowest ebb… things can only get better
Clare’s most searched
HAVE you ever wondered what people in Clare are searching for online? Phone numbers for their local restaurants, hairdressers and doctors, sure. But where does the buck stop?
With so much information available online, it’s probably safe to assume you – yes you! – have been Googled by a neighbour. Today, The Clare Echo brings you the popular and quirky terms that brought people to our website.
Online analytics tell us a lot and can provide valuable insight on what really interests our readers. We can tell which specific search terms on Google brought readers to our website – something that is referred to as a ‘query’.
The query which brought most readers to www.clareecho.ie in 2022 was ‘Clare Echo’ (unsurprisingly) with almost 80,000 searches, followed by terms such as ‘Clare news’, ‘Clare jobs’, ‘Clare Echo sport’ and so on.
Each year, it’s no shock to see search terms like Davy Fitzgerald, Donald Trump, Willie Clancy Festival and ‘Domhnall Slattery net worth’ show up in our results. However when it comes to 2022 there aren’t many who created more interest than our Kilrush TD, Violette-Anne Wynne. Her name shows up four times in our top 100 search terms (‘Violet-Anne Wynne partner’ being one popular search term). For context, the next most queried politician was Cathal Crowe, who was the 230th most popular query.
Moving away from politics, the people of Clare showed their nosy side by searching frantically for ‘who won Win a House in Lahinch’ which brought thousands of readers to The Clare Echo website.
Sports content was a big pull this year and showing up multiple times were ‘Rory Hayes and Peter Duggan’, with frenzied Clare hurling fans searching for information on the pair’s retrospective red cards following the epic Munster final against Limerick.
Those red cards were ultimatley rescinded, however people can’t take back what they searched for and some of the smuttier search queries which directed people to our website included ‘Love Honey’, ‘escort’, ‘momxxx’ and ‘escort Clare’. We can only hope they spotted an interesting news story on our site before continuing with their private business.
Business queries often direct readers to our website with popular searches this year including Home Gallery Ennis, Supermacs Plaza Ennis, Shannon Airport, Shannon Ferries, Secret Dollhouse Ennis, ‘who owns Fiddle & Bow Doolin’, Collins Jewellers Ennis, Fairgreen Stoves and Ennis Electrical.
Other notable search terms which directed people to our website included ‘Meatloaf Showgrounds Ennis’, ‘will there be a fifth Aisling book?’, ‘naturism’, ‘Jim Conlon’, ‘botox Ennis’, and ‘the widest street in Ireland’.
Shhh… the stories we couldn’t publish
A catfish in our midst
Every year there are stories that don’t make it to press, for one reason or another. In a year when famous cases of catfishing were publisied (The Tinder Swindler, the Two Johnnies catfish ordeal), it appears we uncovered a catfish of our own in County Clare. For those who don’t know, catfishing is a deceptive activity in which a person creates a fictional persona or fake identity on a social networking service, for their own personal gain or gratification.
So what happened?
A story was published in numerous local, regional and national publications and radio stations involving a ‘heroic act’. The Clare Echo followed reporting protocols and found that a Facebook profile which was integral to verifying the story was in fact fake.
Why couldn’t we publish the story?
There were no witnesses to the event other than the story’s ‘protagonist’.
