North Atlantic Skyline - - Photographs from the west of Ireland (Galway, Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Roscommon and even Leitrim)

Renovation

I once saw some Pathe newsreel fromt the early Sixties of the zinc and lead mines at Tynagh, Co Galway (near Loughrea). The locals were smelting the ore in buckets over open fires. Within a decade, Tynagh would become the biggest lead and zinc mine in Europe, and in another decade , it would be closed, having exhausted the land in all ways possible. Today, a shiny new power station is taking form on the site, which had lain derelict for almost 20 years - it is one of the two new power stations under construction due to deregulation of the power industry in Ireland.

The generating equipment for the power station arrives by container ship into Galway harbour, usually at weekends. When the city parties late into Saturday night, long ungainly convoys of trucks snake their way out to Tynagh,. As they leave the harbour, they pass another relic of the mining days - the spherical 'hanger' on the docks that used to store the processed ore, ready for export to the rest of Europe. It's finally to be demolished, to be replaced by yet more offices and industrial units, just like nearly every other square foot of Galway. At least these ones will have a great view.

At least one resident of the neighbouring apartments is going to miss the old shed...

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irishblogs,monasette

Posted by Monasette at July 5, 2005 11:05 PM