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Fatal Incident Brings Thurles To Portlaoise Rail Services To A Halt.

Sadly, following a fatal incident, the railway line between Thurles and Portlaoise remains closed.

Irish Rail have confirmed that services were paused shortly after 8am and the line will remain closed until further notice.

The 6.40am Limerick to Heuston train is currently stopped between Thurles and Templemore following the incident. Emergency services remain in attendance at the scene.

Significant knock-on delays can be expected for all Cork, Kerry and Limerick commuter services, while Portlaoise-Heuston services have remained operating.

Further updates on the situation will be issued by Irish Rail in the coming hours.

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Irish Rail To Restore Onboard Catering On Thurles Rail Line.

Thurles Railway Station

Irish Rail has confirmed their intension to restore its onboard catering service, with effect from the end of March 2023.

This reinstatement of the service will begin on a phased basis, same commencing on the Dublin-Cork line, latter servicing stations Portlaoise, Portarlington, Thurles, Limerick Junction and Mallow.

The sale of refreshments was halted on Irish trains three years ago, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and when restrictions were lifted in February last, the company which supplied the service, were forced to withdraw, claiming staffing issues and their failure to get an agreement with regards to sought after increased costs.

The closure of shops at train stations, and the discontinuation by Irish Rail of onboard catering services during the Covid-19 pandemic, resulted with commuters only being able purchase tea, coffee or sandwiches if there was a shop within the railway station.

Same resulted in Irish Rail considering the installation of vending machines, thus enabling passengers to buy food and drink. However, Irish Rail have now confirmed, today, that a new supplier had been secured and a “well-known brand” of service would be in place at each station over the coming weeks.

Irish Rail have failed to confirm details regarding the new vendor, and have refused to be drawn further on the matter.

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Rail Works Affecting Thurles Train Services This Halloween Holiday.

Thurles Railway Station

Major rail works, currently being undertaken, are expected to bring disruption to train journeys this coming Halloween Bank Holiday weekend.

Due to a series of track and signalling works taking place, Iarnród Éireann have warned customers that a revised timetable will come into effect this October Halloween Bank Holiday weekend, and those expecting to travel, using the service, are being advised to book in advance.

These major works will be taking place, affecting Cork, Kerry and Limerick services, from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning.

The line between Portarlington and Thurles will be closed from 14:30 on Saturday.

All services between Dublin and Cork, Kerry and Limerick will be part-replaced by bus transfers, thus resulting in this revised schedule.

Note: Services between Cork and Dublin (Heuston) will operate on a revised schedule, with bus transfers between Thurles and Kildare set to operate in both directions.

People are being asked to please check time schedules before making essential journeys with full details to be shown online at www.irishrail.ie.

Direct services between Limerick and Dublin (Heuston) are cancelled. Journeys between Limerick and Dublin Heuston, involving a change at Limerick Junction, will have bus transfers between Thurles and Kildare, in both directions.

Direct services between Tralee and Dublin (Heuston) will operate as follows:

Saturday: 17:05, Heuston Station, Dublin to Tralee will operate between Mallow and Tralee only.

Sunday: 08:30 Heuston Station, Dublin to Tralee will operate with bus transfers between Thurles and Kildare. Commuter services between Portlaoise and Dublin Heuston will involve bus transfers between Portlaoise and Portarlington in both directions.

Irish Rail apologise to their customers, in anticipation of any inconvenience brought about by these essential repairs and updates.

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Reminiscences Of Thurles During Early Decades Of Twentieth Century

School Days Remembered

The story is as related by the late Mr Timmy Maher, Church Lane, Thurles, Co. Tipperary, to the late historians Mr James (Jim) & Mrs Brigid Condon, Butler Avenue, Thurles, Co. Tipperary in the year 2000.

