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We continue the review of the stories we brought you this year with the news from March…
Photo: Steve Turner.
• TRALEE woke up to a blanket of snow on March 2 with Storm Emma causing massive disruption to the county’s roads and postponing many sporting fixtures.
The Kerry Local Emergency Coordination Group advised people in Kerry to avoid travelling anywhere.
People made the most of the flurries by making snowmen and even skiing on Short Mountain.
• A Tralee family lost their home in a fire at Fountain Court.
Six houses were affected by the fire which it is thought was caused by an electrical fault. The house where the fire started was not occupied at the time as the tenants were out.
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• AUSTIN Stacks won another MacNamee GAA award. The Austin Stacks ‘Stacks 100’ project was a winner in the Category: Best New Digital Initiative.
This category acknowledges the efforts made to find new ways to deliver GAA digital content, i.e. live streaming, social content, fan engagement etc.
This is the 2nd MacNamee award for the club, having previously won ‘Best Club Project’ award for ‘Rockumentary’ in 2014.
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• GARVEY’S Supervalu Tralee won another national award in March.
The Rock Street business was named Retail Business of the Year (> 3 units) at the inaugural Irish SME Business Awards held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Dublin.
The awards ceremony celebrated the hard work and determination of the best professionals and businesses in the Irish SME business sector.
• HERBAL cannabis worth €60,000 in Tralee was seized in an intelligence led operation conducted jointly by Revenue, the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, and the Tralee Garda Drugs Unit.
Revenue seized 3 kilos of herbal cannabis with an estimated street value of €60,000. It was part of ongoing joint investigations targeting drug importations in Tralee. The operation was conducted at a number of residential addresses in Tralee town.
• KERRY County Council paid tribute to the sporting achievements of former Kerry footballer and manager, Mick O’Dwyer, by hosting a Civic Reception in his honour at County Buildings.
The Sam Maguire was brought down from the capital especially for the occasion of honouring the great man from Waterville.
Many of the members of the Kerry teams of the past including Ogie Moran Eoin ‘Bomber’ Liston, Pat Spillane, Jimmy Deenihan, Ger Power, Tommy Doyle and Mickey Ned joined Mr O’Dwyer for the reception which heard that his achievements in Gaelic Games were unlikely ever to be surpassed.
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• STUDENTS from Kerry College of Further Education painted a mural in historical laneway thus breathing new life into Milk Market Lane.
Tidy Tralee Together received funding from Tralee Municipal District councillors to give the area a makeover. The walls along the laneway and around the corner were painted and students from the KCFE — under the tutelage of Mary Kirby — designed and began the mural of three shops, recalling times past.
• Two Ladies Audrey Moran and Eileen Whelan, organised a fundraiser to buy two defibrillators and ended up raising enough for three.
The fashion/coffee morning fundraiser was inspired by Audrey’s sister, Therese O’Brien’s experience after she almost died in the town centre in early January.
Therese felt unwell outside Lloyd’s Pharmacy in Ashe Street and her life was saved thanks to a defibrillator in the pharmacy, the skill of staff, local doctor Karen Soffe and medics who arrived quickly on the scene.
• THERE was huge sadness in town at the news that a young man died in a crash on the Tralee to Fenit road in the early hours of Saturday, March 24.
Luke Gleasure (23) from The Kerries West, Tralee, died in the single-vehicle crash at around 3.20am on Saturday morning. A second man was removed by ambulance to University Hospital Kerry.
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• PLANNING was lodged in March with Kerry County Council for an 800 sq.m skate park in the grounds of Tralee Sports and Leisure Centre.
The planning was lodged by Billy Downes on behalf of the Tralee Skate Park Community Group on March 1 and it is hoped that in time funding will be sourced through the Sports Capital Grants scheme. The project could cost around €250,000.
The plan is for an 800 sq.m skate park located south of the car park at Tralee Sports and Leisure Centre. Once completed, the park would be taken over as a municipal amenity by Kerry County Council.
• THE former Goblin/Kerryman site in the Clash Industrial Estate was sold. The 15.2 acre site includes 120,000 square feet of commercial units.
The Goblin site had been vacant for well over ten years while NEWKD had offices in former Kerryman site for a while — before moving to town a few years ago — after the newspaper moved to Denny Street back in 2007. The purchaser of the site has not been revealed.
