Traveller convoy blocked by residents

May 1998

A LOCAL residents group mounted a blockade this week in an attempt to prevent a traveller convoy from camping on their estate.

Up to 80 furious residents at the Cois Cairn estate staged the protest at the entrance to the Old Conna estate on Tuesday, as rumours spread that up to a dozen caravans were on the way to join eight others which had just set up camp on a publicly owned site to the rear of their estate.

Gardai were called to ensure that the protest did not lead to any breaches of the peace, and ordered that residents should not block public access to and from the estate.

A residents association spokesperson said this week that they were ‘ livid’ with the council over the travellers, whom they believe had been moved by the local authority off other sites in the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown council area.

It is not something which we are going to tolerate, and there is even talk that residents will organise a rent boycott if the council don’t deal with this situation swiftly,’ she said.

The 72 house Cois Cairn estate off Old Conna Avenue was opened just last September.