Tony Blair: Legacy of Death & Destruction

Tony Blair, the man who co-instigated (with George W. Bush) the Iraq War that fractured the Middle East, destroyed multi religious societies, led to 500,000+ deaths, caused millions of people to become refugees, spawned ISIS & other terrorist organisations and who benefits from huge payments given to him by anti democratic elites now has the audacity to label Jeremy Corbyn a 'dangerous experiment'!

Why does the BBC and other media organisations waste viewers time and taxpayers monies to broadcast the lies and delusions of a failed politician who should be prosecuted for war crimes?  
On today's Andrew Marr Show (BBC) the ex Greek Foreign Minister Yanis Varoufakis was brilliant when he said that Blair's decision to get involved in Keep Britain in the EU would only benefit the Brexit campaign as he is a glass of poison to any campaign that he gets involved in. Varoufakis also commented that the best outcome for humanity would be for Tony Blair to be forgotten and to be treated with the contempt that he deserves. I

Creating a 'Wild Garlic Woods' in Terryland Forest Park

Many of Ireland’s native wildflowers face extinction due to pollution, invasive species, urbanization, loss of habitat and intensive commercial farming. The use of pesticides and herbicides in farming in order to increase specific crop yields has meant that wildflowers and pollinating insects such as bees and butterflies are being poisoned. Hence flora and fauna species are declining alarmingly and a countryside that was once populated with flowers representing all the colours of the rainbows, that throbbed to the sounds of a wide of variety bees and birds is sadly becoming a thing of the past.

Help reverse this process and to save Ireland’s indigenous flowers and associated pollinating insects and bats. Under the expert tutelage of Padraic Keirns, Conservation Volunteers Galway and Conservation Volunteers Terryland Forest Park are once again teaming up to organise another major re-flowering within Terryland Forest Park. This time it will be in woods near the Quincenntennial Bridge.
Over 1,000 plants have been collected for Saturday's 'plantahon' with the primary species being 'wild garlic' as we attempt to create thematic flora areas in certain locations within this 180 acres nature and farmland reserve.
So we ask you to please join us on this Saturday(May 28th).
Rendezvous: 11am near the Curry's (Galway Retail Park) entrance to Terryland Forest Park.
Google Map link: http://bit.ly/1NE6S2o

Rwanda: An African Phoenix arisen from the ashes

Last week I was working in Rwanda helping in the introduction of coding programmes into schools across this land of a thousand hills. This is my second assignment to a country that suffered one of the most brutal genocides of the 20th century. In 1994 over 800,000 Tutsi and Hutu were massacred by supporters of an extremist Hutu regime.
However Rwanda has experienced an unprecedented transformation since those dark days of bloodletting and insanity. The results of a focused national government strategy of reconciliation, justice, female empowerment, education, health, anti-corruption, environmental protection, community development, construction, entrepreneurialism, technology and innovation can be seen everywhere. Whilst there are reports of curtailment of media freedom and of the political opposition amongst some commentators, nevertheless there is huge support for the government’s policies in the population at large which has pulled the country out of the abyss of ethnic violence that killed numbers equivalent to the victims of the Irish Famine and which sadly still rages in neighbouring Burundi.  There is definitely a palpable sense of nationhood and community solidarity amongst its people. I will write more about my experiences of Rwanda in a more detailed blog article next month focusing not just on its current digital revolution but also on topics such as its village communal justice system (Gacaca) and its biodiversity programmes.

