The €9 million plus rejuvenation of Liberty Square, Thurles is surely be welcomed. Improvements have been made both below ground and above ground, and most people will agree that the lighting fixtures and granite pavement choices for the square are aesthetically pleasing.
Nevertheless, the persistent presence of a maze of barricades, coupled with the disappearance of beloved trees and the apparent narrowing of the roadways, has prompted quite a lot of head scratching, eyebrow raising and questioning among locals of late.
With 4 traffic lanes reduced to 2, in Liberty SquareThurles ;[See HERE] how will ordinary street traffic pull out of the way, to avoid emergency vehicles, latter responding to any emergency incident. e.g. Ambulance / Doctor / Fire Brigade services? Pic: G. Willoughby
Here are just some of the questions being asked by our readers and Thurles residents.
(1) When will the rejuvenation project actually finish? Rumours abound, but at best it is estimated to be possibly March/April 2022 and at worst it could be July/August 2022.
(2) As the pedestrian areas on Liberty Square expand and increase while road space decreases, will there actually be sufficient space for ordinary traffic to pull over to avoid emergency vehicles, e.g. ambulances and fire engines, latter responding to emergency incidents, not to mention the ability of 20 wheeler delivery trucks, to pass, travelling in different directions? [See picture above.]
(3) If plans are being aimed to deter traffic and attract pedestrians, what impact will this have on our surrounding streets and roads?
(4) Having removed our healthy trees in an act of what can only be described as sheer savagery, are there any plans to replant same?
(5) We have beautiful pavements and an abundance of pedestrian space, but what is going to be done to get foot fall on these footpaths?
(6) What plans are in place to support and stimulate the Liberty Square economy?
Finding the answers to these questions is proving difficult based on current plans.
Although limited consultations have taken place with local residents, business owners and other interested parties, same appear to be little more than token in nature with none of the submissions by residents being implemented.
Indeed, it would appear that a final version of the plan for Liberty Square’s rejuvenation has yet to be released to the public. Some locals worry that the absence of a final plan and completion date may be indicative of inadequate planning. As the saying goes “fail to plan and you plan to fail”. Let’s hope that this isn’t the case.
Two more, very healthy, mature trees on the sunny side, east on Liberty Square, Thurles, alas, have been removed courtesy of an unforgiving chainsaw massacre.
“They took all the trees, and put em in a tree museum And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them No, no, no Don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.” Extract from song ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ (Lyrics by singer Joni Mitchell).
Same were 7 year old trees initially, when sown by myself and 4 others, all members of a Thurles Tidy Towns committee, back in 1988, giving them an age of just 40 years.
On the day we sowed them some 5 members of Thurles Chamber of Commerce, came along to protest, claiming that their window displays could no longer be observed by the general public.
These trees had been subjected to having gravel and resin replaced at their base late last year, which in turn left people with the hope they would be retained. More money, again wasted, but rate payers have very deep pockets for such dainty projects.
While promising to return trees to the now, new look, upgrading of Liberty Square, one wonders why no unpaved areas are being left to accommodate new replacement trees. Then again, maybe same are to be planted where the old street ESB standards are waiting to be removed. Who knows? As many will attest, there has been only a token public consultation with residents within the town; with local unqualified councillors calling the shots.
Temporary Road Closure on the R-660 Abbey Road, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.
Temporary Road Closure on the R-660 Abbey Road, Thurles, Co. Tipperary are expected from 07:00am on next Monday July 12th 2021, to 7:00pm on Friday August 20th 2021. This temporary unexpected closure, [the second this year] will be in place to facilitate road resurfacing and safety improvement works to the Abbey Road Roundabout, opposite Lidl Supermarket E41 N520. Traffic Management will be in place and major delays are to be expected.
