The Stench of Neglect: River Suir in Thurles Suffocates in Waste.
A Waterway Left to Fester: Apparent Pollution, Institutional Neglect and an Inexcusable Failure to Act.
The early images in the video immediately below are visually consistent with sewage-contaminated water, inadequately treated wastewater, detergent-bearing grey-water, or another organic effluent. The foam could indicate surfactants, while the grey colour and sludge may indicate suspended solids and decomposing organic matter. It does not resemble clean surface-water run-off.
However, a photograph alone cannot conclusively identify the slowly flowing substance in a river now almost static. Proper investigation should include samples from the suspected discharge point and locations upstream and downstream. Relevant analyses include dissolved oxygen, BOD, COD, ammonia, orthophosphate, suspended solids, E. coli, conductivity and surfactants. EPA material confirms that BOD, dissolved oxygen, ammonia, nitrate and phosphorus are central indicators of organic contamination, and that pollution-incident sampling should cover downstream, discharge-point and upstream locations.EPA sampling procedure
This slide-show above, however, presents a disgusting and deeply alarming picture; grey, foaming liquid and foul-looking sludge accumulating in what should be a living watercourse. Its exact composition must now be determined by laboratory testing, but its visible condition is wholly incompatible with the clean, healthy river environment the public is entitled to expect.
This river is neither a sewer nor a dumping ground. If analysis confirms an unlawful discharge, its source must be stopped, the damage remediated and every available enforcement power used.
Continued neglect after documented notification would be indefensible, a betrayal of the waterway, its wildlife and the community these authorities and representatives are supposed to serve.
Reminder
We can confirm that the above public meeting will take place, as stated above.
Thirteen years of warnings As stated in a recent post on Thurles.Info, the deterioration of the River Suir cannot credibly be described as “sudden” or “unforeseeable”. For more than a decade, residents, anglers and environmental campaigners have raised concerns about pollution, excessive vegetation, restricted flow, sediment, litter and neglect. These concerns were documented in “River Suir Crisis—Thirteen Years of Warnings, But Still No Coordinated Action”.
Now, 13 yearslater; the Minister of State Mr Kevin “Boxer” Moran recently visited sections of the Suir in Thurles and Holycross following representations from Independent TD Michael Lowry. It was stated that the Office of Public Works would support an application by Tipperary County Council under the enhanced Minor Flood Mitigation Works Scheme. However, I can confirm from recent discussions with varying responsible bodies, that they are not aware of any recent communication. Support for an application is welcome, but it is not a restoration programme. The public has not been shown the precise work proposed, the scientific evidence supporting it, the environmental assessments required, the anticipated cost and timetable or the body responsible for delivery and monitoring.
Political videos, visits and announcements by politicians and councillors cannot substitute for accountable work. Councillor Micheál Lowry, Deputy Michael Lowry and every other representative addressing the issue must be judged by measurable results. The same standard must apply to Tipperary County Council officials. [ Which begs the question; “Where were all the other local elected councillors when a recent promotional video, capturedby Mr Lowry TD, was uploaded unto social media.” ]
The missing ingredient for the River Suir is not more talk, it is delivery.We need clear answers:
► What works will be carried out? ► When will they begin? ► Who is responsible for delivery? ► Has the funding application now been submitted? ► What section of the river will be prioritised first? ► How will pollution and damaging discharges be reduced? ► How will progress be measured and reported publicly?
Approximately 150 fish, mostly brown trout, have died in a stretch of the River Suir in the Templemore area.
The incident is understood to have been discovered around August 10th, 2026 during the week ending August 12th, 2026, reportedly by a staff member of the River Basin Management Service, latter the organisation formerly known as the Local Authority Waters Programme, or LAWPRO. The change of name is confirmed HERE.
At the time of writing, no official report establishing the cause of the deaths has been published. However, an initial examination reportedly suggested that the fish may have died from oxygen depletion, same associated with extensive aquatic vegetation and restricted flow. Dense reed growth is clearly visible along sections of the upper Suir, including from Barry’s Bridge in the heart of Thurles town centre. Nevertheless, visible vegetation does not prove what killed the fish.