This month I was once again part of a team of volunteers working within the highly ambitious Africa Code Week initiative established in 2015 by a partnership of SAP, Galway Education Centre and the Cape Town Science Centre spearheaded by the wonderful Claire Gillissen​ Bernard Kirk​ and Julie Cleverdon​. In our first foray into Rwanda last October we worked from two buses that were fully fledged futuristic mobile IT classrooms moving from school to school training teachers and children. The lead mentors were drawn from across Europe and included highly motivated folk such as Nuala Allen​, Stefan Alexandru Florea​ and Véronique Desegaulx​.  In the process we were also training in and assisted by a panel of keen volunteer youth from Kigali’s KLabs and associated innovator start-ups co-ordinated by the excellent Aphrodice Foyo Mutangana​. This time my European colleagues of Veronique, Kevin Morrissey​ and myself enjoyed watching the indigenous youngsters that we had trained previously (directly and by online learning tutorials) take ownership of delivering most of the classes to the pupils and teachers of the schools that we visited. These young ‘uns (Arnold, Nshuti Gacinya Olivier, Vanessa and Herve) were top class in their presentations and content, giving us a strong feeling of personal satisfaction as we witnessed our previous efforts now bearing fruit. We realise that, with the support of these young men and women, the Africa Code Week project can and is becoming sustainable. It is indeed putting down deep roots into the continent’s soil. 
The Rwanda government has a plan to increase the percentage of the population that are online from its present 13% to 95% by the end of this year. With the rollout of 4G mobile network and a generation of technology mentors and teachers, there is no reason why this will not be achieved. At so many levels, Rwanda represents the face of a new confident Africa. It can be a template for so many other countries across a continent that is changing at an unprecedented level.

Celtic Cross Project: Volunteers Needed for Community Organic Garden

As well as the regular tasks that are undertaken in an organic garden such as weeding, sowing, pruning and repairing, the Ballinfoile Mór Community Organic Garden will this Saturday commence in laying the foundations of a large 16 meter long footpath designed in the shape of a Celtic Cross that will form a new pathway feature in this urban green facility. So lots of help is needed to create a structure that will give due recognition in a modern urban green setting to the cultural traditions of ancient Ireland and the Celtic people's strong affinity with Nature. The prominent 'Circle' in the Celtic Cross represents the 'Sun' whose different levels of light and heat though the four seasons of the year controlled their agricultural practices and associated annual communal festivals such as the Harvest Festival (Lughnasa), Samhain, Imbloc and Bealtaine. 

Hence we are appealing to as many volunteers as possible to come along at 11am on Saturday. At the end of the communal work, there is of course refreshments for all.
Google Maps location:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zy2xJB2YGAaU.kvWEedMz4s8A&usp=sharing

Working with An Garda Síochána on Internet Safety

Over the last few years, I have spent a lot of time co-presenting workshops/talks with An Garda Síochána on Cyberbullying & Internet Safety to pupils, students, parents and teachers in primary and post-primary schools.
Having the Garda present at these events has reinforced the importance of this issue to the participants. Their understandable knowledge of the relevant legislation, their status as officers of the law and their first-hand experience of both victims and perpetrators of cyberbullying has proved invaluable in highlighting this growing problem within modern society particularly amongst young people. 

Over the last few weeks, I have visited second level schools such as Galway Community College and Colaiste Bháile Chláir with Garda Marcus and Alan who are two of the most conscientious public servants that I have ever meet. They personify all of the positive societal attitudes that police enforcement agencies are meant to represent, namely to protect the vulnerable and to promote the common good.

Re-enactment of World's First Pirate Broadcast from Easter Rising 1916

Irish Rebel operating wireless transmitter, Easter Week, 1916 (Drawing: Helen Caird)

World’s First Pirate Broadcast: Re-enactment of the 1916 Wireless Transmission by the Irish Rebels.

In recognition of the historical role that the Irish rebels played in the history of global wireless communications, there will on at 7.30pm tomorrow  (Monday April 25^th) in the Computer and Communications Museum of Ireland, located at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics in NUI Galway, be a re-enactment of the radio transmission of April 25^th 1916 which became the world’s first pirate broadcast.

Museum members John-Owen Jones and Frank McCurry will send Morse code transmissions using the high voltage spark technology as operated by the rebels in which induction coils (as invented by Irish physicist Nicholas Callan of Maynooth College) were used with a Morse telegraph key.

The event is free and all are welcome to attend. However advanced booking is required and can be done by contacting museum curator Brendan Smith at brendan.smith@insight-centre.org

 

The 1916 Easter Rising, when Irish rebels rose up against British rule and declared an Irish Republic, was the setting for probably the world’s first radio broadcast. 

