Bird strike responsible for Christmas day power outage in Tullamore

THE ESB say a bird strike was responsible for a major power cut which affected 4,400 customers in Tullamore on Christmas Day. A spokesperson said that the birds struck a line feeding an area of the town.

Many people would have been in the middle of cooking the Christmas dinner when the outage occurred.

In the Church of the Assumption in Tullamore, the 11.30am Mass was affected and the priests of the parish had to improvise using candles for the readings. Meanwhile they had to borrow a battery operated microphone.

A spokesperson for the ESB said crews mobilised immediately and supply was restored to all customers just after midday.

Meanwhile there will be a planned outage in Tullamore on Thursday January 18. The ESB say this is to ''support the future installation of broadband infrastructure in Tullamore and surrounding parts. This will affect customers in areas including Marian Place and O'Molloy Street.''

There are also planned outages scheduled for Monday, January 15 and Tuesday, 16 as part of the same project, which will affect customers in areas such as Charleville Road and Kilcruttin.

All customers impacted by planned outages will be notified in advance via post.

ESB Networks say they apologise for the inconvenience caused.