People of Donore forced to survive without a water supply - but Fr Irwin is on the case!
AT last week’s meeting of the Meath Co. Council, in Navan, the East Meath village of Donore was called “picturesque,” but while this may be so it is nevertheless true that the people who reside there are in no mood to appreciate its beauties at the present time.
When Colr. Barney Henry said there was an “urgent necessity” for a water supply in the village he put the matter all too mildly as far as the irate rate-paying villagers are concerned . . . but then Coir. Henry does not live in Donore and so cannot realise that the position is so bad, that the water there has such a foul stench that it must be thoroughly boiled before it can be used during Mass in the local church.
The Co. Manager has promised to have borings made, which brings a smile—but not of amusement to the faces of the more cynical of the local residents. They remember that two borings were previously made at different points —but no water! In any case even if either of these two efforts had been successful their situation was, in each case, ridiculous, as the places where the borings were made were well away from the village and consequently, from the majority of the houses.
The situation, as at present, exists despite the best efforts of the local Parish Priest, V. Rev. Fr. J. Irwin, to obtain a water supply for the village.
Interested in setting up a new school in Donore, Fr. Irwin attempted to inaugurate a scheme for piping water from a private spring to the proposed new building. Land owners consented to pipes going through their land, but nothing ever came of the project. A Board of Works estimate for this work was about £220.
Trying a new tack, Fr. Irwin sought to obtain a piped water supply for the whole village but the Co. Manager turned down as “uneconomical “a scheme for this purpose, the estimated cost of which was some £800.
The howls that are periodically heard on all sides about the flight from the land sound very hollow in this village where the people are denied a decent supply of such a common or garden—one might say, basic—necessity as water. Anyone can spout platitudes, but people have the same needs whether living in city, town or village. The people of Donore are no different.
In a word, they are “one for all and all for one,” behind the efforts of their Parish Priest who says” this is one fight I am determined to keep up until I meet with success.”
Note: A spring outside the village which supplied two or three houses has been closed off by the landowner due to difficulties in sustaining a sufflcent supply of water for his cattle. A pump on the Donore-Drogheda Road, which supplies about ten or twelve houses, is so stiff that it takes the best efforts of a strong man to get water from it.