Ireland Offline and in particular Damien Mulley together with John Handelaar got together to make a map of all the broadband enabled telephone exchanges in Ireland. Along the way they accidently created a map showing what things would look like if every telephone exchange was enabled.

It makes for a stark comparison.

There are roughly 1100 exchanges in Ireland at the moment. As far as anyone knows outside of eircom, including Comreg and Minister Dempsey (Dept Marine Communications and Natural Resources), eircom plans to enable around 400 exchanges. The exact figure has never been made public but at best guess its 450. The remaining 650 should be funded by the tax payer according to eircom.

The first map shows Ireland with the known 400 exchanges enabled with the yellow circles representing the nominal reach of broadband from an exchange. The second map depicts Ireland if every exchange was enabled. And even within the yellow circles roughly 20% of telephone lines fail to carry broadband.

Little wonder that companies like Google and eBay refuse to locate in places like Athlone*.

* Will the Taoiseach elaborate, for example, on the fact that eBay has announced that it will not go to Athlone because the necessary infrastructure is not in place?

From Sarah Carey in Enfield

Make a comment? Do you think I’m mad?

In brief the community games are going well, indoor soccer in particular is thriving with some notable successes but we’ll wait until the official newsletter before revealing what they are

On other fronts a free table tennis table has been found in Palmerstown and although it requires a bit of work, should be serviceable by the end of this week. Currently table tennis is attracting 12-13 kids each week much to the surprise of everyone involved.

Carraigdun Estate’s planning appeal to An Bord Pleanala is due to expire next week on 11/05/2006 unless there are significant changes.
http://www.pleanala.ie/data1/searchdetails.asp?id=1224136&caseno=215743

Clonard Church graveyard is being worked on at the moment, with extensive additions made to pathways and presumably extending the usable area of the graveyard.

The telephone numbering system in Clonard is getting under way as reported here, add 93 to the number, 044 75501 becomes 044 9375501

Back in early January the National Roads Authority said that because there was no access to Clonard from the M4, Clonard could not be signposted from the motorway. But supposedly Westmeath County Council had better news and confirmed that signs pointing the way to Clonard would be erected within the next couple of weeks. Anyone seen these signs? Apart from the ones at Kinnegad?

Broadband under a GBS scheme is starting to take shape, we expect that a petition for signatures to get under way in the next few weeks to get the ball rolling.

Finally, to all the students getting ready for exams particularly English, have a look at this  :)

Scholars Discover 23 Blank Pages That May As Well Be Lost Samuel Beckett Play

 Water has become the hot topic is several areas of Meath as residents became aware of projected shortages despite the rainfall of the past few days.

Apparently the current rainfall levels, in particular over the last few weeks are not enough to make up for a reasonably dry winter.

The accident happened between Rahan and Clara shortly after 8am this morning when the bus overturned on the road.

According to the Health Service Executive, up to ten of the most seriously injured teenagers are being treated at the Midlands Regional Hospital in Tullamore.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0404/rta1.html

 Whats really scary about that RTE link is the end bit before .html

Reading the link its RTE   News this year, this month, this day Road Traffic Accident 1 for today!!!!

Damien Mulley is wondering “ how many hours it will be before the Government mentions how much cash they’ve spent on school buses. That’s the default defense these days.”

Sicilian Notes is asking what new ideas are there to prevent deaths. I’d argue we don’t need new ideas, we need enforcement. Currently trucks and artics are whizzing through Clonard Village in blatant disregard of speed limits. As I argued here, this alone negates the increased safety to pedestrians through reduced traffic after the M4 opening.

When was the last time you saw anyone pulled over for bad driving, not signalling, cutting through roundabouts, pulling out onto a main road without a care for oncoming traffic, sitting in the overtaking lane for miles, one working light, applying makeup/shaving , tailgating… the list goes on.

At the moment in Ireland you can drive like a clown all day long and as long as you don’t exceed the speed limit the odds of being pulled over are slim to none.

