Yesteryears: Clonmel barricade manned around the clock by angry residents

We take a big leap back this week for our YESTERYEARS feature, back 40 years to our edition dated July 23, 1983.

The erection of a barricade isn’t a topic we come across too often in local news stories but that week on the front page The Nationalist carried a story relating to a protest of residents in one Clonmel town centre street. A barricade made up of old furniture, wooden planks and the like, which was being manned continually around the clock, halted the flow of traffic at the access passage beside College Avenue in Clonmel. The local residents were in opposition to what they described as the disturbance and danger posed by the heavy volume of vehicles which passed there.
The determined residents, despite the abuse being hurled at their children by irate and frustrated drivers , said they would continue this form of protest until the passageway is restored to its former function as a private track for the residents of the street.
Mrs Mary Grogan, spokesperson for the group, compared the access passage to Mondello Park, and added “it’s like living in the dual carriageway. Mrs Grogan also said that the old folks in the nearby block were now afraid to come across to ask the children to go for messages for them.
Mr Donal Connolly, acting county manager, agreed to suspend all works at the request of the Mayor, Cllr. Ted Boyle, pending discussion of the issue at a special meeting.

In Cashel that week the locals were awaiting with deep interest a decision from the National Museum to the request made by TJ Maher, MEP, to have the Derrynaflan Chalice put on permanent exhibition in Cormac’s Chapel or the then recently restored Vicar’s Choral on the Rock. When asked about the security problems it would create to protect such treasures, Mr Maher said that such a problem would be a bonus to Cashel with over 600 people unemployed.

From Tipperary Court that week came a stern message from Justice O’Connell who wanted to make it clear to a 27-year-old before him and others contemplating similar offences that the penalty for bag snatching from elderly people was a sentence of imprisonment. Before him was a Cappamore man whom he sentenced to six months for robbing a handbag from a 73-year-old lady at Bank Place, Tipperary. He pleaded guilty to robbing Alice Tobin of a bag valued £5, a bank book, a purse valued £5, cash amounting to £15.38 and a stamp. Supt. M. Concannon prosecuted.