Trip to Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford

By Anonymous 09:24 interviews, joining the data, research

Field trip to Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford.

At 9am on a sunny Wednesday morning, five out of our Interaction Design team boarded a bus from the National College of Art and Design and headed south, Co. Wexford bound. The destination was Enniscorthy and the objective was to get the rural populations perspective on air quality. In addition to collecting the general publics ideas around air pollution, our team had arranged to view a mobile EPA (European Environment Protection Agency) monitoring station, which has been carrying out long-term readings within the town for the past 12 months.

The mobile monitoring station

We arrived at the EPA station close to 11am and Patrick Malone greeted us. Patrick took us through the operation in Enniscorthy and how the monitoring works. We were given access to the monitoring station, Patrick was very helpful to allow us to document our visit and to briefly take us through what the different pieces of equipment were doing inside. Patrick informed us that this station was initially intended to be moved to different locations on a more regular basis, but as of recently the EPA have been implementing more lengthy reads (this trailer has been stationary for 12 months). This is due to a number of variables, there is a difficulty to find safe and discrete areas to house the trailer, also the costs involved with moving an operation (the trailer needs access to a power supply) and local politics plays a large role which makes the EPA’s job harder, as they aim is to give an adequate evaluation of the nations air quality.

Capturing the action as we tour the station

There were a number of very interesting insights that came from our discussion with Patrick. It is reported that the air quality in the rural town of Enniscorthy is actually worse then the city area of Dublin. The biggest contributor to this startling result is due to inefficient household burning. Enniscorthy County Council have put together a request to enter the smokey coal ban regions, even though they fall short of the required population value of 15,000 people. By Irish standards, this drop in the quality of air compared to Dublin may also be reflected in the geography of the town, it is further from the coast and situated in a low valley which prevents a smooth flow of air to pass freely. Patrick reassured us that by CAFE Directives standards, Enniscorthy annually is still not near the point of having to react significantly to improve the air quality.

Patrick taking us through the different instruments and equipment

Another key insight that came from this very helpful talk, was the EPA’s hope to engage the public more on the topic of air quality. Using Citizen Science initiatives, EPA have aims to actively involve communities to generate more talk around the subject. Although a lot of the technology for home monitoring is not at the standard currently for professional and reliable results, these methods are good ways of broadcasting the topic.

Once we had completed our visit of the EPA monitoring station, there was a quick spot of lunch and then we emerged ready for some in the wild interviews. We decided to divide into groups of 2 pairs and a single. We positioned ourselves on the main street, which ran directly from Market Square. We stayed within close distance of one another, which enabled to to move freely between groups. We hoped that there would be 2 people to cover each interview, one who would direct the conversation and one note taker.

Lunch time for the team

In all there were 26 interviews conducted in Enniscorthy. These provided us with some key results on the perception of the air in the town and the general thoughts on Air Quality. These interviews juxtaposed with the facts obtained from Patrick of the EPA showed up some very interesting insights into the misconceptions surrounding the subject.