Watergrasshill GAA followers had reason to celebrate in February 1997, following success of the novelty act group at the Cork county finals of Scor Sinsear, held in Connolly Hall. Their witty performance was brought to stage by Eilis Ni Laoire, Sean O Conaill, Tadhg O hAluithe, Delia Ni Riordain and Eleanor Ni Choilean. The group would perform in the Munster semi-finals in March 1997.
After a lapse of 5 years, Mitchelstown was set to re-enter the national Tidy Towns competition with a sub-committee of the community council – named Mitchelstown Image 2000 – formed to get the ball rolling. Council chairperson, Carole Bradley, told The Avondhu that the new group would be more than just a co-ordinating body for the Tidy Towns effort, who would ‘quite literally be looking to the next millennium”. Questionnaires would be distributed to households to best gauge how to improve the town environment. The group’s motto – “Working together for your environment”.
A vacant cottage situated at Farrahy, Kildorrery was all but destroyed when it was struck by an articulated lorry travelling from Mallow. The early morning collision occurred when the lorry ‘left the road at the bottom of a steep incline’, leaving a gaping hole in the cottage’s gable end. The driver was brought to Mallow hospital, but his injuries were ‘not thought to be of a serious nature’.
Despite announcements by Minister Brendan Howlin that phase III of the Fermoy Water Seheme was not on the Department of the Environment’s Water and Sewerage Services Capital Work Programme for 1997, Deputy Paul Bradford felt that the door was far from being closed on the matter. Still hopeful of a resolution in 1997, the Deputy said that he was ‘very hopeful of a positive result’.
As part of their public awareness campaign to promote the county’s progressive waste management strategy 20/20 Vision, Cork County Council and Cork Corporation ‘rowed in behind’ Oran O’Reilly’s futuristic folk/rock musical ‘A New Tomorrow’ which opened at Cork’s Everyman Palace Theatre in March 1997. The council hoped that the Fermoy songwriter’s production would ‘spark off a debate on the environment’ and viewed it as an opportune platform to distribute school groups attending with specially designed work packs on recycling, along with a video on waste management.
A deputation to the Mallow Area Roads Committee meeting in February 1997, introduced by Deputy Ned O’Keeffe, stated their vehement opposition to ‘an encampment of Travellers’ located nearby the Corbett Court Restaurant, on the main Fermoy-Mitchelstown road. Declan Corbett, proprietor of the business, indicated his premises was ‘highly unlikely’ to open in the immediate future, until he was given a ‘firm date by Cork County Council for the removal of the encampment’. Stating that he had complied with the ‘strict regulations’ Cork County Council had imposed on his business, including the payment of over £12,000 in fees, a few hundred yards away traders were ‘openly flouting the law’. The Council were to serve summonses on the people at the encampment and were seeking an injunction to remove those residing at the site in question.
Two gardai stationed at Fermoy’s Ashe Quay barracks were presented with the Comhairle na Mire Gaile medal for bravery at Cork City Hall by Lord Mayor, Alderman Jim Corr. Gardai Michael Costigan and Brendan Rouine were patrolling in Ballyduff in May 1994, when ‘they came upon a man sitting on the wall of Ballyduff bridge over the Blackwater.’ Hearing another person shouting and the splashing of water below, with the aid of their torches they spotted another person struggling in the water and as Garda Costigan kept his torch focussed on the individual in distress, Garda Rouine entered the river and rescued the drowning man. The Lord Mayor commented that only for their courageaus act, the man would have drowned.
Three personnel members with Farrell Motors, Fermoy – Peter Falvey, Michael Howard and Adrian O’Farrell – were placed 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the South region decider of Nissan’s International Service Technical Contest (NISTEC), qualifying for the All-Ireland finals.
