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Thurles Musical Festival, featuring some of Irelands most talented tribute bands, got underway yesterday, July 9th, 2022.
It was lovely to see music fans of all ages turn out in large numbers again after what has been a turbulent past two years, caused by the Covid-19 virus.
The free family festival continues again today, so if you are out and about and wondering where to aim, target Thurles, with music expected from Tribute bands:- The Beatles, Ed Sheeran, Rod Stewart, Oasis and I Love the 80’s, beginning sharp at 1:30pm.
A Funfair is also located in the immediate area for those visiting with children.
This Free Event is fully outdoors and the temperature here in Thurles, is expected to be at least 25° with weather – Sunny.
We will be back with more pictures of yesterday’s event and hopefully this afternoon’s promising series of events, over the coming days, so do check-in.
“Bricks through the window now,
Thieves in the night.
When they rang on her bell,
There was nobody there.
Fresh graffiti sprayed on her door,
Shit wrapped in a newspaper posted onto the floor.”
Extract from that wonderful poem “History”, by Carol Ann Duffy, DBE FRSL HonFBA HonFRSE.
A current decision by Dublin City Council planners to grant permission for a proposed demolition of yet another part of Moore Street’s 1916 battlefield site; latter to make way for another office block, has been described as “deplorable”. If relatives of the Signatories to the 1916 Proclamation and the Moore Street Preservation Trust expect help from Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Mr Malcolm Noonan, then forget it and for God’s sake don’t communicate, as we did, by email.
We base this assertion on the Ministers assistance in preventing the total destruction of the Great Famine Double Ditch, once situated at Mill Road, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.
Over the past few weeks we have continued to watch as officials of Tipperary County Council and Thurles Municipal District Council combined to further continue to wipe out Thurles History.
Watch the video hereunder and sigh.
You can see from the video, that despite threats of “COVER CCTV” detecting “ENVIRONMENTAL OFFENCES”; the most of these offences I might add, were done by Tipperary County Council and Thurles Municipal District Council, whose combined destruction of this area has continued unabated.
The old 1846/47 stone walls built by starving, emaciated men, have now been totally destroyed in favour of modern wire fencing. This same fencing has removed legal access to the lands on the southern side, of the now destroyed ditch area, formerly identified as Bohereen Keagh [translated from Irish to English ‘Blind Road’]
The old stile entrance appears to has been temporally replaced, with the worst effort at stone masonry that I and many others have ever witnessed. [Compare same with left section of stile built in 1846]. Sadly, none of the original faced stone work was retained. Dog walkers are now beginning to use the stile entrance as an area to dump dog faeces bags.
Thankfully, the perennial Common Spotted Orchid, despite every possible attempt to destroy it, has survived the cement post holes. Alas, other wild flowers have since been replaced by tarmac.
The promise by Councillor Seamus Hanafin in Press and Radio Statements of February 20th, 2022, to the more gullible of his electorate, has, as we suspected, never materialized.
His quote, lest our readers forget, “This coming week contractors will begin site preparation works on the pathway running from Monakeeba to the Mill Road through the double ditches. Some vegetation will be removed and illegal dumping cleaned up“.
Five months later, this filth and unsightly dumped rubbish remains in its entirety; some 3.5 years, after we first highlighted its existence, and today remains currently hidden, courtesy of Mother Nature’s green cloak, until next autumn.
Quite a few of the newly built houses, situated north of the destroyed Great Famine Double Ditch, are now occupied.
To demonstrate their ‘gratitude’, a few of these newly housed persons have already begun to rip numerous vast breaches in the new green chain link fencing, in their efforts to gain access to lands to the south side of the now destroyed Famine Ditch.
With council officials unable to fill a pothole in Thurles streets; same are unlikely to be able to control continued acts of local vandalism to the satisfaction of Thurles taxpayers.
While the wind and heavy rain experienced here in Tipperary over the past few days were a source of regret to sun worshippers; Thurles residents can breathe a sigh of relief, as the rising waters of the river Suir, have today successfully moved on its cesspool appearance and much of its stench.
Framed in the backdrop of deteriorating, graffiti sprayed, woodwork and a closed new car park under The Source Theatre and Library; a plastic sign, (crudely screwed to a broken tree support), excuses the lazy Municipal District Council’s unwillingness to cut the weeds and grass; latter claiming the area is, quote, “Managed for Wildlife” as part of an “All-Ireland Pollinator Plan”. Trust me no self-respecting Bee, Bumble or otherwise, have ever visited this blossom free area.
Pictures shown in the above video amply explain the total lack of maintenance within this area, which we once again are forced to highlight.
Plastic bollards, left behind by the disastrous, half upgraded, Liberty Square, has joined the other litter, within the rivers water.
