House parties with up to 300 people celebrating 'Christmas Day' were cleared by gardaí in Cork last night

Student house parties with 200 to 300 people were broken up by the Gardaí last night, but only a handful of arrests were made during the unofficial ‘Christmas Day’ event that took place yesterday.

Speaking to The Echo, Community Policing Sergeant Stewart Philpott said that some students were arrested for public order, possession of drugs, while other students had their college ID’s taken.

“We will be liaising with the college in the coming days about the event,” Sgt Philpott said.

The Community Policing guard also said that there were a few complaints from local residents in relation to the event, which will be followed up on.

As well as this Gardaí are investigating two criminal damage incidents in the city, where a young man was observed jumping on a car.

No arrest has been made at this time but Gardaí are following a definite line of inquiry.

Large crowds of students celebrated an unofficial “Christmas Day” event all day on Thursday.

From early in the day, College Road and Bandon Road were thronged with students. Last night, there were long queues of students outside city bars and nightclubs. 

Gardaí said there were no public order incidents or cautions handed out to students during the day, but that changed overnight.

Gardaí found out about the unofficial UCC event, which coincides with an official Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) Christmas Day event, on Tuesday.