Bypass Ireland: Traffic costs lives on Charleville's busy streets

It's a complex relationship. Traffic brings business but also chokes up the busy town on the Cork Limerick border. And, as a local funeral director points out, it has also brought danger

'Taking big trucks out of the town will improve safety,’ says funeral director Austin O’Malley, who says he’s buried six people in a decade killed by trucks on the streets of Charleville, Co Cork. Picture: Eddie O’Hare

An undertaker who has overseen the funerals of six people killed by trucks in his town centre in the past ten years can’t wait to see it getting a bypass because he doesn’t want to do that ever again.

Nearly every day, Austin O’Malley witnesses near-misses in Charleville, Co Cork, and “will often stand and marvel” at how people don’t get killed at the zebra crossing on the northern side of the town’s main street.