Áine Ryan
A GRIEVING Westport mother, who is grappling with the sudden deaths of her son and de facto son-in-law, is set to appear on TV3 tomorrow regarding the alleged flooding of graves at Aughavale Cemetery.
Mrs Bernie Gill claims that her late son Noel’s grave, and the adjacent grave of Petie Geraghty, have flooded frequently, with up to three inches of water, after rainfall.
She told The Mayo News she was tired trying to get a response from the county council and, in utter frustration, contacted the Joe Duffy show, Liveline, on RTÉ Radio One last week, where she aired her grievance to the nation. She also revealed that she is due to appear on TV3 tomorrow, unless a significant intervention was made by the local authority.
Late last year, a double tragedy left two closely linked Westport families grief-stricken, and the entire community reeling. Just hours before his 30th birthday on November 20, Noel Gill disappeared without trace in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. He was last seen crossing the Erasmus Bridge, near Churchillplein, in the heart of Holland’s second-largest city, in the early hours of the morning.
Sixteen long and anxious days later, and shortly after the family were told that Noel’s body had been found in a nearby canal, his dear friend, Petie Geraghty was also found dead. The 39-year-old, a longtime partner of Noel’s sister, Caroline, was found dead in his car outside his home in Tubber Hill. He had suffered a massive heart attack.
The two men now lie side by side in a newly-developed area of Aughavale graveyard.
The sun was high and the graves were dry when The Mayo News met Bernie Gill last Friday afternoon.
“There is no sign of water now. But the minute it rains, the graves here become flooded and they fill up. Behind the cross there, at the top of the grave, it all fills up and it’s gurgling up like as if there was a spring underneath. It would be fine if we had this kind of weather all the time,” Bernie Gill said.
“When it’s really bad there are two to three inches lodged inside the graves. A family friend, who is an engineer, said the only way to rectify the problem is to dig up the path, down five or six feet, and build a soak-away,” she continued.
“I’ve been treated very badly by the council. They won’t even say they’ll get an engineer to meet me here,” Mrs Gill added.
She also told The Mayo News that Deputy Michael Ring, as well as Cllrs Myles Staunton and Brendan Mulroy had made representations to the council about the matter.
Responding, a spokesperson for the county council confirmed they had received a complaint and had subsequently carried out work which has alleviated the problem: “Mayo County Council wishes to confirm that following a complaint from the Gill family regarding water lodging on a relative’s grave, drainage work has been carried out, which has alleviated the problem.”
The spokesperson also told The Mayo News that the authority had provided Liveline with contemporaneous photographs taken at 11am on Wednesday last (May 28) which show the dry graves and surrounding grounds. The fact that the photographs were taken after a night of rain proved the problem had been resolved, he added.
