This article is from page 15 of the 2014-01-21 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 15 JPG
THE people of Cloughnainchy were well aware of coastal erosion and the problems it would eventually cause them.
They had warned the council and their TDs many times during the last decade, but no one was prepared for the destruction the high tide and ferocious winds of January 6 would bring.
The sea invaded 14 homes and it swept away an acre of land out to the sea.
“We couldn’t see the ocean, we can see people walking on the beach now,” said Danny McCarthy, speaking from the back upstairs room of his house that looks in the Atlantic Ocean.
“The ministers and the TDs haven’t a clue as to what is going on or how we are suffering here, and it has been highlighted since 2011 that this was happening then,” he said.
“Erosion is on going, and that is why there was an appeal in 2011, because the area was vulnerable.”
Gerry McCarthy who lived across the road 25 years ago but moved a short distance away said, “We thought it was rectified when they put the culverts in, but this is more serious, this is the Atlantic Ocean.
Martin Clancy is one of the senior members of this small community and he has lived in the area for more than 80 years. He said that he re- members lobbying the council in the early 1990s for coastal protection work, following a similar flooding. “There was [coastal] land to build on at that time. We looked for something to be done and it wasn’t done. All they gave us was one culvert, and we were fighting for it hard. And we fought then for the second one because it wasn’t able to take all the water. We are waiting a long time for that,” he said. “Then we looked for something to be done along the beach, outside the boundary wall of the land. There was a whole lot of land at that stage that they could have built on but they didn’t and now it’s gone – the boundary wall, the land and some of the [private] land inside the wall is gone itself,” he added. Clare County Council has applied for € 2,581,250 to undertake the long overdue work. In its application to central government it proposes the construction of coastal protection over approximately 800 metres centred around rock armour construction. “This section of coastline is in close proximity to 15 to 20 vulnerable private residential properties and it also is required to provide protection of the integrity of the local public road network,” the council said. Two weeks on from the storm and no decision has been made by the Government on the application for funding.