Vision-net Online Business Information Service now free for all library members

Vision-net is now available, free of charge, to all members of Clare County Library. This service gives immediate online access to information on every registered Irish and UK company. It includes reports on directors, company owners, credit ratings, industries, insolvency trends plus every document filed by companies with the CRO (Companies Registration Office). Other documents include audited company accounts, changes in directors, allotments of shares and mortgages or charges. Information is updated daily.

Vision-net can be used by jobseekers to research potential employers and by entrepreneurs to investigate industry competitors (each company search includes a link to the top 20 companies in that industry). Existing business owners can source information to help manage business risks and keep up to date with their suppliers and competitors. Consumers can also use the service to investigate any companies they may do business with.

Information is sourced directly from the CRO in Dublin and the UK Companies House as well as the Irish Courts, Office of the Examiners and the Insolvency Service of Ireland. All information is from publicly available records. Vision-net itself is based in Dublin.

To access this free service, follow the link on http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/online_resources/index.htm#business and log in using your library card number.

Riches of Clare Concert May 2015 - Elaine Hogan, Martin Glynn, David Sanders, and Alan Wallace

"Elaine Hogan, Martin Glynn, David Sanders, and Alan Wallace performing at the Riches Of Clare concert series as part of the Fleadh Nua - May 21, 2015 (11)." Posted on Youtube on the 25th of May 2015 by Niamhianes.

Riches of Clare Concert May 2015 - Johnny Ringo McDonagh, Kevin Finnucane, Conor Keane, and Dave Harper

"Johnny Ringo McDonagh, Kevin Finnucane, Conor Keane, and Dave Harper performing at the Riches of Clare concert series on the final day as part of Fleadh Nua - May 22, 2015 (01)." Posted on Youtube on the 25th of May 2015 by Niamhaines.

Riches of Clare Concert May 2015 - James Devitt, Christy Barry, Conor McCarthy, and Johnny Falkner

"James Devitt, Christy Barry, Conor McCarthy, and Johnny Falkner performing at the Riches Of Clare concert series on May 19, 2015 as part of Fleadh Nua (10)." Posted on Youtube on the 22nd of May 2015 by Niamhaines.

Riches of Clare Concert May 2015 - James Duddy, Anne Marie McCormack, Niamh O'Dea, and Martin Dermody

"James Duddy, Anne Marie McCormack, Niamh O'Dea, and Martin Dermody kicking off the first session of the Riches of Clare 2015 summer series as part of Fleadh Nua - May 18, 2015 (#6)." Posted on Youtube on the 19th of May 2015 by Niamhaines.

Ballyvaughan, County Clare, May 2015 - Der Zauber der grünen Insel

Ballyvaughan, County Clare, May 2015 - "Der Zauber der grünen Insel". Posted on Youtube on the 26th of May 2015 by Fridi Mauma.

"How to be both" by Ali Smith - winner of Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2015

Ali Smith has been announced as the winner of the 2015 Baileys prize for her experimental novel How to be both. The book is split into two sections; one following the spirit of the Renaissance painter Francesco del Cossa as he explores the modern world, and the other focusing on troubled teenager George.

Shami Chakrabarti, Chair of Judges said “There are universal themes about grief, loss, exploration of gender, but also contemporary issues like technology, surveillance, pornography. It is very, very accessible on the one hand, but also great art”. She described Smith as a James Joyce or Virginia Woolf of our time.

How to be both begins as a poem, changes to standard paragraphs, then goes back again to a poem. There are two versions of the novel, one starting with del Cossa, the other with George, as she struggles to make sense of the recent death of the mother who had taken her to see the artist’s frescoes. The plot remains the same but your understanding of the novel changes depending on the character order you're presented with.

