Businesses in Bantry in west Cork are again counting the cost after about 20 premises were flooded when the town’s drainage system was unable to take the run-off from a downpour which hit the area in the middle of the night.
Heavy rain between 3am and 4am on Tuesday morning led to up to 20 premises on Main Street and New Street in Bantry being inundated, in some cases up to a depth of nearly 30cm, according to local Independent Ireland councillor Danny Collins.
“I slept through the downfall of rain myself but people who heard it said they never heard the likes of it and the culverts couldn’t take it,” he said. “It started backing up and it came in the back door of premises on New Street and Main Street and in one premises on the quay.”
Cllr Collins said it’s too early to put an exact figure on the total cost of the latest flood to hit the town, but it would run into thousands of euro for many businesspeople as they suffered damage to fixtures, fittings, flooring and equipment as well as a loss of stock.
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This week’s flood is one of a series of floods to hit Bantry in recent years and comes just over a year after a similar pluvial flood, where rainfall overwhelms drainage capacity, in October 2024. Some 42 premises on Main Street and New Street were flooded, with some buildings inundated to a depth of 0.5m.
The latest flood is the seventh to hit Bantry since 2020 and the 10th since 2012 and while some floods have been tidal in origin, this week’s flood, like the 2024 flood, was caused by the town’s antiquated culvert system being unable to cope.
According to a report by engineers Malachy Walsh & Partners in 2018, more than 500m of the town’s 950m of culverts were “in urgent need of repair”; following last year’s flood, Cork County Council confirmed work will start in mid-2026 and take 18 months to complete.
Cllr Collins said that he had raised the issue of when the culvert work will be carried out with Cork County Council chief executive Moira Murrell on Tuesday and she has promised to come back to him with a detailed timeline for the work within the next week to 10 days.
“They have to get specialist contractors in because it’s a very tricky job, but it has to be done – there are parts of the culvert system that are collapsing and that’s the big fear people have here, that more of it will collapse and the centre of town will be flooded to a huge depth of water,” he said.
He added that St Colum’s GAA club in Kealkill was also affected after a local river burst its banks and flooded the club’s hall, which is used for community events – the third such time it’s been flooded since September.
Danielle Delaney of the Bantry Business Association said the townspeople are worried and weary of the flooding as it looks like it could be two years before the culvert upgrade work is complete, while it could take five years before work begins on the larger Bantry Flood Relief Scheme.
“People are worried – and part of the worry this time is that we weren’t expecting it. We normally have an idea and people can put up the barriers, but this one came in the middle of the night, so people weren’t prepared – they didn’t have barriers up or sandbags out.
“People are worried, they’re upset, they’re disappointed – we just have so many floods in recent years that people are tired of it all. It’s costing money in clean-up, it’s costing money in stock, it’s causing stress because it is so overwhelming – everything is affected.”
