The Wee Paper, Buncrana (2026)

19/06/2026

Electrical Exam Burnout

Exam Week has just ended for electrical apprentices all over Ireland, and shock and dismay have resulted in burnout for many apprentices and staff in our colleges because of the dysfunction of the exam system being experienced there this year.

Apprentices have been questioned on course material that was never taught in class, and new exam questions have appeared for the first time this June that have never been asked before.

For example, "American Electrical Symbols" have been questioned this year for the first time, without prior notice, and they were not mentioned in classes around the country.

Other more complex questions have been asked that are more likely to be seen on Electrical Engineering exams rather than Electrical Apprenticeship exams were on the paper.

Some lecturers are incensed by the development as they see themselves under scrutiny by higher management for not being up to date with the new changes and for not teaching the new material in class; in other words, they are guilty of not being mind readers.

Our closest college, The Atlantic Technological University, issued a statement in response to the furore, stating:

"Dear Student,

Due to the large number of emails received about the Electrical Apprenticeship.

If any of the learning outcomes were not addressed by your lecturers during your off-the-job training at ATU, then this will be considered when your assessment papers are being corrected. "

I see this as an admission of guilt and an attempt to find a way out of a bad situation. I applaud the very quick response by ATU to close the stable door after the horse has bolted, but nevertheless they are attempting to prevent a bad situation from becoming worse.

I would urge all apprentices who found themselves in this situation to email the college and make a formal complaint specifying the questions that they could not answer because the course material was not covered in class.

There needs to be a student liaison officer in each college and SOLAS Training Centres to look after these blunders and other blunders that apprentices have to put up with daily as they try to navigate their education and careers.

I have spoken to some of these victims, and they are back at work already and unable to represent themselves or to articulate their complaint adequately to save their exam; they just want to keep their heads down and hope for the best.

We seem to half do everything in this country, then we wonder why so many young people emigrate as soon as they graduate.

They have no voice in this country; they are not appreciated here; there is only one way out: emigration.

Tony Grant, June 2026

14/06/2026

Anglo Saxon

Fernhill Park in South Dublin is close to the hills and provides a leisure space for residents of the new house building boom going on there at present. There is no tar or cement in this park; all pathways are made from crushed limestone. It is wild, and it is beautiful. You could say the only thing that this park was trying to mimic is nature itself.

The playground in the picture above is the best I have ever seen, child-friendly without artificial materials.

It could not be more different from Swan Park in Buncrana, with its abundance of tar and cement; you would think it was a tribute to Joe Dolan's hit song "Tar and Cement" and still going ooon.

Is it because we are close to the border with the U.K. that we are hell-bent on mimicking the Anglo-Saxon image of what a Public Park should look like, with our picture postcard design with decorative trees, not native, we still think the foreign one is best.

Perhaps it was designed this way to attract more people to visit from across the border, rather than for the locals.

The insult was compounded last Christmas when thousands of taxpayers' money was paid to a private entity to set up the Festive Village and deny entry to locals without payment of a fee, who used the park every day for rest and recreation.

This is the neo-liberal agenda of one local Buncrana Councillor who arranged the transfer of money from DCC, which ended up as a lockout without payment through a "right of way"

The contrast between what we have to put up with in Buncrana compared to other more enlightened parts of the country is shocking.

Tony Grant, June 2026

06/06/2026

Insurance Scam

Recently, a neighbour had a leak in the plumbing of his house . It had been running under the floor for some time before it reared its ugly head.
I am sure this has happened to others, so in itself , although it was an unmitigated disaster, phoo happens.
However, here is the real clanger concerning house Insurance.
When my neighbour insured the house he insured it at the current estimate value. So when he made the claim he waited for the assessor to arrive. All went well until assessor turned around and in formed him,

“ your property is undervalued “.

This resulted in a 10,000.00 reduction in his claim. After investigation my neighbour discovered that this is a regular ploy utilised by the insurance companies.
These companies through manipulation, write their own narrative to facilitate themselves and are not held accountable.