Joseph Mary Plunkett, one of the rebel leaders and a signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, was a keen advocate of the new developing technologies of wireless telegraphy. He established a special wireless unit within the Irish Volunteers.  In the lead up to the Rising, Plunkett developed an technologically ambitious plan to use radio to coordinate national and international communications, to provide information on the movement of weapons into Ireland and to spread the news of the rising across the world. One of the first steps was to make radio contact with the German government in order to relay messages onto Roger Casement who was organizing the purchase and transport of weapons to Ireland. This process was to be facilitated by rebels taking over the wireless and telegraphy station in Caherciveen Co. Kerry on the Atlantic coast. But as it turned out, neither the arms-ship the Aud nor the submarine that was bringing Casement back to Ireland were equipped with wireless.

Through republican sympathizers working at the nearby trans-Atlantic telegraphy station on Valentia island, the Kerry operation would also allow the sending of progress reports on the Rising to Clan na Gael and other supporters in the United States. Caherciveen would be used as a two-way wireless station with the rebel headquarters in Dublin. With the cutting of land-line telegraph and telephone cables from Dublin and the occupation of the main hub of tele and postal communications hub in Ireland, namely the General Post Office on Sackville Street, it was hoped that it would be the Irish rebels that would have the upper hand in the battle for control of electronic communications in and out of Ireland. Unfortunately one of the two taxis hired to take the four Irish volunteers to Carherciveen from Killarney rail station on Good Friday crashed on its way killing all occupants. So no two-way wireless system was established from the Atlantic coast to Dublin. 

On the first day of the Rising (Easter Monday) seven volunteers under the command of Fergus Kelly left the rebel HQ at the GPO to take possession of the nearby ‘Irish School of Wireless’ to establish radio contact with Cahirciveen. Though radio was banned under the Defense of the Realm Act which came into operation once World War One began in 1914, nevertheless the school was still used as a training centre for wireless operators.  The spark transmitter was made ready and the dissembled rooftop antenna was re-erected on the roof with the aid of commandeered cabling and in spite of firing from British snipers. However as the receiver’s batteries were past repair, they never knew that the Atlantic station had not been activated and would not therefore re-transmit messages from Dublin.  Yet the Morse code message sent at regular intervals into the atmosphere was in fact received by radio operators in a number of countries. The world’s first pirate broadcast was picked up in Wales, Bulgaria, Germany and by ships. 

Written by James Connolly and sent out by volunteer David Burke, the message was message was, “Irish Republic declared in Dublin today. Irish troops have captured city and are in full possession. Enemy cannot move in city. The whole country rising.”

Transmissions ended when the volunteers had to abandon the building on Easter Thursday as a result of heavy British shelling.

Volunteers Needed on Sat for Community Organic Garden in Galway city

Enjoy the health, social and environmental benefits of community organic garden by helping out at 11am  this Saturday (April 16th) in the Ballinfoile Mór Community Organic Garden.

April is a busy time for gardeners and there is much work to be done in this particular large neighbourhood green resource. Tasks include digging, weeding, sowing, pruning and repairing. Hence we are appealing to as many volunteers as possible to come along at 11am. At the end of the communal work, there is of course light refreshments for all volunteers.

Google Maps location here

Working in the Al Za'atari Syrian Refugee Camp in northern Jordan.

Diary Entry One:

A few weeks ago, along with my good friends Nuala Allen, Aphrodice Foyo Mutangana, Mark Tate-Smith, and Bernard Kirk, I was based in Jordan as part of the SAP Corporate Social Responsibility Galway Education Centre & UNHCR programme to train young educators in computer coding so that they themselves can teach children and teenagers.
We were based at the Al Za'atari Syrian Refugee Camp in northern Jordan. It is the second largest camp in the world.
30% of the camp's Syrian residents of over 80,000 are children of school age. Half of them do not attend any of the nine schools in the camp because they work in nearby farms or elsewhere. Families need incomes. So as refugee adults are not legally allowed to work, parents often had to get their sons and daughters to take up work wherever they can. Child labour is a reality.
NGOs onsite and Jordanians are encouraging additional foreign aid to be used to create jobs that do not take work away from Jordanians and thus in the process allow all children in the camp to stay in full-time education.
We as volunteers are part of this initiative to upskill young people so that they might have a positive future.
But all the Jordanians and Syrians that I am working with are true angels doing their very best for people in a country that is one of the poorest in the Middle East.
Next month, I will be back in Africa once again under the Africa Code Week programme, another great SAP initiative spearheaded by the visionary Claire Gillissen.

