Sssshhh, quiet now, quiet now lads, give him a chance give him a chance….
Singer clears his throat. Pints are left respectfully on to the counter.
By an encrypted firewall
I heard an iTune wailing
Macbook, they are taking you away
For you stored Trevalyan’s porn
So he’d have fun all night and morn
Now he’s just a leak away from Botany Bay
Low, i-The Fields of Athenry
Where once we climbed those tall Coillte trees
Now its full of cheeky chaps, selling songs and selling apps
It’s so techy around the Files of Athenry.
There was an element of the April Fool’s joke about the announcement of Apple-isation of Athenry last Monday morning with the news that a massive file, muci and app storage farm is to be based at Derrydonnell. It was a missive that appeared out of left field, the kind of mad ‘let’s pick a sexy company to put in a nice town’ sort of story. It was as if the people of Athenry found a bottle with a genie inside and he asked them to pick a company, any company that they’d like to set up around that ancient town.
And by locating it in the middle of a forest, well a former forest, there was definitely an element of bringing Apple to an orchard.
And as locals spat out their cornflakes at the enormity of it all last Monday, the realisation sank in that this is an uber sexy brand that will do wonders not just for the town but the region. If it’s possible to attract the likes of Apple to the west, then the sky’s the limit. It will give Catherine Blewitt and her team at IDA Ireland the ammo to go out there and say to the world’s industry “we’ve got Apple. Wanna be their neighbour?”
After all the years of cursing the damned weather in the west, now we can look at the dark skies and be thankful for the fact that if it weren’t pissing rain for half the year, we wouldn’t have those big fat clouds large enough to store all those Hozier and The Script songs or all those pics of Jennifer Lawrence.
Fair play to Met Eireann for flogging those clouds to Apple. Expect Gerard Fleming to wink at us now and say “it’s gonna be scattered showers over the weekend, but over the Athenry area, expect a lot of Beyonce and Uptown Funk to fall from the clouds over the next few days, but that by Monday, we expect fine weather and locals will be dancing to Rock Me Momma Like A Wagon Wheel once again... and a bitteeen of Mike Denver.”
There are just going to be two of the built in Europe, the ‘App-enry’ one and the other in Denmark where the locals will have all their houses heated by the excess energy. In Athenry, the woods will be regrown, there will be a running/walking track for community use. Perhaps the running track will be on mega treadmill where the walking of the locals will power the plant cos let’s face it, solar panels are not going to be much use in this neck of the woods.
Bottom line this is great news for the region. Well done to all who are working to make it happen. Let us have much more of this. Galway is one of the best places in the world to work and live. Let’s make sure many, many, more find that out.
Now back to the song... ssssh lads, give him a chance, give him a feckin’ chance...
