A ‘hastily convened’ public meeting in Tallow in August 1996 saw a large crowd congregate to send a clear message that they would not stand for any downgrading of the town’s Garda station. This followed the news of the imminent ‘transfer of a Tallow based Garda to Dungarvan’, a Garda stationed in Tallow for 13 years, for which no replacement had been announced.
It was decided to engage in a high level meeting with the superintendent and chief superintendent for the area, before the transfer became effective, in an effort to ‘fight tooth and nail’ to maintain the Garda presence in the West Waterford town.
A novel fundraiser was being organised in Fermoy, with event organisers looking for gents to ‘strutt their stuff’ – all in aid of Mitchelstown Lions Club and Nuala’s Animal Rescue Home, Fermoy. The only stipulation in the ‘Lovely Legs Competition’ was that male participants bare their legs, so if they wished to hide their face and come in fancy dress, organisers didn’t mind! Any wives who though their man had ‘a fantastic set of pins’ was encouraged to enter them for a modest £10 fee.
The gates of UCC awaited 71 year old Jim Kennedy from Fermoy, who successfully completed his Leaving Certificate exams in 1996, having enrolled on a course for mature students at the College of Commerce in Cork. The septuagenarian awaited with baited breath the CAO college placements and was successful in securing his first choice of Arts. Jim never managed to complete his Leaving Certificate as a youngster and undertook five subjects at Leaving Cert standard ‘to prove to himself that he was capable of doing it’. A busy man, Jim was preparing to compete in the All-Ireland over 60s handball championship final.
With finance low on the ground for Clogheen Tidy Towns, two local athletes were in training to take on Cork City Marathon in 1996, to raise funds to purchase ‘a number of waste paper bins for the village’. Myles McHugh and Ned O’Brien, members of Clonmel AC, were putting in the miles in preparation for the gruelling event.
In an effort to bring some semblance of normality back to the flow of traffic in Mitchelstown, August 1996 saw the reintroduction of parking fines, with the bye-laws having previously been suspended while the town’s new water/sewerage system was being installed. It was reported on a front page article that month, that ‘while the observance of parking laws in Mitchelstown has never been good, the situation last Thursday saw the blatant disregard by motorists reach diabolical proportions’. The ‘traffic chaos’ in the town was primarily being linked to the ‘flagrant disrespect shown by motorists for the rules of the road’, with many people ‘simply abandoning their vehicles’. It was reported that at one stage, ‘cars were backed up at Coolenave, close on half a mile on the Dublin side of Cahir Hill’. The new on the spot fines would set offending motorists back £15 per offence.
An old tar wagon owned by Cork County Council was revamped and refurbished, to provide a home for the new tourist office in Fermoy. Parked up at the town park gates, the ‘very distinctive looking vehicle’ was offered to Avondhu Tourism who, through FAS, undertook an extensive restoration, thus offering a mobile tourism unit for the town. Arthur Wilson was foreman on the FAS project, along with his team of Joe Carey, Richard Foley, James McCarthy, Bert Henley and Tony Baker.
In brief – Ballylanders Pattern Festival Queen for 1996 was announced as Melissa Moore, Glenbrohane. Town Commissioner for Lismore, Dick Canning, was pushing for an indoor heated swimming pool for his constituents, with a large portion of his summer holidays reportedly spent looking into the feasibility of building such a facility in Lismore. Nedser Quirke decisively won the chairman’s prize at Fermoy Pitch & Putt club, on a score of 80 nett.
Bride Rovers junior football team won promotion to division one of the East Cork Football League in August 1996, with a game to spare in their group. Defeat of Ballinacurra on a final scoreline of 3-9 to 1-9 assured promotion, the club having been ‘pipped’ the previous year. Playing against a near gaelforce wind, Rovers led at the short whistle 2-5 to 1-4, the goals from Padraig Murphy and Anthony Cahill. Dominating the second period and goaling again through Jerome O’Driscoll, promotion was secured.