Note on the late Mr Timmy Maher:
Timmy knew Thurles. He was a keen observer, who could unravel the most complicated genealogies with ease. The ubiquitous Ryans, Mahers and Dwyers whose complex ties and ancestry confused many, posed no problems whatsoever to the astute Tim.
Nicknames, of course, were critical for differentiating between the many popular family names. His whole recorded narrative hereunder is liberally laced with these delightful sobriquets . . . Toot-n-Nan, Turney Larry, Stiffy, Mag-a-Hoe, Foll-de-Doll, The Guardian Angel, Pull-a-Pint, Call-in-the-Morning, Shittyfoot, Moll-the-Bobber, Cross-the-Roads, Mawbags, Glassybaggs, Goodybags, Hole-in-the- Wall, Sprig, Abbey, Fireball, High Hat, Ranty, Shifty, Mr Deeds, Moonlighter. Sunman … and many more we couldn’t even attempt to spell or understand.

Consanguinity (Of the same blood) was a town feature. You only had to talk to Timmy for a few minutes when you would find yourself welcoming him ‘as a long lost cousin’. Timmy was neither saint nor sinner; he was simply one of us.
Despite his foreign travels he never lost his parochial outlook. He was a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ and master of quite a few. Indeed, he collected more than memories. His regard for the past made him reluctant to throw away anything, from the old fork he claimed was used to stir the cabbage in the big pots used during the Great Famine, to a unique letter from Arnold Harris Mathew the last claimant to the title of Earl of Liandaff.

Timmy’s Story.

“In them days there weren’t any such thing as A, B or C streams, there were only two groups, the ‘tough chaws’ who used to scratch a lot, taught by Mr Wall, and the better sort who were groomed for better things by Mr Walker. Actually a great deal of the teaching was left to monitors – older boys like Danny Keane, Martin Drew, Jimmy Galvin and Denis Delaney.

Canon Wilson’s Car and on the left hand side access to Church Lane.

We were a delicate and miserable lot, no wonder none of us ever came to anything. Every Monday morning we’d bring our penny to school to pay for our few books and the fuel; even if we didn’t have it, it didn’t matter.

We were all barefoot except sometimes in the winter months we might be lucky enough to have a pair of wooden clogs bound with iron hoops.
I’ll say one thing for the auld clogs though, you couldn’t beat them for sliding on the icy roads as long as they lasted.

Hygiene and nutrition how are you! Half of us had ‘Tetters’ (ringworm, eczema. herpes etc.) and ‘Bowknocks’ (festered swellings on our leathery feet).
Do you know how they used to cure these painful swellings? The mother or father would take a needle and thread and stick it through them and then squeeze out the festering mess. Sure wasn’t the cure more painful than the complaint!

‘Tis funny though the things you remember years afterwards. Did I tell you the one about the day that auld Mr. Wall caught Jack Conners and ‘The Pensioner’ (Dan Hogan) smoking a clay pipe in the classroom. ‘Twas like this; in them days the Monks used to take a break in the mornings for their elevenses. When Mr. Wall was coming back after his break he spotted the two boyos’ through the window as they were ‘fogging’ away. The poor man was outraged. He charged into the classroom; ‘Come up here Hogan, you scalawag’, he fumed, ‘what do you mean smoking in my class?’ ‘What’, the terrified Hogan mumbled, ‘me sor … no sor … sure ‘twould only make me sick, sor’. Like a petrified rabbit ‘the Pensioner’ scanned the room in search of cover and safety from the teacher’s threatening leather. Then in panic he shinnied up the support pole in the centre of the classroom (these poles were about 8″ in diameter and were supporting the wide, high ceiling of the rooms).
‘Come down here this instant’, bellowed Mr. Wall. Dan wouldn’t budge but hung on for his life with hands and knees. Then with the practiced ease of a lifetime of handling unexpected situations, Mr. Wall took the long-handled window hook from the corner and hooked the bold Dan down by the suspenders. And what was really funny was that all the time that Dan was hanging on high above the class his arse was out through his britches.

I remember well the times Mrs. Carrigan would call by and give Mr. Wall a gallon of sweets. Mr. Wall would dole them out to us every day as long as they lasted. Mind you, that was a rare treat in them days.

