A local Garda in Cork has won praise for the brilliant way he dealt with tourists flocking to Ballycotton over the weekend.
Despite the many calls from the HSE for the public to stay at home during the Coronavirus outbreak, plenty of visitors and tourists opted to head to East Cork to enjoy the renowned Cliff Walk on the sunny Sunday afternoon.
But Garda Mick - as he is known by residents in the area - took up station at the main entrance to the walk and turned many people away with a firm but gentle word - as seen in the video above, CorkBeo reports.
The main pathway itself is only approximately one metre wide therefore making it almost impossible for the huge crowds to obey the two metre social distancing guidelines set by the Health Department. So much to the delight of locals, Garda Mick stepped in.
"It had to be done," said Aine who lives nearby.
"Some of the people he stopped were unbelievably rude and ignorant, they were saying ‘what do you mean I can’t go up there?’. The cliff walk is a small path, it's not even one metre wide so people will nearly be touching each other as they walk past.
"The past few summers it has been insane here, people just turn up and abandon their cars and they'd nearly even park in your driveway. Sunday was crazy busy.
"We were delighted to see Mick come out, I'm not even sure he was working but he had to act because it was getting out of hand."
Aine was just one of many locals who wanted to express their gratitude to their local Garda for his calm and common sense approach to dealing with a difficult situation.
Elsewhere in the country yesterday, Gardai had to close a number of well known beauty spots in Wicklow, Kerry and Galway as the burst of good weather brought huge numbers out of their social isolation.