Here is the thing, when you insurance your home you are not insuring against damages that occurs, but rather ,the value of the house.
So consequently if the value of your house increases this anomaly allows the insurance companies to devalue your claim, because now, you’re undervalued due to the increase in market price of your property.

Once again home owners are victimised. The lack of proper supervision and regulation by government allows these greedy charlatans to exploit the vulnerable and conjure up their own rules.

This technically is theft under the guise of self regulation.
The “executive government” of Ireland once again abandons its citizens in favour of big corporations.
I have the verification of this scam.

Noel King, June 2026

29/05/2026

Dark-side of Dystopia

The amount of fat bellows kids
Throwing tantrums
gorging on Sugar
With headsets and tablets
Is enough to make a Tasmania devil
Spin itself to death.

The egregious nature
of these obese Cretins
Bewilders

Suckled by misguided millennials
Who search to redefine destiny
Enslaved to debt and insensitivity
Abandoning nature's behest
Foster the debacle

Sucking from water bottles
Contaminated by microplastics
Energy drinks
that toxify the brain
Chasing illusions
Crafted in the multiverse
Scrolling like hamsters in a vortex
Mesmerise by candy-crush
Losing the will to live

Where are the Annanuki
When you need them
Where are the camel-mounted kings
With the wisdom of ages
Is the parallel dimension
An option to escape
I need the QR code

Noel King, May 2026

26/05/2026

Sunshine and Sludge

This is what you are greeted with as you bring your children down to the waters edge as the Crana river meets the sea of Lough Swilly.

Millions of euro have been spent in recent years trying to improve the local area, but if we can't get the fundamentals right, like wastewater treatment, we are behaving like a third-world country, waiting for an outbreak of some infection before we act.

Years of neglect in the treatment of our wastewater and the runoff from farms, and a recent appearance in court by a contractor, all add up to failure to solve the problem of protecting the local environment.

Politicians have a lot more sexy ways of spending money than any money spent cleaning up our dirt; their spending converts more readily into votes, and let's face it, that matters more to them.

This impacts badly on us, the public, as politicians are well aware of what gets votes and what doesn't.

That leaves us on a hot summer's day, looking at scum floating on the river's edge and Lady's Bay not being very "ladylike" as you all know, for a number of years now.

Sadly, it is our future as Portsalon lost its Blue Flag for one of its beaches, just two weeks ago.

All this is evidence that we are heading in the wrong direction.

Who is going to shout STOP?

Tony Grant, May 2026

21/05/2026

Student Talk

Recently, while walking the streets of Dublin, I happened to notice an unusual piece of art in the window of the National College of Art and Design (NCAD)

Students were busily putting the finishing touches on an art project that intrigued me. They were expressing their anger and disgust at the state of society that they live in, which is denying them a full life.

These were young men and women about to start on their adult lives, NOT full of ambition, NOT full of hope, NOT full of joy.

Why, you might ask, as I did.

Society was holding them back; they had one hand tied behind their backs.

ALL because of the state of housing that they expect should be there to accommodate their lives into the future.

They are being restrained from growing up, getting out and experiencing all the normal things that young people want to discover as they gain their independence from their parents and family.

Is that too much to expect?

The older generation has let them down because they continue to vote for policies that keep housing expensive and out of reach of the next generation.

We are being led to believe that building housing estates like Castle Park, Buncrana would be akin to communism if it were to be undertaken today, and the need was never greater than it is right now.

What is holding us back from solving this problem? It certainly is not money, so what is it?

Tony Grant, May 2026

17/05/2026

On Yer Bike

National Bike Week has passed for another year, but in its wake, we can remember an unforgettable experience with one man and his van who came up from Ballybofey to perform some magic on our bikes.

Watching him move his hands around our bikes was like watching a musician in an orchestra, moving with effortless grace and precision. He got our bikes to join in his orchestra and to hum along to his movements.

