It seems we have mellowed somewhat since it was said of Millstreet that we had “…the unenviable reputation of being the most lawless town in Ireland” ( from the Cork Constitution 1881, during the Land League War ).
The Irish Times in conjunction with AIRO Researchers yesterday published an interactive tool which shows incidents of crime for each Garda station in the country back as far as 2003. We’ve correlated all the stats for Millstreet here:
| # Crimes / Year in Millstreet | ||||||||
| 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 |
| 135 | 73 | 323 | 141 | 113 | 93 | 131 | 108 | 130 |
Compared with other towns locally, the figures are average per head of population. Macroom (250), Kanturk (255), Boherbue (37), Knocknagree (27), Rathmore (67).
| Breakdown of Crimes for Millstreet Garda Station in 2011 | |
| 17 | murder attempts/threats, assaults and harassments |
| 14 | burglary and related offences |
| 14 | controlled drug offences |
| 15 | dangerous or negligent acts |
| 10 | damage to property and the environment |
| 1 | fraud, deception and related offences |
| 20 | public order and social code offences |
| 0 | robbery, extortion and hijacking offences |
| 38 | theft and related offences |
| 1 | weapons and explosions offences |
| 130 | Total |
… of course these are crimes officially recorded. Studies have shown that reporting of serious crimes is at about 70%.
One figure that sticks out is the big increase in crime in 2005 (323 crimes). Digging deeper shows that there were 222 drug crimes that year. Is this a mistake or did the guards put their foot down that year?
Other reading…
* Check out the Interactive Crime Tool on the Irish Times, where these stats were sourced.
* There’s a very interesting study into Crime Victimisation in Ireland (2006)
* Read the book about our lawless past entitled “Millstreet the Cockpit of Ireland” by the Aubane Historical Society
Really interesting post! Just a guess but would 2005 have been the year Global Gathering was on in town?? Would explain the huge rise in offences.
Yes! the Global Gathering was on at the end of July 2005, and the Prodigy also played there later in the year… they could explain a lot of the drug figures!
Bryan Adams played in may of 2005 also, but i doubt that added much to the crime figures.