Residents in a rev over rally menace
Residents are effectively imprisoned in their houses for a whole day (approximately 10.30am to 5pm).
Notice is given only to householders on the route so nobody else is aware of what roads are to be blocked. Publicity is hopeless; no posters or flyers as far as I can see. There is an advertisement in a newspaper: tough if you didn't pick up the relevant copy, though.
During the week prior to the event, practising competitors are covering the route lots of fast cars zooming around narrow roads.
Sunday comes and we rush home after 9.30 Mass, shut up the pets and, bombarded by ear-splitting noise, we sit at home, marooned.
Difficult if you have an overseas visitor, or are picking one up from the airport or ferry. Go out before the rally starts and you can't get home until the evening.
Then there's the mess. Plastic tape, used for shutting off roads, still flies around months later. Some spectators park on grass verges in front of gardens leaving deep tyre marks, they block entrances and damage fences and gates by sitting on them to get a better view and throw their rubbish, bottles and plastic bags, in gardens.
There are no safety barriers for the rally, nor would it be practical to erect them. Families, behind garden gates, watching the cars speeding by, one takes a corner wrongly it doesn't bear thinking about.
Country roads aren't what they were, lonely and uninhabited. We've had a massive increase in house building and thus an increase in population. Such an event becomes increasingly inappropriate.
The rally is a source of enjoyment for many, but the downside is the cost to the other "many" who are subjected to serious personal inconvenience.
Mary Raines,
Carriganass,
Mt Uniacke,
Killeagh,
Co Cork.
