“Go Greased Lightnin’, you’re burning up the quarter mile/ Greased Lightnin’, go Greased Lightnin’.”
I love the smell of chip fat in the morning. Unlike local business owners, who are claiming the filthy and grimy stains on O’Connell Street at present – which make our city of the future look like something out of Strumpet City – is grease from takeaways.
If that’s the case, you could almost fry an egg on O’Connell Street during our current hot spell, if you had an egg.
You’d think all that grease would light a fire under the Council and contractors and they’d be slipping and sliding about to get the job done. But I digress.
It was bad enough to hear in recent weeks that we were no longer getting our revolving prism for the main thoroughfare, but now the completion date of the main thoroughfare’s revitalisation project has been put back yet again.
Still, I have no doubt it will be worth the wait by the time I have grandchildren who will see the works completed.
Council management would want to climb on top of their cone-shaped obelisk and have a good long think for themselves at this stage.
But whether chip shop grease, or urine or puke, or fizzy drinks or alcohol stains, whatever gunge has marked the city’s main street, the City Centre has never looked so rundown and bleak.
Of course, cretins with a blatant disregard for our city are to blame for much of this mess, but the impression it must give to anyone visiting for the first time is beyond mortifying. It should have been cleaned up long before the date given by the local authority for its annual bath.
“A maintenance plan for the cleaning of O’Connell Street has been finalised and the process of approving the appointment of additional staff to establish a dedicated cleaning crew for the street is currently in progress. In the interim, a contractor has been requested to do a complete clean of the street as soon as possible,” a Council missive replied, when questioned on the issue.
“The contractor will commence cleaning works next Tuesday, 6th June, for two nights. He will return the following week to complete the works,” a statement from the Council read.
‘He’? Like just the one guy? He has his work cut out for him.
Fingers crossed then there will be a vast improvement to the general look of the city, because it certainly isn’t pretty right now. If anything, it’s backwards we seem to be going.
I am sure though that all the little teething problems will be ironed out on Friday at the Council’s “workshop” — which is actually code for keep the press and public out.
It saddens me to say it, but the best thing about O’Connell Street at present is the fact it leads directly out to the Crescent Shopping Centre.
Delay has followed delay in these revitalisation works. We were first told Easter, then the end of May, and now the date has been pushed out yet again.
“Works on O’Connell Street to remaining areas will be completed by mid-June. Localised snagging work will take place as needed thereafter,” the local authority revealed last week.
In fairness, there were initial delays due to the Covid pandemic, which we can’t blame the Council for, but at this point the delays are hard to fathom.
Speaking to the Limerick Post last week, Fine Gael councillor Dan McSweeney said that Council members had lots of questions regarding the issues they were getting complaints about, but few answers were forthcoming.
“We are getting a lot of slack from business owners over the grubby look of the street. This was supposed to be a transformative project for Limerick City and we are left with lots of issues, lots of questions, and nobody seems to be answering those questions in relation to cleansing,” he claimed.
“We’re going to see that significant monies will have to be allocated to maintain the main thoroughfare when we could have done something with a much better material that would have been easier to maintain.
“The stains, by the looks of it, have gone into the pours of the granite. It’s actually really disappointing because we spent nearly €10m on it.”
The final cost of these works is likely to be a lot higher than what was first made public. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the final cost has doubled from the €9.1m originally mooted.
One disgruntled Limerick man contacted this publication to share his own views on the state of the O’Connell Street surface this week after a stroll through the city.
“I have walked the length of O’Connell Street and it’s much more than grease stains. I believe it’s the make of the slabs being used. They must be faulty as they are holding every kind of stain that hits the ground. I’ve seen splash stains and the splash effect is left imprinted into the ground.
“There is absolutely no way that grease stains are responsible for the state of the footpaths and road. There are way too many stains for it to be grease.
“The problem isn’t what hits the ground. The problem I believe is the ground.
“The place looks absolutely manky as you walk along and it’s the whole length of O’Connell Street paths and road,” he opined.
Ah well, we are all entitled to our opinion.
“Manky” was this man’s take on O’Connell Street, while “minging” was the word used to describe some of the parklets in the City Centre at the recent full meeting of Limerick City and County Council by one local representative.
Fine Gael councillor Sarah Kiely was of the opinion that the majority of them are in excellent condition and are being used as intended.
“They are regularly cleaned and planted with fresh seasonal plants. They add to their surroundings but that isn’t the case, unfortunately, with some of them. They are dirty, overgrown, and not used,” she told the council executive.
Not a man to mince his words, Cllr Dan McSweeney (FG) said he felt many of them were just “minging”.
For all the money being spent, O’Connell Street really needs its auld lobby washed down.
If you ask me, it’s time now that Minging the Merciless’ reign of terror was brought to an end.
Stay tuned to this column for further announcements on the O’Connell Street works. By which I mean p*ss taking.
