Noelle McHale bought her “dream home” in a new estate in Ireland’s midlands in 2006 for €175,000 (£142,000 today). But her dream has turned to nightmare with her semi-detached worth only a fraction of that price, and the unfinished estate it sits in considered dangerously unsafe because of toxic gases. “If you light a match […]
Treating Longford’s Heroin Problem
Below is a long-form piece on heroin in my home town of Longford, and the paucity of treatment facilities for addicts, which originally appeared in July 1 edition of the Sunday Business Post. He smiles when he recalls the first time he used. It was 1995 and he was 17, just out of secondary school […]
Sign of hard times as Irish vote to rescue 'ghost' estates
By Peter Geoghegan in Longford On the road from Dublin airport to the city centre stands an eye-catching piece of street art. Painted in 4ft-high red and white letters, located on a concrete wall just a stone’s throw from the half-finished headquarters of the bankrupt Anglo-Irish bank near the banks of the River Liffey, the […]
Lough Rynn Hotel, Mohill
This review of the Lough Rynn Hotel in Mohill appeared in The Irish Times on Saturday 16 January ’10. I first visited Lough Rynn well over 20 years ago. It was the day of my first communion. We squashed into my mother’s blue Renault 5 for the half-hour journey north from our Longford home to […]
An Irishman's Diary
In response to the awful fire that ripped through St Mel’s cathedral on Christmas morning I wrote this piece for An Irishman’s Diary in The Irish Times. The piece appeared 04/01/2010. ‘THE ONLY thing the town has had to be proud of is gone”. This terse comment, left on the internet forum Boards.ie, said it […]