Back in the mid 1960’s, as young people, we would have swum the base of Niagara Falls to lay our hands on and retrieve two footballs and the numerous tennis balls, currently caught in the reeds of this slow, shallow, river water. But today, in this greedy, whinging society and in an extremely rich county, it appears everything and anything is now disposable.
The stone dam, directly opposite Thurles indoor Leisure Centre and heated swimming pool building, has been dismantled and the two fish ways on the dam underneath ‘The Source’ County Library building, have also been allowed to crumble, both now reducing the water levels.
Manhole covers, taking water-run from our streetscapes, are left unlocked, allowing small sized litter to join the numerous bottles, cans and plastic bags; same which are quickly grabbed by slow moving water, to float on unsightly filamentous green algal growth, thus compromising the life of the river bed. Further down near the foot bridge sewage waters continue to flow, close to the swinging gates for the past 3 years.
Gone are the two water fountains which once helped to aerate the water within 50 meters of each other, close to Barry’s Bridge.
Our locally elected, powerless, doubly employed and highly paid town councillors are now only ‘stored’ as window dressing; in existence solely to provide a political presence for local unquestioning press and radio, while positively announcing leaked information from central government.
The silent Thurles electorate have lost all confidence in elected representatives; council officials and their two Dáil Éireann TD’s.
Same elected personnel reign over a town, which has long since been ignored, and no longer encourages, supports or attracts voluntarism.
The shame and lack of maintenance here in Thurles, lies clearly at the door of Thurles Municipal Council; TD’s and their lack of foresight and staff availability.
Again, I ask why are we paying Local Property Tax?
There will be a day of reckoning.
Happy Father’s Day to all you Dads, Granddads and Great Granddads, both here in Thurles, Co. Tipperary and elsewhere around the globe.
My Old Man
Written by Zac Brown, Niko Moon and Ben Simonetti.
He was a giant
And I was just a kid
I was always trying
To do everything he did
I can still remember every lesson he taught me
Growing up learning how to be
Like my old man
He was a lion
We were our father’s pride
But I was defiant
When he made me walk the line
He knew how to lift me up
And when to let me fall
Looking back, he always had a plan
My old man
My old man
Feel the callous on his hands
And dusty overalls
My old man
Now I finally understand
I have a lot to learn
From my old man
Now I’m a giant
Got a son of my own
He’s always trying
To go everywhere I go
Do the best I can to raise him up the right way
Hoping that he someday wants to be
Like his old man
My old man
I know one day we’ll meet again
As he’s looking down
My old man
I hope he’s proud of who I am
I’m trying to fill the boots of my old man
My old man
If you’re out and about visiting Thurles in the coming days; enjoying our summer spell of warm sunshine, please do be sure and take a walk down to the rear of Thurles Shopping Centre. There you’ll find a ‘must see’ wildflower garden, reminiscent of a showcase exhibit at “Bloom” in the Phoenix Park, Dublin.
Congratulations to the Management of Thurles Shopping Centre for not just supporting this wonderful example of biodiversity and urban beauty, but also in providing a new seating area, together with an appropriately sized Litter Bin to handle recycling waste.
“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay”
Extract from the poem “The Deserted Village”, by Irish born novelist, playwright, dramatist and poet, Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774).
In Goldsmith’s poem, “The Deserted Village”, latter published as a poem but also as a political broadside, in 1770; the poet laments the total decline of rural life and the depopulation of the countryside.
Same decline had been brought about as a result of commonage land enclosure, by greedy, wealthy individuals then in power; eventually leading to the destruction of the livelihoods of peasants and subsistence farmers.
“Those fence-less fields the sons of wealth divide
And ev’n the bare-worn common* is denied”.
[* ‘bare-worn common’ – land that was owned by more than one person.]
This poem remains as up to date today, as it did in 1770, when first dedicated to the 18th century English artist Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723 – 1792).
However, today, the then 18th century land grabs by the wealthy and power hungry, have changed name and are known as ‘Local Property Tax’, (LPT), latter introduced in 2013 to provide we were told “a stable funding base for local authorities” and to supposedly deliver “significant structural reform”.
“Thus fares the land, by luxury betrayed:
In nature’s simplest charms at first arrayed;
But verging to decline, its splendours rise,
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise;
While, scourged by famine from the smiling land,
The mournful peasant leads his humble band;
And while he sinks, without one arm to save,
The country blooms — a garden, and a grave.”
Currently, we reside in a town where elected representatives and highly paid Municipal District Council officials are no longer embarrassed by their abject failure to administrate.
Same was evidenced today when a Government Minister visited the town to officially opened an upgraded Liberty Square and the public were not invited to attend, despite same being invited 4 years ago to contribute their vision for the future of this same town centre area.
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