A new-look version of the Clones town website “Clones.ie” is up and running from today (Thursday 3rd May), featuring sections looking at local news items, current and archived photo galleries, human interest sections and much more besides.

The site also features a skit on the town’s name in the form of humourous graphics depicting “Dolly” the “cloned” sheep!
The new version of the site — which had become “dormant” in recent years — is being managed by Snipe Design Ltd, with initial assistance in designing the site coming from Monaghan  town-based website company Webworks.ie.
Eileen McCluskey of Snipe Design will allocate eight hours per week to keeping the site updated, and it is envisaged that new updates will be added on a weekly basis at the very least.
News that the site was about to be relaunched was revealed in a presentation made at Monday night’s meeting of Clones Town Council. Town Mayor Eugene McCaughey had informed the meeting that Snipe Design & Training had agreed to maintain and update the site, although it would remain in the ownership of the Town Council.
The decision by Snipe design to become involved in the project followed on from concerns that had been raised at recent Town Council meetings about the fact that the website had been lying dormant for a number of years.
Mayor McCaughey said it was important now for the local media to highlight the fact that the site was once again active. Anybody living abroad could log on and find out all about what was happening in Clones — and this would be particularly useful for people who had emigrated from the town.

PRESENTATION

The presentation on the new-look site was given by John McGarry of Webworks.ie, and  Martina Holland (Snipe Design manager), Tracy Kierans (Snipe IT trainer), and Eileen McCluskey (the Snipe employee who will directly run the site).
Giving an overview of the new site, Mr McGarry said it would be important for general news to be accessed from various sources including local newspapers, the parish bulletin and other community groups. It was hoped that over time the public would gradually become aware that the site was being updated.
Content would include photo galleries old and new, and features on famous people from the town and area. A message board could be of value, but would have to be moderated. Items like properties for sale and so forth might also be of interest.
The site was currently made up mostly of text and pictures, but video and audio sections could also be added. Making contributions along these lines might be of interest to people keen to update their digital and video camera editing skills.
While Snipe would be running the site for Clones Town Council, Webworks.ie would be willing to help out in any way it could, he said.
Mr McCaughey said old photographs would be of great interest, and he hoped that many old images including some he had seen in the Canal Stores, for example, could be scanned and added to the site.
Agreeing, Mr McGarry said the Clones.ie site could be like a “social diary”— which might still be kept running by the local authority in 100 years’ time!
He also noted that the site had always tended to attract a high volume of “hits’, perhaps inadvertently, due to the word “clones”.
Another suggestion by Mr McGarry involved the idea of establishing local email addresses ending with “@clones.ie”, and encouraging people in the area to use these, thereby fostering a greater sense of local identity and making it easier to send updates on local events to anyone who might wish to know of them. There was general agreement that a link with the Clones Erne East Partnership website, <www.cloneserneeast.com> should also be set up on the site.

CONTRIBUTING TO SITE: Snipe Design manager Martina Holland emphasised that it would be important for people to come to the company’s office at the John Matthews Enterprise Centre with their own pieces of news. Alternatively, contributions to the site can be emailed to <martina@snipedesign.ie>.

In running the website they  would also be contacting local groups and schools etc, she added. Snipe Design was very much looking forward to the challenge of running the site.