The public requires evidence; dissolved-oxygen records, water and fish sample results, the extent of the affected stretch and an assessment of any pollution, temperature, flow or habitat factors.
Could dense vegetation deplete oxygen? It is scientifically plausible that excessive aquatic growth could contribute to dangerously low dissolved-oxygen levels. Plants, algae and microorganisms respire continuously, consuming oxygen. During daylight, photosynthesis can replace or exceed that consumption. At night, photosynthesis stops while respiration continues, causing dissolved oxygen to fall. Surveys undertaken confirms that plant, microbial and algal respiration reduces dissolved oxygen at night, while daylight photosynthesis increases it.
The risk is greatest where vegetation is abundant and the water is warm, shallow, slow-moving or stagnant. Dense growth can restrict mixing, while bacteria and fungi decomposing dead plant material consume additional oxygen, as observed when Thurles Municipal District undertook the strimming of rushes last year, leaving same in the water to rot. Warm water also holds less dissolved oxygen.
We can confirm that the above public meeting will take place, as stated above. Perhaps Minister of StateMr Kevin Moran, Independent TD Mr Michael Lowry, together withCouncillor Mr Micheál Lowry should receive invitations.
The US Environmental Protection Agency identifies excessive plant growth, nighttime respiration, decomposition, high temperatures and reduced flow as possible contributors to oxygen depletion. Emergent reeds can transport atmospheric oxygen through their stems, so their direct withdrawal of oxygen from the water may be less significant than that of submerged vegetation or algae. A dense reed bed may still create locally oxygen-poor conditions by slowing the flow and trapping decomposing organic material.
A healthy, fast-flowing river is continually re-aerated by turbulence. If oxygen depletion caused this fish kill, the investigation must determine what combination of vegetation, nutrient enrichment, low flow, temperature and decomposition produced it.
Testing must occur at the correct timeand a single daytime oxygen reading would be inadequate. Dissolved oxygen generally reaches its lowest level shortly before sunrise, following a night of respiration without photosynthesis. Monitoring should therefore be continuous or conducted immediately before dawn. Measurements should be taken inside dense vegetation, in nearby open water and both upstream and downstream. Temperature, flow, pH, weather conditions and readings close to the sediment should also be recorded.
Salmonids, including brown trout, are particularly sensitive to low oxygen. The investigation must establish whether oxygen depletion caused this incident rather than merely presenting it as a possibility.
Thirteen years of warnings As stated in a recent post on Thurles.Info, the deterioration of the River Suir cannot credibly be described as sudden or unforeseeable. For more than a decade, residents, anglers and environmental campaigners have raised concerns about pollution, excessive vegetation, restricted flow, sediment, litter and neglect. These concerns were documented in “River Suir Crisis—Thirteen Years of Warnings, But Still No Coordinated Action”.
Section ofUpper River Suir, viewed from Thurles Park in the heart of Thurles town centre, last week. Picture: G. Willoughby
13 years to late; the Minister of State Mr Kevin “Boxer” Moran recently visited sections of the Suir in Thurles and Holycross following representations from Independent TD Michael Lowry. It was stated that the Office of Public Works would support an application by Tipperary County Council under the enhanced Minor Flood Mitigation Works Scheme. Support for an application is welcome, but it is not a restoration programme. The public has not been shown the precise work proposed, the scientific evidence supporting it, the environmental assessments required, the anticipated cost and timetable or the body responsible for delivery and monitoring.
Political videos, visits and announcements cannot substitute for accountable work. Councillor Micheál Lowry, Deputy Michael Lowry and every other representative addressing the issue must be judged by measurable results. The same standard must apply to Tipperary County Council.
Reeds may be a symptom-not the underlying cause. The problem cannot be reduced to reeds, bulrushes or appearance. Previous catchment assessments have identified excess phosphorus from sources including wastewater, animal waste and fertilisers as a significant pressure. Nutrient enrichment can encourage excessive plant growth, while respiration and decomposition may subsequently reduce oxygen.
