A Coole village that exposes the sins of the nation

Coole, Co. Westmeath earmarked for 98 refugees at the site of the old St. Josephs Hospital

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Introduction

Before I begin I should apologise. To read the entirety of this story will require 25 or 30 minutes of your time. The longer I write here on Substack, the more conscious I become of this fact and readers limited time resources. This is not a quick dopamine hit of an article. But, in this instance, brevity just won’t do. For, sometimes, it is in the details of one village’s experience that the universal immigration truths of the whole country are exposed. In Coole, I unexpectedly, found much more than I bargained for in this regard.

Last Sunday afternoon, October 22nd, I set off from Tuam to Coole, in north Co. Westmeath. A tiny hamlet a few kilometres outside of Castlepollard. A village set against the rolling drumlins of the midlands and a brisk walk north of Lough Derravaragh. Coole is the hidden rural Ireland, the one unseen from motorway living. As I spun off the dual carriageway in Athlone and meandered leisurely through the hedge-lined back-roads, hugging the eastern shore of Lough Ree, passing beautiful village after half-village, I couldn’t help but wonder why I spend so much of my life cruising around on Ireland’s featureless motorways. While travel time may be saved, it comes increasingly at the expense of a different kind of time travel methinks. We are becoming a people cut off from our past in a variety of different ways. Severed away from the old roads and ancient by-ways that once absorbed not just tired old tyres but also offered a window into the soul of the land beneath our wheels.

On the face of it, this is just another story about mass-immigration invading a rural Irish landscape, on the site of an old country hospital, one recently converted into 12 apartments. Those apartments now earmarked for 98 refugees. Hopefully, however, you will also see that this a story about much, much more. Coole Concerns is the name of the 100 strong, local group, scrambling to save their 500 person village and hinterland. One week ago, Coole Concerns didn’t exist.

Mass-immigration comes by stealth, ushered in noiselessly by a supportive political, media and multi-national corporation class. The people of Coole have been quick to get moving but, as with every location I visit, the odds are firmly stacked against them. As I joined their dignified protest on Sunday afternoon to chat they came armed with government briefing notes, curious text messages from politicans, and evidence of skulduggery aplenty afoot in their village.

There’s much to relay, so let’s get cracking.

( email readers may need to click link at bottom of their e-mail to read entire post )

Background to Coole Hospital Site

The site of the proposed emergency direct provision centre is on the grounds of the old St Joseph Hospital in Coole. I feel, it is here, in the past, we should begin this sorry tale of the present. To remind ourselves that this village once had a hospital and to reflect on what modernity has brought with it and what it has cast aside. While this is now a building converted into apartments, it was, once upon a far-off time, an orthopaedic hospital. One run by the Sisters of Charity until its closure. St. Josephs served the needs of the people of the midlands and Meath area for many years. Indeed, the closure sparked a Seanad debate in 1983 with one local politician remarking the following at the time:

“ Young, and often physically handicapped children were brought to Coole hospital and, thanks to the care and expertise of the medical staff of the time and the Sisters of Charity, many of these young people have turned out to be great athletes. I know some of them personally “

The final closure occurred two years earlier in 1981 and so at the time of the debate the facility was already lying idle for almost two years. In 1983, Donie Cassidy, a Westmeath FF senator, raised the matter of the closure of Coole hospital in a Seanad debate. It is instructive to note now what a phenomenal piece of health infrastructure the people of North Westmeath possessed at the time of its closure, and indeed, to remember they possessed it at time when Ireland was bankrupt.

I should like to call on the Minister to reconsider his decision with regard to St. Joseph's Hospital, Coole. The hospital is situated on 12 acres. The entire building is perfectly maintained and contains four wards, a modem operating theatre, recreation hall, a physiotherapy room, hydrotherapy pool, laundry, five classrooms, dining halls, playgrounds, workshops, sunken bathrooms etc., all on the ground floor and covering in all 75.000 square feet. There is bed space for over 150 adults. There is also an administration building, a nurses' home containing over 50 rooms and a doctors' suite….

…….There is no doubt in my mind that a hospital such as St. Joseph's in Coole, which is in perfect structural condition, could not be erected at today's prices for anything less than £5 million or £6 million. With no money available to build a similar structure, St. Joseph's in Coole can be used immediately at very little expense. It is a disgrace to leave Coole hospital lying idle when there is such a great need for a hospital with its potential. In present financial circumstances, this valuable asset should not be lost. This hospital, which is awaiting occupancy, is threatened by so-called experts who say it has outlived its usefulness, at a time when the Midland Health Board admit widespread overcrowding. This is not the view of the ordinary Westmeath person.

