The R619
The R619
Our Village is located at the intersection of the R618 and the R619 in Co. Cork. Coachford is one of the biggest villages in the region. We are fortunate enough to have a primary and post primary school. We also have two playschools, two hardware stores, a pharmacy, a GP surgery, a Credit Union office, Hairdresser, Petrol station, garage, two small supermarkets (Centra and Gala), a foodstore, a post office, a veterinary clinic, a Pshysiotherapy clinic, three public houses, two fast food restaurants, a church, a graveyard, a funeral home, a grainyard and a number of small to medium enterprises operating from the village and the surrounding area. The village is also home to two GAA pitches and a soccer club.
Coachford is located along the LeeValley and benefits from a huge number of people visiting the nearby Farran Woods and the National Rowing Centre. The village is on the main route from Blarney to Killarney. It is also on the most direct route from ShannonAirport to West Cork.
Our village is used by a large number of vehicles each day travelling from Mallow to Bandon. It is used by commuters to get to work in Ballincollig and the outskirts of Cork City from various parts of North Cork. Our community, our school children, our shoppers, our tourists and the people who pass through our village each day have to endure a three mile section of the R619 which is in an extremely poor condition and is quite dangerous. Articulated Lorries, school buses, agricultural vehicles and cars all use this road. It is appalling. This road is not a small country boreen. It is a regional route linking Mallow and Bandon. It is a road that links the south of our county to the new Hub town of Mallow ( as mentioned in the Spatial Strategy of the Cork County Council Development Plan).
This road has been earmarked for widening and realigning for the last 40 years but nothing has ever been done. Even when this country was awash with money, this section of the R619 was ignored. The Cork County Council have land purchased on both sides of the road in some parts to facilitate the realigning but this has never been progressed. A section of the R619 from Bweeing to Mallow was realigned and resurfaced in the early 2000s and made a huge difference to that area. The section from Tullig to Coachford was passed over and neglected for some reason. The road does not even have road markings.
This regional road is unsafe. I fear that one day a major accident involving a school bus and a truck will occur. I fear for the pedestrians using this section of the road and I fear for the future of our village as less people will be inclined to use this route because of the appalling condition of the road.
We need this road to get the attention it deserves from; the County Council, the councillors and TDs, the Gardai and the Road Safety Authority.
The people who use this road every single day deserve better than having to put up with an appalling surface, acute bends and stretches where two vehicles find it difficult to pass each other. The people who use this road need the authorities to seriously look at improving it and to bring it to the standard the rest of this route enjoys.
The people who use this road have put up with the false promises, the countless reassurances that something will be done and the rhetoric about improving road safety for far too long. The motorists, pedestrians, school children and business people have suffered enough.
The local elections are taking place on May 23rd 2014. Between now and then a number of canditates will be canvassing in the area. Please remind them about the negleted section of the R619. Ask them what they intend to do about it and question why they or their party have negleted it for so long. Make up your mind how to vote when you hear their answer.
The R619 – Coachford deseves better. You deserve better.
Some photos from the last night at Hogans
This gallery contains 60 photos.
Hogans – Thank You for Everything
Hogans – Thank You For Everything
Running a business is tough. Running a public house is even tougher. Dealing with the public each and every day can be hell on earth. But doing all of these and doing it well takes special kind of people. It takes people who can see beyond the basic pounds shillings and pence. It takes people who believe that they can offer something different, that their business is a lot more than just an outlet serving drink or making sure that people come to the premises. John and Siobhan Hogan are these kind of people.
Hogan’s, The village Inn was much much more than a business. It was a house, a home…… a home from home for many of us. It was our local, our place to escape, unwind, have a laugh, have a bit of craic, discuss the news of the day, the sport from last night , the games of tomorrow and our plans for the future. Oh and yes , to enjoy a pint or two.
Hogan’s was not just a pub. . Any place could be a pub. But Hogans was special. Hogan’s not only served drink, it served the community. It served as a theatre, a church, an auction room, a museum, a lecture theatre, a changing room, a dance hall, a games room, a meeting room for countless organisations and groups. It was the scene of wild celebrations and countless parties. It was the venue for christenings and wakes. It fed flower groups, footballers and farmers. It was the home of race nights for Horses and mice. It was the venue for performers, players and late night poker. It was the pub for the sing song, the session and the set.
Hogans was where everything was at. This pub, this building, this business was the focal point for so many things. There is no doubt that John and Siobhan ran a great pub but they also ran the village’s unofficial tourist office for many years. This pub was often the first place strangers would come to when arriving in the village. It is no coincidence that countless fishermen used here as their Irish head quarters and than many new people who set up home here in the area quickly considered Hogans as their local and John and Siobhan as friends.