Low summer flows, high temperatures, pollution, sediment, obstructions and vegetation may interact. Removing reeds without identifying why they proliferated risks treating a symptom, while leaving the underlying causes untouched. Clearance without ecological assessment could also damage habitat or transfer problems downstream.
Any intervention must therefore be based on catchment science and agreed with the relevant environmental and fisheries authorities.
Too many agencies and too little accountability
Responsibility is divided among Tipperary County Council, the River Basin Management Service, Inland Fisheries Ireland, the EPA, the OPW, Uisce Éireann, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Landowners and Angling organisations. That complexity cannot provide cover for delay or buck-passing.
The public should now be told:
which organisation is leading the investigation;
when and where the fish were discovered;
how many fish and species were affected;
when oxygen, temperature and flow were measured;
what samples were collected;
whether pollution sources were investigated;
when laboratory results will be available;
and which agency will publish the findings.
Community initiatives, including proposals to remove bulrushes or establish a River Suir trust, may make a valuable contribution. However, volunteers and anglers cannot be expected to replace statutory responsibility.
Publish the findings This fish kill must mark a turning point. The responsible agencies should provide a published scientific assessment, laboratory and monitoring results, continuous oxygen and temperature monitoring at vulnerable locations, investigation of pollution and nutrient sources, an environmentally assessed vegetation-management programme and a costed river restoration plan.
Responsibilities, deadlines and progress reports must be made public. The cause of this fish kill should not be prejudged; but uncertainty cannot become an excuse for inaction. After thirteen years of warnings, the questions are who will take responsibility, what the evidence shows and how quickly a credible recovery programme will begin.
“Look up at the stars, not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and be curious.” Quote: late Stephen Hawking [1942 – 2018]. “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Late Irish author Oscar Wilde, [1854 – 1900], (Lady Windermere’s Fan).
Residents across Tipperary are being encouraged to look skyward this evening as Ireland prepares for one of its most memorable astronomical displays in decades.
A deep partial solar eclipse will unfold between approximately 6.10pm and 8.10pm, reaching its maximum shortly after 7pm. Exact timings and the amount of the Sun covered will vary slightly from place to place as the Moon’s shadow travels across the country.
Although Ireland lies outside the path of totality, the spectacle will still be dramatic. The Moon is expected to hide well over 90 per cent of the Sun from Irish observers. Only a thin, bright crescent will remain visible at the height of the event, producing an unusual change in daylight and possibly a noticeable dip in temperature.
The eclipse is especially important because Ireland will not experience another comparable solar event until 2090. It offers families, schools and amateur astronomers a rare opportunity to witness the movements of the Sun, Moon and Earth directly.
People in Tipperary should choose a viewing location with a clear outlook facing towards the western sky. Open countryside and elevated areas may provide better prospects, provided they can be reached safely. Clouds are forecast in parts of the Premier County, but even brief breaks could reveal the shrinking solar crescent.
Eye protection is essential throughout the eclipse. Looking directly at the Sun, even when most of it is hidden, can cause permanent damage to eyesight. Ordinary sunglasses, smoked glass and homemade filters are not safe. Observers should use undamaged eclipse glasses meeting the ISO 12312-2 safety standard or watch indirectly with a pinhole projector. Cameras, binoculars and telescopes require purpose-made solar filters attached securely to the front. Eclipse glasses alone do not make magnifying equipment safe.
Ireland will see a partial eclipse because the narrow path in which the Sun is completely concealed passes through areas including Greenland, Iceland and northern Spain. Nevertheless, the Royal Observatory Greenwich says roughly 90 to 96 per cent of the Sun will be covered across Ireland and the UK, making this the deepest partial eclipse seen from these islands in almost 27 years. Royal Observatory Greenwich
The entertainment will not end at sunset. During the night of August 12th into the morning of August 13th, the annual Perseid meteor shower will reach its peak. The Perseids occur when Earth passes through debris left behind by Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. Tiny particles strike the atmosphere at tremendous speed, heat up and produce the bright streaks commonly called shooting stars. Under ideal dark-sky conditions, observers may see dozens of meteors in an hour, although actual numbers can vary.
