Drinking parties in McHale Park

Drinking parties evicted from McHale Park

Michael Duffy

THE CHAIRMAN of Mayo County Board has confirmed that the organisation is aware that the home of Gaelic football in the county - McHale Park - is being used for drinking parties by teenagers.
James Waldron told The Mayo News that he had personally evicted one of these parties himself and he was aware that groups of teenage revellers had been moved on from the pitch on at least three of four occasions in the recent past.
“Last Sunday week at about 3pm in the day I had to ask a group of teenagers who were drinking in the stand to move on. It’s an unfortunate situation but we are doing our best and we have informed the Gardaí of the problems we are faced with,” said Mr Waldron, who added that the County Board would want ‘a lock factory’ to replace all the locks that were being broken at the pitch.
“It’s not as if these groups are walking in open gates, they are breaking locks and climbing walls. We can no longer put up preventative barbed wire on top of the walls and we can’t go down the road of employing full-time security. We are just trying to be pro-active in relation to the issue, and hopefully the groups will get the message and know they are not allowed inside the ground,” said Mr Waldron.
The matter was first brought to light by Cllr Kevin Guthrie, a member of Castlebar Town Council, who lives on McHale Road.
Cllr Guthrie said at the monthly meeting of the Council that he had received several complaints from residents of the McHale Road area over the last few weeks about late night drinking which was taking place in the confines of McHale Park.
“I have been in contact with the Chairman of the County Board and in fairness they have carried out some raids there but I do feel the Gardaí need to start patrolling the area. Last week all the of the trees planted on the road by this Council were pulled out of the ground after one of these drinking sessions in McHale Park. These people should not be allowed to get away with this,” stated Cllr Guthrie, who added that he believed the press box was the main area where the drinking was taking place.
Supt John Quirke told the meeting that he was not aware of the problems at McHale Park but said that the Gardaí would deal with the situation.
“This sort of problem can often surface with the displacement of anti-social behaviour from other areas. We have succeeded in ridding some of the school grounds from this sort of problem and gardaí will look at this problem also,” added Supt Quirke.