 

Diary Entry Two: My Students: Innocent Victims of War.
Photograph shows students at my all-day coding workshop this afternoon in the Al Za'atari Syrian Refugee Camp.
These wonderful young men and women come mainly from the Daraa district of Syria.
If they had stayed in their homeland many of the people smiling at you would not now be alive.
They fled with their families to escape war, persecution and death; their educational studies, careers and dreams shattered in the process.
Thanks to the generousity of the Jordanian people as well as dedicated volunteers and funds from the United Nations, the EU and NGOs/governments from Norway, Japan, Kuwait, Britain, USA and many other countries, they hopefully will be able to believe in themselves once again, to have children, jobs and to lead long, peaceful and happy lives in Syria or in some other place.

Man's inhumanity to man (& it is very rarely women) always saddens me; killing a human being purely because of his/her race, religious belief, ethnicity or social class is pure evil. Sadly this barbarism is on the rise again in the 21st century.
After my classes finished today, I went to the camp perimeter to look over at Syria in the distance (only 10kms away) and I counted my blessings that I have been given an opportunity by SAP/GEC to play a small part in helping these people, who did not ask or want to be refugees torn from the country that they love, to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
This hope was reinforced by the fact that my co-mentor today was my good friend Aphrodice Foyo Mutangana.
Aphrodice is from Rwanda where I worked a few months ago as part of Africa Code Week. Whilst there I witnessed at first hand a country that had arose in a few short years from the ashes of an apocalypse to become, at many levels, a beacon of sunshine for a whole continent.
In 1994, over 800,000 people were butchered to death in the Rwandan genocide, a crime of unparelled butchery carried out by neighbour against neighbour, citizen against citizen. But today it has adopted a policy of reconciling genocide victim and perpetrator; has implemented a programme of 'community togetherness' that is possibly the best in the world; promotes women's rights, technology empowerment, sustainable economic development and reforestation as well as re-introducing once extinct wildlife to its countryside.
If this central African nation can rebuild after such a devastating human tsunami, the Middle East can become a peaceful region of cultural and religious diversity and tolerance.
My work as part of a team of enthusiastic visionary tech-savvy men and women has still much to give to the inhabitants of Africa, Middle East and Ireland.

 

 

Diary Entry Three: Residents Helping Each Other.
Our volunteer group spent the first few days in the Zaatari refugee camp providing computer coding workshops to teachers and students all of whom were forced by war to give up promising careers and jobs in Syria to flee to the safety of Jordan.
But it was the following day that was for me a true epiphany. For we could then truly enjoy the fruits of our labour as we watched the young men and women, that we had mentored, enthusiastically take on the task of teaching coding to the children of the camp on a one-to-one or one-to-two basis..
From early morning until early evening on that day 'our students' transformed what we had taught them into a subject that excited the interest and imagination of the children in their care.
Survivors of an ongoing brutal conflict that is destroying their homeland and their people, they have shown how, even in the darkest hour, the light of humanity can still shine through and that everyday life has to continue

The Sea Change Challenge- Increasing Public Awareness of the Health of Oceanss

The Sea Change game and digital story challenge is open to Galway city/county (Ireland) and Lund (Sweden) CoderDojo members aged 7-18yrs. The challenge is being organised by NUI Galway as part of their contribution to a European project entitled “Sea Change” which aims to establish a fundamental “Sea Change” in the way European citizens view their relationship with the sea.  The challenge is to use the fun and popularity of designing and playing tech games as well as enjoying digital stories to raise awareness of Marine issues like the need to protect cold-water coral reefs, how we can begin to address the scourge of micro-plastics, and how we can maintain healthy oceans and seas, for ourselves, for the animals that live in them, and ultimately for the planet.