Other News

Anyone putting suds in the new Clones fountain will be flushed out!
C.C.T.V. WARNING AT COUNCIL MEETING
Clones Town councillors are determined to flush out those who have been causing problems with the recently installed town-centre fountain by putting suds into the water.
Town Manager Paul Clifford confirmed to the members that there had been a number of instances where problems with the waterflow at the elegantly designed new feature on the Diamond had arisen because of this behaviour.
  But he warned that CCTV cameras would be installed at the location — and copies of footage showing anyone interfering with the fountain would be forwarded to the Gardai.
  Mr Clifford pointed out that it was costing up to €300 on each occasion that the fountain had to be cleaned out.
  He also noted that many people driving through the town had commented on how much it enhanced the look of the town.
  Deirdre Kelly said it was important for the message to be sent out that those engaging in this sort of activity would be caught on CCTV. Some people might think it was “fun” to put suds in the water, but it was costing a lot of money and would damage the fountain.
  Pat Treanor said the fountain was part of the general improvement to the look of the town, and it looked particularly good when it was lit up at night.
Clones councillors to seek funding for new “Canal Road” link
IT WAS AGREED following a long discussion by Clones Town Councillors on Monday night that they would seek Government and NRA support for an ambitious €8.6 million “Canal Road” project — which would open up more lands and alleviate traffic problems in the town in the longer term.
 Town Manager Paul Clifford had accepted that concerns had been expressed by some of the councillors about the proposals for an “inner-relief road” (including a section from Tunney’s old garage on the Newbliss Road, to the Scotshouse Road where it crosses the old Ulster Canal, and on to the Cavan Road on the town side of the Canal Stores).
  Because of the concerns, Mr Clifford said it had been agreed that other options would be brought to the councillors, and that was what had been done.
  The councillors were then informed that “Option 1”, which would include the short stretch of inner relief road as outlined above, along with a stretch from Clonkirk, about half a mile out the Monaghan Road (N54), to “Bishopscourt”, just a little beyond the “Scarvey Cross” on the Newbliss Road would come to a total cost roughly estimated at €4.3 million.
  But two other alternatives for which funding could be sought were presented to the meeting, although it was emphasised that these would be more ambitions, long-term projects, probably requiring funding from the National Roads Authority and Department of Environment.
  Because this, these options would present no immediate solution to the problems currently being caused at the Diamond/Cara Street area by high volumes of heavy traffic in particular.
“OPTIONS”
The first of these, “Option 2” would include the Cavan Road to Scotshouse Road section of the inner-relief road, but would then take a much longer route around fields to the south of the Newbliss Road (accompanying the old Ulster Canal route for much of the way) before meeting up with the N54 to Newbliss Road spur at Bishopscourt. The estimated cost for this “Canal Road” would rise to €8.6 million.
  “Option 3” was the full bypass of the town, which would see the N54-Bishopscourt section continue on well to the south, meeting up with the Scotshouse and Cavan roads about half a mile outside the town. This would cost an estimated €11.2 million.
  A further option, which was independent of the other choices, would involve the building of another stretch of road from the Newtownbutler Road to the Canal Stores area of the Cavan Road, costing in the region of €2.6 million.
  The members were also told of the council’s intentions to construct a link road from the Monaghan Road (just outside Feldhuse) to Church Hill, just above St Tiernach’s Park. Mr Clifford said the council intended to progress this “Roslea Road link” in any case.
  Mr McKieran said the normal annual roads funding allocations to the town, combined with EU “Co-Finance” funds would have given the council a good deal of control in terms of seeing the inner relief road (Option 1) progressed. It had already been progressed to “Part 8” of planning. But he accepted that concerns had been raised by the councillors about the proximity of this to the town, and about the extra traffic it might cause on the Newbliss Road outside Largy College.
  Ross Mealiff said he favoured the Option 2/Canal Road proposal, to build a new roadway along the route of the canal to link up with the Newbliss road at Bishopscourt. This would open up more land than would be the case with the inner-relief road, to which he was opposed.
  However, Pat Treanor, supported by Niall Quigley, called for more investigations into the possibility of another link from the Newbliss Road to the Monaghan Road, but closer to the town. He did not agree that this would necessarily involve “taking houses out” as suggested by Mr McKernan. This would also leave the lower-cost option of using the inner relief road open.
  Another option for dealing with town-centre traffic problems in the shorter term might be a diversion of heavier traffic to the Cavan road via the Newtownbutler Road, Cllr Treanor said. His main concern was that the traffic problems should not be put on the “long finger”.
  Peter McAleer argued that this proposal would also require co-operation from the authorities in the North, in order to bring any such diversion up to a certain standard.
   All the councillors were in agreement that any solution to the traffic problems in the town centre should not simply move the problem elsewhere.
 After further lengthy and detailed discussion on the matter it was agreed that the Town Council would pursue the “Option 2” proposal for a longer link road, following the old Ulster Canal route from the Scotshouse Road to the Newbliss Road, as proposed by Cllr Mealiff and seconded by Cllr McAleer.
But it was also agreed that no option was being completely ruled out as yet, and that Engineer Mr McKernan would look at the proposals made by Cllr Treanor.