Worst ever stink hits the residents of Baltray
TWO SCOTTISH GOLFERS WERE SO NAUSEATED THAT THEY HAD TO LEAVE THE LOCAL GOLF CLUB
October 1970
A SMELL has revived the dormant development association in the Louth village of Baltray. It is a smell the local people say, which the village and sent golfers of the local golf club.
The smell comes from the Fishmeal factory on the Boyne at Mornington, they allege, and is carried across by the wind.
Every single resident of the village is behind the stand, for all have suffered from the stench. In its path it leaves vomiting and nausea and a revulsion to food. It clings to all clothes and furniture, defying all efforts to wipe it out with sweetsmelling sprays. One American who visited Baltray during the week left within hours complaining that it was the most evil-smelling place she had ever been to. And two Scottish golfers were so nauseated that they had to leave the local golf club.
Mrs. Donal McGinley, wife of a local schoolteacher, is convinced that pressure will have to be brought to’bear on the factory bosses to do something. Promises, she says, is all they have got from them, although they have been approached on numerous occasions.
‘If something is not done soon, we will all be poisoned here. We are being stank out of the place, but we will not stand for this much longer. Fresh air is a Godgiven right and we are being deprived of our rights.”
The smell, she alleges, is hitting not only the village of Baltray, but is travelling as far as Termonfeckin, Cartown and Queensboro, some miles away. “It’s just appalling. Worse than the rottenest of sewage.” She said that before the factory was set up at all, guarantees were given, and published in the Press, that there would be no smell from this factory. “Diabolical” was how Mrs. Nancy Gannon described the smell, “It’s so appalling that it is difficult to cook or eat food. No matter where you are it gets you.”
One lady who has taken positive steps to trace the smell is Mrs. Flitcroft. She complained so much that, on the invitation of the Fishmeal bosses, she was taken over to the factory. However, she was surprised to find everything “spic and span” there. Inside the premises she could not detect any smell. She is still convinced, however, that the smell is escaping from the factory.
Mrs; Carmel Beirth, daughter of the, Golf Club professional, says that when the smell comes they are powerless to do anything about it. “Once inside the house there is no way of clearing it out again and it makes one really sick,” she said. At the Golf Club house, committee man Ultan Branigan agreed that the presence of the smell was doing little to help business. Visitors were still coming to the club, unaware of the smell, but once in Baltray were disgusted and. nauseated by the stench. The smell, which was like rotten fish, had been worse lately than ever before.
The smell, contended Mr. Paddy Kelly, a Drogheda businessman living in Baltray, is “utterly fantastic.” It had now reached the stage in the village when they couldn’t keep their doors or windows open. Even the plug-holes in the sinks and baths had to be sealed up.