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Warning To Thurles Motorists & Pedestrians.

Motorists and pedestrians are being warned tonight to take extreme care when traversing the new €500,000 Bowes Corner road upgrade project here in Thurles.

Motorists will find themselves leaving a bright area and entering a darkened area, before, too late experiencing the surface, shown above, which could result in a tyre blowout or broken axle.

It would appear that those contracted to work on the Bowe’s Corner project went off for the Halloween weekend and the picture shown here, above, indicates their lack of dedication and the lack of dedication by Tipperary Co. Council engineers, latter handsomely paid to oversee such project disasters.

Note: No warning signs; no flashing lights and the water levels, in relation to the depth of the potholes, are extremely deceiving.

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No Information On Why Thurles Street Lights Remain Extinguished During Rush Hour.

We have been receiving a number of queries over the past 6 weeks, with regards to the non-availability of public lighting in Liberty Square, Thurles, during the dark evening rush hour period.

We were aware that despite an energy crisis here in Ireland, over 56 lamp standards continuously remain lighting over a 24 hour period, each day, within the Thurles town precinct.
However, motorists are now informing us that lights are not illuminating our streets, as the local work force return home from their places of employment.

We sent out our “eye in the sky” to investigate at 5.45pm this evening, October 27th 2022.

See drone images hereunder:

Liberty Square Thurles, October 27th, 2022. Time 5:45pm.
Drone Image: G. Willoughby


We discovered that despite the promises by local Municipal District councillors and Tipperary Co. Council, to increased footfall on our widened pavements, same has been reduced to just one person riding on an electric scooter, and indeed most of the roadway lighting remains indeed extinguished as was reported.

Liberty Square Thurles, October 27th, 2022. Time 5:45pm.
Drone Image: G. Willoughby

Thurles.Info admits, for the first time, to being totally flummoxed, confused and perplexed and we apologise wholeheartedly, with complete sincerity, to our many readers, for being unable to answer their query.

Pointless emailing local councillors and officials, as they refuse to answer or are not familiar in the use of their email system. Still maybe, one of our Councillors might straighten their index finger and message us; spelling out the problem with the solution, before someone gets hit by a motor vehicle.

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Road Safety Fines For Offences On Irish Roads Increase From Today.

  • Fines for a total of 16 road safety offences have doubled today.
  • Implementation of Action 30 of Road Safety Strategy.
  • Stronger deterrent to those who choose to break our lifesaving rules of the road.
  • World Health Organisation, estimate 5% reduction in average speed could result in a 30% reduction in fatal collisions.

Fines for speeding, will increase from €80 to €160, while fines for mobile phone use; the non-wearing of seat belts; and failing to ensure that a child is properly restrained within a motor vehicle, will rise from €60 to €120, and all with effect from midnight last night.

Fines for a learner permit holder driving a vehicle unaccompanied by a fully qualified licence bearing person will now increase from €80 to €160. Novice and learner drivers who fail to display ‘L’ or ‘N’ plates, or tabard vests in the case of motorcyclists, will see their fines also doubled to €120.

Three new fixed-charge notices will also come into force in early 2023, same relating to the misuse of a disabled parking permit (Fine €200), illegally parking in an electric charging bay (Fine €80) and breaching a heavy goods vehicle (HGV) ban and entering a specified public road without a valid permit (Fine €200).

These new measure comes into effect as the death toll on Irish roads this year has already risen to 122, an increase of 11 deaths, when compared to the same period last year.

However, motorists believe that this doubling of road offence fines has more to do with raising Irish revenue, rather than reducing deaths on our roads.

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Pedestrian Struck By Car In Barry’s Bridge Area Of Thurles.

Barry’s Bridge and Castle, Thurles.

Traffic was brought to a halt at about 12:00 noon today, here in Thurles, when a female pedestrian, came into contact with a moving vehicle in the area of Barry’s Bridge and Barry’s Castle.

The lady pedestrian is understood to possibly have lost her balance, leaving a nearby pavement, before colliding with a slow moving vehicle, latter exiting from Barry’s Bridge unto Emmett Street in the town.

It was raining heavily at the time of the accident, as confirmed by extensive flooding on nearby Kickham Street, for the second time in just 10 days.

Despite backed up heavy traffic, and the narrow streetscape, Gardai and an Ambulance crew managed to effectively reach the scene.

The female pedestrian managed to walk to the ambulance aided by crew and from her posture appeared to be suffering from shock and possibly slight head injuries.

We have no further update at this time.

This is the second such incident involving pedestrians in this immediate area in the past 5 months.

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Thurles.Info’s Guide To Locating Blocked Drains.

You can’t trust sewage or drainage pipes….They’re full of crap.

You would think that following the major flooding of our Thurles streets, last Sundays night; which saw 73.2mm to 125mm [3 to 5 ins] of sewage, permeated with surface water, flooding business premises and other dwellings, that those who raised our property taxes by 10% each year for the next two years, would have cleaned out our blocked drains.

No, five days later, total failure, I regret to report; as pictured by our drone this morning within the 50 kilometre [30mph] speed limit area, between O’Carroll’s (Top Oil) Service Station and Thurles Lidl Supermarket, on the N62, Slievenamon Road in the town.

N62 Slievenamon Road, Thurles, Co. Tipperary, October 21st 2022.
[Pic. G. Willoughby]

The N62 road is a national secondary road linking the M6 motorway east of Athlone, Co. Westmeath with the M7 motorway south of Roscrea and junction 6 of the M8 motorway close to the Horse and Jockey in Co. Tipperary.

The N62 is well travelled daily by local councillors; Municipal District senior officials and staff.
Because of heavy traffic, our “eye in the sky” was only able to hover over, and photograph just two of some 5 identified blocked drains, all within a 500 meter stretch of this secondary road.

Clue to locating blocked drains.
Since, hopefully, you are driving within the 50 kilometre [30mph] speed limit laid down in this area, recently prone to flooding, it is easy to locate the blocked drains.

N62 Slievenamon Road, Thurles, Co. Tipperary, October 21st 2022.
[Pic. G. Willoughby]

First check for tall Grass; various sprouting Brassicas; (latter genera of plants relatives of the cabbage and mustard family), Dandelines, frost tolerant Common Groundsel and germinating Wheat seed.
Same growth can be located growing, like tiny islands, on tarmacadamed road surfaces, usually located close to kerbs; growing from what appear to be at first potholes.

Here also is yet another clue; Thurles potholes (which we are aware number 3,978, following a more recent count by the Central Statistics Office) are for some unknown reason, usually round, disk shaped, or hoop-shaped on our Tipperary roads. Blocked drains on the other hand, for some strange reason and for the most part are quadrate or rectangular in shape.

Same are used everywhere else in Ireland, except Thurles town, to drain away excess rain and ground water from impervious surfaces, such as paved or tarmacked streets, car parks, parking lots, footpaths, side-walks, and roofs of buildings.
But then Thurles is big into promoting biodiversity, as can be seen by the state of our polluted river Suir, our pavements and our local graveyards.

Section of current Thurles pavement.
[Pic. G. Willoughby]

Once identified, one wonders should Thurles Municipal District Council contact Irish Water; or the Office of Public Works; or maybe Iascach Intíre Éireann (Inland Fisheries Ireland)?
Maybe there is some other government department that Thurles Local Councillors can blame befort shifting responsibility.

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