Traffic Lights
Meanwhile, the newly erected perplex of traffic lights at the junction of Clongour Road and Slievenamon road, Thurles, will come into operation, (that is according to Tipperary County Council) on the morning of Tuesday July 13th next. (No local politician, armed with a scissors, has as yet volunteered to officially cut any ribbon). One wonders how long 12 wheeler trucks will delay traffic, as they wait to get around the junction leading south unto Clongour Road west, when forced to cross into oncoming lanes to avoid one traffic light column, latter erected unnecessarily too close to the corner on the Clongour Road section. (See left side of picture above).
Lidl Supermarket. The new Lidl Supermarket retail outlet, (also pictured in the background above), at the junction of Clongour Road and Slievenamon road, Thurles will open on Thursday July 15th next. We wish them well in their future endeavours, as a new town centre for Thurles sadly materialises, reducing the former status of Liberty Square, all courtesy of Tipperary Co. Council’s parking charges, sanctioned by Thurles elected officialdom.
A reminder that the bi-weekly Holycross Village Market is taking place tomorrow, Saturday June 26th, from 1:00pm to 3:00pm.
Fresh produce at keenest prices
Do attend early to be certain of enjoying their artisan bakes, hot foods, arts and crafts, fresh meats, fruit and vegetables, hair braiding, face painting and much, much, much more.
Showcasing at the market this week is “Purple Cloud Lavender” as seen on Nationwide last Friday (June 18th). This is a must for bee keepers and more.
Padre Pio residents are also joining them this week along with more new vendors and products.
Their pre-order system is up and running and a reminder to anyone who cannot visit the market, all vendors are more than happy to arrange collection or deliveryof their products as necessary.
Lucinda O’Sullivan of the Sunday Independent gave the Holycross Market a lovely mention in a recent article, so do go along and see what exactly she was complimenting.
Remember, there is ample parking behind the Abbey church, so do please avail of it and enjoy the beauty that Holycross hamlet has to offer.
Tipperary born Tom Clarke first signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.
The Protestant Church of St. Paul In Clogheen Co. Tipperary, has today been reduced, like so many Protestant Churches in Ireland, to the status of a Community Centre.
According to a plaque over the doorway in the porch; the former Church dates back to 1846, the first full year of the Great Famine (1845-1849) and was closed officially in 1976.
Architect William Tinsley: William Tinsley served as a juryman in the William Smith O’Brien trial, held in Clonmel in 1848. O’Brien, then leader of the ‘Young Irelanders’ had been arrested at Thurles Railway Station, and following his trial was convicted of sedition for his part in the “Ballingarry (South Riding) Uprising“ near Thurles, [“Battle of Widow McCormack’s Cabbage Patch”] in that same year. Although an independently wealthy property owner in Clonmel, it is thought that his known association with the William Smith O’Brien trial as a Juryman, together with Great Famine conditions, may have contributed to a decline in Tinsley’s business. Same is understood to have resulted in his decision, in 1851, to emigrate to Cincinnati, Ohio, US, with his second wife Lucy and their nine children. His first wife, Ellen MacCarthy, had died of tuberculosis after just two years of marriage. He then had married her cousin Lucy MacCarthy, latter who died in 1857 in Indianapolis, Indiana. His third marriage, to Mary Eliza Nixon, ended in estrangement. In total he had fathered seventeen children by his three wives. Following his death in 1885, he was interred at Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana, US.
A short distance from the Church, Tom Clarke, [Tomás Séamus Ó Cléirigh], was born on March 11th 1857 in Main Street Clogheen, Co Tipperary, the son of Irish Catholic servant girl Mary Palmer and Irish Protestant British Army Sergeant James Clarke. Two months later the couple married in this same St. Paul’s (C of I) Church, at Lower Main Street, Clogheen Market, Clogheen, South Co. Tipperary, (Picture hereunder). Over the next 12 years together Mary and James would add two girls and one other boy to their family unit.
In 1865, after spending some years in South Africa, his father Sgt. Clarke was transferred to the Ulster town of Dungannon, County Tyrone, Ireland, and it was here that Tom spent his formative years, bonding strongly with both his parents and siblings.
