A look back at what happened in June in Louth
Independents' day as local council seats are decided
4th June
In June, residents in Quay Street and Barrack Street told the Democrat that they had been left feeling intimidated in their own homes, due to an upsurge in antisocial behaviour over the last few years, with one resident describing the area as like
“Cowboys and Indians” over the May bank holiday weekend.
Locals have become increasingly concerned with groups loitering on street corners, raucous behaviour and verbal disputes, rampant littering and suspected drug taking.
There is particular concern with antisocial behaviour off Peter Street and the Peter Street Lane area at the back of Halliday Mills apartment complex
“It’s not every weekend, but the [May] bank holiday weekend it was horrendous,” said one resident.
“On the Friday night, the fire brigade had to come down twice to put out two fires. A couple of weeks before that, there was a party that started at 10:35 and it went on 'til 3 o’clock in the morning and the roars and the screams of them was something serious.”
****
11th June
After a marathon count at County Hall in Dundalk, all 29 seats in Louth County Council were finally filled with the final result declared at 7.30am on Day 3 of the count.
Fianna Fáil's Seán Kelly and Sinn Féin's Antóin Watters were both declared elected after the first count in Dundalk-Carlingford.
It wasn't until Sunday afternoon when the next Dundalk councillor was elected - Independent candidate Maeve Yore, who topped the poll in Dundalk South for a second time running, with a whopping 2,150 first preference votes, leaving her with a surplus of 637 votes.
It wasn't until late on Sunday night when the first candidate was elected to the Ardee Local Electoral Area (LEA).
While Fine Gael's Paula Butterley topped the poll in Ardee after the first count, with 1,162 votes, it wasn't until the ninth count that the quota of 1,390 votes was met by Independent candidate Jim Tenanty, who was then elected.
One of the big surprises of the 2024 local election in the northern half of the Wee County, was the election of Independent candidate Ciarán Fisher to Dundalk-Carlingford, at the ultimate expense of sitting councillor, Conor Keelan
In Ardee LEA, all six candidates from the last council term held onto their seats.
18th June
Dundalk Tidy Towns has said that illegal dumping in the town “not only detracts from the natural beauty of our town, but poses significant health and environmental risks”, following the discovery of an illegal dumping ground at Aisling Park, and said that “it is disheartening to see that some members of our community continue to engage in such irresponsible behaviour, seemingly without fear of consequence”.
25th June
There was finally some good news for Dundalk in the latest Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) survey with the town ranking 30th out of 40 towns and cities surveyed, moving up by nine places when compared with the last survey result in January.
The survey said Dundalk had gone from ‘littered’ to ‘Moderately Littered’ with judges remarking, “there was significant improvement on view in Dundalk, with five top ranking sites and two sites just shy of same.”
Clanbrassil Street was described as “very well presented with attractive paving and streetscape”.
Other top ranking sites included some of the approach roads and the clothing bring centre at Castletown Road.
It was the presence of three heavily littered sites which brought down the overall Dundalk ranking.
The heavily littered sites marked as needing more attention were the public park at Maxwell Row, Castletown River Bridge and the car park at Cost Savers Storage / Service Area, with the survey noting “they all present poorly.”