ANN FLANAGAN’S life was collapsing all around her three weeks ago, but it was only a couple of days ago that she was able to shed a tear.
The Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) lecturer and mother was forced out of her south Galway home during the recent flooding. It will be August, at the earliest, before she and her boys can return.
The family will spend Christmas with Ann’s parents in Cranagh, about six miles from their home in Skehanagh, Peterswell, but the trio have lost much of what they possessed, along with her home as she knew it. Ann had moved into the bungalow with her two sons, Daire and Eoin, seven years ago – it had been designed and built for her by her brother.
“This is a limestone area; turloughs have caused problems, but this location wasn’t affected in the floods of 1995,” she says. When the water came this time, it carried sewage from septic tanks, and it took nine pumps and a slurry tanker to clear it out again. “We got a vanload of stuff into a house next door, but that was it. And it’s the small things you miss now. I was asked out to a concert by a work colleague the other night and remembered I didn’t even have a pair of shoes.
“I was so busy trying to save some of the boys’ stuff, and then I couldn’t remember where I had stored it. It took me six days to find it – in the attic – and the stench was incredible.”
Doorframes and doors have been removed, tiles taken up, and there is substantial cracking in walls and on the footpath outside. Galway County Council gave her three skips. Her neighbours gave her much moral and physical support.“We experienced an awful lot of goodness,” Ms Flanagan says.
Down the road in Peterswell, retired couple Maurice and Bibi Browne also had to quit, with little notice beforehand. “Within 15 minutes we had 11 neighbours here, taking stuff out for us and arriving again with sandbags the following day,” Mr Browne says.
“We had been totally stranded as it was for six days, with no clear roads out, and our neighbour Pat O’Neill then offered to take us in,” Mr Browne said. “Galway County Council offered us hotel accommodation for several nights, which was great. Apart from that, the only person who we’ve seen in four weeks has been community welfare officer Aine Kelly, who has been nothing short of an angel.”
At Gort health centre, secretary Rita Downey has been fielding phone calls. A Christmas dinner at Gort Social Services has been organised by Amanda Morton for people affected by the floods, and people living on their own.
There have been many other “random acts of kindness”, according to the health centre. Staff at Labane National School cancelled their Christmas party and donated the proceeds to flood relief. Pupils in Kiltiernan National School raised €400 for hampers, and donated them to a number of affected families.
At the same time, there has been a severe psychological impact on south Galway communities, Irish Farmers’ Association environment spokesman Michael Kelly says.
“We still have water all around us here, several dozen families who can’t go home for Christmas. One part of Ireland has moved on and the rest has been left behind. If this happened in Dublin, Ireland plc would have shut down.”