Conditions are unusually favourable in 2026 because the shower coincides with a new Moon. Thus, with virtually no strong moonlight washing out the fainter meteors, cloud cover and artificial lighting will only be the main obstacles. The strongest viewing window is expected between midnight and dawn.
No telescope is needed for the Perseids. Viewers should find a safe, dark location away from street lights; allow at least 20 minutes for their eyes to adjust and watch as much of the sky as possible. A reclining chair and patience will make the experience more comfortable.
If Tipperary’s clouds cooperate, residents could witness two remarkable spectacles within a matter of hours; an almost vanished Sun in the evening and a stream of meteors after midnight.
One Council Restores History While Another Erases It – The Loss of Thurles’s Famine Double Ditch.
The decision by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to spend approximately €660,000plus VAT restoring a historic ha-ha wall in Marlay Park (latter a sunken landscape boundary that uses a hidden trench and a vertical retaining wall), has understandably generated debate. The 197-metre structure, believed to date from the early nineteenth century, was designed to separate landscaped gardens from grazing animals without interrupting views across the estate. Much of its original locally sourced granite survived beneath vegetation, but the wall had fallen into disrepair. Restoration required specialist conservation work, dismantling and rebuilding sections of dry-stone wall, repairing the ditch and incorporating drainage infrastructure. The original contract was valued at €625,398 excluding VAT, with the final estimate rising to €660,374 following delays, unsuitable ground material, severe weather and difficulties obtaining appropriate stone.
Local construction professionals and taxpayers are entitled to question whether that represents value for money. Public bodies must explain how costs are calculated, why projects exceed their initial budgets and whether procurement arrangements adequately protect the public purse. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has already faced criticism over the €753,528 cost of works at an entrance to Deerpark in Mount Merrion. That project is frequently described as the construction of “14 steps”, although the council says it also included a wheelchair-accessible ramp, retaining walls, granite paving, seating, landscaping, pedestrian crossings, road resurfacing, drainage, traffic-signal equipment and other public-realm works. The criticism of these costs is legitimate. Nevertheless, one important fact should not be forgotten: Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council recognised that an historic structure was worth preserving.
That approach stands in painful contrast to what happened in Thurles.
The Thurles Great Famine Double Ditch was regarded locally as a rare surviving famine-era landscape feature. Local historical accounts date its construction accurately to 1846 and associate it with relief work provided to men and boys during the Great Famine. Rather than representing the landscaped elegance of a wealthy Dublin estate, this Double Ditch recalled hunger, poverty and the desperate struggle of local families to survive. It was not simply an old embankment. It was a physical connection with one of the darkest periods in Irish history. For generations, the route was also described locally as a public walkway and Mass path. Campaigners argued that it formed part of the social history of Thurles and should have been incorporated into a protected heritage trail.
Despite repeated warnings, the entire section of the Double Ditch was cleared in March 2022 supported by local councillors, as part of works connected with as yet a non existent, only proposed Thurles inner relief road. Contemporary photographs and local reporting showed mature vegetation being removed and the historic landscape feature being levelled by machinery.
Historic Thurles Double Ditch Eradicated in 2022. Pic. G.Willoughby.
Once such a structure is destroyed, it cannot truly be recreated. A replica might reproduce its approximate appearance, but it cannot restore the original stones, soil, boundaries and physical connection with the people who constructed it during the Great Famine.
This is the real loss suffered by Thurles. Tipperary County Council regularly speaks about protecting heritage and connecting communities with their past. Yet the treatment of the Double Ditch demonstrates the gulf that can exist between heritage policies and decisions taken on the ground. Roads and development are necessary, but heritage protection does not require a complete rejection of progress. It requires imagination, consultation and a willingness to examine alternative designs before destruction becomes inevitable.
The contrast between the two councils is striking. In Dublin, hundreds of thousands of euro are being spent restoring an aristocratic landscape feature. In Thurles, a structure associated with ordinary people surviving the Great Famine was treated as totally expendable. The Marlay Park bill deserves detailed scrutiny. So does every major publicly funded project. But the principle of conserving historic structures should be welcomed.
