{"id":582167,"date":"2026-08-03T18:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T18:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/582167\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T18:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T18:28:09","slug":"incredibly-disappointing-and-completely-senseless-anger-after-toy-box-at-cork-beach-set-alight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/582167\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Incredibly disappointing and completely senseless&#8217;: Anger after Toy box at Cork beach set alight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">Councillors have said what appeared to be the deliberate torching of a community toy box at\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.echolive.ie\/corknews\/arid-41857626.html\">Myrtleville Beach<\/a> could have had serious repercussions for the wider area had surrounding dry vegetation caught fire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The toy box, made by members of Carrigaline Men\u2019s Shed earlier this year, encouraged children visiting the beach to borrow a toy, and to put their own unwanted toys in the box after their visit for another child to enjoy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The idea being to reduce plastic waste going in the sea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s Audrey Buckley described the incident as \u201cincredibly disappointing and completely senseless.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cThe toy box was built and maintained by community volunteers to bring a little joy to local children. To see it deliberately set on fire is heartbreaking,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\n            \u201cWhat makes it even more concerning is that this happened so soon after the recent Camden fire, where we all saw how quickly a small fire escalated and came dangerously close to homes.\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cThe same could easily have happened here if the vegetation behind the toy box had caught fire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The recent wildfire at\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.echolive.ie\/corknews\/arid-41885134.html\">Camden Fort Meagher<\/a> in Crosshaven earlier this month started in grassland and quickly grew out of control, with the blaze coming within feet of up to 30 properties in the area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Deliberately targeted<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Ms Buckley it would appear the toy box was \u201cdeliberately targeted\u201d, and called on anyone who witnessed anything suspicious to get in touch with garda\u00ed who she said are investigating the issue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cThe Myrtleville Community Group won\u2019t let this deter them. They have always shown incredible community spirit, and I\u2019m confident they\u2019ll rebuild and continue creating something special for local children.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Fine Gael councillor for the area, Jack White, said: \u201cThis could have been a very serious incident. On such a dry cliff face, with houses in close proximity, there was real potential for this fire to spread much further.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\n            \u201cThankfully it was contained before that happened, but it serves as a stark reminder of how quickly fires can take hold in these conditions. It\u2019s deeply disappointing that a valued community amenity appears to have been deliberately targeted.\u201d\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">He also encouraged anyone who may have witnessed anything suspicious or who has any information to contact garda\u00ed, and said that he has been in touch with Cork County Council regarding the clean-up of the area and the replacement of the toy box.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Councillors have said what appeared to be the deliberate torching of a community toy box at\u00a0Myrtleville Beach could&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[79,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-582167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-news","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}