But, you know, we loved auld Wall. When he was leaving us, we all trooped up to the railway station with him. Nor were we ashamed when we cried as the auld steam engine pulled him away from us for ever. I don’t know whether it was just a case of the devil you know being better than the devil you don’t or if it was genuine affection and regret. Myself … I loved that auld man.

I was a terror for ‘mitching’ myself, (playing truant from school). The truant officer then was auld Halogen. He was a terrifying spectre; a big dark man riding a high bicycle. I can remember the day that the father had to bring me up Hayes’ Lane to appear before the authorities for my latest bout of ‘mitching’. Didn’t the father have to pay a fine of a shilling and I was warned to mend my ways or I’d be sent away!

After school some days we used go up to where the District Hospital is now, poking around looking for spent brass. You see the British military had moved out and it was a great place for scavenging though I never found nothing.
It was here that another Hogan, ‘Sir Billy’, found a live grenade and had his poor hand blown off. (When asked why they called Hogan ‘Sir Billy,’ Timmy replied, ‘Sure, he looked like a Sir?). It was there in Ronnie’s field (latter opposite the present CBS Primary School) that the two little Care brothers were drowned; weren’t they trying to skate on the ice in the old quarry that was there then.

Church Lane Remembered:

I still remember the auld grandfather with his shaggy beard and paralysed arm; he was a man for all seasons. He was born in Graguenageenah back in 1830, but wasn’t baptised until three years later in St. Mary’s in Killenaule; don’t I have his Baptismal Lines.

The grandfather in his early years was a ‘hedge-school-master’ up near Ballingarry before he came to town as a clerk to Maurice Poor (Power). Power’s shop and pub was where Quinnsworth is today (Today Tesco). Later the grandfather became a bailiff of the court and was responsible for serving writs and summonses. He always implied that he was a Nationalist ‘plant’. You see, when he’d get the summonses to serve, he’d have time to give advance notice to the people being summonsed and in that way, they could quickly remove all stock or valuables before they could be distrained or impounded. It proved quite profitable as well. He got a pound for the early warning and seven and six (7s – 6p) for serving the summons!

But the auld grandfather had many irons in the fire. Did you know that he operated a poitin still right there in the lane, in the back bedroom.
Because you needed running water to distil whiskey, he dug a well in the bedroom and the father used to work the pump for him. In fact the father had another important job as well, he had to act as taster to ensure the brew was mature and potable. Didn’t he take his job so seriously that after one tasting session he was unconscious for six days. Faith you’d be surprised who the auld grandfathers customers were. They were never caught, though the street was patrolled regularly by the R.I.C.

It was up the lane that the Protestant gentry would come every Sunday to attend services. I can still remember the Chaises and Landaus swaying up along the lane … the Morgans of Crossogue, the Langleys, the Knoxes … I remember auld Bill Bannon drove the Knox family to services …the mother – elegant in her finery, the two sons facing her in the carriage and the liveried footman on the back. In them days the only car seen in the lane was auld Canon Wilson’s. That new-fangled contraption always had a motley gang of ragged kids, chasing after it.

Ah, you wouldn’t remember the time of the Great Flu’… Wasn’t I in bed myself with it but I’d creep to the window and look out every time a funeral procession would come up the lane. Sick as I was, didn’t I count nine funerals in one day!
Sometimes the coffins would be left inside the gate and my father and grandfather would bury them after work. . . for that alone the two of them deserve a place in Heaven.
The priests and ministers in the funeral processions would wear white linen around their tall top hats and another broad white sash across their shoulders. After the burials it was the custom for them to give the linen sashes to the poor attending, to make little items of clothing for themselves or their children.

Sure, they were the hardest of times … and don’t I remember going around the town myself collecting pennies to buy breastplates and ornaments for the coffins of many’s the poor soul. We used to varnish the crude ‘Workhouse’ coffin and then mount the newly purchased brass fittings ourselves. Ah, ’twas sad and I could tell you a lot about them hard times.

