Kerry's remote Black Valley gets high-speed fibre broadband 

National Broadband Ireland works expected to be as transformative for the valley as electricity connection in 1977

Black Valley resident and NBI customer Anna Downing (seated, left) in her home with her neighbours Marcia Kissane and Eileen O’Shea, Minister of State Ossian Smyth and Anna’s grandson Nigel Leahy, checking the fibre broadband speed in Anna’s home. Picture: Domnick Walsh © Eye Focus LTD.

The first homes in Co Kerry's remote Black Valley — once a blackspot for communications — have been connected to high-speed broadband.

The connections fulfil a pledge by a senior executive with National Broadband Ireland (NBI) last February that the Black Valley would have better broadband than Ballsbridge, Dublin, within months.

The valley, deep in the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks between Killarney and Kenmare, was among the last places in Ireland to be electrified in 1977.

It is expected that the new broadband connections will be as transformative as electricity was then.

The number of young people living in the Black Valley has declined, with the once thriving local primary school being turned into a community and information centre.

The new broadband connections fulfil a pledge by National Broadband Ireland last February that the Black Valley would have better broadband than Ballsbridge, Dublin, within months. File picture: Don MacMonagle

Phone service arrived only in the 1990s in the form of a radio link for 25 customers. Since, a variety of services have been provided, including limited internet and a trial in one house of Elon Musk’s Starlight service.

One of the valley's oldest residents, Anna Downing, said the arrival of broadband could see young people returning even on just extended visits.

Ms Downing, 86, lives in one of the first of the 91 homes in the Black Valley to be connected. Her house has been connected for one week and she said she is getting on very well.

With four of her six children in Australia, Florida, and England, she said it is now easier to stay connected to them.

She also hopes it will allow her to see more of her 13 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

My grandchildren, some of whom work from home, can come now and stay for more than a weekend. Before, they would have to go."

Ms Downing said the covid lockdowns brought home the importance of good internet service. It is vital for modern living, she said. 

Her youngest child was born during the year that electricity arrived. Their childhoods, like others in the valley, were spent without a phone.

NBI said works to connect the Black Valley are almost complete with most homes and farms in the area able to connect to fibre broadband. 

The remaining build works for a small number of premises in the most remote parts of the valley are set to be completed in the coming months.

The work means that residents in the area will have the same access to one-gigabit reliable broadband as in any other part of the country.

Works to connect the Black Valley involved unique challenges with NBI consulting with a wide range of groups to ensure that the fibre rollout caused minimum disruption and impact to the valley's natural beauty and heritage.  

NBI chief executive Peter Hendrick said the work in the Black Valley was "a symbol of NBI’s wider mission to deliver high-speed fibre broadband to rural Ireland as part of the National Broadband Plan”.