Entrants from individuals or teams up to a maximum of four members are invited to submit projects on the theme of Sea Change. The submissions will be reviewed by a panel of experts and judged on ‘best concept’ and ‘ease of use’.  The winning project will be included in an iBook about cold water corals that will be presented as a teaching resource to secondary schools. There will be two awards presented in each country to the finalists: Junior Award: €300 and Senior Award: €500*

At the recent Galway launch, Dr. Anthony Grehan from NUI Galway gave a presentation on his team's research into cold-water corals; Dr. Amy Lucher outlined her studies on the alarming high levels of plastic litter found in our oceans, and Gavin Duffy gave an insight into his company's 3D modelling of Galway Bay and the waters of Cork in order to provide ideas for game development. 
Other resources are available (newsletters, poster, fact sheet, ocean literacy booklet, videos) on the project website: www.seachangeproject.eu.

Competition Timeline

Registration by: 9 April, 2016

Submission by: 21 May, 2016

Winners announced: 11 June, 2016

For further information, contact Brendan at coderdojogalwaycity@gmail.com

Pioneering App-making Open Data workshop at Insight Centre of NUI Galway.

A pioneering workshop took place today at my workplace of the Insight Centre for Data Analytics NUI Galway. A team of dedicated volunteers of Pueng Narumol, Bianca Pereira, Niall O'Brolchain, Eoin Jordan brilliantly led by Souleiman Hasan delivered a pioneering app-making course based on Open Data. The latter are defined as facts and statistics that are freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control.
In Ireland open data produced by public bodies such as government departments, local authorities and research institutes are stored on the website Data.Gov.ie  www.datagov.ie. The information available is vast and varied, covering topics such as population statistics from the national Census, yacht mooring locations, value and weight of fishing landings, family farm income, farm size, livestock numbers, traffic accident statistics, Luas stop locations, CO2 emissions by type of fuel and by engine size, and locations for playgrounds and protected structures. 

Utilisation of Open Data can bring great enormous benefits to society. Our institute Open Data expert Niall O'Brolchain is working hard to promote this message in the corridors of power across Ireland and particularly in Galway where he is a leading advocate for its development as a Smart City.
For me, 2016 will be the 'Year of App-Making' and the 'Year of Open Data' as I plan to organise a series of thematic courses in second-level schools as well as with my good friend Eoin Jordan in Coderdojo Galway city

Thousands Sign Petition over Neighbourhood Centre

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Over 2,100 people from the Ballinfoile Mór and Castlegar areas have already signed a petition demanding that the new Ballinfoile/Castlegar Neighbourhood Centre be maintained as a public facility to serve the needs of the local residents. So well done to all the local activists that made this happen and who stood yet again outside City Hall last Monday to make the feelings of their community on the centre known to councillors.

The issue which has been on the agenda of the city council for the last three monthly meetings is finally expected to be voted upon by councillors on March 14th.  Representatives from the local community have had discussions recently with council officials and a number of our key concerns over peak hours, board of management community representation, discounted rates and prioritising jobs in the centre for local people, as well as an absolute guarantee that there will be no privitisation of the Ballinfoile/Castlegar Neighbourhood and Sports Centre have been acceded too.  However our focus is still to keep the facility under local government management/staffing in association with the local community as well as to ensure that its annual council budget is not reduced. Hence we will continue to campaign on these demands and a public meeting is being planned to discuss the proposals on Social Enterprise from the council officials and associated costings of the centre once they are finalised after further consultations.

But we can learn a lot from experiences of the Knocknacarra area where there has been a similar publicly-owned facility in operation for a number of years but with quite limited hours of opening. The council now wish to put both centres out to tender under a Social Network enterprise. The Knocknacarra community have years of experience on the issue of public ownership and are presently putting their own counter proposal together. In a conversation with Gerry Corbett, chairperson of the Knocknacarra Sports and Facilities Co-Op, their approach as outlined seems very advantageous in serving the needs of local residents. So it makes total sense to, as well as show the council’s proposal on tendering of the centre, to invite Gerry and his team to outline the plans of their co-operative to our proposed public meeting as well as to invite Tommy Flaherty from the Ballybane Centre to give us his opinion.  A gathering of local centre activists will be called upon soon to discuss this approach.

