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Halloween 2009 and New Playground in Leopardstown Heights

As usual there was a bit of "fun" over the bonfire this year.

We stayed away again, Not pleasant atmosphere with alcohol and horizontal fireworks. Big teenage crowd, some other bonfires were not happening in the area so that probably swelled the crowd at our one.

Note to parents in Leopardstown and miles around: if your kid or teen is out unsupervised on Halloween theres a good bit of messing and alcohol around. That includes the days and evenings the whole week running up to Halloween. If you dont mind your kids indulging or ending up in hospital then its very inconsiderate of you inflicting them on the rest of us! Who buys the kids the bangers anyway!? They seem to have an endless supply. You know that after exploding the first one the only fun thing to do is to throw it at your friends and other people or put them in road diggers or skips to set them on fire!

Grr. I sound like a terrible grumpy-head!
Anyway today was nice. New playground still standing. One half is quite muddy though. There was loads of rubbish around. It looked really bad. Drink cans most obviously. We went out with the kids to playground and around and we brought rubbish bags. Picked up loads of cans and bottles and spent firework casings and general rubbish. Joined by 4 other people picking rubbish. The weather was v windy and a bit cold but dry. Very good day for picking rubbish. And we swept up broken glass from the  paths and  MUGA. Stiff and tired now. Bins stuffed full.

Note to non-residents of Ireland that the bonfires are still supposedly illegal of course like the fireworks that have been firing all week. :-P :) We even use helicopters now to spot fires from the air so as to stop the practice of burning waste on farms. Theyre illegal because Irish people (adults and kids) are so immature! Im normally in favour of not over-controlling what people are allowed to do and allowing kids to learn from experiance but when the neighbourhood and kids play space becomes uncomfortable and unsafe over an extended period it gets really annoying.

On our estate there is private waste-ground nearby and the council will not collect bonfire material from there. If they do come and collect it they quickly have a mini rioting hoarde of snotty upper-middle class kids indignant at their rights of having bonfires infringed upon. Immensely annoying. Also the week before Halloween handily co-incides with mid-term break from school so there is a good week free for the kids to collect vast amounts of rubbish and wood to burn.

On Saturday the kids started constructing the bonfire in the afternoon. Our house looks onto the Green so we can see what happens over in the distance. The Gardai came after a while - someone must have phoned them - and I guess they checked out the area, they seemed to stay for 20 mins or so and the crowds of kids engaged or ran away from them depending.

Our residents association after trying to control it the last few years decided to leave it this year. Not worth the hassle and not many residents supported any effort of limiting or supervising it the last few years.  I had a much less stressful Halloween as a result :)


Interesting to note that supervisors of bonfires in Sandyford Hall and Dun Emer were contacted directly by Gardai and asked to desist. I dont know if stopping all the safer supervised bonfires and leaving the unsupervised ones is such a good idea? Hmm.