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September 2011

The old Seagate plant A group of local business men have bought the old Seagate plant and plan to offer sections of it to start-up Limavady firms - thereby creating many new jobs. We wish them luck. The plant began as Benelux - producing cases for CDs. Seagate took it over after just a few years and used it to manufacture aluminium platters for hard drives. After just a few years they upped and went to the Far East. The next owner was the Limavady Gears company producing ....you've guessed it  ... various parts for wind turbines. The firm became a victim of the recent slump in economic activity and was closed by their bank just a year ago. With a record like that, things can only get better!

The Roe Valley Flying Show Local readers will know that officially there is no such thing, but whenever there is an international air-show in Portrush - a few nautical miles to the North-East as the crow flies (or indeed walks, on this particular weekend) - the valley gets treated to an interesting display of strange-looking flying machines. This year was no exception and apart from the Catalina flying boat, all sorts of weird and wonderful machines could be observed whizzing across the valley. Our photographs below show just a small selection. Larger photographs of some of the machines appear here.

The Limavady bike strike force Here  is something that hasn't been seen in Limavady for a very long time - policemen on bikes. These two gentlemen were photographed expertly rounding the corner into Catherine Street. In years gone by the policeman and his bike were proverbial. In those days they were of course less colourful and wore much less adventurous headgear, but the principle was the same. It's nice to see the old ways coming back but our reporter couldn't help wondering just where the siren might be mounted.

The wild goats of Benevenagh Friends of the wild goats roaming the cliffs of Benevenagh will be glad to hear that all is well with the herd. The animals survived the last Winter remarkably well and - by the looks of it - are set to colonise the rest of the valley pretty soon. Our photograph shows only a small splinter-group of the herd. This seems to be  an all male  group and - judging by the length of some of the horns - ready for a hefty argument once  they figure out where the nannies have gone to.

The Aghanloo Show This annual event took place on the 19th of this month and for once it didn't rain until it was all over. The splendid sunshine showed the grey-faced ewe-lambs at their best and no matter where you looked, four wheel drive vehicles pulling large trailers were either approaching or leaving. The judges announced their verdict shortly after noon and - as is usual on this occasion -  Mr Arnold Douglas won first prize, followed by Mr Donald Lagan and Mr Dennis McCann. Due to a special request, we show another couple of pictures below.

In the red corner Arnold Douglas in the blue corner Donald Lagan and in the yellow corner Dennis McCann

The Lough Foyle Ferry The Lough Foyle Ferry company is to suspend service from 2nd of October. A public notice appeared on the piers in Magilligan and Greencastle telling the travelling public about the sad news. Our copy of the notice on the left is taken from their official website.

The Lough Foyle Ferry in better days

The Sun above Considering the Summer we've been having around here, dyed in the wool locals may well mutter: "What's a Sun?" when they read the above headline. But believe it or not, our prime luminary was visible for a very short time the other day and revealed this group of large and active sunspots. Each one of the spots is larger than the earth and the entire region measures some 100 000km from end to end. The largest of the sunspots - AR1302 - has emitted several solar flares already and promises to play havoc with satellite communications during the next week or so. Adventurous readers may like to look out for Northern lights. But then there is the other question of course: "What's a clear evening sky, mummy?" A moving sequence of these spots can be found here.

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