No, this isn’t the landfill site near the Kinsale Road, Cork. It’s the beautiful beach at Myrtleville in County Cork last Tuesday. Disgusting isn’t it? My wife met a friend there who said that last year 3 people would clean the beach each day but this year, because of cuts, only one person was available. Apparently that morning he had filled up three sacks after the crowds the day before.
What you don’t see here is the used nappy on the road above, the half full carton of rotting salad, the plastic bags and other rubbish. You can’t smell the acrid burning rubbish in an overflowing bin near the slip way. You also missed the Gardai who took away two inebriated underage girls who had been singing and staggering across the beach or the man who was manhandled to the ground outside the gate to Bunny Connellans and probably arrested by the Gardai who ran passed me. A typical day at the beach?
What the hell? What’s up with people? Are they that ignorant of their environment? I remember watching that episode of Mad Men where the Draper family have a picnic in a picturesque green park. Their shiny new car is behind them. Everything is spotless and neat. Then when they get up to leave, the kids are tidied but afterwards the parents toss their rubbish on the pristine lawn. I wasn’t the only one to notice. Great comments on that blog post.
Shame we haven’t moved on since the 60’s.
| Aperture | ƒ/5.6 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 40D |
| Focal length | 179mm |
| ISO | 400 |
| Shutter speed | 1/250s |
13 replies on “The rubbish tip that is Myrtleville Beach”
That is horrible! I really don’t understand why they don’t just put the rubbish back in the bags they bought the stuff with. Makes no sense atall.
Yeah, I saw one guy throw his empty bottle of beer into the bushes behind the beach and his friend carried the box of unused beer bottles away with him.
The 3 bottles in the centre of the photo belong to those guys.
one of my all time favorite things to photograph is beach rubbish. Normally to be found at fountainstown or myrtleville. Possibly only because that’s where all the asshats that leave their shit on the beach tend to hang out. Having spent a while photographing old beach rubbish, you really can tell alot about the calibre of a person by the crap they leave behind them. Myrtleville and Fountainstown will always attract the dickheads. The litter warden really should stake out the two of them. The county council would make a mint out of it on any given sunny weekend.
I’ve no words for how crazy this drives me. The rats must be having little parties every evening. Lazy ignorant people who leave rubbish lying around like that tend to be the first in the door to their solicitor if they walk down the beach and injure themselves on a piece of glass.
I think the beach and Bunnys are just a bad combination. I shudder to think of the amount of people who drive out of there after a few drinks and too much sun.
As my American brother in law would say: ‘pack it out!’ (as in if you backpack your rubbish into nature then pack it out as well).
What makes me sad is that the wealth of our society over the last 10 years does not appear to have lead to an increase in social responsibility and awareness but to selfishness and greed. The photograph is a good metaphor for that!
I think the beach and Bunnys are just a bad combination. I shudder to think of the amount of people who drive out of there after a few drinks and too much sun.
Hi,
Disgusting … You can see the same thing alog the river LEE, near the kinslay hostel. Just because of sunny days.
It’s just .. terrible 🙁
Congrats for your nice website and pictures.
You are wasting your time trying to reason the type of people who drink on a public beach… Better off going to jail for mashing their heads in with a pint bottle of Bulmers.
Hi to all you beach lovers. Only down from Dublin today.
Love Myrtleville but surely to God the guards need to crack down on the “SCUM” that do these filthy dirty things on the beach and also to the local people who are the most hospitable people you can meet.
Go to
Mandy Dale on the Myrtleville website and see the roasting that I got last year when I wrote about the very xsame problem. Garrett crowley. was I out of order??
Garry – you mean on this page? I think it’s because you implied that local people were at fault for making the beach dirty. She took exception to that.
I don’t think it’s local people, the beach is close enough to Cork City that anyone can visit there and in their ignorance and stupidity leave their rubbish behind. It’d be great if there was a public toilet there but I can’t see that happening any time soon, not with the way national finances are now.
There were dogs on the beach, some would have been owned by locals, some maybe not (Many of the dogs played with whoever was on the beach, running between groups, and nobody called for them). We took our Shih tzu down there too but I had a nappy bag ready in case he had to do the business. Can’t say I saw a dog “go” while I was there but with owners absent in some cases their excrement would have been left on the sand.
On another note, nappy bags should be carried by all dog owners when out with their pets. They’re the perfect size for scooping up dog crap, and when turned inside out and knotted at the top, a convenient way of keeping an area tidy and safe for kids.
How sad to see the state of the beach at Myrtleville. I spent a lot of time on holiday there as a child in the 1950’s. I was just thinking of going for a trip down memory lane… is it always like this? Would I be better off with my memories? I am living in London now.
That’s just appalling to look at. I spent summers on that beach through the 70’s and 80’s and for the most part it was beautiful, especially when the mackerel were breaking in August. I was just there in July of 2008 and it didn’t look like that, of course I don’t think I was there on a Saturday morning either. Langers can’t be reasoned with and haven’t a clue nor a care in the world. Must be nice to think your sh!t doesn’t stink.