Roundstone News 5th June 2006.

What an extraordinary day it has been today, just in the nick of time, I have just got back from Glynsk, (Carna), for this broadcast with friends of mine for an extended lunch, its an area I do not now well, but god it’s a wonderful area, so if I am slurring my words a bit, the good wines during lunch has nothing to do with it, it’s the sun that has gone to my head.

What a fantastic Bank holiday, we have had in Roundstone what with the events and of course helped by the incredible weather,

Definitely “Costa Del Roundstone”.

Intergenerational Day:

In the National school, they had butter making and basket making demonstrations, and songs to welcome everybody to the school sung by our very junior members under the guidance of their teachers Nichola and Josephine Roach, then the older ones put on a wonderful play called “Frankie and Me” a story about bulling and friendships in schools, its was a quirky and very funny, wonderfully acted out, by the kids what was interesting a few of the kids that are quite shy in their everyday life, but goodness the shy ones really excelled, its no mean feat to act out something in front of a lot of people, which has a lot to say for their excellent teachers, so what more can be said except well done everybody.

Then the morning ended with some traditional music and Dancing, with Marcus Hernon and his son Pionious, Johnny Mortiain Lowry and the schools whistle teacher Noreen O’Sullivan and Seanos dancer Clare King.

Some photos can be seen on the website, a great morning.

Children’s Fun Run:

Sunday we had the Children’s fun run roughly about 5Km, being such a perfect day we had a good turn out, enhanced By Michael O’Malley’s music, and the Bouncing castle.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank Seamus Lowry for sponsoring the water and Johnny Sheehan for all the goodie bags and of course the youth club members who had the role of stewards and water stops, it was a fun afternoon, thanks everybody

Beach clean up:

Our thanks to Francis Ashe, who yesterday collected all the bagged rubbish from Dogs Bay, actually I think it seems now we have possibly found the solution to keep the beaches reasonably clean, and that’s to have bags placed in a certain area, this seems to encourage people to pick up the rubbish, bag it and place it in the same spot for collection, and when the pile gets to big, thanks to the Galway County Council, we just have to make a quick phone call to inform them of the clean up, and they are down the next day to take it away.

World Oceans Day.

A note for your Diary, to celebrate world’s ocean day, there will be a guided walk on dogs Bay and Gurteen with Melinda Swann, Melinda was awarded her masters degree for Environmental Sciences and Zoology, her project was to do with Gurteen and Dogs Bay as well as Elaine O’Riordan who is the Co- Odinator and who is with the Ecology Unit in NUI Galway, this walk will take place on Saturday 10th June meeting in the Dogs Bay Car Park at 4pm, weather permitting, if by chance the weather is bad there will be a talk in the community Hall instead at 4pm.

John Paul Ferron:

We would like to wish John Paul Ferron who is getting married next weekend in Roundstone

Also to wish all the luck in the world to all those that are doing their leaving and junior Cert, this week, we wish you well.

Since I am running a little late with the news for the website, I have added a few extra items:

Alexander Nimmo;

At 3.30pm Saturday 27th May in the evening the Yacht Nimmo sailed up our bay into Roundstone with the crew of John Killeen (Cold chon) who were in full sailing gear who were some of the guests to attend the launch of Kathleen Villier Tuthill’s new book about Alexandria Nimmo and the Western District. This is a magnificent book and because Roundstone is so associated with Nimmo, Kathleen kindly made Eldon’s Hotel the venue for her launch. There were over a hundred guests in attendance, and quiet a few reporters from the local papers with a report on the Roundstone website. Kathleen spoke on how she got to writing about Alexander Nimmo in the first place, and the barriers she had to cross to bring it to fruition. She thanked all who helped her, her friends and family who saw her through thick and thin. 

It is the first time that anyone set out to tell this story of this great Scottish engineer who worked for the congested district board commencing his work in Ireland.

He built many roads, piers, and bridges all over Ireland and was responsible for the foundation and structure of our beautiful village here.

This book is an acknowledgement and history of the people of the west and part of the Roundstone heritage.

After the launch a plaque to Nimmo was unveiled on the pier.

This plaque was the brain child of Dr. Ron Cox, Trinity College Dublin and was sponsored by John Killeen CEO of Cold Chon Galway, who incidentally unveiled it.

We hope this plaque will be erected on a suitable site on or about the pier in the next few weeks.

Ballot Paper: June 12th 2006

The Roundstone Development Council have gone to the Community, through the 2006 / 2007 Register of Electors list to ask one simple question of “yes” or “No”

“ARE YOU IN FAVOUR OF FURTHER LARGE SCALE HOLIDAY HOME DEVELOPMENTS IN ROUNDSTONE?”

The Ballot sheets were sent out with a covering letter from the Roundstone Development Community Council

We have asked for every body’s answer to be in by the 21st June 2006.

The count will be done on an official basis

Covering Letter:

In May 2005, Roundstone Development Council made a decision to object to large scale holiday home developments in the village of Roundstone until a Village Development Plan had been drawn up by Galway County Council and the people of Roundstone. The County Council has told the RDC that the Village Development Plan will be initiated within the next six months.

The decision was taken for the following reasons:

• Under the current Galway Development Plan, only 19 units are allocated to be built in Roundstone village until 2009. If all these units are used up on holiday homes then there maybe no units left for any local person who wishes to build a house
• The RDC actively supports planning applications made by local people to build their homes in Roundstone and feel that more large holiday home developments are putting at risk, the chances of locals building their own homes.
• Our water supply system cannot handle the present demands in the summer and more holiday developments would result in greater water shortages.
• Roundstone has no proper sewage treatment plant causing very bad pollution and smells in the harbour. Adding further large housing developments to this system is a danger to public health.
• RDC is in favor of supporting local craftsmen. However, it has found in recent years, large holiday home developments have been built by non-local developers using non-local workers. This offers no social or economic benefit to the wider community of Roundstone.
• As things stand today, already more than 50% of the houses in Roundstone are used as second or holiday homes. If this trend continues, this could see the end of Roundstone as a village and also as a community.
• Roundstone is a world famous village and for a large part depends on passing tourist trade. Increased holiday style developments like those in Lahinch, Co. Clare would mean that Roundstone would lose its beauty and therefore its appeal to tourists and regular visitors. Increased holiday home developments would mean less people would be staying in B&Bs and other local accommodation.

This past week has been a very busy one for the village Johnny Conneely, who looks after the cleaning of the village was out on another job for the Galway County Council and as the saying goes you never miss the water until the taps run dry, well did, we miss Johnny, and the village was a shambles with bins overflowing with an overall look of disarray.

As luck would have it we were able to call upon Pious DeLappe to cut the grass leading into the village, and the cleaning up of the triangle on the pier (This was taken care of financially by the Tidy Town committee and with the help of Kevin & Suzanne Cronin). 

Richard was emptying the bins.

We were reminded of the great job Johnny has been doing all along. Thankfully he is back full time, for the summer.

We could all give him a little help by making sure that the outside of each of our houses becomes our own responsibility to keep them clear of rubbish. Thank you Johnny for the great job you are doing.

And to end off on a nice note, some people came to the gallery yesterday, and informed me that they never miss the weekly news from the Connemara Community Radio, and how informative the topics are, so keep up the good work to all those involved with the Community Radio

Well, that all from me for the moment, I feel a glass of wine coming on to celebrate a great day, have a great week, pray that the good weather will stay for a little longer,