After a couple of days in Dublin I moved to Ballina a small village on the Shanon River, placed oposite to Killaloe. In fact both town and village form a one body joined together by old stone bridge. The valley of the river and hills above it are very beautiful, but… this town is at the end of the world.
Internet access is almost unavailable for somebody who stays here only temporary. There is no Internet Café. There is no public HOT SPOT in any place. It is strange because Killaloe/Ballina Marina is full of expensive yachts, and sailors have their laptops on boards.
The same strange experience I got on Huston Station, where I found O2 Wi-Fi zone, unfortunately, I couldn’t buy a special access vouchers, so the access remained denied.
I have a GPRS card in my laptop, but unfortunately Irish Mobile Networks haven’t known that it is profitable to assure to their customers pre paid GPRS access – sim data cards. It seems that Poland is far far further than Ireland in developing internet and communication technologies, because I have a unlimited GPRS internet access in every place of Poland for only 15 Euro / month.
Internet Access in Poland is really much more simple and easy than in Ireland.
Here is some pictures of Killaloe and Ballina, and some views from my new excavation site.
Marina in Ballina
Marina in Ballina
Marina in Ballina
Shanon River
Bridge that links together Killaloe and Ballina
Ballina, houses on the hill - the place I am living at the moment.
Old channel in Killaloe
Streets of Killaloe
Shanon River
View from excavation site
Ah yes welcome to the land outside the pale where internet access is limited. I don’t live a million miles from Ballina and we only got broadband a few months ago. Infastruture is fairly poor alright.
You could always try a wee bit of drive by hacking if you have a car
Despite the wealth the boats might give the appearence of, Ballina (and Mayo as a whole) is pretty poor, even as far as the west and north west go. And on broadband, you won’t find a part of the country were it’s harder to get connectivity.
Keith - Ballina / Killaloe are in East Clare not Mayo
D’oh! Wrong one.