Christmas break extended for most pupils and students across Carlow and Kilkenny as cold snap continues

Many people locally are home-bound today as the cold snap continues.

St Luke’s General Hospital for Carlow and Kilkenny is advising there may be disruption to appointments today – you’re asked to check before you travel. (Updates here too) and courts in both Carlow and Kilkenny are closed today.

About 1,500 local premises are still without electricity – Carlow appears okay so far this morning, but outages continue in pockets of Kilkenny including Urlingford, Clorinka, Knockshanbally, Kilmoganny, Castlehale, Windgap and Tullahought with estimated restoration times of between 3 and 6:30pm today. (Updates here).

Schools were due for a return following the Christmas break but instead most primary and secondary levels remain closed across both counties, with reviews underway for the rest of the week as a low temperature warning continues to Thursday.

While some businesses too have fallen foul of the weather, a number opted to close up early yesterday and/or for today, with a number of events cancelled or postponed. (Full listings here).

County Council teams continue to work hard to clear routes with gritting and snow ploughs out early but the advice is simple: don’t travel unless you really have to and if the latter’s the case then take every care on roads while those using public transport should check with providers in advance to ensure their services are running.

Mary Mulholland from Kilkenny County Council’s been updating KCLR News;

Temperatures are still very low, at times sub zero, which may have an impact on other aspects of our daily lives in the coming days – Alan O’Reilly of Carlow Weather has the morning update;