Hundreds of midlanders had a bird's-eye view yesterday morning when one of the best-known landmarks in Co Offaly was blown up.
In a precise exercise, cooling tower No 1 at Ferbane's generating station, collapsed in a heap of rubble at 10.30 a.m. precisely.
There was spontaneous applause from the crowd which had gathered to see the tower, which was almost 300 ft high, dynamited to rubble. Until yesterday, the twin cooling towers had dwarfed the surrounding bogland since they were built in 1957. Only 10 families were asked to move out of their homes temporarily. They joined the hundreds of people who lined the side of the row along a 300 metre exclusion zone. Roads in the area had been closed to traffic for 20 minutes before the blast which was heard over a large area of west Offaly.
An ESB spokeswoman, Ms Jill Johnston, said the demolition of the tower was necessary because of its age and condition. She said it had nothing to do with the contentious issue of refurbishing unit four of the power station.
The board of the ESB is to make a decision before Christmas on whether it will proceed with a plan to spend millions on refurbishing the peat generating station. Ms Johnston said only one cooling tower was necessary at the station, even if it was refurbished.
A Leeds company, Robinson and Birdsell, handled the demolition. Its demolition engineer, Mr R.W Freemantle, said his company had carried out similar jobs for the ESB in the past and had worked in Portarlington, Allenwood and at the Pigeon House in Dublin.
He refused to say how much explosives had been used to bring Ferbane No 1 to the ground but said the security there was the tightest in the world.