My Walk for Justice
Take A Walk For Justice
“Eviction is not one of life’s ups and downs; it is a mark of punishment inflicted by society through State institutions and the legal system. The issue is topical with reports of bank and vulture fund mortgage possessions and family homelessness caused by eviction from private rented housing.”
SOURCE: Prof. Padraic Kenna, Director, Centre for Housing Law, Rights and Policy, School of Law, National University of Ireland Galway,
“In my opinion, all distressed borrowers should have an amnesty from repossession of their family homes. To achieve this, the State must recalibrate our home mortgage law with strong legislation to restore proportionality and balance between the human rights of homeowners, which are enshrined in our law and law, with the contractual and property rights of those who own any loans of homes in this state.”
SOURCE: Julie Sadlier – solicitor with Kieran Mulcahy Solicitors in Limerick
My Rhode To WEllbeing -Day 1
My Rhode To WEllbeing -Day 2
Left to Right: Tom Roche – Founder/Co-ordinator Just Forests. Derek Fanning, Journalist – Midland Tribune. Jim Brennan, Poet. Ger Scully, Editor – Tullamore Tribune.
About the Route
For centuries the Grand Canal was a major transportation route. From the time of its inception in 1715 it was fraught with challenges. It took until 1751 for construction to actually begin and by 1759 16 km from the Bog of Allen to Sallins were completed. It is reported that the cost of constructing the canal was in the region of £877,000.
In 1772, a group consisting on ‘noblemen’ and ‘merchants’ formed The Grand Canal Company. Trade in transportation services doubled from 100,000 tons in 1800 to 200,000 tons in 1810. In the 1960s, Dublin Corporation had plans to drain the canal and replace it with a 6-lane dual-carriageway as part of a plan to drain and lay new sewage pipes along the canal bed. The plans were met with opposition and a petition of 100,000 signatures against the proposal, and eventually abandoned.
My maternal and paternal ancestors were intimately linked to The Grand Canal. My uncles Tom and Johnny Russell from Rathcobican near Rhode Bridge were Grand Canal Rangers. They were responsible for maintaining a three mile stretch either side of the canal from Rhode Bridge towards Edenderry and repair any breaches that occured along the canal banks.
My grandfather James Roche and his three sons, Bernard, Tom and John (my father) were boatsmen. They transported thousands of tons of cargo – including Guinness, P & H Egans Whiskey, turf and Pullough bricks, by horse-drawn barge from Tullamore to and from Dublin and Shannon Harbour for decades.(See photo above).
Today The Grand Canal is a beautiful and popular walkway maintained by Waterways IRELAND. It is the perfect place to get away briefly from the many physical and mental health-related challenges of today – air pollution, water pollution biodiversity decline, eco-anxiety and climate change.
