CASTLEISLAND GRAVES SUBMERGED IN FLOOD

BY local consensus and by quite a margin, Saturday, January 27, was the worst day in recent years in the history of flooding in Kilbanivane Cemetery.

While the problem persists and old, go to solutions, like the mythical sounding sluggaire or soak-away are failing – so are the proposed, official solutions.

The proposed pipe to the Anglore stream solution is now dead in the water – if you’ll pardon the metaphorical harshness.

But the harsh realities that hang around this problem remain with the people who have close family ties and loved one buried there.

The Anglore pipe solution has been ruled out of order by a combination of residents from Churchtown to Tullig.

John Reidy is a spokesman for the loosely amalgamated group. At an impromptu meeting last Friday with Munster Sinn Féin MEP, Liadh Ní Riada, Mr. Reidy informed her that Kerry County Council had been put on notice that it would be held responsible if the residents along the meandering path of the stream were to be flooded again.

This is in spite of extensive work on a very expensive enlargement of the existing culvert under the Cordal Road beside Walsh’s Farm Machinery base.

This culvert takes the Anglore stream into the Maine River at Tullig.

Much of the focus of local discussion has been on the Glounsharoon River as a cause of the frequent flooding of the cemetery and occasionally of the Tullig area.

I walked the river with James Maher one day during the week and he pointed out exactly the cause of the big flood in Tullig in January 2014.

A 12inch diameter pipe in a concreted, weir takes water from the Glounsharoon River to Crag Cave. The pipe takes just enough water to keep the tourism facility in its ancient balance.

The cause of the big flood in Tullig in 2014 was that a tree fell across the river at the town side of the weir and this blocked the flow and sent it all over the weir. It found its way to the Anglore and down to Tullig through the badly silted and overgrown stream.

And something similar happened before in 2009 which also impacted on Tullig.

The Glounshaoon River is not the cause of the flooding of Kilbanivane Cemetery.

The lack of maintenance and years of neglect along the river may be a factor - but no one can say that with absolute certainty.

The uncertainty arises because of Castleisland’s subterranean web of caves and pools. Old waterways may have been obstructed and water is forced to find its level and its escape routes.

Several local people said that during the height of that Saturday’s flooding that the water was ‘bubbling up’ on the road just outside the walls of the cemetery.

There’s another big change in the College Road / Kilbanivane flooding saga. Locals recall not being able to get into town past the ‘dip in the road’ and that’s in recent enough history.

Because of the threat to new houses in the area the council created a gap in the roadside stone wall and bored a new sluggeragh in the field there about 20 years ago.

The dip still gets flooded but it’s passable at its worst and it rapidly soaks away.

The old sluggerag in the field across from Kilbanivane Ceme- tery – which was found, years ago, to be the lowest point of drainage in the area – is now saturated and unable to take the surface water fast enough.

It could be that the volume of water from the dip is tipping the balance and causing the flooding.

I’ve spoken to people who remember water flowing through the now dried up stream bed in Minnie Hughes’ field on the Limerick Road – at the town side of the football field.

That and the dip in College Road would match up. And the fields between the two roads get badly flooded nowadays.

That, and a time when digging drains and general water-flow management was part of the seasonal husbandry of the land.

Deputy Danny Healy Rae has his teeth worn from this problem and he regularly rings locals to monitor the situation.

Cllr. Bobby O’Connell (FG) and Cllr. Niall Kelleher (FF) put down a joint motion at Friday’s meeting of the Killarney Municipal District and, in short, were given assurances that something would be done before the next meeting.

Do we know what we’re talking about when we’re discussing the flooding issues at Kilbanivane Cemetery and its surrounds?

Probably not. The trouble is that the people whose job it is to clear up the issue are, probably, just as ignorant as all of us fireside engineers.

And that’s because we’re only guessing at what’s going on under the our feet here.

Photo by Cormac O’Mahony This photograph was taken on Saturday morning, January 27, at the height of the flooding of Kilbanivane Cemetery.