'Very extensive' flooding in North Kilkenny this morning

Freshford experienced serious levels of flooding on Thursday night right through to the early hours of Friday morning. Water was literally cascading down all of the approach roads to the town. The volume of water was so severe that it caused the village to be closed off for a number of hours. The Johnstown Road, Bohergloss, Clintstown Road and the Kilkenny Road were all impassable and dangerous.

Local councillor Michael McCarthy describing the flooding as ‘very extensive’. At its height, some areas of the village experienced water of almost four feet and a large number of homes were flooded. 

The flood water level has now started to subside and it is hoped that water levels will return to some degree of normality within the next couple of hours. Councillor McCarthy praised both Kilkenny County Council and the fire services who were on site from 6am delivering sandbags, and were forced to close off all approach roads as they were completely impassable.  

Cllr McCarthy described the flooding as ‘very significant and very sudden’ explaining how a tributary of the River Frome running from Gattabaun to Freshford broke its banks and flowed through two or three fields. In total there was flooding from three different sources which made the situation very difficult to manage. 

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Cllr McCarthy has been making representations regarding flood defences for Freshford for years. Four years ago, the then minister with responsibility for the issue, Minister ‘Boxer’ Moran visited Freshford and made a commitment of funding of €3.8 million for flood relief works. Cllr McCarthy said that Freshford is still waiting for work to commence on that scheme and that it is ‘needed urgently’. 

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At the time of the previous commitment, six flood relief projects were announced for County Kilkenny including at Graignamanagh and Ballyhale. Currently Graignamangh is awaiting approval of their remedial works from An Bord Pleanála. Cllr McCarthy decried the pace of progress as ‘distressingly slow’, saying that it was progressing at ‘a snail’s pace’. 

He says that the river in Freshford has not been dredged for 40 years and that it takes ‘too long to put a project in place’. In his opinion €100,000 would solve the flooding issue in the North Kilkenny village. He observed that there is ‘no solution except to get the river dredged’. 

For Cllr McCarthy and the residents of Freshford, the lack of urgency about addressing the issue is deeply ‘frustrating’. 

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He explained that the major concern for residents of Freshford is that the flooding will be a frequently recurring phenomenon with the advance of global warming. For them, flood prevention in the town needs to be addressed immediately. The ‘unprecedented levels of rain at any one time’, this morning possibly close to 50ml can cause flooding very quickly and flood works need to be done without delay. 

"One would hope that the people of Freshford will not have to put up with this suffering for much longer and that these works will be treated with some urgency.” concluded Cllr. McCarthy.                                     

Niall Dollard of Kilkenny weather Tweeted this morning: "There was another 18.7mm of rain last night which has brought the October total to 162.5mm. This makes it the wettest October on record in Kilkenny (exceeds the 160.3mm in 1977). We also had a sharp 4°C drop in temperatures at 4am before the rain cleared."