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

-->

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.

Write a comment...