Led by the denials of elected councillors; mainly Mr Michaél Lowry (Non Party), Mr Sean Ryan (FF) and Mr Seamus Hanafin (FF), together with senior council officials, through wilful ignorance, self-deception, blind persistence and despite knowing better oversaw this reckless destruction. Thus the tragedy in Thurles is that the debate never reached the question of restoration costs.
The Double Ditch was not protected long enough for restoration to become an option. Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council may reasonably be criticised for excessive costs. Tipperary County Council should be criticised for allowing irreplaceable local history to be destroyed.
One council appears willing to spend too much preserving history. The other did too little before all of that history was totally eradicated and lost forever.
Neither approach represents good stewardship of public money or public heritage, and the waste continues without the consent of the Irish taxpayer.
History does not repeat itself exactly, but it often rhymes in the ways hatred is excused, renamed, or redirected.
In the autumn of 1941, a ravine on the edge of Kyiv became one of the most devastating killing sites of the Holocaust. German forces had occupied the city on September 19th, and within days the Nazi campaign of persecution turned into mass murder. Notices appeared ordering Kyiv’s Jews to report with documents, clothing, money, and valuables. Many believed they were being deported or resettled. Instead, they were being led to Babi Yar.
On September 29th and 30th, Jewish families moved through the city in long, fearful columns. Parents carried children. Elderly people walked beside relatives. Others brought small bundles containing whatever remained of their lives. At the ravine, they were stripped of their possessions and clothing, forced toward the edge in groups, and shot. In only two days, 33,771 Jewish men, women, and children were murdered there, making Babi Yar one of the largest single massacres of the Holocaust.
Section of bodies photographed at the mass grave in Babi Yar, Ukraine, by Soviet researchers, three years later in 1944.
The killing did not end with those two days. During the Nazi occupation, Babi Yar continued to be used as an execution site. Jews who had survived or hidden were later brought there and killed. Soviet prisoners of war, Roma people, resistance members, civilians, and others targeted by the occupiers were also murdered in or near the ravine. What had once been a natural landmark became a mass grave and a symbol of the “Holocaust by bullets,” the campaign of open-air shootings carried out across Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe.
After the war, Babi Yar’s memory was itself subjected to silence. Under Soviet rule, public commemoration often avoided naming the Jewish victims specifically, presenting the dead mainly as Soviet citizens. For survivors, relatives, and historians, this omission deepened the wound. The ravine held not only the bodies of the murdered but also a history that official memory struggled to acknowledge.
Soviet POWs being used by Germany to cover the mass grave after the massacre, on October 1st 1941. Pic: Johannes Hähle.
Today, Babi Yar stands as a place of mourning and warning. Its story reveals how quickly ordinary streets can become routes to destruction when hatred is organised by the state and human beings are reduced to targets. Behind the number 33,771 were families, neighbours, children, workers, students, grandparents, and entire communities whose lives were ended together at the edge of a ravine. To remember Babi Yar is to restore their humanity against the machinery that tried to erase them.
That silence also speaks to the present. History does not repeat itself exactly, but it often rhymes in the ways hatred is excused, renamed, or redirected. Anti-Semitism rarely begins with violence at the edge of a ravine. It begins with language that turns Jews into a collective blame, with suspicion cast over Jewish identity, with the idea that Jewish fear is exaggerated, or that hostility toward Jews can be justified by events elsewhere. In Ireland today, where public feeling about Israel and Gaza is often intense, there must still be a clear moral line; criticism of any government is legitimate, but blaming Irish Jews for the actions of the Israeli state, intimidating Jewish people, distorting Holocaust memory, or treating Jewish belonging as conditional is antisemitism.
To remember Babi Yar is therefore not only to look back at 1941, but to ask what kind of society we are becoming now. The lesson is not that today is the same as then; it is that dehumanisation must be challenged long before it becomes catastrophe. A country can defend Palestinian lives and rights while also defending Jewish safety, dignity, memory, and belonging.
The measure of moral seriousness is whether we can hold both truths at once, refusing to let grief for one people become hatred of another.
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