Why our special litter report hit a nerve with civic minded readers

Rubbish found dumped in Adrigole by a reader

THE Men’s Shed in Skibbereen was among the many groups which contacted The Southern Star last week to thank us for highlighting the issue of littering.

Our page 1 story, and two-page spread inside, garnered huge reaction, including a slot on UTV’s Ireland Live newspaper review on Wednesday night, and also RTE Radio 1’s Drivetime review of the regional papers, last Friday.

The Men’s Shed group, having recently joined forces with Skibbereen’s local Tidy Towns members, were in touch to say they had launched a major attack on litter in the area.

Some members of the joint group have ‘adopted’ roads, like the Castletownshend and Tragumna road, and staff at the Russagh Mill hostel near Liss Ard estate are also helping with the tidy-up.

Meanwhile, a group in Inchigeela near Macroom had a very successful clean-up day on Good Friday. It was organised by the local development group, Croi na Laoi.

About 60 bags were collected by the group, according to Nora O’Riordan from Inchigeela.

Another reader, this time from Beara, thanked us for highlighting the issue, saying it was particularly bad in their area.

‘There is a significant amount of rubbish – more than a car boot-load, more like a trailer or a van load – which has been callously dumped in a particularly scenic part of Adrigole, over a wall, down a slope, near a stream,’ they wrote.

‘Children’s furniture, including a desk, have been thrown away. However, the contents of the drawers is intact. In one photo, there’s a picture drawn by a young girl – ticked, marked and initialled by a teacher. There are also writings about soccer teams, and a Christmas list which looks like it may be written by a third child.

‘Because of where these items have been dumped,’ they continued, ‘this has to have been done by someone local to the area, someone who knows the lay of the land and understands that this is a quiet place where this could be done without being noticed.’

‘Let’s add some teeth to this campaign and, as suggested in Kieran O’Mahony’s article, do a little ‘picture-shaming’ to try to eradicate this practice,’ they added.