First Waterford Post!

mike65 · 17-09-2002 6:34pm

I'm just about old enough to remember when Waterfords population was larger than Galways but then something seemed to happen. Galway got political clout while Waterford went into a 20 year sleep.

I mentioned earlier our PR stinks, the Dublin media simply does'nt think we exist but as you noted the Irish Times (the paper of the establishment) ran stories everyday on the arts shindig. RTE covered the Galways races everyday, complete with cheesy shots
of assembled polictical hacks and "celebs".

Mike.

merlante · 17-09-2002 9:39pm

Well first of all Galway's population tends to be exagerated for the simple reason that their city boundary is large enough to encompass everyone that could conceivably be considered Galway. One subburb, Barna, is in the middle of the countryside.

Waterford and Limerick are having problems enlarging their boundaries so their populations are larger than stated in the preliminary census results of this year. At the moment Waterford city council is trying to expand Waterford across the river, where they've already spent a lot of money, on a port and a bunch of housing estates.

In my opinion there are 3 reasons Galway expanded the way it did:
1. Galway has a university. The student crowd has revitalised the city and after prosperity returned to Ireland, students now comprise 15% of the total population.
2. The midlands and border regions have been bleeding people since the famine, some go to Dublin, but a large number find a city in the west more to their liking. 80% of the increase in Galway's population is due to inward migration.
3. Galway's PR machine is extremely effective, and its various festivals are very successful.

A fourth reason might be the fact that Galway has two constituencies gunning for it, whereas we only have one. In addition towns such as Kilkenny and Wexford have the cheek to compete with us for 'regional' services, which will only ever be in Waterford in any case.

merlante

mike65 · 17-09-2002 10:41pm

I forgot (!) about the univeristy issue. On city boundries remember in 1980 Waterford breifly became the second largest city in the state when it pushed out halfway to Tramore!

Kilkenny County Council are a joke, they sit up the other end of the county ignoring the southern part which for all intents and purposes is Waterford North, the city needs to push up at least as far as Glenmore and west to Mooncoin-ish. Imagine the kilkenny GAA reaction to that!

Mike.

PPC · 18-09-2002 9:13am

Make this board restricted to waterford people only and then we can plan the take over of Kilkenny

Mossy Monk · 18-09-2002 10:59pm

then Tipperary and then who knows, the world

merlante · 18-09-2002 11:57pm

Well I was too young to remember the boundary change in 1980, but apparently it was all easy on the Waterford side but blocked completely on the Kilkenny side.

But it actually looks like it might happen this time, since apparently if they can't work it out with Kilkenny CC then it's passed on to the minister for environment & local government, who I'm guessing would be sympathetic to our cause.

(since he's a Deise man)

The proposed boundary extension is supposed to go along the line of the new waterford bypass and extend as far as slieverue.

merlante

First Waterford Post!

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