Property in Republic, but electricity supplied from North

murphaph

Ok, time for a totally useless thread, which will hopefully at least satisfy my curiosity...

I was look at this house which is in the Republic but yards from the border. You can clearly see that it has a landline from Eircom but the electricity is coming over the border from Northern Ireland. Is this common, possibly some grandfather clause that allows it?

I had a quick scan through the NIE website and didn't find anything about applying for a connection for a premises in the Republic. Anyone else find this mildly interesting or know any more? How about a BT landline in Cavan?

Deedsie

murphaph wrote: »

Ok, time for a totally useless thread, which will hopefully at least satisfy my curiosity...

I was look at this house which is in the Republic but yards from the border. You can clearly see that it has a landline from Eircom but the electricity is coming over the border from Northern Ireland. Is this common, possibly some grandfather clause that allows it?

I had a quick scan through the NIE website and didn't find anything about applying for a connection for a premises in the Republic. Anyone else find this mildly interesting or know any more? How about a BT landline in Cavan?

I am in no way sure if this is right but don't Electric Ireland own NIE? Could just be the most financially viable option from the companies point of view?

murphaph

Deedsie wrote: »

I am in no way sure if this is right but don't Electric Ireland own NIE? Could just be the most financially viable option from the companies point of view?

Yeah but they only bought them 4 years ago. That house had a connection long before that. I wonder is there a long standing agreement between both sides to connect up properties like this that are practically much easier to connect to the other side's network.

ardmacha

Electricity service is determined by the nearest lines according to a 1950s agreement. Phone service is not.
It is more probably more common for people in NI to have ESB than the other way around, as electrification generally took place earlier in the 26 counties.

The question of how you apply for it is more obscure.

In the 1950s while both Irish governments engaged in a certain amount of megaphone diplomacy, they were capable of practical arrangements to everyone's benefit, something they largely lost since then when there are warm words but feck all in the way of practical arrangements in many cases.

A good example is here near Forkhill where the road (rather ridiculously) has phone lines on both sides of the road but all houses have ESB

U2Flyboy

Yes, it's probably correct. I know that the ESB have a few customers across the border in NI with UK postcodes.

murphaph

I find this fascinating. So do they actually pay their electricity bills directly to the provider over the border in a foreign currency or do they pay their respective national provider who then forwards it on?

ardmacha

U2Flyboy wrote: »

Yes, it's probably correct. I know that the ESB have a few customers across the border in NI with UK postcodes.

The billing address isn't conclusive, sometimes the bill will be sent other than to the supplied premises.

I find this fascinating. So do they actually pay their electricity bills directly to the provider over the border in a foreign currency or do they pay their respective national provider who then forwards it on?

They pay their bills the same as everyone else, I imagine.
It is not different from the many in North Monaghan who have bill mobile phones from the North or the many in Fermanagh or South Armagh who do the opposite.

Colm R

ardmacha wrote: »

The billing address isn't conclusive, sometimes the bill will be sent other than to the supplied premises.



They pay their bills the same as everyone else, I imagine.
It is not different from the many in North Monaghan who have bill mobile phones from the North or the many in Fermanagh or South Armagh who do the opposite.

Mobile phones are bit different really - anyone anywhere can get a phone from any network anywhere in the world. Its just a case of if your roaming or if you can pick up the signal from over the border.

But electricity is a bit different.

In the south, the ESB read all meters, and then provide the reading to the supplier for each consumer. I assume its the same up North with NIE.

My questions are not really aimed at you but if you know that would be great....

In the first example, a house in the South with a supply from the North, would the meter be read by NIE or ESB?

And the next question would be about the provider.

Can that house choose a Northern Supplier or Southern Supplier? The North and the South have Electric Ireland and Airiticity in common. But is that house limited to Northern suppliers (PowerNI for example) or Southern suppliers (BG for example) or both?

ardmacha

Without having looked into it, I imagine that a customer of the network is a customer of that network with any meter reading, suppliers etc that come with that. The customer has no more or no less choice than anyone else. The only difference is at the point of original connection if the cost of connection to the network on their side of the border is (or was) excessive then they connect to the other if they are within a certain distance of the border. This is probably written down somewhere, but I haven't the least idea where.

