Yesteryears: Freedom of Clonmel for President Robinson; seven cars broken into

This week our YESTERYEARS feature jumps back 30 years in time to our edition of April 10, 1993, when Anne Marie O’Brien covered the main story about the conferring of President Mary Robinson with the Freedom of the Borough of Clonmel.

The first-ever female President of Ireland was joining a small but highly distinguished group including previous Presidents Sean T. Ó Ceallaigh and Eamon De Valera, a list that was later to include President Mary McAleese and President Michael D. O’Higgins. She was only the second woman to be so honoured - Constance Markievicz being the other - and at the time of her conferring, President Robinson was the only living Freeman.

The Corporation bestowed the honour in recognition of her outstanding achievements in advancing civil rights and social justice at home and abroad and in appreciation of her caring attitude towards neglected minorities.

Mayor of Clonmel, the late Cllr Dominick O’Hara, officially presented the scroll of the Freedom of the Borough to President Robinson at a ceremony at the Town Hall on Monday, April 5.

Yesteryears: West Tipperary celebrating after green light given for ambitious plan

In another front page story we reported that a grant of £100,000 had been made available to Cashel Urban District Council by Bord Fáilte for the development of Cashel as a heritage town. At the monthly UDC meeting, where the announcement was made, it was agreed to establish a committee to investigate projects that might be suitable for funding under the scheme, with quite a number of projects already submitted in anticipation.

We also carried news that week that 14 jobs were to be lost in Clonmel with the closure of the Initial Services operation at Cashel Road. Initial Services were involved in the supply and cleaning of towels and toilet products to shops, offices and factories. The Clonmel set-up was being closed in order to centralise the entire operation to Cork, where the group, Spring Grove Services, were based.

In a case of anti-social behaviour our front page that week also carried a piece informing readers that seven parked cars had been broken into in a number of different locations around Clonmel the previous Sunday night/Monday morning. The cars were parked near the Rink Garage in Queen Street (3), Oakville Shopping Centre, Irishtown, Gravel Walk and O’Connell Street.