Yesteryears - Looking back on the week the Park Hotel opened in Clonmel

The headline story on our front page on July 6, 2006, announced the opening of a new €20m four-star hotel at the Poppyfields site on the edge of Clonmel. The story stated that the 99- bedroom hotel, owned by the Brennan Group, would employ 107 people.
The story anticipated that the Park Hotel would be the first in a new wave of hotels planned for Clonmel in the coming years with the “imminent development of a hotel and golf resort at Marlfield.”
Also that week there was an impassioned plea on the front page from St Michael’s Soccer Club in Tipperary to the local council to help find them a new site for their club, an unfortunate side affect of the arrival of decentralisation in Tipperary, as their site had been sold for the new government offices.
Back in Clonmel a plan by the local council was approved for the redevelopment of the bridge on the Fethard Road to alleviate one of the worst traffic bottlenecks in the town.
While in Cashel an allegation over the sale of the former Convent grounds provoked an angry response from members of the Town Council. The site, off Friar Street, was sold by the council for €1.9m for the development of a hotel which angered the Save Our Town Park committee.