Once upon a time Athlone Urban District Council realised that a web site promoting the town and generally disseminating information would be good for the people. And a fine idea it still is.
One of the initiatives they took was to open a Discussion Forum, a Town Square if you will. This was very successful and over three hundred members registered. With time a few issues appeared however, especially when certain political or commercial interests were commented upon negatively in the forum.
Over time, there was a wealth of information that is not necessarily recorded elsewhere, yet contained in the .ie forum. People liked it. Alas they seemed to be beholden to commercial and political interests and when the ads started appearing on their home page, the deletes of postings critical of said disappeared accordingly.
There were threats issued by the .ie "Wizards" about pulling the forum down, and sure enough they did it twice (that I know of), only to reinstate it later. Finally in August 2006, they did take it down, which is the point where www.athlonelive was born.
Amazingly, the main participants on the old forum got word of the new place and signed up. They recreated all that they missed from the other place and even donated their own funds to the upkeep of this site.
Although still in it's infancy, athlonelive has proven that there is a large constituency that cares greatly about our community and environment and for some reason were let down by those we elect, trust and pay to be our representatives.
