This article is from page 6 of the 2014-01-07 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG
THE most tragic event of this weekend storms took place in Lahinch where a brand new playground, built using money raised locally over more than a decade, was virtually washed away overnight.
The playground, which has been open for less than two years, sustained massive damage during the storm which ripped up all the protective matting, collapsed walls and the creation of a six-foot deep crater.
The playground was yesterday described as a “war zone” by local woman and member of the Lahinch Playground Committee, Nicola Hartigan-Downes.
“It is devastating. We invested so much time and effort into this playground and it was just wiped out in 24 hours. We’re back to the drawing board now.
“It is like a war zone. It’s like someone came in and dropped a crater right on top of it. There is a whole on the ground that you could fit a six-foot man into, all of the rubber mats have been lifted, fences and the gate have been knock. A lot of the equipment seems to be okay, we haven’t had an assessor out to it yet, but hopefully it will be okay. But we don’t know.
“The Clare County Council bottle banks were washed from one side of the playground right through to the other; we’re not sure what damage that might have done. It’s total devastation, the whole of the ground has been lifted off the playground.
“The playground is under water at the moment [Monday afternoon], so we don’t know what new damage has been done. All we can do is wait and see.”
The Lahinch Playground Committee held an emergency meeting last night and say they are determined to get the playground open again as soon as possible.
“We are moving on this straight away, we want the playground back up and running for the season. We had a lot of positive feedback from local businesses people and residents to say that they are behind us 100 per cent and they will be there with funding and manpower to help us out,” continued Nicola.
“We’re meeting tonight [Monday night], to see what the next step will be and we will we working on this straight away after that.”