Ballingarry: the forgotten village

Residents of Ballingarry in Lower Ormond say they are living in a forgotten village, ignored and neglected by State agencies.

They say it’s the only village on the main N52 road between Nenagh and Dundalk in County Louth left without a modern traffic calming system.

Lives are being put in danger by drivers of cars and lorries ignoring the village speed limits.

Some of the buildings on the main street are derelict. Broken footpaths are to be seen everywhere and the street lighting system is obsolete.

“We’re basically being sidelined by the national roads authority and council,” says the Chairman of the village Tidy Towns group, Joe Cleary.

On the day Joe is speaking to this newspaper he is on a trip up the N52 to Dundalk. “Every village I am passing through has proper traffic calming measures introduced, but we in Ballingarry are being neglected. We’re like the forgotten village.”

Joe says gardaí are doing their best, but falling numbers in the force means drivers are getting away with speeding through the village and putting lives in danger by ignoring the the urban limit signs.

‘SPEED TRACK’

“We have an absolute speed track through the village. It’s pure deadly,” says Joe. “It’s no fault of the gardaí. They just don’t have the manpower.”

Joe says a proper traffic calming scheme is required to tackle the problem. But despite years of lobbying, no such scheme is in sight and he and other residents feel Tipperary County Council and the national roads authority, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, are not taking matters seriously.

Other issues, too, have been ignored by the authorities. “Our footpaths are all over the shop and the public lighting is a joke,” says Joe.

Last year at a meeting of Nenagh Municipal District authority Cllr Ger Darcy, the current Cathaoirleach of the council, described the public lighting in the village as “pretty awful”. He said there were some areas where lighting was non-existent.

“I didn't really appreciate how poor the lighting was in Ballingarry until I recently went down there in the dark of night.”

Raising the many problems in Ballingarry  again last April, Cllr Darcy said there were two derelict buildings on the street that were in “a shocking state”.

Masonry from the roofs of the buildings was falling on the footpath on the streets below, creating deadly hazards for passers-by. The situation was, in the words of Cllr Darcy, “extremely dangerous”.

Cllr Michael O’ Meara agrees that the village had been badly neglected.

Cllr Joe Hannigan says the village was going to continue to be “an eyesore” if the dereliction was not tackled.

SUBMISSION

In October last year the residents of the village provided the council with a comprehensive submission on all the works they felt were needed in the village.

The submission called for the widening and extension of footpath, which they said would help slow traffic. They also called for a new bus stop and lighting system.

A large number of photographs highlighting the poor state of the footpaths and public lighting in the village were also supplied in the submission.

“For approximately 20 years,” the submission states, “the local residents have been liaising and corresponding with the local authority and public representatives regarding the issues outlined.”

A whole year on now since that submission was made and nothing has changed.

“Ballingarry is possibly one of the most run-down, derelict and ignored villages in Tipperary,” says Joe Cleary.

COUNCIL RESPONDS

Reacting to the concerns raised by residents, the Administrator of the Nenagh Municipal District, Rosemary Joyce, said the council has been aware of the issues and they have been  discussed on a number of occasions at meetings of the District.

She said that as Ballingarry was on the N52, the village comes within the remit of Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII).

“Funding and approval from TII is therefore required to address most of the issues raised,” said Ms Joyce.

She said the need for traffic calming measures has been raised by officials and elected members of the District with the TII at a number of meetings. She agreed that “most other settlements on national routes would have such measures in place.”

Traffic enforcement was a matter for the gardaí.  “We will be having a meeting of the Community Safety Committee during November with the Superintendent and will include Ballingarry on the list of matters to be raised with them.”

Ms Joyce added that public lighting and footpaths are matters for the TII.  She said the council would review the position in relation to a bus stop in the village and “will continue to raise matters with TII as appropriate.”