Hogans was also an unofficial FÁS training centre. There was many a young person received a crash course in the art of Bar work before heading out to the states or Australia so they would have something on the CV to carry them through a summer away from home.
Hogans was the first place in Cork county to serve black and white pudding along with sausages and wedges in baskets. It was the first and probably still is the only pub to have a FIFA Soccer tournament every St. Stephen’s Day. It is the pub that holds a Poker tournament in honour of a dear customer who never drank alcohol. It is the pub that once held a gun club meeting, a dress rehearsal for a play, a community Council meeting and an Irish language gathering on the same night and at the same time and it if the whole lot bought more than 6 drinks between them it was as much. No wonder you’re closing!!
When this pub was bought more than 15 years ago no one gave it a chance of surviving more than 15 months. It was in the wrong side of the village, it had a poor history, John and Siobhan knew nothing about the business and they were blow ins. But how wrong we all were. They quickly proved that it was on the right side of the village and that while they may not have known much about the bar business, they were both experts on people and knowing what they wanted and that’s what John and Siobhan did over the years. They gave us what we wanted and sometimes even what we didn’t want.
To serve the community drink would have done. It’s what most pubs just do. But Hogans support the community. They have sponsored the GAA, Soccer and Camogie Clubs and many others that we know nothing about.. Spot prizes were doled out on a daily basis for various lost and worthy causes. If there was something to be done around the village then John Hogan would be asked to do it and he rarely refused. He was and still is involved in so many things, training teams, parents association, soccer club, GAA, Community council and even fishing. There were many nights when he should have been here but was stuck on some committee or at some pitch and Siobhan had to hold the fort. They are a unique partnership. They ran a unique pub, a unique business.
And now it’s over. And it’s hard to believe that it’s gone, this haven for drinkers and friends, for people of all ages and backgrounds who would meet here and share friendship over a pint. This pub who had different customers at different times of the day. There was the early evening gang, the night gang and the late gang. But all knew Hogan’s as their local. All of us when we said we were going to the pub meant this pub. This pub which witnessed so much, this bar which saw old friends pass away and new customers come forth. Oh we’ll miss you.
So on behalf of everyone, the organisations who called this place home, the card players, the musicians, the storytellers, the lovers of sport, the chancers, the characters, the customers who loved being here, but most of all, on behalf of all your friends we’d like to wish you the very best in whatever new challenge you take up and we want to say thank you.
To quote a famous American President “It’s easy to make a buck, It’s a lot tougher to make a difference”
Thank you John and Siobhan for making a difference to our lives.
Latest News from the Village – 30.01.14
Walking made safer for Coachford residents
Cork County Council has announced the development of a footpath from Beechville and Fr. Patrick Sheehan housing estates to join with the one from the national school and on to the village. The cost of the development is estimated at €22,000 and will be over 130 meters in length. Chairperson of the Community Council, Deirdre O’Donovan welcomed the announcement and said, “This new footpath is a great addition and will certainly help in making sure that the people who live in the area and those who use the sporting facilities and schools will be able to walk the roads in a safer way. The recent footpath repairs near Dairygold have made a huge difference but there remains a lot of work to be carried out by the council on footpaths in other areas of the village. The footpath by the GAA pitch is in a terrible condition and is now at the same level as the road in many areas and is very unsafe for walkers and impassable when the road is flooded.”
Improvements for Community House
Coachford Community House has been allocated a Cork County Council amenity grant of €6,000 towards updating internal doors, signage, wiring and windows. The committee running the house is also looking at installing a new fire alarm system and carrying out painting of the interior. The full cost of the works is estimated to be €15,000. Coachford Community House was developed by the Community Council on the site of the old Courthouse on the Main Streetin the 1980s. The upper floor of the building is occupied by the Community Playgroup. The ground floor was rented to the Southern Health Board and latterly the HSE as an office space and waiting room for the Public Health Nurse and Community Welfare Officer. In 2004 the HSE decided that they were no longer going to offer a service in one of the largest villages in Mid Cork. The Ground floor rooms are used by various groups in the area for meetings and Aghinagh Comhaltas holds music lessons there each week. The exterior of the Community House was repainted in 2013, adding to the recently enhanced appearance of Coachford Village. Rooms on the ground floor continue to be available for rental at very reasonable rates. Bookings can be made by ringing the secretary on 085 1594263
Aghinagh Comhaltas
Proceeds from the sale of the 2014 Calendars featuring paintings by local artists and sponsored by Aghinagh Comhaltas will be presented to Marymount Hospice by Aghinagh Comhaltas this Friday night, January 31st in Breathnachs Bar Coachford. The regular monthly sessiún will follow the presentation and everyone is invited to the presentation.