The people of Ballinfoile Mór have fought for 30 years for this indoor community complex. We owe it to those who stood with us over many decades; to those thousands of people who signed our recent door-to-door petition and to future generations not yet born to ensure that the centre will always serve, be owned, managed and used by the local people.

Tomorrow Roisin is organising an informal get-together of local residents at 7pm in 50 Baile an Chóiste. Thanks Roisin! 

Happy Birthday CoderDojo Galway​

The first meeting of Coderdojo Galway city, January 2012

In January 2012, a small group of enthusiastic volunteers got together in the Computer and Communications Museum at the DERI Building NUI Galway under the auspices of Ado Bannon​ to discuss setting up a weekly coding club for children. The people present were inspired by the ‘Coderdojo’ model established by student James Whelton and entrepreneur Bill Liao in Cork six months previous.
Around the same time, the growing popularity of a free downloadable easy-to-use graphic block-based computer coding language from MIT in the United States known as Scratch made the dream of teaching every kid in the world how to programme achievable.
Attending that first pioneering meeting was Michael Madden​ Rob Stocker, Lisa Corcoran, Steve Holmes, ​Patrick Denny, Adrian Bannon and myself (Brendan Smith).
The rest as they say is history.

From day one, there has been enthusiastic support from parents, children and schools. Coderdojo Galway city now provides seven different sessions on Saturdays ranging from Arduino electronics, 3D printing to Scratch Beginners. It has spawned Coderdojos in Mayo, Roscommon and in many towns and villages across the length and breath of county Galway.
The club has endeavoured to promote social inclusion message and includes asylum seekers and travellers amongst its learners (ninjas). It has broadened its membership base to include teenagers and teen-centric sessions.
With its volunteer ethos, its local community structure and commitment towards upskilling the youth of Ireland, it is the 21st century technology version of that reputable and legendary Irish institution – the GAA. No higher praise could be given to a  movement that has captured the imagination of a whole country.
Thank you Ado Bannon for planting the seed that has grown into a giant entity with many branches that is in 2016 firmly rooted in Galway soil.

Creating an Online Archive of Life in Local Communities in 20th century Ireland

Lawrencetown National School, co. Galway, 1946

As part of my Outreach work at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics at NUI Galway in association with the Galway Education Centre and Galway County Council I am providing an online facility for schools and active retirement groups to digitally archive stories, films and photographs of life in their localities over the last one hundred years as part of their contribution to the Easter Rising commemorations.

 

Junior Infants class, Creggs National School, 1971

The BEO (Irish for ‘alive’) project is a wonderful opportunity to commemorate the struggle for Irish independence and its subsequent impact on the lives of of ordinary people. It provides a way to capture online the changing face of local communities throughout a century, that experienced phenomenal economic, social, cultural and political change, by collecting and digitizing the pictures and words of ordinary people that have been handed down through families over many decades. 

 

At Coxtown Bog, Kiltormer, co. Galway, 1940s

In spite of the massive transformations that Ireland has experienced in technologies, economics and population movements since 1916, the parish school in many parts of the country still serves as the heart of its locality and the people that reside there. It is probably the only vibrant communal institution left that can act as the gatherer of such heritage material. 

 

Donkey & Trap, McEvoy family, Roscommon, 1909

The BEO project has been in operation for a number of years at this stage and has provided a lovely way particularly for the Irish Diaspora to re-connect with history of their youth, or that of their parents or grandparents. 

Honeymooning in Killarney (Carmel Garvey), 1957

Participating schools as well as heritage and active retirement groups are encouraged to host social evening BEO local heritage events for members of the local community, where attendees bring along or enjoy viewing images and artifacts of their school and geographical area in times past that offer a unique insight into an older Ireland of communal harvesting, livestock markets, religious devotion, a belief in banshees and fairies, turf cutting, dance halls, the ‘Big House’ and the small family farm. Much of this priceless heritage material brought to the school or community hall is often kept in family photo albums stored in attics, wardrobes and drawers often forgotten about as the years pass. 

 

Harvesting, Eyreville, co. Galway 1940s

The digitised images are then placed on a shared website for the benefit of present and future generations. There will be an information session for schools interested in taking part in the BEO project at 5pm on Tuesday next February 2^nd in the Galway Education Centre.

