Hurling ho oli gans do £650 damage to bus

July 1984

A Wexford bus operator was this week counting the cost of taking ‘a crowd of absolute hooligans’ to the Leinster Final in Croke Park on Sunday.

The man estimates that the trip which should have yielded a profit actually cost him £650 in malicious damage and lost business.

The trouble started, he said, when a booking was made in the name of a popular pub in the town to take a group of supporters to the match.

‘But the group that turned up to be picked up there were not customers of the pub at all. Some of them I would describe as probably the biggest undesirables in the town,’ the man said.

On the return journey, between Arklow and Gorey, they kicked out the rear window of the bus, causing £350 of damage.

‘And that’s not counting the cost of the business we lost over the next couple of days when we were waiting to get it fixed,’ the bus operator said.

‘You wouldn’t believe it. The bus was like a pig sty by the time we got back to Wexford. Actually, it wasn’t. A pig sty would be cleaner. A half dumper load of stuff had to be taken out of it,’ he added.

The behaviour of some members of the group was ‘absolutely appalling’ all day long, he said.

‘At the match, they started arguing and looking for a fight with some of the Offaly supporters on Hill 16, and afterwards, the guards had to be called to get them out a pub in Dublin – and it was a fairly rough pub too,’ he said.

‘ Then, when the driver stopped in Gorey, they started messing in the street and urinating out onto the road. It was disgraceful. A Guard came along and told our driver he had five minutes to get them out of the town. He rounded up as many as he could, and drove off. Some others were left there. I think two of them ended up being arrested,’ he said.

The criminal damage to the bus has since been reported to Gardai in Wexford, and they are investigating.