Gallagh Water

Notices

6/10/25 Due to excessive rain last Thursday, one of the planned valve replacements had to be postponed. That work is now scheduled for Wednesday 8th October after 15:30.

2/10/25 Two leaky valves being replaced today. Affected members have been notified by text.

29/09/25 We're working on a small leak in the mains in the Cortoonroe area and need to turn off the water for about an hour or so.  This affects connections westwards from the Hillswood junction at Pat Ryan's, including Bermingham and Deerpark.

12/09/2025 Excellence Award
Yesterday at the annual Rural Water Services conference, the NFGWS announced the Group Water Schemes who merited an Excellence Award. Gallagh GWS was awarded in the Community Engagement category. We received a flag and a plaque. The award acknowledges efforts such as doing schools visits, installing a drinking water station, sending text messages and having a website.

29/08/25 Another leak has just appeared on the spine main and it cannot be ignored. Contractors are mobilising to be on site later this afternoon. Unfortunately, the leak is near the start of the spine main so everyone fed from it will be affected if we have to shut off the water for an hour or two. 

Update at 18:15 - The leak is fixed and the water will start to flow through within the next half hour.

15/08/25 Due to unavailability of crew, the valve replacement at Kilgarriff is postponed till next week.

14/08/2 5 The valve replacement in Kilgarriff is postponed to tomorrow morning.

14/08/25 Valve replacements
We are replacing two faulty valves today. The first will affect the water supply to Brockagh/Drumbulcaun at around 9:30am. The second will be later in the morning and affects connections in the Claddagh West/Garrauns area. In both cases we expect the water to be off for about an hour.

13/08/25 Funding Application turned down
We are very disappointed to report that the expert panel in the 3-years-late Multi-Annual Rural Water Program have decided we're not getting any money to replace our problematic spine main. Apparently, we didn't give evidence that the main is at the end of its life or has high recurring leakage. Our application, with plenty of evidence, can be seen here. We are going to appeal this decision.

15/07/2025 15:30 Update

Water is on. Cortoon and Brownsgrove should have water by now. We have closed some valves on side branches to try to fill all the way to Sylane first, so supply to Glan and Milltown Road and Lissavalley will be a bit later.

15/07/2025 14:00 Update
Repairs are ongoing. A 14m section of pipe had to be dug out and is being replaced now. It could be 3:30pm or later before we can start refilling the network.

15/07/2025 08:30 Major Leak
Our trunk main ruptured at Pollaphuca during the night. The leakage was high enough to empty the reservoir if allowed to continue, so we have closed a valve at Cuilbeg and this will remain closed until the leak is fixed. Our contractors are mobilising and will be on site soon. We hope to have water running again by this evening but, as usual, it will take some time to refill the system all the way to Sylane. 

We apologise for the inconvenience. If anyone wishes to complain they should contact their local TD because this is due to the delays in the current Multi-Annual Rural Water Program, which is supposed to be funding a replacement of our problematic trunk main but is now three years behind schedule.

22/05/25 Notice of price increase.
As flagged in the letter that was sent with last year's bills, we are introducing a price increase in the next bills. The new price per cubic metre will be 80c. This increase is in line with inflation since 2012, when the previous price was introduced. Domestic users continue to get a free allowance of 160 cubic meters in each billing period.

16/05/25 1pm - All done. Was fixable without shutting off.

16/05/25 We have a leak in the 7" main at Pollaphuca, just reported this evening.  We hope to get contractors tomorrow (Saturday) to fix it. This will cause traffic disruption at the location of the leak and water outages in a large portion of the scheme from Pollaphuca/Brockagh through Cortoon to Dunmore Road, Lissavalley, Milltown Road, Brownsgrove, Sylane etc.. We don't know yet what time the water will be shut off but guessing around 10:30, and we don't know yet how long it will be off. 

13/04/25 Notice of AGM
The Annual General Meeting for 2025 will be held in Fr Carter House at 8:30pm on Thursday 24th April. Invitations will be posted to all shareholders this week.

12/03/25 A leak near the school in Brownsgrove was reported this morning. We hope to have it fixed today. Water may be off for a short time.

