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Unused, unwanted, but Limerick phone booth to stay
IT'S the kind of thing Darren Shan might weave into one of his best-selling books. Who made the one and only call from the phonebox in Pallaskenry last year? And why? Was it a coded message? Were they fleeing from dark forces?
And if that person has to return within the next year to make just one call from that very same box, will it still be there? Or will it, like Rinso washing powder, simply have disappeared?
My, my, but aren't we making history at a very fast rate these days. Less than 20 years ago, there used to be queues outside phone-boxes. Less than 30 years and you had to call the operator and press button
A to make a long-distance call, hoping against hope that the operator was in a good mood and would let you stay on longer than three minutes. Then we had the phone-card craze – cards that are now collectors' items and traded for money.
But all changed, changed utterly and the mobile generation was born.
Now, it seems, even land-lines at home are going out of fashion and children as young as six have their own mobile phones. So what hope is there for the public phone-box?
Especially the 17 "loneliest" phone-boxes in Ireland, one of which is in Pallaskenry and all of which clocked up only one user in the past year?
"People hardly know how to use them anymore," mused Michael O'Sullivan, chairman of Pallaskenry Community Council, who also admitted that he was no great hand at using a mobile phone himself. But for all that, he was surprised Pallaskenry had appeared in the list of the "lonelies". And he added: "We would be disappointed if it were to go."
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Weather for Limerick
Saturday 04 February 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 4 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: South
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Light rain
Temperature: 9 C to 9 C
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