Donie Cassidy, FF Senator, Seanad debate - May 26th 1983

That final line above should leave its mark. Much has changed in the intervening forty years, but, then as now, the common sense view of the ordinary Westmeath person never enters into the political equation. One can only dream about the type of country we might have if it did. A hospital of this nature, today, would cost in the region of 250-350 million euros to build. Successive Irish governments let it rot, then let it be sold, fall into NAMA and now in its latest lease of life be purchased quietly by a company called CloudView properties in circa 2019. In 1983, Cassidy pointed out that a similar hospital would cost 6 million Irish punts to build new. Ah the old money, remember that stuff? - An old money that has passed as swiftly into non-existance as the hospital itself.

Today, the Irish government, in all likelihood, will pay CloudView Properties a sum in excess of this six million figure to house International Protection refugees for a single year. We’ve become a country of property companies, shelf companies, holding companies, and management companies. Ordinary people replaced by the demands of ordinary shares and shareholders.

The ordinary folk of Westmeath bedamned.

A Briefing Note and Coole Concerns attempts to hold a local meeting

Early last week, locals first started to get information that the old hospital site, now developed into 12 apartments, was about to receives 98 new visitors. The news came via a text from the FF TD Robert Troy that began circulating around the village.

Troy’s text revealed a one year lease was already signed for the 12 apartments in Coole and they were now to be utilized as a emergency asylum centre. The text specifies that the accommodation will be used for families only. Troy was regurgitating a briefing note on the Coole Court site dispatched to most of the TDs and politicians in Westmeath by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. The briefing note also specifies that the facility will be used for families. However, this is an impossible claim to guarantee. As we shall see, in another section in this piece, two-thirds of International Protection asylum seekers are single men or single women. Several members of Coole Concerns stated that originally bunk-beds were installed at the site a couple of months ago before being then replaced with double beds. As to whether these bunk beds will be used once more in the future is anyone’s guess.

( Briefing Note Extract Below )

Now, before I move on, I want to note, at this point, that the existance of this briefing note is a very valuable piece of information for people to absorb fully. Its existance means people have a clue to search for when querying properties in their own locality.

Anyone reading this piece worried about activity going on in a building, hotel, nursing home etc, in their own town, can try to chase down the department of Children et al to identify if a briefing note exists for the property in question. A first port of call, to establish this fact, is the department community email address. Especially if politicians are not answering your calls.

email: community@equality.gov.ie.

Coole Court Mullingar Briefing

239KB ∙ PDF file

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Download

This seems to be the section at the Department of Children et al that dealt with preparing and distributing the information for the Coole site. If a briefing note exists the arrival of asylum seekers is imminent. Inadvertently, the Coole briefing note, lays out, over its seven pages, the operational roadmap of these emergency DP centres along with other valuable information. For instance, it reveals 175 emergency accommodation centres across 26 counties have been established in Ireland since 2022. A staggering number, with more to follow, no doubt. But, the key reveal is how the emergency centres propose to operate as we shall see soon below. Briefing notes are dispatched to the politicians from the Department of Children et al, dressing up these site proposals in the best possible light, and the politicians are then expected to quell the fears of the local population and ensure the orders are carried out with the minimum of fuss. The note also provides exact information on what asylum seekers will receive in addition to the standard 38.80 weekly allowance. It is worth the time to read the extract below detailing supports and additional money provided.

• There will be a self-catering service provided on this site. The residents will be provided with a weekly voucher or debit card for a local shop. There is an Aldi nearby which the provider will offer transport to and from.

• IP applicants may avail of English language classes through their local Education and Training Board (ETB)

• Other assistance from the Department of Social Protection, such as bus fares to attend appointments, is available at the discretion of the local Community Welfare Officer

• Intreo (the Public Employment Service) supports and services will be specifically geared towards encouraging a greater diversity of employment options for applicants. They will be entitled to access supports from Intreo to assist them in accessing employment. Once labour market access has been granted, it is already the case that applicants can attend further education and training courses to help in upskilling.

• Residents will be provided with shop vouchers compliant with the IPAS Points System and refreshment stations available 24 hours per day. This will be replenished as needed.

