Tipperary resident trapped in house by severe road damage after heavy rain

A Kilcommon resident says repeated flooding and road erosion outside his home has left him unable to leave his property and increasingly worried about the lack of a long-term solution from Tipperary County Council.

The man, who has lived with his wife on the rural hillside road for 10 years, told the Tipperary Star that the road outside his entrance has collapsed multiple times following heavy rainfall, most recently last week after intense overnight downpours.

Photos submitted to this newspaper show a deep trench carved into the edge of the road, with stones and debris washed down the hill. The resident described the gully as “about 40 centimetres deep”, saying it is not passable with a standard car.
“You could probably drive through it with a 4x4, but we don’t have a 4x4,” he said. “We simply cannot leave the property.”

He says the problem is recurring, having happened “at least the third, if not the fourth” time since he moved in. Each incident, he claims, is linked to water running down the hill during storms, water he believes is not being diverted properly by drainage higher up the road.

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“There’s something wrong with the drainage at the top of the hill. Someone told me the drain on the other side of the road is completely blocked, but I don’t know for sure,” he said.

The resident says the flooding also poses a risk to neighbours and passing motorists, with loose stones scattered across a steep, narrow stretch of road.

“If you’re going down the hill and you have to move to the shoulder to let another car pass, you don’t expect that the shoulder itself might collapse. It’s dangerous,” he said.

He has contacted the county council several times but says he has been told the issue is his responsibility, something he disputes.

His home insurance provider previously advised him that everything outside his fence line falls under the remit of the council. “Even if I fixed it myself, the next heavy rain would destroy it again. It’s the road, it’s not my driveway,” he said.

According to the resident, council staff have repaired the road three times in the past, but he says no permanent solution has ever been implemented.

“They know the situation. They’ve fixed it before. But they keep trying to push it back on me,” he said. “I just feel they need to work on something more permanent.”

While he can work remotely, the resident says the ongoing issue leaves him anxious about what would happen if he or his wife ever needed urgent medical care.

“So far nothing serious has happened, but we don’t know what could happen next time. If we can’t leave the house, that could be very dangerous,” he said,

In recent weeks, parts of Tipperary have experienced repeated bouts of heavy rainfall, leading to localised flooding, road-edge erosion and drainage backups across several rural routes.

While each location presents its own engineering challenges, local representatives and engineers have repeatedly noted that long-term solutions typically involve a combination of clearing blocked drains, reinforcing roadside verges, and installing new channels or culverts to redirect runoff during severe downpours.

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For residents like this man in Kilcommon, the hope is that any forthcoming works will focus not only on repairing the visible damage but on preventing the pattern from recurring as weather volatility continues.

A permanent drainage upgrade, rather than repeated patch repairs, is seen by affected homeowners as the only way to restore safe access and protect the roadway during future storms.