High praise from garda chief for Limerick over hurling celebrations

LIMERICK GAA supporters and the wider public have been praised for the responsible way they celebrated the hurlers’ recent All-Ireland success.

The head of the Limerick garda division has revealed there were no major incidents associated with the victory over Cork at Croke Park on August 22 while the Health Service Executive says there is no evidence of a spike in Covid-19 cases associated with the final.

At the beginning of the quarterly meeting of the Limerick Joint Policing Committee, Chief Superintendent Gerard Roche moved to congratulate the Limerick hurlers on their back-to-back All-Ireland success – both on and off the pitch.

He said he wanted to put it on the record that, from a policing perspective, the team and its fans have “shown a great example to the whole country” over the past two seasons.

“We haven’t had one incident – not one incident connected with any of it in the last two years and considering how challenging that was and given the young people involved in the team and everything – most of them are under the age of 28 – we had absolutely nothing on social media or otherwise - and I think it’s a credit to them and I have to take my hat off to them,” he said.

A policing plan was put in place around the All-Ireland final weekend and Chief Superintendent Roche said the “whole country is ringing me wondering how it was managed” given the lack of any significant incidents. “I said it’s down to the team and down to the fans as well – they all behaved extremely well,” he said.

He told the virtual meeting there were a number of high-level coordination meetings with stakeholders in advance of last month’s All-Ireland final as there were some concerns about the celebrations and the  potential for a spike in Covid cases.

However, the head of the HSE’s test and trace service, Niamh O’Beirne, has separately confirmed it has not detected any significant increases in Covid cases in Limerick associated with the All-Ireland final or the associated celebrations.

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