Coney Island off the coast of Sligo is finally connected to the national electricity grid.
Minister of State at the Department of the Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands Éamon Ó Cuív performs the switching-on ceremony for Coney Island, fifty years after the ESB's (Electricity Supply Board’s) rural electrification programme commenced.
Also present are John and Margaret McGowan, the only permanent residents on the island, who can now dispense with the paraffin lamps and bottled gas they used for light and heat.
John recalls the challenges of island life and having to transport their fuel from the mainland,
Sometimes we would run out, especially in the wintertime.
Coney is the first of eight islands on an electrification project jointly funded by the ESB and the Department of the Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands.
Part-time residents, visitors and those with links to the island celebrated the start of a new era in the island’s only pub, with one man commenting,
We’ve seen the light.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 6 December 1999. The reporter is Eileen Magnier.