Former Protestant Famine Church of Saint Paul, Lower Main Street, Clogheen Market, Clogheen, South Co. Tipperary. Photographer: G. Willoughby.
Highly intelligent; whose hero was Theobald Wolfe Tone, latter a leading protestant Irish revolutionary figure and founder members of the republican society known as the United Irishmen, Tom Clarke went on to became an assistant teacher at a local school, while developing a passion for politics.
Rejecting only his father’s British Army uniform; Tom Clarke was constantly warned by his father James, that defying the might of the Great British Empire, was completely futile. However, being naturally rebellious and sympathetic of the rough treatment issued out to Dutch, German, and Huguenot settlers (Boers) in South Africa, Tom had come to regard the British Army stationed in South Africa as ‘an imperial garrison of oppression’ since the area came into their possession in 1806, as a result of the Napoleonic wars.
For centuries the Irish town of Dungannon had been a den of bitter religious hatred and political antagonisms between Catholics and Protestants. In 1878 Tom heard a speech by the national organiser of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) John Daly and a short time later, at the age of 21years he joined the organisation, having come to the realisation that his future must involve attempts aimed at the destruction of every vestige of British authority within Ireland.
By 1880, he had risen to be head of his local Irish Republican Brotherhood group. It was at this time that an RIC officer had shot and killed a man during riots between the Orange Order, latter a Protestant fraternal order and the Ancient Order of Hibernians, latter a Roman Catholic organisation. A revenge attack by Clarke and his followers on the RIC in Irish Street, Dungannon failed; forcing Clarke, who now feared arrest, to flee to New York, where he soon joined Clan na Gael, the then leading republican organisation in America. Eager to strike at the very heart of the British Empire, he volunteered to join the Fenian dynamite campaign (carried out in Englandbetween the years 1881 and 1885). This campaign had been advocated by Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, one of the IRB leaders, also then exiled in the United States.
In 1883, using the alias “Henry Wilson“, Clarke was sent to London. However, aided by paid informants, British authorities were already on the heels of those involved. Clarke was arrested while found to be in possession of dynamite, as were three of his associates. He was sent for trial at London’s Old Bailey, before being sentenced to penal servitude for life, on May, 28th 1883.
He would serve 15 years in prisons Pentonville, (Islington, Central London), Chatham, (St. Mary’s Island Kent) and Isle of Portland prison, (Dorset) before his release in 1898. Following years of invasive body searches, systematic sleep deprivation and constant isolation, his hatred of the British establishment made him even more determined to continue in his efforts to overthrow British rule in Ireland.
Released and now 41-years-old, he moved to Brooklyn in the United States, where he would be later be joined by the very lovely Kathleen Daly; the 20-year-old fiercely republican niece of his aforementioned mentor and prison comrade John Daly. Despite their age difference they were subsequent married on July 16th 1901, in New York City.
Kathleen Clarke, (née Daly)
Kathleen Clarke(née Daly) would become a founder member of Cumann na mBan in 1914 and later subsequently a Teachta Dála(TD) and Senator with both Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil, and would become the first female Lord Mayor of Dublin(1939–41).
In late 1902 Kildare born John Devoy the then leader of Clan na Gael, conscience of Clarke’s organising ability, appointed him the editor of his weekly newspaper “The Gaelic American”, which documented the struggles of Irish Americans and was published in the United States from 1903 to 1951.
John Devoy was one of the few people to have played a role in the Fenian Rising of 1867, the Easter Rising of 1916 and the Irish War of Independence of 1919–1921, and had orchestrated the escape of IRB founder and Kilkenny born James Stephens from Richmond Prison in Dublin. Following his death in 1928 The Times of London newspaper described Devoy as, “the most bitter and persistent, as well as the most dangerous, enemy of this country which Ireland has produced since Wolfe Tone”.
Tom proved to be a talented journalist and his anti-British propaganda soon attracted 30,000 readers across America. Under the intensive instruction of John Devoy, Clarke learned the valuable techniques on how to manage a revolutionary organisation; how to manipulate people and when to exercise power.