But the lane wasn’t all doom and gloom. We had our characters. Apart from the auld grandfather, the most colourful was ‘Jack the Webb’. A grand auld fellow when he was sober, but God help the lane when he had drink taken.

Ours was a very unusual lane. At one end we had James Sayers who rang the bells for the Cathedral and at the other we had Sam Whittaker who rang the bells for the Protestant Church. In the middle of the lane lived a shoemaker named Paddy Ryan who was nicknamed ‘The Angel’. Well anyway, when the Webb would be coming home after his drinking bouts… it was his changeless habit to pause unsteadily outside each house door in the lane and berate the unfortunate inhabitants … nothing was safe or sacred from Jack the Webb’s sharp tongue… not even Dooley’s auld horse. Finally, exhausted from his imprecations on man and animal, he’d look to the unsteady heavens and enlist the help of the Almighty; “O Lord, take me out of this den of iniquity with its bell ringers above and its bell ringers below and its angels in the middle”.

Jack’s brother and sister-in-law were two other very unique characters who shared the lovely sobriquet (Nickname), ‘Toot ‘n Nan’ , but I wouldn’t like to say how they got that name. Did you know that we had a family in the lane who claimed to be related to the wife of President Harry Truman, President of the United States? They were the Eades.

The lane, like all of us, is now quiet a sad relic of grander days and precious memories. You can still peek through the rotten door of Dooley’s dilapidated auld house and see his once grand jarvey car, now mouldering away. Me own yard is cluttered with memorabilia of forgotten trades, guarded now by an arthritic auld dog named ‘Dooley’.

Around Thurles Town:

‘Twas a kind of romantic place then with its soft dim gaslights and the glow of oil lamps in the shops and pubs around the streets. I could tell you where every gaslight standard stood … Molloy’s corner, the Bank corner, outside Hayes’ Hotel, at each end of the Suir Bridge, outside the Presbytery, at the end of our own lane … Aye, and the water pumps, the ‘Judies’ as they were called. I remember where they all were. Isn’t there one of them still left at the Stannix Home (Widow’s Home). Don’t I remember one evening — with not another vehicle in sight — seeing the ‘Black and Tans’ ramming their Crossley tender into the stone pedestal of the Judy that stood in the Square opposite Ryan’s Jeweller’s.

In my mind I can still see Jack Conners and Mickey ‘Coldbread’ as they made their rounds lighting up the town’s gaslights. Don’t you know, when the town got its own electricity, the bright bulbs only made the town look dingy and neglected, with its crooked railings, peeling paint and rough gravel streets.

I could name off all the shops, aye, and tell you a tale or two about some of them. Do you know that in one shop the ‘grocer’s curates’ (shop boys) had to whistle whenever they were sent to the back stores to bring up more supplies for the shop! This, of course, assured the owner that the help was not sampling the goodies in the back room. Then there was the inventive butcher who never bought anything but cattle that died on local farms. He had a workman whose sole job was to stand up by the slaughterhouse and holler out ‘How . . . How … How’ … so that the local townsfolk would think that live cattle were being driven in constantly for slaughter.

I can recall the day that ‘Sewerdy’ was dying of the thirst and he asked me to pawn his waistcoat in Flannagan’s. Didn’t I get one and six for it (1s-6p) and ‘Sewerdy’ gave me tuppence for meself.

Mixie Connell

In them days the social life centred around the auld Transport Hall (also
known as the Sinn Fein Hall, up in Mixie Connell’s Lane)
. I was in the band and why not? Didn’t I help found the present town band. Here we had dances three nights a week. You could get into the ‘workday hops’ for sixpence. It cost two shillings on Saturday nights when the dancing went on until all hours. There used to be plenty of ham and barmbracks (Currant Cakes) washed down with frothy pints from Mixie’s, [Mixie O’Connell’s pub Liberty Square, today Sos Beag Coffee shop, (Latter Translated from the Irish – Little Break)].

