Photography Courtesy Canon Stephen Neill
A truck, carrying potentially dangerous explosive materials, has crashed into a shopfront in the village of Moneygall,Co Offaly, latter to which US President Barack Obama is expected to visit at the end of next month, just a few hundred metres from the Tipperary County Border.
Shop owners, the Donovan family, who also own the ancestral home of President Barack Obama, were thankfully uninjured in the accident. The buildings shop window was smashed in the incident and a number of bricks were pushed in, but the damage is not thought to be in anyway structurally serious.
The street is now open to traffic and the offending truck has been towed away.
The crash vehicle, which contained industrial explosives, struck the front of Donovan’s shop, in Moneygall village at around 7.30am this morning. Local Fire service personnel were called at 7.42am and arrived on the scene within minutes, having called in two fire tenders from Roscrea, one from Cloughjordan and a water tanker from Nenagh. The fire brigade services confirmed that the truck was being used to transport explosive materials, however the contents had been made safe for transit and the detonators were being carried separately from the accompanying liquid elements.
Rev. Canon Stephen Neill, who came upon the scene early this morning, is also Rector of the local Anglican church, where President Barack Obama’s great-great-great grandfather was baptised. Indeed it was his research which uncovered records confirming the Obama’s roots in the area.
Leave a Reply