Corragh hall

Driving past a small orange hall in a rural part of County Monaghan at Corraghbrack near Tydavnet on Saturday night the car headlights revealed two offensive words “F**K YOU” had been painted on the gable wall and came up very clearly in the car headlights. The hall is used infrequently and does not have any sign outside and I have been past it many times before. My initial reaction posted yesterday and now corrected here was that this could be described as a sectarian act, possibly in reaction to the flags row in the North. Going back to visit the scene in daylight hours, the offensive slogan was not as apparent, depending on what angle you looked at it. But the wall showed signs of previous acts of graffiti having been painted out. Damage was done to the windows and front door of the hall in 2005, when a nearby hall in Glaslough was also attacked. On that occasion the local parish priest in Donagh, Fr Sean Clerkin, spoke out strongly at Mass against the attack.

Hopefully action will be taken to remove the unwanted graffiti. Further enquiries have revealed that the paintwork (which at the time seemed fresh to me) is not recent and there are no slogans accompanying the crude message to suggest it is a political act. It seems it is not intended in any way as a sign to the people who own the property. As I stated previously, Tydavnet and other parts of Monaghan generally have very good relations between Catholics and Protestants. It is to be hoped that this unsightly work will be attended to in due course and that the good relations between all sides of the community will prevail.