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The sight of the canal finally being dredged will have cheered the hearts of everyone in Bridgetown, eased fears that they face another winter of rising tides and freak flooding. But the access point used by the Office of Public Works (OPW) to get to the canal has seen the Garden of Remembrance, the tribute to those who died in the 1916 Easter Rising, destroyed, trampled over by workmen as they make their way in and out of the water.

A nd while everyone in the area has welcomed the works, local Councillor Jim Codd is unhappy at the decision to access the water at this specific point. 

“I understood from Wexford County Council (WCC) officials that the OPW would find a different way in to the canal and was horrified to discover that they had pulled up the garden, especially, during this, a year of commemoration in which we honour our fight for independence,” said the Aontú councillor. “There was a lot of effort put into building it and a lot of money spent by the council on it and then to turn around and pull it up five years later shows a terrible lack of communication between the council and the community.”

Unveiled on Easter Monday in 2017, the garden was developed to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising and contains a headstone with the words of the Irish Proclamation of Independence. According to Cllr Codd a more suitable entry point could have been located along the banks of the canal.

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“There’s currently a number of diggers working on it and everyone appreciates the canal must be dredged but previously the diggers have gone in a different way, there’s a number of areas of waste ground they could have used to go in there,” he said. “There’s no need to go in there, obviously we want it dredged but there’s no need to destroy the garden, it just shows a lack of regard for the founders of the state.”

However, Councillor Jim Moore has counteracted those claims and says the entry point used by the OPW is the same one used for centuries.

“The access to the canal has been there for hundreds of years, it is an access that has been operated by both the OPW as part of the dredging process and the local community through all the commercial life that went on, including being used as a drinking area for the horses,” he said.

Cllr Moore then added that there “was consultation beforehand with the group that established it, that consultation is continuing and there will be works which will only enhance the area undertaken once this work is finished” and said that given local concerns over repeat instances of flooding, a regular access point had to be established.

"One thing we have to ensure is that there’s continuous access for the OPW so they can maintain the area, whether it’s every year or every two years, that access point needs to be maintained to preserve a quality of life for the people there and there’s no hindrance to the drainage systems,” he said. “I’m quite happy that the engineers from the OPW and WCC are working hard with the group that founded the memorial. That is the best place to go in, it’s the established area, it’s a public area, anywhere else you look along the canal is privately owned.”

Meanwhile, the Rosslare Municipal District (RMD) has confirmed that extensive dredging has taken place through the village centre over a period of eight days, covering a distance of 250m and removing in excess of 5,000 tonnes of material from the channel.

The maintenance work between the road bridge and the rail bridge required tree and hedge cutting before the in-stream works could take place and was planned by the OPW to commence outside the bird nesting season between September 1 and February 28.

Discussing the decision to use the site of the Remembrance Garden as the access point, manager of the RMD, Noirin Cummins, said, “The historical access point used by the OPW for the maintenance of this stretch of the channel was, unfortunately, blocked by the development of the garden and seating area in late 2016. Given the excavator machine which was required for this work and the lack of suitable alternative 4m wide river access, it was necessary to remove some elements of the garden. This was carried out with care.

“Access to the garden for the machinery was facilitated from the road, avoiding any damage to the now mature hedging surrounding the garden, the proclamation stone remained untouched as did the flagpole and one of the three seats. Furthermore, the bricks which formed the decorative circle were carefully removed and retained for future re-use.

"Apart from the disruption to the circle, two seats were also removed with the timber planks safely retained for re-use. Thus, the inflammatory comment that the council decided to ‘pull down the Garden of Remembrance’ is both inaccurate and disappointing.”

Stressing that the priority was completing the works on the canal to avoid “as far as possible” a repeat of last year’s flooding, Ms Cummins said the council worked with the OPW to provide the necessary and essential access to complete the works and that key access points for dredging the canal in the centre of Bridgetown village will have to be protected from this point on. “This will ensure that dredging work returns to the regular programme that was in place in the past to give the village the best possible chance of avoiding future flooding.”

Regarding the future of the Remembrance Garden and its potential restoration, Ms Cummins said, “The council propose to look at the possibility of strengthening/improving the slipway to facilitate this regular dredging and to explore the potential of the slipway for supporting other amenity activities on the canal, whilst re-orientating or relocating the garden to suit the varying requirements.”

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