AS THE country braces itself for yet more bad weather in the coming days, residents and community groups in Kilmore Quay are already counting the costs of the damage which has been done so far to the small coastal village.
The quiet, rural fishing village was battered by high winds and rising tides over the course of the weekend, with the worst weather coming on Friday. The last time, the village experienced such volatile conditions was during a storm in 1989.
Local councillor Jim Moore, who lives and works in the village said that the situation could have been a lot worse and that he was glad that more damage hadn’t been done.
“We’ve had this cycle of bad weather and huge seas. But what most people are commenting on is the violence in the sea this time, it was frightening. What we’ve seen and experienced is reminiscent of 1989.”
1989 was the last major storm in the area which caused major damage to the harbour wall and even swept some of the fishing boats away, killing the livelihoods of some of the local fishermen in the process.
“This was the worst storm I’ve seen since 1989 – one of those once-in-25-years storms and it was a very frightening experience. Some people remembered 1989 but for others, they’d never seen weather or the sea like this before.”
Local fisherman Seamus O’Flaherty said that the weather was the worst he had ever seen in the locality and said that the boats were not safe in the harbour: “We can’t keep the boats tied up. One of the bollards we tie to dislodged from the cement and two-inch ropes are ripping. There’s no safe haven for us around here and it’s too dangerous to try to move to somewhere else.”
Local resident, Elaine Walsh was also out on the clean-up operation on Friday and Saturday but said that the good work had been undone by the weather conditions on Sunday night: “We had people out on Saturday and a few hardy souls on Sunday trying to clear the playground area for the kids. But it was just as bad on Monday morning.”
[Full coverage and photos in this week’s Echo]