One way traffic flow system would be simple and practical solution at cemetery ceremony
YET again thousands of townspeople attended the annual Blessing of the Graves in St. Patrick’s cemetery on Sunday.
The attendance, and the attention that people give to the graves of their loved ones is one of the best Irish traditions handed down over the generations and hopefully will be maintained by those who remain after us all.
It’s a tradition that is sometimes derided as a charade.
That is an illusion, advanced by those seeking an excuse, for while there is pressure on some people to attend - pressure they do not welcome - the vast majority of those who attend are present to remember their loved once, and to share in a communal prayer.
It is also a great social occasion with families travelling from long distances, even overseas, and they use the occasion not just to remember their relatives but to renew acquaintances.
Of course the vast numbers attend- ing cause traffic congestion both on the day itself and on the days beforehand when graves are tidied up and flowers delivered.
Much of the congestion can be found within the cemetery itself in the days before, and why oh why no traffic management plan is devised to eliminate some of this congestion is puzzling.
All it would take is some organisation and signs directing all the traffic down the centre road, feeding off into the side passages and returning by the roads on both sides of the cemetery.
This suggestion has been made countless times in the past, but ignored.
Why ? No one has said.
Of course the local authorities looking after the cemetery have a difficult job, for they are dealing with people at a very difficult and sensitive time, and they have to show empathy and understanding.
Measures to get people to conform with the maintenance and layout of the cemetery are difficult to implement and need very careful consideration.
Most people, however, understand all of this, and are supportive of the authorities in the proper maintenance of the cemetery.
Consultation of the traffic management within the cemetery should therefore be undertaken before next year’s service.
Window to clean-up of Ramparts
ANYONE looked into the Rampart river during the current dry spell ?.
Well it’s actually difficult to see the river, or the trickle of water in it because of the overgrowth.
No doubt townspeople with long memories and the years on the clock will recall occasions when the water level in the river was just as low.
Indeed I was just thinking to myself the other day that one could walk along the riv- er in carpet slippers and not get the feet wet.
That thought brought back a story that my grandfather told me of the year he walked from his home on the Long Avenue to the Christmas Brothers school in Chapel Street along the top of the Rampart River as the winter was so severe that year that the river froze over.
Don’t know the year, but he was born in 1902, so I reckon that it must have been in the early years of the second decade in the 1900’s, possibly from 1912 onwards.
Wonder did anyone else ever hear that story ?
All of this is by way of making a point about the Rampart and the need for it to be cleaned up properly.
The authorities responsible, whoever they may be, will never get a better time to undertake the work, for they could lower a digger or some such machine into the river and complete the job in double quick time, removing once and for all the overgrowth especially at the Redemptorist end.
The cost should be a considerably less than doing the job at a time when the river is its normal height.