GARDAÍ SEND VISITORS HOME
HUNDREDS of visitors from across the country were turned back from West Kerry’s stunning beaches as gardaí mounted a tight net around the county’s most popular spots over the Bank Holiday Weekend.
Though gardaí succeeded for the most part in keeping visitors from descending together in big numbers onto beaches, the presence of so many strangers has raised fears over a resurgence of COVID-19 in the county.
This comes as Kerry is logged as one of just six counties nationally not to have recorded a single confirmed case of the virus in the past two weeks.
But the presence of holidaymakers from far beyond the county bounds has led many to question just how long this might last.
One West Kerry man issued a dire warning based on what he witnessed near his home over the weekend.
“There’s a different law for the middle classes, it seems. Town - and, worse again, our favourite beach - is full with Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Kilkenny, Meath, Tipperary, Wexford, etc registrations all weekend,” he told The Kerryman.
“Which is all well and good until you realise Kerry has had no new C-19 cases for the past 12 days, and these people are from the most highly infected counties in the country.”
Over 200 were turned back by gardaí, from the west Kerry beach he was referring to, The Kerryman understands.
Despite the garda dragnet around the beaches, there was little sign of visitors having moved instead onto the streets of the county’s most popular seaside tourist towns.
The streets of Dingle were deserted where they should have been thronged over the course of the quietest sunny June Bank Holiday in living memory there.
Ballybunion fared similarly, with gardaí reporting few attempted incursions by people living beyond the 5km zone of COVID restriction in the current phase. However, gardaí anticipate a trickier job ahead once the zone expands to 20kms from Monday next.