And in case you were wondering how many people have died on the roads this year http://www.garda.ie/angarda/statistics98/nroadstats.html

Under 8 Girls - 1st. Chloe Martin, 2nd Roisin Hickey

Under 10 Boys - 1st. Arron Duff, 2nd. Joe Boyd, 3rd Brian Fleming

Under 10 Girls - 1st Aisling Martin, 2nd Anna Maye, 3rd, Emma Darby

Under 12 Boys - 1st Alan O’Donoghue, 2nd Paddy Losty

Under 12 Girls - 1st Ellen Hickey

Under 16 Girls - 1st Martina Boyd

Under 12 Boys Model Making - 1st Connor Robertson

Meath Finals will be held in Dunshaughlin on Sat. 29 April at 9.45am

CROSS COUNTRY - Loughcrew, Oldcastle - Sun 12 March

500 m Under 12 Girls - 1st Alison Daly

500m Under 9 Boys - 6th Mark Daly

SENIOR QUIZ - Friday 10 March Baconstown - Clonard got 2nd place. (Portumna for finals - not sure if we are attending).

Draughts Under 12 - Ballinabracky beat Clonard.
Draughts Under 10 - Trim have no team so Clonard gets a Bye to the Semi Finals.
Draughts Under 14 - Carlanstown have no team so Clonard gets a Bye to the Semi Finals

The parade’s first float is the Edenderry Harriers with a 20 strong horse contingent, which is making its first appearance. A local man from Clonard, director of Low Loader Services will also have trucks in the parade.

The theme for this year’s parade is ‘Life After the Motorway’. Entries were invited in the following categories - most topical, best community, most humorous, best walking group, best commercial, best environmental and best individual. It is expected that there will be a shop window competition for local businesses in conjunction with the parade. A presentation ceremony takes place at a local venue after the parade.

Alternatively the Trim parade is at 3pm, will take off from the ring road, and will follow a route along Patrick Street, through to Emmet Street and onto Market Street before passing by the reviewing stand at the courthouse and onto Castle Street.

Table tennis started last Wednesday evening and eleven children turned up!
We were really surprised and delighted with the turn out. So it was decided that we needed another table if we wanted to keep these children’s interest.

Laura demonstrated her persuasive charms and managed to get Gerry Dalton (GD Heat & Plumbing) to kindly donate the price of another table.

After much searching of the Buy & Sell Laura located a table in Portarlington & Dermot (once again) picked it up. This is now installed in the hall since Saturday evening.

Training is tomorrow evening @ 7:00pm.

The U13 indoor soccer gets underway in Kinnegad hall on Wednesday evening @ 7:00pm for four weeks. The children have all been notified.

There was an excellent turn out for the Art on Saturday (about 18 children) and by all accounts the children put in a great effort. There are some great works of art prepared.

These will be judged in the next couple of days and hopefully will have a result by the end of the week. (Art entries to be in at April meeting)

The church gate collection will be on 22nd & 23rd April

Apparently the indoor Soccer competitions will be held at a blitz on Good Friday on the Astra Turf near Navan, details nearer the time.

Well done to Anna & gang in the Adult/ U17 Quiz on Friday they came second!

So Clonard, bypassed by the motorway, bypassed by technology and fast becoming a backwater?

Not necessarily so. Local businesses are looking for broadband, local hostelries could use broadband to provide internet access for tired and thirsty travellers and local residents are looking for some other way of connecting to the internet rather than pay by the minute through the nose charges for dial-up.

So, what to do.

Currently the department of Communications is offering grants and funding to local Group Broadband Schemes. They are subsidising the install costs for a broadband provider in order to provide some form of broadband to small villages and communities.
All that is required is a handful of signatures from people and businesses who want broadband, a broadband supplier, and a person to act as gopher and voila; group broadband.

So in a completely unilateral decision I am going to canvas local residents and businesses for signatures, contact the GBS co-ordinator, collate prices and services from broadband suppliers and get this thing underway.

If you want to help, support or offer critique feel free to drop a mail to info [AT] clonard.org.

Further to this post I’ll put up some information on the website about the GBS schemes, how it works, what risks are associated with it, the broadband providers available, costs, technology involved etc. etc.

Some posters for signatures need to be put up in public areas, say the church and pubs. When the list of providers is available the details and costs will be posted.