These weekend dances went on until the time to go to First Mass on Sunday morning, where few of us could stay awake through those long sermons. The auld floor boards used to shake to the stomping of hobnailed boots; the women’s feet rarely touched the boards. I’m telling you there was energy spent up that lane …Jackie Burke, Jamesie Cahill, Jimmy Dooley, McCowan, Jack Brown, Arthur Fagan, Maggie (‘Mixie’) and Kitty, her sister, the Kinnanes. On the bandstand were the four Fitzgeralds, the Graydons, Billy Maher, Johnny ‘John’ Ryan, Jack Ryan Gollagher, Timmy Finn, Tom Loughnane, John Mulcaire, Paddy Rafferty, Willie Ryan and God knows who else.

I remember we were in the middle of a great night when Archbishop Fennelly died. That poor saintly man got little sympathy and sweet prayers when the dancing had to be abandoned as a mark of respect.

Will I tell you a good one about the band? Around this time a split developed in the band membership. You know Leo Spittle (God be good to him now) whose uncle was the Mayor of Kilkenny; well he got a lot of brass band instruments from there and with these a new band was formed. Didn’t they put all that shiny array of musical equipment on display in Shanahan’s window.

Ancient Order Of Forresters

Of course, those of us who wanted to keep the old band together were very upset by the formation of this rival band – me more than the rest. Anyway, I heard the members of the ‘new’ band plotting to march before the ‘Forresters’ on their way to Mass on St Patrick’s Day.
Since this was traditionally an honour reserved for the old band, I was determined to do something about it. So, one dark night, I upped and stole all the new band’s brassy instruments! Mind you I paid dearly for this little transgression sometime later. It seems that when I later applied for a Visa to go to the U.S.A. the local police didn’t give me a very good character reference and my application was turned down. Later, still I did get admitted to Canada though … but that’s another story.

Who were the ‘Forresters‘? They were a kind of benevolent society and Joe Pollard was the Chief Ranger. Others that I can remember were Mulcaire (the auld lad entirely), Tone Quinn, Bill Quinn, Ter Lawlor, Mattie Mack and Jim Doyle. They really cut a dash every St. Patrick’s Day as they stepped right out of history’s pages and marched proudly down to Mass. They wore military-like uniforms, green jackets, white pants, high boots, gold sashes and tall hats – trimmed with feathers… they looked like a whole platoon of Wolf Tone’s. To give them their due though, they weren’t all show; they helped many a poor soul in this town … and out of their own pockets at times!

Certainly there was other entertainment at that time. The earliest carnivals that I remember were down at the Presentation Convent grounds. I can still remember the time they strung a cable from the top of the Laundry chimney stack and ran it down the Convent field through a big cock of hay to the ground. The daring were invited to climb up and then swing down on a pulley to the ground. Wasn’t it there that poor ‘Leggy’ Maher earned his badge of courage and a lifelong gammy leg.
However, for us kids, it offered other more lucrative possibilities. You see the brave aerialists usually landed head over heels and the loose change in their pockets scattered all over the place. We’d grab what we could and run … kid’s eyes (possibly black and white striped hard boiled sweets), tanners (6 pence coin), an occasional bob (1 shilling coin)… but mostly coppers (1 Penny coin). I can still recall the excitement.

I got going to my first moving picture show back in 1917. The father took me to McGrath’s and to this day I can remember the name of the picture, ‘Coming through the Rye’. In that cinema Jackie Burke and the sister, Mona, provided the musical accompaniment.
The first film to come to Delahuntys, didn’t I hurl in the field where the cinema was built; was a real tear-jerker named ‘Orphans in the Storm’. ‘Twas booked-out solid for a whole week. You’d have to get down very early on Sunday nights if you wanted to get a seat. Joe Mack’s daughter – the one who later became a Nun – used to play the piano there.

Ah, back then, too, we’d look forward to the live productions of the Parnell Players. That was a talented lot, I can tell you …John Burke, the O’Brien brothers, Mrs. Carey and of course, Maudie Mooney.