• Each resident will have toiletries replenished weekly and other essentials such as toilet paper replenished as needed.

• Shared laundry facilities with washing detergent will be provided as required.

• The facility will have high speed fibre Wi-Fi.

• Fire alarms, fire-fighting equipment and security cameras fitted throughout the

common walking areas

Page 4 & 6, Coole Court Brief note

e-mail and briefing note dispatched to local politicians regarding Coole Court

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On last Wednesday evening, October 18th, 100 hundred local residents of Coole Concerns scheduled and attempted to have a meeting in their local hall. Local politicians were all invited to answer the many questions local residents had about what was going on in Coole Court. Specifically, regarding who was arriving into their village and when. At the eleventh hour, the Coole hall committee required evidence of insurance to hold the meeting. A local resident who works in Castlepollard and is one of the committee members of Coole Concerns dealt with the hall committee. Different insurance options were looked at but Coole Concerns felt their efforts were being stone-walled as can be seen from the text exchange below.

Eventually, the group were forced to abandon the local hall but luckily the village pub in Coole agreed to host the gathering in its lounge bar. Coole Concerns are hopeful this impasse with the hall will be overcome for future meetings. Now, let’s pause here for a moment and reflect on this incident. We live in a country where residents of a village need to jump through insurance hoops to hold a single meeting in their own townhall while a hundred yards down the road every building statute, health and safety regulation, and planning law in the land is casually torn to shreds to allow almost one hundred asylum seekers to be shoe-horned into 12 apartments. This episode absolutely beggars belief and highlights the two Ireland’s we concurrently live in.

On my arrival to the village last Sunday I spoke with three people in the main. Keith, the chairman of Coole Concerns committee, and two other committee members Roseanne who works locally and Sarah Jane a mother of two from Coole. They outlined details of Wednesday’s meeting to me. A meeting attended by local Fine Gael Councillor Frank McDermott and two representatives from Sinn Fein. As temperatures rose, all three agreed, McDermott became flustered and quite irate. He questioned whether the crowd was compromised of many locals at all. All three flatly deny his accusations which seemed to stem from the fact that the National Party leader James Reynolds was also present at the meeting. Reynolds hails from Edgeworthstown approximately 15 minutes away from Coole. So, regardless of whether he should have the right to be present in a political capacity, he’d every right to attend as a resident of the general area of Coole one could argue.

What followed the day after this meeting was most revelatory and indicative of how the political class operate against authentic grass-roots movements. Councillor McDermott rang committee member Sarah Jane unannounced and once pleasantries were exchanged advised her, and I am paraphrasing her words here now, he said the following:

“ These people are coming and that’s just it. You need to stop this “

Following on from Wednesday night’s meeting Coole Concerns provisionally booked the GAA hall in Castlepollard to hold a second meeting for last Friday evening. However, the GAA club soon pulled the venue. McDermott seemed to know this information already as he informed Sara Jane on the phone that the proposed meeting in Castlepollard would not be taking place. She already knew but it’s instructive that McDermott knew. Fortunately, though, these are a resolute bunch and a second venue was sourced at short notice in Ringtown, a nearby village. What happened next is probably the most shocking action taken. On Friday morning, McDermott sent the following text message to Sarah-Jane in relation to the proposed meeting.

Why on earth was a county councillor advising a committee member to record the eircodes of the people present at a local meeting?

A meeting he was seemingly going out of his way to stifle.

This signals to me the absolute bubble of unreality the political class lives in. Even, when 100 local people gather in the local pub in front of their faces, they refuse to believe their own eyes. Roseanne opened the Wednesday night meeting and Sarah-Jane spoke with him from the floor and all assured the politicians and representatives present almost all attending were living in the area around Coole and Castlepollard. Sara-Jane repeated this fact to him in the following days.

Coole Concerns learnt a hard lesson about the GAA in attempting to hold their second meeting. It’s a point I’ve been highlighting here for awhile. GAA HQ are fully onboard with the Irish government’s mass immigration policies and this message is filtered down to every club in the country. The modus operandi of the government agencies is to focus time and communication with the GAA, tidy towns committees and local residents associations rather than deal with large spontaneous grassroots groups formed specifically to rally against the government’s immigration agenda.

Why?

Because they are much easier to control and manage.

