Footpaths needed at Termonfeckin bend
There has been an urgent call by residents of Termonfeckin village for footpaths and traffic calming measures before someone is seriously injured or killed.
Residents of houses and estates on the road as you leave the village for Clogherhead say they are the forgotten section of Termonfeckin, with a blind bend with no signage and no footpaths for anyone needing the shops or schools.
“I am 50 years living here and I have never seen the speeding along this section of road worse,” says Mark Brannigan. “The 50km signs as you enter the village from the Clogherhead direction seem to be an incitement to speed up, because when they come to it, they put the foot down to get into the village.
“It’s totally ignored, and there needs to be slow down signs at the very least.”
Local Patricia Duffy says children in the area can’t walk or cycle to the shops, as it is so dangerous.
“Any kind of traffic calming would make a difference,” she says. ‘ Even those strips on the road they put on the road they put at Beaulieu, or the work they did at the Monasterboice Inn would be better than nothing, and it took a young person to die at both those places before anything was done. Are they waiting for that to happen here too?”
Another resident says the traffic situation as the other end of the village suffers too because of lack of safety measures.
“It’s bad enough in the summer when kids want to be out on their bikes, or walk to their friends’ houses,” explain Pauline Hynes in the Paddocks, “but when school is back, we’d love if they could walk to school, but with no footpath, lights or signs, it’s just too dangerous, and with so many houses having been built, the traffic is now terrible at the schools at peak times.” Matthew Maguire lives in Seaview and agrees. “It is a very blind bend into the village, and if you are pushing a buggy to the shops, walking against the traffic, you have to take your life in your hands and cross the road,” he adds.
Local councillor Michelle Hall also lives in The Paddocks and says she will continue to lobby the council for better footpaths and traffic calming measures for the village.