Tom Clarke returned to Ireland in November 1907, opening a small newspaper, stationers and tobacconist shop at No 55 Amien Street, Dublin. Within the next 5 years he had successfully rid the IRB of its entrenched older individuals which formerly made up what Clarke saw as a failed supreme Council and had befriended Sean MacDermott, a younger man who shared his love of conspiracy and revolutionary ideals.
Tom Clarke pictured standing outside his shop at No 55 Amien Street, Dublin.
With the start of the first World War in August 1914, Clarke and MacDermott both saw their opportunity and established a military council made up of Patrick Pearse, Joseph Plunkett and Eamonn Ceannt to secretly devise plans for a rising, supervised by Clarke himself and MacDermott. In January 1916 Clarke forged an alliance with James Connolly, informing him of most of his Military Council’s plans.
The agreement by Germany to supply a shipment of arms for a rising on Sunday, April 23rd, 1916, seemed to place everything in position. However, as we now know, Volunteer President Eoin MacNeill countermanded the parades that were to precede the uprising. Clarke’s Military Council however decided to proceed on Easter Monday in the hope that the nation would respond. There would be no real response.
The Easter 1916 Rising began on Easter Monday, April 24th 1916 and lasted for six days, ending on April 29th, 1916.
Of the 485 people killed, 260 of these were civilians, 143 were British military and RIC personnel. Irish rebels deaths made up 82 in total, including 16 rebels executed for their roles in the Rising. More than 2,600 individuals were wounded, with many of the civilians either killed or wounded by British artillery fire mistaken for rebels or caught in the crossfire during firefights between the British and the rebels.
Tom Clarke’s court martial on Tuesday May 2nd lasted approximately 15 minutes. He made no statement, called no witnesses and only entered a plea of not guilty, so as to deny being a German agent.
Found guilty and sentenced to death, early the next day he was brought with Pearse and MacDonagh to Kilmainham Gaol. In the morning he was allowed a final farewell visit from his wife.
Shortly before 3:00am he entered the stone-breakers’ yard and after vainly offering to forego a blindfold, he was executed by a 12-man firing squad as was Pearse and MacDonagh; all in quick succession.
A horse-drawn ambulance was used to carry the three corpses of the executed men to Arbour Hill for interment in unmarked graves in the exercise yard of the military prison, behind what we today know as Collins Barracks. The buildings now house the National Museum of Ireland (Decorative Arts and History).
A request by his wife and three sons to have Tom’s body taken for interment to a family plot, was rejected by Colonial Governor, General Sir John Grenfell Maxwell, latter who had played a key part in the response to the 1916 Irish Easter Rising, including the ordering of the execution of all leaders of the rising.
Parks in Thurles, Co. Tipperary, worse than littered scenes in St. Stephen’s Green, Temple Bar and South William Street last Saturday.
Sadly the pictures hereunder were taken on Friday evening last, as the 3 day June Bank holiday weekend got underway.
Same is further proof that well paid, Thurles officials and line management within the organisation, headed by Tipperary County Council Chief Executive Mr Joe MacGrath, are sadly failing in their commitment and responsibilities, with regards to the people of Thurles town and its environs.
Picture demonstrates the inability of well paid Thurles Council officials to do their job.
As can be seen above, Clothing Pods and Bottle Pods are full to capacity, resulting in individuals leaving clothing & bottles strewn across Parnell Car-park and Thurles Town Park.
The signs on the front of the clothing Pod containers claim to be ‘Sewing the seeds of sustainability’.
The word sustainable of course is a composition of two words ‘sustain’ and ‘able’ and is defined as the processes and actions through which humans avoid the overexploitation and depletion of natural resources. No evidence of sustainability being practised here.
The sign on the front of the bottle Pod containers, however state a different message,“Look Littering is an offence. Do not leave boxes or bags full or empty. Covert CCTV will capture offenders”.
Who is responsible for this continuous failure? Where is the Thurles or covert CCTV cameras ? Who will be prosecuted?
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