Small Town Writer

uh-oh

(Right: Work outside
Greystones railway station,
January 2009. Photo McNiff)

DOUBTS ARISE AS TRAFFIC
PROJECT NEARS CLOSE

At the town’s busy commuter hub beside the train station, finely cut blocks of granite have been laid. Pavements have been expanded outwards, narrowing the road for vehicles. New parking bays for drivers and public transport have been zoned and carved out. But just as the €500,000 project nears the finishing line doubts have arisen among our elected representatives.

Passengers will be able to watch people drawing money from the local bank’s hole in the wall, one councillor said. Of course, it is for the bank to preserve the privacy of the bank's customers, not the Town Council.

The whole area is too narrow, traffic will be gridlocked, was another criticisms; and a bus driver’s representative voiced concerns about the bus bay being able to accommodate one bus at a time when there other private bus companies to be considered, each one arriving during rush hour periods.

The dissent will continue and the consultants who planned the scheme will be the target. What could they have been thinking of?

Well, one consideration might be that one day soon – say fity years from now – gas will be rationed for public transport only.  There may be none at all for private motorists.

Greystones Harbour, Co. Wicklow

For some time now, going back thirty years and more I have kept notes and photographed Greystones old and its old harbour. In the light of dawn and sunst it has a certain charm. It has a checkered history in which tragedies have struck . Soon all that I have learned and a large gallery from my portfolio will be published in bookform.

Long before there was a town, or so much as a hamlet in the late 1700s, the harbour was the launching pad for fishermen who lived in the surrounding hills. Then it was just a shelf of rocks ran protruding into the sea and at such an angle that the shore was protected from southerlies. There was deep water at all times to within a few feet of the steep shore.  The place was busy. Records show that four hundred people made a living from the fishery around 1800. Then came Ireland's first famine of 1822. The shoals diminished and then came the Great Famine of 1845. Disease and starvation and the exodus decimated the population.

There were campaigns to develop the harbour, to give it greater protection in bad weather. Fishmen would be able to build bigger boats and thereby increase their catches. But it was not to be.