It was around 1926 when over four hundred Welsh Miners descended on the town. It was during the great strike/lockout in England. They came over to raise funds to continue their struggle for decent conditions and a living wage. They would march in military formation all around the town and then give open-air concerts. Anyone with a spare room or bed put them up while they were here. We had a few nice Welshmen staying at our house.

Do you know I still have my first Library Card. It was up opposite Llandaff Lodge in Hayes’ Lane then; it cost me two bob (2s-0p) for a year. After the Great War (World War I) all the local discharged soldiers used to go up once a week to the Labour Exchange then located where Clancy’s Electrical shop is now.
The Exchange was run by Mahony and the daughter. I can still hear the old jingle that they used to sing on the way to collect their money:-

Up to Mahony’s and in to sign.
That’s where you’ll get your twenty nine
(29s-3p).
Inky, Pinky, Parlez Vous.

[The English WWI song “Mademoiselle from Armentières” bears the last line of the above . ‘Inky Pinky’ was a Scottish children’s name for parsnip and potato cakes, but it has been rightly suggested that it was also an onomatopoeic reference to the sound of rustling bed springs and therefore more likely to be a soldier’s offensively irreverent, obscene derivation.]

THE END

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Thurles Christmas Parking An Insult To Town Retailers.

Residents can read contents of this laughable, published and attached image themselves, composed first on November 24th, 2021.

Text of image left reads:

“Notice is hereby given that free parking is being made available to the public in the following town as follows: –

Thurles Town.

Free Parking for the first 30 minutes of every day for the month of December 2021.

[Then comes the real humour].
This initiative is designed to promote local trade and to encourage support for our local Traders, during the festive season.

Please shop local this Christmas.

We wish all our customers the compliments of the season.

Signed: Sharon Scully, (District Administrator Thurles).

This decision we must correctly assume was agreed NOT by Tipperary Co. Council, but by Thurles Municipal District Councillors controlled by Thurles Municipal District officialdom. We base this assumption on the information supplied on the Tipperary Co. Council’s own website, regarding other Tipperary Towns; Thurles as yet not included.

In Cashel: Free parking in all Public Car Parks each Saturday in December.
In Cahir: Free parking in all Public Car Parks each Saturday in December.
In Clonmel: Free Parking in Council owned car parks only.
In Carrick-on-Suir: Free Parking in Council owned car parks at William Street, New Street, Strand Lane and Greenside, on the following Saturdays, December 4th, 11th and 18th.
In Nenagh: From Saturday 11th to Sunday 26th December 2021, three hours free parking in carparks. Free parking continues to apply in the Railway Station Carpark, on a full-time basis.
In Mullingar, Co. Westmeath: Shoppers will be able to park for free in council car parks for six days in December. The days when free parking will apply are December 11th, 17th, 18th, 22nd, 23rd and 24th.
In Kilkenny City, Co. Kilkenny: From this morning Kilkenny County Council state that it is free to park at the Market Yard in the city from 9:00am to 12:00 noon, Mondays to Thursdays, for the next three weeks. There will also be no charge for vehicles that enter there after 6:00pm or at any time between December 25th and 28th. The carpark at County Hall will also be free every weekend in December: 5th/6th, 12th/13th, 19th/20th and 26th/27th as well as Monday 28th.

Of the above named Towns and City, where would you our readers shop, based on the info supplied?

Let’s Take A Look Now At Rules Imposed On Thurles Town Shoppers Christmas 2021.

But first, as part of sponsored content, the Tipperary Star Newspaper has announced via their publication, “The new installation of Christmas lights will be illuminated on the refurbished Liberty Square this Friday evening December 3rd at 5:00pm.”

“Sponsored Content”:
Same is material in any online publication which resembles the publication’s editorial content, but is in fact paid for by a hidden advertiser and intended to promote that advertiser’s product. In this case the paid-for PR material is totally untrue and totally inaccurate.

