2000 MEMORIES FROM THE ARCHIVES
The Foot and Mouth Disease fears appeared to have abated somewhat, as the ICMSA laid the blame squarely at the door of the EU for the ‘dismantling of frontier controls’. Despite fears easing, postmen were enforcing a ‘no mat, no mail’ policy. A ban on angling was seen as arbitrary by hotelier Ian Powell of the Blackwater Lodge Hotel and Restaurant, Ballyduff and he was left with 14 members of staff looking for employment after his trade was hit by the ban.
This week 21 years ago the chairman of Fermoy UDC came under fire from some quarters for wearing the chain of office and accepting gifts of a plaque and a clock on a visit to Old Trafford. It was unclear if Cllr John Murphy was there as a citizen (in which case he could keep the clock and plaque) or a politician, in which case he had to hand them over. Meanwhile, following the previous at ing, a Fermoy in which week’s UDC Gardaí fracas meetwere now investigating an alleged assault, the Corrin Cross Committee refused their £300 grant on the basis of the ‘atrocious behaviour’ of the local council, “God doesn’t want that kind of money.”
Also in Fermoy, an engineer was due to look at Kent Bridge in Fermoy to investigate water seeping through one of the pillars. Stats at the time said that the bridge, rebuilt in 1864 for horse and carts, was handling up to 25,000 vehicles daily. Meanwhile, Mr Michael Flatley was defended by some in the town after cutting a historic 250 year old beech hedge. The and locals hornbeam were also adamant that the World famous dancer would return to Castlehyde, after he temporarily locked up the estate and ordered employees to leave their work in the garden. With St Patrick’s Day looming, parades having been cancelled due to fears of Foot and Mouth Disease, cans of Carling were 95p, and you could have two bottles of Chardonnay for £9.99. TheAvondhu’s Entertainment pages, however, were jammed with local pubs’ entertainment. Across just two pages, 35 different bars advertised their music and entertainment for the Patrick’s weekend.
In the burgeoning universe of the internet, Gardaí were investigating posts on the message board of SG1 nightclub. Interestingly, the site was shut down under the Telecommunications Act and the messages deemed ‘unlawful’, and both Gardaí and the website developer said the perpetrator could, and would, be traced. The comments were about the character of a number of females in Fermoy, and were ‘obscene and derogatory’.
The site of the Royal Hotel in Fermoy was to be sold by the owner, to the anger of Fermoy Enterprise Board chairman Michael Hanley. The hotel had been reduced ‘ to rubble’ and left undeveloped for some time. Mr Hanley called at least for lessons to be learned from this ‘sorry chapter’, and situations like this be disallowed from reoccurring.
The Winners Enclosure in Conna celebrated its first anniversary this month 21 years ago, with spot prizes on a celebratory night for lucky winners. Meanwhile, The Final Furlong in Coolagown presented a cheque of £4,000 to the Fermoy Multiple Sclerosis Society, proceeds from the ‘Voice of North Cork’ song contest.
A report in The Avondhu in March 2001 carried news that ‘more and more’, members of the fire service were attending the scene of traffic collisions, a result of increased traffic on the roads. By 15th March, 2001, the death toll stood at 83 nationally for the year so far. In Fermoy, the principal of Loreto Secondary School, Elma Hayes, was in a stable condition following a road traffic collision outside of Rathcormac.
A ‘ spate of damage’ at Carrigeen, Kilbehenny, had cost a farmer an estimated £10,000 over the last seven years. It consisted of waterpipes being torn out of the ground and bales destroyed. While sheep dip and Ivomec, along with some shears, were all stolen.
Pictures in The Avondhu showed the ongoing ASTI strikes, with teachers from CBS Mitchelstown, St Colman’s College and Loreto, Fermoy all featuring. For school-leavers, scholarships were available from the Bank of Ireland for some students, as were two scholarships from the ‘Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation’.
A Southern Health Board report noted that attitudes to sexuality had changed dramatically over thirty years. 25% of all births were now to unmarried mothers, a dramatic increase in teenage pregnancy, and HIV increasing in prevalence in the heterosexual community.
Finally, the untimely death of former Mitchelstown Golf Club captain, David O’Sullivan was marked in an extensive write-up, as most sports were hit by cancelled fixtures with precautions against Foot and Mouth Disease.