25 year wait for water supply to Glen of Imaal
Dept of Defence and Wicklow County Council waste £300,000
By Roisín de Rossa
High up in the beautiful Glen of Imaal, in Michael 0'Dwyer's country,
where every little cottage is a house where Michael O'Dwyer stayed,
and danced the night away before the Redcoats came. Where every
little stream, which joins the pleasant Slaney as it winds its quiet
way down to Wexford from the high mountains of Lugnaquilla, is a
place where Michael O'Dywer once sat and laughed at his latest
escapade against the yeomen. Where there is a graveyard, high up on
the hill, where local legend has it that Michael O'Dwyer's finger is
buried.
Bill Walsh lives in the Glen of Imaal and in the history of the times
of 1798. With him you would expect to see Michael O'Dwyer cantering
round the corner ahead at any moment. Bill is involved in many
projects, including a campaign for an information technology centre
for the Glen, Donoughmore and Donard ``to bring local people into the
next millennium'', and, perhaps later, plans for a heritage centre
which may mark the spot high up in the hills where, on the old
Military Road which the Brits built across the mountains to chase the
rebels in 1798, there was a blanket factory, or to mark the Ogham
stone, with Ogham writing incised along its edge, which lies hidden
in woods off the roadway unmarked, and unknown to all but the few,
like Bill. But for the moment Bill has no dependable supply of
running water.
Bill is the chairperson of the Glen of Imaal Action Group which is
campaigning over the inadequate water supply to the 200 homes in the
Glen. At present the houses are supplied by a broken pipe which
brings water down from a reservoir up on the hill which stores the
water from the little Slaney as it come tumbling down from the
surrounding Wicklow hills. The most beautiful of streams, the little
Slaney has the purest of crystal clear water. The Brits built a
little reservoir back in 1914 to hold the water. The reservoir
supplied around 200 local houses in the Glen, and the local Army
camp.
But the reservoir, which is two small concrete holding tanks and
filtration system, has been allowed to fall into disrepair. The
underground piping has been replaced by a surface plastic pipe which
is held together with baler twine. It is this pipe which
intermittently supplies the houses in the glen below. When it
freezes, or blocks, the water supply stops.
For 25 years now the local people have been trying to get a proper
supply of water to their houses, without success. Ten years ago
Wicklow County Council got permission from the Department of Defence
to investigate a site at Knickeen Ford for a reservoir on the land
which the Department uses for a firing range. £323,000 was spent in
the investigation, on consultant engineer's fees, on surveys, plant
and machinery, only to find, four years on, that the Department
refused permission for the land to be used for the purpose. It would
severely restrict military use of the Glen, they said. Besides, it
was dangerous and could not be declared free of unexploded ordnance.
Funny they did not think of this four years before the money was
spent.. Two years ago the reservoir project was finally called off.
The latest proposal now under investigation is to pipe water from
Ballymore Eustace and the Poulaphouca reservoir, some ten miles down
the road to the Glen of Imaal. The local action group is entirely
opposed to this.
``It's an idiocy. Imagine the costs and the disruption on the roads,''
says Bill Walsh. ``Why, when there is plenty of water here,'' he asks,
``when they have an existing reservoir, which just needs repair and
updating. The water here could supply the whole of Wicklow.''
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)