On October 20th, the Minister of State for Community Development, Integration and Charities, Joe O’Brien, launched a Call for Proposals from organisations planning projects to support the reception and integration of Third Country Nationals in Ireland. There is an initial 10 million euro ear-marked for these integration projects. The oil to grease the mass immigration wheel in towns and villages affected by these policies.

Click here for full details on integration funding announcement.

So, as you can see from just this one group in Coole huge pressure is being brought to bear to try and quench the fire of any local gatherings endeavouring to ask questions about the madness of Ireland’s out-of-control immigration policies. This was further exemplified by Coole Concerns attempts to get the local GAA clubs in the area to help spread the word.

The text language is straight out of the GAA HQ PR machine handbook. A vague, virtue-signalling response from the chairman; heavy on PR platitudes and false nobility. The subliminal insinuation, as always, is that anyone questioning the statement is automatically a racist. The message is clear - the GAA will not help in this fight. Not at national level. Not at local level.

On Sunday, I wasn’t met with racists but rather people worried about the future of their children. A people grounded in the solid foundations of our country’s past and asking a very simple question about the future.

What will Coole look like in ten years time if someone doesn’t stand up, and call time-out and ask the tough questions now?

This is a question our political class refuse to contemplate answering to their electorate. It’s a slow, banal, drip-drop kind of evil. A profound need to keep people focused on the tyrannical needs of the present moment. The political thesis being that such is the pain of the present only the selfish could ask for a plan for the country’s future safety and self preservation. Except, the manufactured tyrannies of the present will never cease because politicians and the elites who they really serve will never stop creating them. The truth is the depraved minds directing our Irish state made these population decisions a long, long time ago. It’s hidden in the fine print of government papers or the casually dropped text message. It’s all happening whether you want it or not…so just pretend to like it and shut-up. Like everyone else.

The IP Statistics and the number of Families

A lot of Westmeath politicians and the Department of Children are going out on a limb promising Coole residents that only families will ever be housed in these units in Coole. So, it is important to meet this promise with some hard, cold facts about the current make-up of International Protection refugees in Ireland.

Before we begin this section, let’s get a birds-eye view of the overall asylum numbers for Ireland over the last four years. Bear in mind, the 2022 figures below contain both Ukrainian and persons seeking international protection from other countries.

• Ireland refugee statistics for 2022 was 81,256 a 748.98% increase from 2021.

• Ireland refugee statistics for 2021 was 9,571, a 5.93% increase from 2020.

• Ireland refugee statistics for 2020 was 9,035, a 15.91% increase from 2019.

• Ireland refugee statistics for 2019 was 7,795, a 29.66% increase from 2018.

- Data provide from the World Bank

Since 2022, and the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Ireland has two separate asylum processes. One for Ukrainians and one for everyone else. This is important information to know for the people of Coole and other villages around the country. Ukrainian refugees are not processed through the International Protection system so if a town our village is processing international protection refugees they are not, generally speaking, Ukrainian refugees. Coole are receiving asylum seekers from the international protection system. Non-Ukrainian refugees in other words.

A key murkiness comes into play at this point around the promise to house families in Coole. The vast majority of international refugees to this point have been predominantly single males and single females. The most recent statistics from the International Protection Accommodation Services ( IPAS ), the body responsible for housing asylum seekers in Ireland shows the following data for August & September 2023.

Approximately, a shade over 50% of new IP arrivals are single males in addition to about 13% of new IP arrivals being single females. So, about two thirds of people entering the country are not visibly arriving as part of a family unit. What we shall see, further below, from the country of origin breakdown is that many of these people are not coming to Ireland fleeing from war as FF TD Troy stated in his text message earlier in the piece. In 2023, Nigerians are the number one nationality entering Ireland. In 2022, the number one country was Georgians. Most, quite simply, are economic migrants.

Now, I’ve scanned the IPAS statistics for the other months of 2023, and the percentage breakdown above, more or less, is representative of the breakdown of total refugee arrivals for 2023 as a whole. So, upfront, I should state that the common accusation levelled, in some quarters, namely that all IP arrivals into Ireland are single males is not reflective of what the official data actually shows, week by week, and month by month for 2023. Nevertheless, single males account for at least 50% of all arrivals into the country in 2023 and families with children account for only about 30% of the new arrivals. The briefing note issued about Coole had some very interesting and up to date statistics included. We are housing almost 25,000 IP refugees in state provided accommodation over and above our Ukrainian commitments. However, this does not include the number of IP refugees who have a leave to remain status and have left state accommodation and who are now working in Ireland under this status. The likely IP refugee totals are much higher than this. Bottom line, though, is that by the end of the year we will have at least 15,000 single males arrived into the country through the IP system over the last two years.

