Thurles Information

Surprise, surprise, Iarnród Éireann (God Bless Them) has discontinued the early morning train service previously operating on the Limerick to Ballybrophy line, as part of their new timetable, despite the government having agreed to boost the funding of our public transport system by an extra €36 million last year, stating then that the extra cash boost was necessary to ensure public transport services remained operational.

Use It or Lose It

This 5.05am Limerick-Dublin service, which stopped in Nenagh at 06.04am, Cloughjordan at 06.23am and Roscrea at 06.43am, has now been terminated together with the 16.05pm Limerick to Ballybrophy and 18.20pm Ballybrophy to Limerick via Nenagh services. This move by Irish Rail now reduces the number of Nenagh to Dublin via Ballybrophy train alternatives, to just two services each way per day.

Local campaigners had called on all would-be commuters to “Use It or Lose It,” when the early morning service was first introduced in March of last year, however the service, which  according to Irish Rail cost some €1,000 per day to operate, failed, (due to commuters failing to get out of bed at 4.00am,) to attract sufficient users and has now therefore been withdrawn. Local campaigners blame unacceptable delays and an unworkable timetable, which set impracticable targets, as the main reasons for this failure & thus termination of the service.

“Gateways to Ireland,” Continue To Benefit From Tipperary Taxes

A €3.7m funding package has been announced to improve transport links in and around Galway city. This funding will be spent on walking, cycling and public transport links for the city’s commuters. North Tipperary Junior Transport Minister Alan Kelly states that €1m will be spent on a redesign of the city’s train station with a pedestrian link to the coach station. Bus and cycle lane demand will be now assessed and the possibility of developing a “Greenway,” will also be fully examined.

Remember the recently introduced Leap Card or integrated ticket system solely for Dublin based commuters & which cost at least €55 million of taxpayers money to produce?  Surprise, surprise again, Dublin children can now travel for free on the LUAS at weekends during February, March and April of this year, it has been announced yesterday. This latest generous offer, which has just been announced by the National Transport Authority and LUAS management, allows adults with valid tickets to bring up to two children under the age of 16 on this tramway with them. We are told that this new initiative is one of a number of transport fare initiatives being rolled out for Dublin during 2013.

This initiative will also of course apply to LUAS lines here in Thurles, oh yes, pardon me, I forgot, we do not have a tram service in Thurles as yet, cancelled mainly due to our eleven year delay in being granted a ring road. It will possibly come as a shock to the National Transport Authority, LUAS management and Junior Transport Minister Alan Kelly, but University Students countrywide have been riding your LUAS, Rail & Buses for free, since Stephenson built his “Rocket,” way back in 1829.

One other item of good news announced last week however, much to the delight of Tipperary Septic Tank owners & taxpayers, was the welcome revelation that some of our rural contributions to State coffers are to be spent on a €20 million make-over for Dublin’s National Gallery of Ireland. The tendering process will start presently and it is hoped to begin refurbishment work during this summer, with a view to having all the work completed in time for the 1916 centenary.

Of course “this 1916 rising centenary crack,” has little to do with Co Tipperary, well except of course for at least three of the total seven signatories of the 1916 Proclamation all having strong Tipperary links. I remind you of Thomas McDonagh who was born in Cloughjordan Tipperary. Latter a poet, playwright, teacher, soldier and signatory of the 1916 Proclamation, which proclaimed our now now new IMF Republic. He then had moved to Dublin to study, and was the first teacher on the staff at St. Enda’s, the school he helped to found, with another signatory Patrick Pearse. Then of course there was the mother of Thomas Clarke, latter the person most responsible for the 1916 Easter Rising. His mother was Mary Clarke (Maiden-name Palmer,) from Clogheen, Tipperary. Next there was James Connolly, another signatory who founded the Irish Labour Party in Clonmel Tipperary in 1912. Then there was Dan Breen born in Grange, Donohill County Tipperary, and his Soloheadbeg incident which was the first opening act of the same Irish War of Independence. Ah sure I could go on and on, but enough said. Just watch out, my friends, the big “1916 Centenary Party,” will be financed & held exclusively in An Pháil. One hopes that those participating in 2016 will not be spat on by a Dublin populace, as were those forced to surrender in 1916.

As you can gather from the above facts, none of the “Dublin Subsidises,” & “Fiscal Transfers,” gifted from our urban capitol, to Tipperary’s rural red-neck backwaters, (as recently highlighted and bitterly resented by Olivia Mitchell TD,) has yet to arrived here to Co Tipperary.

Sure maybe Olivia Mitchell TD is correct in her predictions, same transfer of funding from urban to rural areas would appear grossly unfair and God forbid could even become a permanent danger to future urban / rural social cohesion.

All joking aside, rural Ireland is being forgotten, the urban man is getting the oyster, while the rural red-neck must make do with the shell.