Conundrum of broken Tipperary town clock continues despite three feet of bird poo being cleared
Frustration is mounting over the debacle of a broken historic Tipperary clock, after specialist contractors were stopped from repairing it over three feet of bird poo.
Despite this being cleared, the clock is still stopped.
The Carrick-on-Suir town clock occupies a prominent place in the town’s West Gate area, and dates back to the 16th century. It is one of the last surviving parts of Carrick-on-Suir’s medieval walls.
The clock was paid for in 1784 by a local wine merchant named Gallwey who lived in Ormond Castle, according to local accounts.
At the April meeting of the Carrick-on-Suir Municipal District (MD), Fianna Fáil councillor Kieran Bourke asked the district for an update on when the clock would be back working again.
"Have we a date when this person will be coming [to repair the clock]? It’s the same answer as I got last month and it’s a shame that the clock was actually working last year after we spent money on it, and now it’s not,” Cllr Bourke said.
"People are asking me and I don’t have an answer for them,” he added.
In response, Carrick-on-Suir district administrator Marie Cox said that there’s only a few people in the country who can fix the clock, and that further work was needed before they could come in.
"The town clock was working but we did considerable other works as well at the time, but in order to get up into the cupola to work on the chime – there’s only a couple of people in the country who can do it, and it was a man who came down from Armagh,” she said.
"There was three feet of bird droppings on the trap door that he has to push up to get up there, so we had to get the builders back in to remove all of that, and within that, somewhere along the way, the clock stopped working,” Ms Cox explained.
"There was also a safety issue about letting somebody up there, but I just need to confirm again, we were having difficulty confirming the availability of the scaffolder, so it’s just about tying in the scaffolder with the clock specialist coming at the same time,” she added.