There might be some bureaucratic hassle getting free electricity allowance for OAPs and the like.

plodder

There's a lot of strange anomalies along the border that cause practical difficulties. One in particular is very obvious if you look for it on a map. A chunk of county Monaghan is to all intents and purposes cut-off from the rest of the republic, as there is no way to access it by road without passing through NI. That caused a lot of problems during the troubles. Apparently, even today, the gardai are only allowed to access it in unmarked cars.

1huge1

plodder wrote: »

There's a lot of strange anomalies along the border that cause practical difficulties. One in particular is very obvious if you look for it on a map. A chunk of county Monaghan is to all intents and purposes cut-off from the rest of the republic, as there is no way to access it by road without passing through NI. That caused a lot of problems during the troubles. Apparently, even today, the gardai are only allowed to access it in unmarked cars.

I'd never heard of that so I decided to check it out.

https://www.google.ie/maps/@54.1403389,-7.3052862,13z?hl=en

I suppose the county lines existed before the separation of the Republic and the North in 1922 but that still has to be one of the craziest things I've seen.

Sorry, went a bit off topic I know but just found that really interesting.

CrabRevolution

http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/365-a-nameless-intra-irish-pene-enclave

The page is a from 2008 or so and has "decayed" a bit (you cant actually see the map the article is written about), but the main points are still there and it's interesting nonetheless.

plodder

There's an interesting article about the issue generally from 1994, which mentions the one in Monaghan, and some others like Jonesborough in Co. Armagh.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/it-all-began-with-a-line-on-the-map-of-all-the-divisions-that-polarise-ireland-none-is-more-perplexing-than-the-border-separating-north-and-south-politicians-talk-hopefully-of-a-better-future-but-the-problem-of-the-border-itself-remains-intractable-this-twopart-report-traces-the-history-of-europes-least-logical-frontier-and-overleaf-examines-life-in-its-shadow-1437681.html

The one in Monaghan was particularly problematic because it was a favoured location for dumping arms by the IRA. The northern security forces weren't allowed to access it (obviously) and it was tricky for the southern forces to access. The army in particular had to enter through that tiny gap at the bottom, either by air or on foot, crossing a stream.

L1011

Culloville in Armagh had (has, perhaps, but there's no obvious markings on the building anymore) its post office in the Republic until recently enough - its on the Discovery series maps.

Until 1978 and the currency parity break, UK pensions etc could be collected at An Post post offices so that was one issue sorted - but I'd be fairly certain Royal Mail had to do the deliveries on their side of the border.

ardmacha

L1011 wrote: »

Culloville in Armagh had (has, perhaps, but there's no obvious markings on the building anymore) its post office in the Republic until recently enough - its on the Discovery series maps.

Until 1978 and the currency parity break, UK pensions etc could be collected at An Post post offices so that was one issue sorted - but I'd be fairly certain Royal Mail had to do the deliveries on their side of the border.

While the likes of Pettigo might be a good example of this, Culloville is less so. The Culloville post office always served a rural area mostly in Monaghan, it was possibly so situated to be near the railway station. It was a rural area with two minor crossroad "centres" 2 miles apart, divided by a river. Near the post office there was always a school and a RIC barracks, while there was always a school on the Armagh side and neither side had a church. People on the Armagh side would have found it as convenient to go to Crossmaglen where there were shops etc.

There were significant postal dislocations because of the border though. There were areas in Fermanagh delivered from Pettigo and Clones and these arrangements continued until 1924 at least. People then found the customs opening their post although they were on the same side of the border as the sender! I expect they did not hasten to make these changes as even the most modest outcome from the Boundary Commission would have addressed these things.

Likewise other delivery offices were detached from their previous head office, e.g. Donegal offices near Derry and Crossmaglen from Castleblayney to Newry, I expect this affected telephonic stuff as well.