WATCH: Should the Fair Green be saved? A blast from 1967 from a large Tipperary town

The fair green in Carrick-on-Suir had been used for playing games, circus performances, carnivals, and selling cattle. The green was an open space that was as much a part of the Tipperary town as any landmark and meant a lot to local people.

The fair green had been a recreational area for the people of Carrick-on-Suir for generations.

The fair green consisted of five acres located between houses and schools. The land had been given to the people of the town as a gift from Lord Ormond a few hundred years earlier. Under a new open spaces act which had come into operation that year, the land was owned by the Urban Council. The Urban Council had put a price of £5,000 an acre on the land and had recently offered two acres of the green to the nuns of the Presentation Order on which to build a school. Most local people did not want anything to be built on the land. Many believed that any plans the nuns had for a school building should have been within the context of land they already owned.

I was born and bred there on the outskirts of the green, and the green had always been there for circuses, carnivals, and all kinds of sports that came to the town.

The secretary of the local Swimming Pool Committee said that it had acquired a site of about half an acre on the northeast corner of the green on which to build a swimming pool.

A public meeting in the town hall had been held to address issues raised by local people over the sale of part of the green. Only four out of nine councillors had been present at the meeting. Almost one thousand signatures had been gathered in a Save Our Green campaign, and a Green Preservation Society had been formed. The society rejected the idea of letting any of the green go and wanted the green retained as it was. Jim Drohan, the secretary of the Green Preservation Society, said that the council had promised part of the land against public opinion.

People did not want any buildings on the green.

Councillor David Drohan, father of Jim Drohan, defended the council's decision, saying that the area needed a school. He acknowledged that the green belonged to the people but said it had not been fully utilised.

This episode of 'Newsbeat' had been broadcast on 8 November 1967. The reporter was Bill O'Herlihy.