Scanning old photos. BEO Local Community Heritage Night, Lawrencetown School 2015

Restoring bogs, wetlands and forests is key to flood defence

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Reedbed in Terryland Forest Park, Dyke Road, Galway city

The large scale flooding being experienced by Ireland and destroying many people’s homes and livelihoods is partly a result of man-made global climate change where the warming of the atmosphere is leading to ever more stormy weather and heavy rainfall across north western Europe.  But in the case of this country it is also due to the serious loss of natural habitats such as bogs, wetlands and floodplain meadows that use to soak up and retain water. Furthermore there is the added problem in our rural areas of compacted soil caused by intensive grazing and other modern farming practices as well as increased urbanisation characterised by concrete and tarmac surfaces which do not absorb rainwater. Rivers are becoming ever more disconnected from their natural floodplains by land reclamation for built development and the construction of defences that include forcing water into narrower channels that will inevitably overflow or burst their banks in this epoch of increased rainfall.

Building in Floodplains: A Madness Driven by Greed

Our politicians and the National Emergency Co-ordination group have to realise that building more flood-walls, culverts and canals are expensive solutions that in many cases are doomed to failure. Sustainable flood relief can only come about by making more space for water and not less which is sadly what we have been doing for far too long. Building in flood-plains against expert advice merely to satisfy the demands of landowners and property speculators was one of the most calamitous political errors of the last few decades and which is now coming back to haunt us. Recently former Minister of the Environment and Local Government Noel Dempsey stated that counties such as Galway, Roscommon and Cork that are suffering greatly at present were some of the very counties that the government had to issue directions to change their draft development plans because the guidelines on flood-risk management were being ignored. Don Moore of the Irish Academy of Engineering stated bluntly on RTE Radio News “that the message of the future is clear –don’t ever build on a flood plain.”  The environmental NGO An Taisce were warning for decades of the consequences of building in such areas and in the process were harangued by politicians of the main political parties for being ‘anti-development’. In the case of Galway, the organisation has recently reminded the public of their disagreements with the blocking of turloughs in the southern part of the county and the deforestation in the Slieve Aughty mountains as well as their call for a single authority for the River Shannon. Insurance cover for huge numbers of families like my own who bought properties in what we were not told at the time were located in flood-plains is a ‘councillors-caused’ disaster that has to be addressed and accounted for.

Work with Nature, not against it

There is now an urgent need now to radically transform our approach by developing a new strategy to work with Nature and not against it. As well as restoring riverine reedbeds, marshes, callows, bogs and coastal wetlands, the state needs to partner local communities and landowners in implementing a nationwide policy of native tree planting to create forests and woodlands including in urban areas as we are doing in Galway city through the Terryland Forest Park where nearly 100,000 trees have been planted by a partnership of the city council, environmentalists, schools and residents groups since 2000.  Recognised scientific research shows that one large tree can lift up to 450 litres of water out of the ground and discharge daily it into the air. It is estimated too that for every five percent of tree cover added to an area, storm-water runoff is reduced by approximately two percent.

Green Engineering

We need to look at best methods of engineering water absorption into our urban built environment by for instance placing rooftop gardens on buildings, replacing concrete plazas by wooded parks and piping rainwater into toilet cisterns.

It would be a major policy shift for the Irish state to move towards expanding rather than destroying natural habitats. But we have to realize that we are part of nature and not above it. It was the latter philosophy that brought about catastrophic global climate change and the COP21 Paris international conference signed by all governments of the world recognised this. So now is the time for the Irish state to honour its international commitments and use the geographical processes of the Earth to develop long-term sustainable natural defenses against flooding. 

Join Us for A Protest Tomorrow (Mon) to ensure that Local Community Facilities Belong to Local Communities

Protest by Ballinfoile Mór residents  for Recreational & Community facilities outside City Hall in 1989

Please join residents of Ballinfoile Mór-Castlegar and people from across Galway city at 2.30pm tomorrow (Monday) for a gathering outside City Hall who will be calling on councillors to ensure that the new Ballinfoile/Castlegar Neighbourhood/Sports Centre and other city community facilities such as Knocknacarra and Westside remain in public ownership for the benefit of local communities.