He worked on our Sprockets, Shifters, Barrell Adjusters, Gears and Derailers, to name a few.

John Grant is a master craftsman, and my bike hummed all the way home after a visit to his workshop on wheels.

We could do with someone like him in this part of Inishowen, so I hope he will return again soon.

I think his visit should be part of a bigger event next time, in which other groups could join in, such as "road safety" and "bike awareness" could be taught.

Tony Grant, May 2026

14/05/2026

Listen Here

RTE Radio have been chopping and changing its programmes over the past while, and it is paying off as the public are switching off and going elsewhere.

This is a deliberate attempt to dumb down the standard of Public Service Broadcasting in Ireland.

The standard of political debate has decreased over the winter months, and there is a definite attempt to personalise every debate and minimise policy debate.

The two presenters in the afternoon (a man and a woman) would take false titillating swipes at each other in an effort to introduce some form of entertainment in place of serious commentary on public affairs.

Another creeping aspect of RTE Radio 1 is the introduction of right-wing economists, business owners and journalists on their shows.

It is not surprising that the public has switched off in such large numbers over the past few months.

In desperation, I have switched to Lyric FM for some light relief from the puke that I have heard on Radio 1

The public deserves better, as we pay for this service with our taxes.

What surprises me is that there has been no backlash as a result of this dumbing down of our most popular radio station in the country. Not a beep from any section of society. Does this mean that society has already changed ahead of RTE, and the station is only catching up or has apathy gripped the nation so much that we don't give a damn about things like this anymore?

As someone who has enjoyed radio for most of my life, I mourn the death of good radio.

Tony Grant, May 2026

12/05/2026

Church Goers in Dublin

I was in a very long queue to get into the main Protestant Church in Dublin last week. Saturday evening, to be precise, after a pint in The Lord Edward (of Lord Edward Fitzgerald fame) across the road. The bells rang out overhead to the chimes of who knows what. I am setting the scene here for a very special meeting by the looks and sounds of things, and the doors have not even opened yet.

Those gathered were not disappointed as we filed into the great historic church, impressive beyond words.

The person appearing in front of us for the evening was dressed in a black velvet hooded cape, very respectful of the location we were in; it was not a cleric, no, it was Camille O'Sullivan from West Cork, she was paying tribute to the late Sinead O'Connor and Shane McGowan in song and memories.

Memories sometimes too strong for her to remain composed.

She was accompanied on the grand piano and the electric organ by Fergal Murray from Derry, a musical match made in heaven.

Mundy also straddled onto the scene for a number.

Camille invited everyone across to The Lord Edward for the afters.

Some of us had a bus to catch. Yuk!

Tony Grant, May 2026

04/05/2026

Down Not Out

The main stream cooperate media in Ireland distorts real life in our country. It is full of smoking mirrors and panders to a neoliberal “executive government” that is in the pockets of the rich class.
Real government manages a society that caters for all its citizens and not just the privileged.

Individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.
We now have more income and wealth inequality than ever before.

Health and housing should be a right not a privilege.
We have a tax system that deals with wealth inequality and discriminates against the lowest income earners.

We must ask the question why are their homeless people in Ireland .
Healthy care should not be a commodity is has to be a standard norm.
We must stop the trend of private profit making heath insurance that is creating a two tiered system.
Education should be free to all and at every level, not just to the privileged.

Our society must provide for the benefit of all not just the wealthy. We must recognise that, a just and balanced society, is the goal of good governance, and in essence facilitate the wellbeing of all.

The discriminatory trends that shape the lives of our citizens pander to the wealthy class.

It is not radical to want a better life for all our citizens .
It’s not unreasonable to provide basic needs for our elders ,our developing children and our working population.

Noel King, May 2026

The Wee Paper

19/06/2026

14/06/2026

06/06/2026

29/05/2026

26/05/2026

21/05/2026

17/05/2026

14/05/2026

12/05/2026

04/05/2026

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share