Garda patrols and traffic chaos as large crowds descend on popular Cork beaches

As temperatures increased today so too did the volumes of people travelling to beaches around the county and there were reports of heavy traffic and large volumes of people in some areas.

Gardaí made an appearance on Inchydoney Beach on Sunday afternoon, as large crowds gathered on the popular West Cork beach.

A spokesperson for An Garda Siochana said that gardaí “were there to ensure public safety due to a large volume of people and traffic in the area”.

Elsewhere in West Cork, large crowds descended on Barleycove with images appearing on social media of large volumes of cars parked on the narrow causeway to the beach.

In Crosshaven, there were reports of “some issues” after a new one way system was introduced in the town.

Local representative, Cllr Seamus McGarth said that there could have been more bollards/signage in place to steer traffic on day one.

"Unfortunately, there were some issues as a result earlier,” he said on a post on social media. "The first few days with a change like this are obviously critical so we will follow up with the engineer." 

Meanwhile, there were also reports of “multiple" fires and camps on Long Strand and on the Warren beach on Saturday.

Staff Centra Schull took to Facebook to describe how it was “extremely disappointing and upsetting to come to work this morning to find weeks of hard work had been vandalised overnight".

"All the new shrubs had been ripped out and scattered along with rocks and boulders all over the new entrance," they added.