Link to IPAS monthly statistics click here

Cloudview Properties and the Developer.

All three committee members I spoke to on Sunday agree that a person called Peter O’Connor has identified himself in meetings and on phone calls as being the developer of the Coole site. By all accounts, he’s been very eager to involve himself in discussions surrounding what’s going on in Coole. There’s only one problem. The registered owner and only shareholder of Cloudview properties Ltd is a woman called Ann McIntyre. The company’s registered office in Cresslough, Co. Donegal.

A company printout on Search4less reveals CloudView Properties owns three properties in Willow Park in Athlone along with the Kilmacoo student accommodation block also located in Athlone.

I relay this information for a reason. CloudView Properties are already heavily involved in Ireland’s asylum seeker economy. It is becoming a common pattern I observe all around the country. Opaque companies with multiple Irish asylum sites. In addition, it seems increasingly difficult to establish who exactly is monetarily benefitting from Ireland’s new multi-billion euro asylum seeker economy. If Ann McIntyre is the owner of Cloudview Properties why isn’t she addressing the locals in Coole and who exactly is Peter O’Connor and what’s his relationship to Cloudview?

Late last night, O’Connor accessed the site once again and was met by a group of protestors still protesting outside. Keith and others enquired about the registered owner Ann McIntyre. O’Connor’s response was:

“ I am as high as you are going to get here “

Recently, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth published its Purchase Order spending on invoices in excess of 20,000 euro for Q1 2023. CloudView properties received 1.5 million euros from the Irish government in Q1 of this year for the provision of accommodation and related services. This Department release reveals that 369 million euro has been spent on Ukrainian and International protection accommodation by the Irish government in Q1 2023 alone. Remember, this figure is ONLY for invoices paid above 20,000 euro. So, the final tot for Q1 2023 is likely to be far in excess of 369 million euro. I will embed the full PDF list of Q1 2023 payments to all companies below the screenshot below.

Q1 2023 Total Refugee Payments

479KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Conclusions

Coole is the fourth village or town I’ve visited in the last four weeks travelling the country recording these series of reports detailing the local effects of Ireland’s mass immigration policies. Coole Concerns has a decision to make.

Will they accept this asylum centre?

If the answer is no it needs to be a solid one as the politicians will make them doubt themselves with weasel words and promises. If that fails then sinister threats await them. So, the group will need to remain strong. The Coole building is perfect from the government’s perspective situated as it is on a large site and it is highly unlikely to be shut down after the one year contract runs out, I would have thought.

Everywhere they go the politicians promise women and children. Families. Never single males. Once these places open old promises are soon forgotten though. In 1983, politicians promised to work tooth and nail to get the hospital re-opened and look where we are now. The Seanad debate ended and the promises and fight ended with it.

If this centre opens any hopes of the locals having a say will evaporate. Six months down the road, a family moves out and three males quietly move in. That’s assuming any families move in, in the first place. The politicans will shrug their shoulders already moved onto the next manufactured crisis.

It comes down in the end to the local people and how strongly they feel on the subject. No doubt, it’s an uphill battle in this village as the contracts are already signed, the refugees are ready to be dispatched, and millions of euro hang in the balance for CloudView Properties. It can be stopped if the will exists to stop it and if the group I met continue to have the courage of their convictions. It won’t be easy though that is for sure.

On the drive home on Sunday, I pondered a question.

Why am I driving to all these places?

I am not naive enough to presume that my writings are having much of an impact on the political class or indeed the fast-asleep masses.

So why then?

I guess, in a sense, I am here to record what happened during this final drive towards indigenous Irish destruction. To record the ordinary people who tried to push back against the madness and insanity. The people who tried to say stop and think. Like these folks in Coole with their quiet determination and good humour. Holding their signs on the side of the road, beside the white long-table, yellow bottle of Calor gas, and Burco-Boiler. Filling teas and coffees and offering around sweet buns and biscuits to any that might stop to join them. Standing in the rain and the shine. These are our indigenous Red Indians trying to fight the coming age of gun-powder.

Their bows may be few and their arrows fewer but who else would you want to be writing about.

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