AMERICAN TOURISTS LEFT STRANDED IN DISPUTE

A FAMILY from Chicago who were on the first leg of a dream trip found themselves stranded at Limerick’s Colbert Station yesterday. They had planned to get a train to Cork before making a stop to kiss the Blarney Stone. Retired firefighter Glen Bush, from Illinois, said he and his wife Amy and daughter Kaitlyn had landed at Shannon Airport at 6am. They then travelled by taxi to Limerick only to find the Cork train empty and sitting on the platform. He said: “We’ve been planning this trip for 10 years. “This is our first vacation after my retirement.” Mr Bush, 47, said: “I checked to make sure because strikes do happen but everything was good to go when we left yesterday in Chicago ... and by the time we landed in Shannon, suddenly the buses are on strike, and the trains in solidarity. “We had a reservation on a noon train to get us to Cork and then from Cork again to Dublin tomorrow.” But Clare journalist Brian O’connell, who had been reporting from the picketline at Colbert Station for the Sean O’rourke RTE radio programme, stepped in, offering the American family a lift back to the rebel county. Mr Bush joked: “Then we catch a plane to Scotland and hopefully there’ll be no strikes there.” His wife added: “I just don’t know how we are going to get around. “We’re in Ireland for three days and then we are gonna be going to Scotland.” There were no trains or Bus Eireann buses operating out of Limerick, causing chaos for commuters. Around 70 bus and rail workers, fighting proposed pay cuts, picketed outside the bus and rail depot at Colbert Station.