The shortlisted titles were:

Rachel Cusk – Outline
Laline Paull – The Bees
Kamila Shamsie – A God in Every Stone
Ali Smith – How to be Both
Anne Tyler – A Spool of Blue Thread
Sarah Waters – The Paying Guests

The award was won in 2014 by Eimear McBride for A Girl is a Half-formed Thing. Other winners include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for Half of a Yellow Sun, Zadie Smith for On Beauty and by Lionel Shriver for We Need to Talk About Kevin. The prize, until 2012 known as the Orange Prize for Fiction, sets out to reward excellence, originality and accessibility in writing by women from throughout the world.

Images of Corpus Christi Processions in Clare

The Feast of Corpus Christi falls on Thursday 4th June this year. In Ireland the feast day is now celebrated on the following Sunday. In the past, the procession on Corpus Christi was a major event in the communal life of every town and village in the country. A handful of photographs capture the events in Foto, Clare County Library’s online image collection. Click here...

Image above shows A Procession in Abbey St, Ennis, from the Bluett Collection.

‘The Middle of Nowhere / The Centre of the Universe’, an exhibition of new colour lino-cuts by Mike O’Connor at the Courthouse Gallery

12th June - 9th July 2015
‘The Middle of Nowhere / The Centre of the Universe’, an exhibition of new colour lino-cuts by Mike O’Connor [with some photographs and collages],
The Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon, County Clare.
Official opening on 12th June at 8 pm.

Mike O’Connor has been making prints in North Clare for over thirty years, mostly landscape images. This show is called ‘The Middle of Nowhere / The Centre of the Universe’. “It seemed to me that they are one and the same. The notion celebrates the growing excitement to be met in the everyday, in farmland, weather, roads – everything”, says Mike. “I grew up with printing, my father being an engraver and Art-School principal. Although I have a particular fondness for the simple print in black on white paper, I work with colours printed with multiple blocks. This opens out the process to a huge variation of options, images large and small, bright and sombre. More variation comes from the techniques used, some blocks being cut boldly and printed roughly, others cut slowly with detail in fine lines or a scratching method. My images come from the things and places I see every day. To transmit the excitement from the eye, through the head onto paper is the task. With printmaking, this process is less direct, as a block has to be cut [and maybe one or two more for a richer image], then inked and printed in successive layers onto paper. The process of getting this as one wants is called proofing. The work is printed on an iron Albion press made in 1831, though an extra large print has to be pressed by hand with rollers”.

About Printmaking:
There is no original that is copied. The print, once cut, proofed and printed, is the original. Made by the artist from the first idea to the finished work. This is the essential difference between a printmaker’s print and a reproduction, which is merely a photograph of an artwork [made in any medium or size] industrially printed - as for a magazine or poster. Because a print is a multiple, unlike a drawing or a painting, there are more than one. The printmaker limits the number produced in an edition [this might be between 5 and 100]. This means that they are less expensive to buy, and can go home with more than one person, while remaining an original artwork. As a seminal printmaker, Eric Gill, declared some 80 years ago, these are things, not pictures of things.

Top image: Battle of the Hedgerow, by Mike O'Connor.

Clare Museum seeks to expand its service

Clare Museum in Ennis is seeking to meet community groups with a view to identifying ways the museum can assist in their activities. The museum is reaching out to groups in the community that provide recreational and educational activities in Clare and also environmental groups, and historical organizations, or indeed any other group that may feel the museum could assist them to achieve their goals. The museum is working to identify needs in the community and ways that it can meet those needs.

According to curator John Rattigan “While the museum attracts some 30,000 visitors a year, it is believed that the museum and community groups in the locality could mutually benefit by forging links. Some creative thinking between groups and the museum could help to identify opportunities for us to work with communities and help the museum fulfill its mission as a socially inclusive cultural service.”

A recent review on Trip Advisor comments that ‘This museum is a treasure trove of information about County Clare from earliest times… [and] is of as much relevance to locals as tourists. Upstairs there is an exhibition of local interest reflecting the different strands of life in Clare including sport, music, the sea, religion. The most amazing thing is that there is free entry.’

Any groups interested in exploring the opportunity to link up should contact Clare Museum at 065-6823382 or by email at claremuseum@clarecoco.ie.