West Cork town prepares to show off new town centre facelift

Residents and businesses have endured 18 months of disruption while the town centre got a facelift. A street carnival next weekend should show everyone in the West Cork town that the wait was worth it, writes Noel Baker

Butcher Michael O’Neill reaches for a meaty metaphor when describing next weekend’s events in Clonakilty designed to mark the culmination of 18 months of works to the town’s streetscape: “It’s like killing the fatted calf.”

If his words also carry certain biblical undertones, maybe that’s appropriate: after all, it was the floods of biblical proportions in 2012 that prompted much of the relief works that have been conducted in the West Cork town in the years since, and which have now been accompanied by a visual makeover for a place that had already lucked out with its looks.