Sunday Evening Music
O’Riordan’s Bar will host music on the first Sunday of every month from 7.00pm to 9.00pm. The every popular, Kieran and Jim will entertain on this Sunday, February 2nd.
Aghabullogue GAA
The Aghabullogue Camogie club will hold their Annual General Meeting on Saturday February 1st at 7.00pm
Foróige starts in Coachford
Over 40 young people have started their own Foróige club in Coachford. The group meets every Wednesday night in the GAA complex from 7.30pm to 9.00pm. At the groups first meeting they decided on the rules of their club and what they wanted to get involved in over the coming months. The teenagers are supported by eight leaders at present with more being trained over the next few weeks. Foróige is the leading and most successful youth organisation inIreland.
Lotto
The Coachford AFC Lotto is on the rise and now stands at a very tidy sum of €2,600. Tickets can be purchased for the next draw in the shops and pubs in the village and are only €2 each. The funds raised from the lotto go to the grounds development at Coachford AFC . Next week’s draw will take place in O’Callaghan’s Bar on Monday night.
Challenge yourself every week in Macrooom
Parkrun in Macroom
Castle Demense parkrun Macroom is a FREE timed 5k run. It happens
every Saturday morning at 9.30am in the Castle Grounds in Macroom.
This is not a race, its a run whereby you . All you need to do is register on www.parkrun.ie/castledemense
and you will receive a barcode. This barcode will be scanned after the
run and then Saturday evening you will get an email with your time and
position.
parkrun is opened to both the young and the old and walkers are more
then welcome. If you need more information call Macroom Leisure Centre
on 026-43508
A year in the life of a website
Thank you to everyone who has visited the Coachford News website during 2013. The site is used for informing people of what goes on in Coachford and sometimes the odd unprofessional rant from the editor!
The average number of daily visitors to Coachford News website is 159. Yes that’s right, almost 160 people visit our site every day.
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This Coachford News website was viewed about 58,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 21 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
In 2013, there were 69 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 93 posts. There were 1070 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 3 GB. That’s about 3 pictures per day.
The busiest day of the year was October 6th with 5,556 views. The most popular post that day was The John McSweeney Memorial Trophy Competition followed closely in May by Cork AUL Premier title comes to Coachford – Village of Champions with 5,494 views.
The site is proving to be popular overseas also with visitors from 41 countries viewing the site. The UK, USA and Australia accounting for the most overseas visitors but we also have vies from Poland, New Zealand, Canada and Bolivia!
Thank you for following Coachford News and for contributing to it. We hope that it is a useful resource for the people of Coachford and a link to home from those overseas. We would be delighted if each of you could tell others about the site.
Remember if you would like to contribute a news item or an article please email it to coachfordnews@gmail.com If you would like to become one of the team, drop us a line to the above email.
Latest news from the Village- 23.01.14
Roll Call for award winning National School
Coachford National School is holding its annual open day on Wednesday January 29th. This is a great opportunity for parents of young children in the mid Cork area to see this fantastic facility in action. Coachford National School is one of the success stories of recent years and continues to be one of the best primary schools in Cork. The school has 118 pupils and seven teachers. There are two special needs assistants, a secretary and a caretaker, There are also two visiting teachers who teach speech and drama and gymnastics. The School opens each day at 9.00am and is adjacent to Coachford Community College and enjoys a very good relationship with the second level school and interacts with the community college throughout the year. Coachford National School has won numerous awards over the last few years including an award at the recent Young Scientist of the Year exhibition in Dublin. The School has been awarded four Green flags for work on environment education and in 2013 were awarded an Active School flag for developing a programme to combat childhood obesity and promote physical fitness among the pupils. The school, which was built In 1995 has six large classrooms, all of them equipped with interactive whiteboards. Coachford National School also has smaller rooms for group and individual tuition. The children of Coachford NS have been involved with the Discover Primary Science since 2007 and have achieved the Science and Maths Excellence Award on five occasions. It’s not all work at the school however, the pupils also excel on the playing fields and on the stage. The school has won Sciath na Scoil trophies in football and hurling and have a very successful vegetable patch. In 2013 the school started a new after-school clubs initiative, A homework club runs onMonday and Tuesday afternoons andthere is an art club on Wednesdays.There are also plans for a cookery club, ascience club and a music club. The school is a vibrant place full of happy children and enthusiastic teachers and well worth a visit on Wednesday January 29th from 9.30am to 11.00am.
