Neighbours gather to thank Digital Forge for connection

By Siobhán Cronin

Neighbours in Coomhola outside Bantry, giving a thumps-up for their new internet connections, pictured with Jane and Brendan Hurley of local broadband provider, Schull-based Digital Forge, which got them online. (Photo:T ony McElhinney)

IT’S not often that there’s a positive story about internet coverage in West Cork, but this week a small community outside Bantry were happy to tell theirs.

The people of Coomhola came together last year to fight for a broadband connection in their area. Ger O’Sullivan of ‘West Cork Offline’ organised a public meeting in Ballylickey last September for the 380 households in both Borlin and Coomhola to voice their frustrations.

In the past, many people were resorting to working in the middle of the night, when the service slightly improved, or heading into internet cafés in Bantry.

But this week the group announced that they had found a solution – thanks to local internet provider, Schull-based Digital Forge, who had attended the Ballylickey meeting and heard their plight.

‘Digital Forge were fantastic,’ Ger told The Southern Star. ‘They sent their engineers out and we looked at all the options and eventually we were able to find that there was a signal from one of the trees. My service is better now than they even promised – it really is a superior service they provided us with,’ he said.

This week, the neighbours joined together in Ger’s house, and invited Jane and Brendan Hurley from Digital Forge over, to say ‘thanks’.

Ger O’Sullivan currently commutes to work in Cork (a 248km round trip), but may now have the option of working from home.