05/02/25 ESB crews were assessing the damage behind the pumphouse yesterday and Micheál spoke to them and explained the situation with the water.  They called in the job as high priority and we were hoping they would do it today but there's no crew there today. We have tried to escalate the fault with ESB but anybody we talk to can only give us the same information we're getting on Powercheck, which now says 09/02. In the meantime, Micheál is trying to keep the generator going as much as he can during the day and late into the evening.

03/02/25 Power has not been restored in some parts of Brownsgrove, including our pumphouse. The generator is helping a little but a fill of diesel only lasts about three hours and the pressure we can achieve is less than half of normal pressure, so people in affected areas still have no water a lot of the time. We are doing our best with what we have but we regret that we are unable to provide normal service to everyone until we get mains power back. 

31/01/25 Thank you to Enda Ansbro for loaning us a bigger generator. We might have more success getting some water through later this evening.

29/01/25 Our generator isn't strong enough and couldn't run the pump. 

28/01/25 We are aware that some people served by the Queensfort booster pump still have no water and that there isn't enough pressure to refill the pipes up all the hills while the pump has no power.  We have an electrician lined up to wire for a generator at the pumphouse.  We hope to get the pump running again, if not by this evening, then definitely tomorrow morning. 

27/01/25 Post Storm Eowyn update 
We apologise to our members that the reservoir was not kept topped up during the 3-day power outage. Normally our plant operators, Glanua, would keep things going with diesel generators but they had 13 treatment plants out of power. Despite having extra generators ready before the storm, they were not equipped to keep that many going and they were unable to get a generator to us. Phone reception and internet were so badly affected that we did not realise the reservoir was empty until the water ran out. According to the ESB, power would not be restored yesterday. Glanua weren't able to get to us with a generator so we took action to restore power ourselves. Thanks to the efforts of a team of members, committee and staff, we got one generator operating at the pumps at the source and another one at the treatment plant by 9pm yesterday. (We needn't have bothered because the power came back an hour later!!) This morning, Glanua were on site early to switch back to mains power and we are returning the generators to Finnegans. We are very grateful to David and Austin Finnegan and their staff for such generous support.

The power is still out at Queensfort pumphouse so areas served by it will still have issues with water. We are aware that some people haven't any flow at all and we are trying to draw the water along the lines to get the trickle back at least. For those who have full pressure again, you may need to run your tap to clear air bubbles and pockets of silt. The water has been treated and is safe leaving the treatment plant but refilling the reservoir andnetwork uses up more of the chlorine. Vulnerable members might want to take the extra precaution of boiling the water for drinking, until things are back to normal.

Thank you for your patience during this chaotic time.

26/01/25 Due to a lack of power at the treatment plant and no availability of the Glanua generators, the reservoir has now run dry. If anyone has industrial generators (we need 65kVA and 35 kVA) please contact the secretary.

16/01/25 We have water coming through the road in Rahogarty South (near the two new houses). Luckily our contractors were able to make themselves available to fix it this afternoon, starting at 1pm. Expect water to be off for a couple of hours this afternoon from Flatterys in Rahogarty South to Beagh Cross, on Dunmore Road and all side roads from Lissavelly to Sylane, including Knockaloura West, and Milltown Road.

15/01/25 Planned ESB outage tomorrow will affect the booster pump at Brockagh so there may be low pressure.

07/01/25 Please take every precaution to try to avoid frozen pipes in the coming days. See the following advice from the NFGWS here.

07/01/25 Thanks to Micheál and Michael for fixing a leak on the Brockagh line in icy conditions today.

15/11/24 We're expecting cold weather next week. Now is the time to take action to prevent frozen pipes. See here and here for advice.

14/11/24 The winners in the early payers draw are the following:
Kieran Murphy, Michael Loftus, Miko Flattery, Carmelita Lee, Sean Tierney, John Dunleavy, Patrick Costelloe, Eugene Kelly, Christina Hession, and Jim Murphy. They each recieve €100 for paying on time.

05/11/24 The due date for water bills was 31st October. Those who paid in time are now in the draw for ten prizes of €100. The draw will take place at a committee meeting next week.Those who have not paid are kindly asked to do so as soon as possible

02/09/24 Annual meter reading started today. Invoices will be generated during the next few weeks and will be posted by the end of the month. Those signed up for text alerts will get advance notice of the amount on their bill.