Work began on the refurbishment of Liberty Square with the opening of the proposed new car park to the rear of Jackie Griffin’s shop, back in May, 2018. The developers then moved unto Liberty Square itself in August 2020.

To date, December 2nd 2021, 16 months later, the first part of the refurbishment of Liberty Square is unlikely to be fully completed before Christmas, with part two of the project possibly not yet gone to tender and unlikely to be completed before next April 2022, or indeed later, resulting in this project likely to take some 4 years since it commenced; should it continue past May of 2022. Only the upper western end of Liberty Square and the eastern end have lighting. Lights in the centre, however, to use the lyrics sung by Danny Kay are “all together as naked as the day that it (he) was born”

So whoever wrote the paid-for sponsored content, for the Tipperary Star Newspaper, same unnamed individual is plainly a fabricator of visual truth.

With the introduction of car parking charges in the town, most of the smart businesses with household names, like Elvery’s, An Post, Heatons, Quigley’s etc, etc, etc, either left the town altogether, or moved to Thurles Shopping Centre, where parking is provided free of charge. Others just shut up shop. As we prophesied, Thurles town centre has now moved with some of its shops, reducing footfall in Liberty Square by 75%.

Since the developers moved unto Liberty Square in August 2020, people have further avoided Liberty Square, as employees of all the developers understandable took over early morning, available customer parking spaces, both on the street and in Ulster Bank car park and the new car park, latter affectionately known as “Checkpoint Charlie”.

Having grasped all of these development issues, together with Covid-19 shutdowns, readers would have thought that struggling retailers should have been given a real break this Christmas to entice back footfall.

Currently parking on lower Liberty Square, Thurles has been reduced by approximately 8 car parking spaces, same designated to 5 Taxi spaces and 3 spaces for any 1 delivery truck . A further 2 spaces have been correctly given over for disabled parking. Currently about 14 other legal parking spaces only, remain available tonight, due to refurbishment staff vehicles and their site office.

We are informed by our Traffic Warden and some Councillors that stationary vehicles are permitted 15 minutes of free parking every day of the year. Surely the extra 15 minutes now added on for Christmas shopping, shows a middle finger to both retailers and their customers, by our local administration.

  • Where now is the farmer’s friend Mr Jackie Cahill TD and the millionaire’s friend Mr Michael Lowry TD and his Lowry Team councillors?
  • Where also is Thurles Chamber of Commerce in all of this?

Answer to both these questions is nowhere.

Since Mr Michael Ryan’s retirement as Thurles administrator, back in April 2016, quality and dedicated administration in Thurles, has been sadly lacking.

We now invite Ms Sharon Scully, to don her overcoat, scarf, gloves, plus wellies and armed with a note pad and pencil to make notes; take a walk around Thurles town and introduce herself to the retailers. Note please, the empty shop buildings and the damaged sign posts.
Please come on a Friday morning, if possible, when stinking offal is being driven through the town centre, usually between 11:00am and 12:00 noon, forcing shops to close their doors because of the stink.
Note what pedestrian crossing lights are not working; where the grass is growing in our drains and on our pavements; visit Kickham Street and survey the river of water flowing down the roadway and the water filled potholes damaging people’s homes. The glass bottles and clothing falling from ‘Recycling Pods’ in various parking areas; the continuous destruction of our new town park; the graffiti; the raw sewage flowing into the river Suir, the litter bins unfit for purpose, etc, etc, etc.

Finally, in Tralee, Co Kerry: Parking will be free all day in Council-owned car parks in the town from November 29th 2021 to January 2nd next 2022.
Parking is subject to a maximum stay period of four hours in all Council car parks, except in Garvey’s car park (2 hours); St John’s/Abbey (2 hours); Tesco town centre (2 hours) and Parklands (2 hours), to ensure traffic flow.
Traffic wardens will continue to monitor and enforce illegal parking during this period.
Tralee traders on social media are protesting, stating # Tralee for next five weeks, “Don’t feed the Meters”.

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