Coachford AFC
Hopes are high that a full fixture list will be completed this weekend in underage soccer. Many games have had to be postponed during the last few weeks due to the wet and cold conditions. This weekend the under 12s travel to Midleton to take on the town side in the Local Cup at 10.30am on Sunday. Also on Sunday the Under 16s and under 14s are also playing in the Local Cup competition. The under 16s entertain Evergreen at 10.30am in Carrigadrohid and the under 14s play Mayfield united at the same venue at 12.15pm. In junior soccer The Coachford second team play Richmond away in the County Cup on Saturday at 2.00pm. The premier team travel to Murphy’s Farm to play Kilreen in the league also on Saturday at the same time.
Aghabullogue Camogie Club
The Aghabullogue Camogie club will hold their Annual General Meeting on Saturday February 1st at 7.00pm. The club had a very successful year in 2013 with many of their underage teams winning titles. The committee are looking for parents of the underage teams to get involved in the club in 2014 and are anxious to see as many of them as possible attend the AGM. The meeting is open to everyone and all are welcome.
Latest news from the village 16.01.13
A large group of teenangers attended the information night on Foróige on Wednesday night in the village. Those in attendance heard from the leader sof the new group about what Foróige was all about and what benefits the new group will have for everyone. A leader from Riverstick Foroige spoke about what his club does and how they meet other clubs for basketball and soccer tournaments, talent nights and discos. Two members from Riverstick spoke on how involvment in their club means everything to them and that it’s a great place to hang out and meet friends.
The first real meeting of the club takes place on Wednesday January 22nd at 7.30pm in the GAA hall.
Farmers Market
The Caochford Farmers Market takes place on Saturday, January 18th from 10.30am to 1.00pm. Get along and purchase the freshest vegetables in Cork. Have a beautiful cup of coffee and some delecious home baking. Browse the beautiful jewellery and knitwear stalls and pick up a good secondhand book.
Aghabullogue racing rescheduled
The Aghabullogue Point to Point races fell foul of the heavy rain last Sunday and have now been rescheduled for this Saturday from 12.00noon. The races are a great day out for the whole community and an opportunity to meet neighbours and friends and maybe even make a few bob! A few local horses are penciled in for running on Saturday and this should only add to the excitement of the day.
Coachford GIY
The Coachford ‘Grow It Yourself’ group will meet on Wednesday January 22nd in Hogan’s Bar at 8.30pm. Lisa Fernandes from Maine in the USA will give a talk on ‘growing food we need’ and turning your vegetable plot into a productive garden. Lisa and her husband have converted their 1/3 acre plot in the USA into a virtual food garden. Lisa is also an expert on composting and preserving the food we grow. Members and non members of Coachford GIY are very welcome.
Coachford Scientists are recognised
Congratulations and well done to the Coachford National School 6th class who were awarded 3rd place in the National Primary Schools Science Fair as part of the Young Scientists Exhibition in Dublin last weekend. The project on Allergies was very well received by the judges and the young students were commended for their hard work and attention to detail.
Medal Presentation
Cork Footballers, Rena Buckley and John Corkery were guest of honours at the Aghabullogue Camogie club and GAA medal presentations last Saturday evening. Both players spoke to the young camogie winners and footballers and stressed to them the importance of training and listening to their coaches. The under 13 footballers were the only side to bring honours to the GAA club in 2013 winning the East Region League title. The underage camogie players had a very successful year winning titles in under 12, 13, 14 and 15 age groups. A very large crowd made up of the players families and friends were in attendance and were treated to an excellent meal prepared by the camogie club members.
Soccer
Coachford AFC premier team will play Greenwood away on Saturday in the league and the B team travel to Ballinhassig to play the home side in their league tie. The premier team are top of the table at the moment but are only two points clear of and have played three more games than the two teams immediately below them. The B team are third in their league and look to be having a much better season at this early stage than the previous one.
Aghabullogue GAA & Camogie Medal Presentation
Cork Footballers, Rena Buckley and John Corkery were guest of honours at the Aghabullogue Camogie club and GAA medal presentations on Saturday evening. Both players spoke to the young camogie winners and footballers and stressed to them the importance of training and listening to their coaches. The under 13 footballers were the only side to bring honours to the club in 2013. The underage camogie players had a very successful year winning titles in under 12 13 and 14 age groups.
Coachford News 