On Friday morning around 5am the Gardai on duty at Blarney Garda Station were called away on what turned out to be a hoax. Unfortunately while they were out the Garda station was attacked, the front door kicked down and firebombs thrown into the rooms downstairs. The building itself is quite old and burned quickly. Luckily the blaze was seen by a security guard from a nearby hotel or much more damage could have been done.
The building is unusable now of course. A Garda has been posted outside since, and this afternoon forensics were examining the site.
More coverage: Irish Times, Tribune, Herald.
The Irish version of Fort Apache, The Bronx!
I just had a lateral thinking moment! The OPW (office of public works) is responsible for state buildings like garda stations and government offices. This explains why the colours are always from the ‘dulux weather shield catalogue’. If they recruited somebody from west cork (where the colours of the houses are always vibrant) to select the colours we’d have a much more distinctive street scape as opposed to the ‘burnt rose’ colour in this photograph….the colour name is ironic in hindsight but probably not on the minds of the arsonist at the time of the attack.