No Civil War rivalry in Macroom as power is transferred smoothly
WHILE the ancient Civil War rivalry of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael has just been consigned to the history books in Dáil Éireann, they’ve been sharing power in the most civilised manner for a long time time in Macroom.
On Monday Martin Coughlan, an Independent member of the council and Cork’s deputy mayor until last Friday was nominated by Fine Gael’s Ted Lucey to take over as Macroom Municipal District Chairman for the coming year.
Cllr Coughlan succeeds Fianna Fáil’s Michael Looney who was chairman during the past year, having been himself nominated by Cllr Lucey last year.
Cllr Coughlan has previously served two terms as Macroom
Urban Council Chairman and also served as Mayor when the Urban Council was reformed as a Town Council. He was reelected in the local elections after five years off the council. Prior to that he had served 20 years as an urban councillor and the last decade of that term he had also been a county councillor.
Speaking to The Corkman after the meeting, Cllr Coughlan said he was looking forward to his term in office and intends to tackle issues such as dereliction in the town.
“I’m confident that we’ll get the Briery Gap up and running - it’s obviously been delayed by COVID-19,” he said.
“We had hoped to get it started by October but it might be after Christmas now before it gets started.”
Another issue which Cllr
Coughlan intends to focus on during his term is to prepare for the time when the bypass will see traffic diverted from the town centre.
“We need to ensure the town is better advertised and the approach roads, for instance, which have been badly shook after years of heavy truck traffic.”
During the meeting fulsome tributes were paid to Cllr Looney who had been elected chairman of the Muncipal District Council in the first year of his first term as councillor.
Councillors and officials alike praised his “leadership and professionalism”.
“It meant an awful lot to me,” said Councillor Looney. “I took it with pride.”
His successor described Cllr Looney as being most courteous at all times. “I hope to follow in his example.”
Cllr Coughlan believes that the councillors on the Municipal District Council - and on previous incarnations - fight their corners in elections but once elected get down to the work of improving the town and municpal district.