We are concerned that the latest proposal being put forward by officials for a public-private partnership is the first step along the slippery slope to privatisation. If this happens, residents will be priced out of usage of a much needed multi-purpose community and sports facility that they have lobbying/protesting for since 1986, which represents probably the longest running local residents’ campaign in Ireland during modern times, as profit will take priority over social needs.

Protest by Ballinfoile Mór residents for Recreational & Community facilities outside City Hall in 1989

In 1989 a concerted community campaign (see photo of campaigners outside City Hall in July 1989 including me!) did secure an agreement, eleven years after the first housing estates appeared, to immediately build outdoor recreational facilities including tennis courts, children playgrounds, park-lands, sports playing fields with associated changing rooms. But not indoor facilities.
The final decision on the centre’s future will have to made soon. We were informed though by Mayor Frank Fahy yesterday that the council is postponing a decision until the February meeting as its CEO has been involved for the last month as a member of the national coordinating group in tackling flood relief and understandably did not have the necessary time to complete a preparatory report on the facility. But nevertheless, activists feel that it is vital that we continue to make our feelings on this issue known to local councillors and to contine with the protest tomorrow outside City Hall. So please make every effort to attend and encourage others (family, friends and neighbours) to do likewise. Even if you are not from our area, we would appreciate your support as this issue is about ensuring that every citizen of Ireland has a basic right to community and recreational facilities which is increasingly threatened due to the cutback to public services as a result of the last government’s decision to force taxpayers to pay for the gambling debts of a rich well connected elite of bankers and property speculators. Local government authorities such as Galway City Council are being slowly chipped away via public jobs embargoes and decreasing funds to such an extent that, within a few years, they will be reduced to the role of glorified supervisory agents staffed by a few people contracting out vital utility services to companies some of which are owned by the very people that bankrupt the country.

Protest leader Brendan Smith with Councillor Jimmy Brick at Ballinfoile Mór residents protest for Recreational & Community facilities outside City Hall in 1989

Demands
So we want to ensure that councillors keep by the commitments made by CEO Brendan Mc Grath at the November budget meeting that:
- peak hours will be retained for local groups/individuals
- Low rental fees would be charged to local groups/individuals
- People from the locality must be well represented on the oversight/management board.
Furthermore we request that:
- local community representation makes up at least 50% of the oversight board
- the new jobs that will accrue in this facility will be given to local people where possible.
- the facility remains in public ownership.
If these just demands are not meet, our long struggle would have been all for nothing.

Councillor Michael D. Higgins (now President of Ireland) with Councillor Bridie Flaherty (on left) at the community protest by Ballinfoile Mór residents for Recreational & Community facilities outside City Hall in 1989

Planning: The Continent Way

Since the construction of the first housing estate in the locality in the late 1970s, compulsory charges were placed on house sales to pay for recreational facilities for all age groups. But it is a sad reflection on the Irish planning system that such leisure complexes and other vital community infrastructure such as schools, cycleways and parks are not put in place in advance of housing development as is the case in many other European countries. In Austria for instance the state ensures that land speculators do not make huge profits from rezoning by setting a maximum price valuation on land with the monies thus saved being invested into local communities. In our case we are saddened that generations have been born into and have left our neighbourhood without having ever enjoyed the joys of local indoor sports. Hence we feel that it is only right and just that, after waiting decades for a facility paid in part by residents’ contributions, that we should have a key role to play in the management of this long awaited local authority owned centre which is nearing completion and expected to be open within weeks. Otherwise it is a negation of local democracy. A community resource, whose purpose is to serve first and foremost the recreational and community needs of all ages living in the surrounding neighbourhoods, should have the direct involvement of local inhabitants in its present and future development. When we started the campaign Ireland in the 1980s, Ireland was a radically different country. It was primarily a homogeneous cultural society and we want to ensure that the recreational facilities fulfils the needs of all traditions in our society, both new as well as old. Furthermore while we welcome the agreement of central government to recently sanction the hiring of by Galway City Council of staff for the community centre, we are amazed that no additional funding was allocated forcing the local authority to consider outside private contractors to operate the facilities.

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