Community-led communication network
Join us for a free, practical workshop on building community-led communication networks that can help rural areas stay connected when power and phone signals fail during storms. We will learn about MESH technology and explore how locally run networks can strengthen community resilience.
We rely on digital signals for day-to-day conversations. Since the removal of phone lines and older mobile phone signal towers, our conversations are held through digital signal passed through fiber optic cable or signal tower. But these signals need electricity. During and after storms, rural places often lose power for days or even weeks. In Storm Eowyn (2025), some parts of north Leitrim went without power for up to three weeks, and phone signal was down for several days.
MESH networks are community-run, short-range communication networks that have been established in rural areas worldwide, often in response to natural disasters. For example, NYC-MESH, a network established in New York in 2009 after Hurricane Sandy, helped people find places with clean drinking water and electricity to charge phones. After Storm Eowyn, a small group called Leitrim Mesh Network Operations Pod, or LMNOP, established in north Leitrim to install a MESH network, currently running on solar power in the areas around Manorhamilton.
Artist Colm O'Neill will lead a workshop on how to set up and run nodes in a MESH network, showing how the software and hardware work together. He will use several devices to show how signal can be sent several kilometres with a small amount of equipment. LMNOP have created a MESH Network in the area around Manorhamilton. They will present how their network has been established, how they chose locations for setting up antennae, and what they hope to do now to make the network more robust.
Colm O'Neill
Colm O'Neill works as an artist, designer and researcher in Carlow and Brussels. His work is concerned with mediations of digital literacy through graphical, user, and programmatic interfaces. His current research foregrounds the ecological impact of the infrastructure of digital technologies. Specific research interests include Permacomputing, Radical Infrastructures, and alternative networks. The research and practice that result follow the ideals of free and open source culture models. Currently, Colm is a lecturer in Interactive Digital Art and Design at the South East Technological University and a Doctoral Researcher in Education and Social Justice at Lancaster University.
Leitrim Mesh Network Operations Pod
LMNOP is a group of engineers, artists, and hobbyists based in north Leitrim who have created a mesh network around Manorhamilton. They set this up following Storm Eowyn to have a robust and reliable communication network in times of natural disaster. They will be represented by Seán Breathnach, a builder and engineer based in the Leitrim Glens. His interests include the democratisation of technical skills, mutual aid, and a practical approach to societal and environmental collapse.
Storm Meitheal
Leitrim is experiencing more frequent and intense storms, with flooding, power cuts, and infrastructure damage that expose how dispersed rural communities can be vulnerable to climate impacts. Through a series of gatherings, we are testing a set of commons-based practices and protocols that can be activated before, during, and after storms. We want to prototype a community-governed approach rooted in Leitrim’s meitheal tradition of collective labour and care.
Our thanks to lead artist Shane Finan for devising the creative workshops for Storm Meitheal. This experiment is supported by Trans Europe Halles, funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.We rely on digital signals for day-to-day conversations. Since the removal of phone lines and older mobile phone signal towers, our conversations are held through digital signal passed through fiber optic cable or signal tower. But these signals need electricity. During and after storms, rural places often lose power for days or even weeks. In Storm Eowyn (2025), some parts of north Leitrim went without power for up to three weeks, and phone signal was down for several days.
MESH networks are community-run, short-range communication networks that have been established in rural areas worldwide, often in response to natural disasters. For example, NYC-MESH, a network established in New York in 2009 after Hurricane Sandy, helped people find places with clean drinking water and electricity to charge phones. After Storm Eowyn, a small group called Leitrim Mesh Network Operations Pod, or LMNOP, established in north Leitrim to install a MESH network, currently running on solar power in the areas around Manorhamilton.
Artist Colm O'Neill will lead a workshop on how to set up and run nodes in a MESH network, showing how the software and hardware work together. He will use several devices to show how signal can be sent several kilometres with a small amount of equipment. LMNOP have created a MESH Network in the area around Manorhamilton. They will present how their network has been established, how they chose locations for setting up antennae, and what they hope to do now to make the network more robust.
Colm O'Neill
Colm O'Neill works as an artist, designer and researcher in Carlow and Brussels. His work is concerned with mediations of digital literacy through graphical, user, and programmatic interfaces. His current research foregrounds the ecological impact of the infrastructure of digital technologies. Specific research interests include Permacomputing, Radical Infrastructures, and alternative networks. The research and practice that result follow the ideals of free and open source culture models. Currently, Colm is a lecturer in Interactive Digital Art and Design at the South East Technological University and a Doctoral Researcher in Education and Social Justice at Lancaster University.
Leitrim Mesh Network Operations Pod
LMNOP is a group of engineers, artists, and hobbyists based in north Leitrim who have created a mesh network around Manorhamilton. They set this up following Storm Eowyn to have a robust and reliable communication network in times of natural disaster. They will be represented by Seán Breathnach, a builder and engineer based in the Leitrim Glens. His interests include the democratisation of technical skills, mutual aid, and a practical approach to societal and environmental collapse.
Storm Meitheal
Leitrim is experiencing more frequent and intense storms, with flooding, power cuts, and infrastructure damage that expose how dispersed rural communities can be vulnerable to climate impacts. Through a series of gatherings, we are testing a set of commons-based practices and protocols that can be activated before, during, and after storms. We want to prototype a community-governed approach rooted in Leitrim’s meitheal tradition of collective labour and care.
Our thanks to lead artist Shane Finan for devising the creative workshops for Storm Meitheal. This experiment is supported by Trans Europe Halles, funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.
