Over the next few weeks, while planting took place in the nuns’ garden, a new group of workers began to gather at the table in the library. When they plugged a laptop into the socket by the table, Hanna looked suitably disapproving and Conor played along. They weren’t using excess electricity or anything, he explained loudly and earnestly. It was just that the laptop was more powerful than the library’s desktops.
The owner of the laptop was a gawky young man called Ferdia who was sitting at the table surrounded by four or five others including Fidelma Cafferky, Dan’s mum. Hanna had seen Seán Cafferky among the volunteers in the garden. Now she realized that the last time she’d parked the library van outside the Cafferky’s post office she’d seen Ferdia in the Internet café there, talking to Seán. Just as Sister Michael had intended, the networking process was taking on a life of its own.
Conor dragged her over to the table. “Wait till you see this, Miss Casey. It’s brilliant.”
It actually came from a suggestion of Aideen’s, he told her. Of course it was only in development at the moment, but it was going to be great. Before Conor could go on, Ferdia interrupted to say that there was no point in talking about multimedia. It was all about the interactive experience, and Miss Casey should see for herself. Then he clicked on his touchpad and a caption appeared on the screen.
WELCOME TO THE FINFARRAN PENINSULA
Hanna watched in fascination as the lettering dissolved to reveal a stunning aerial photograph of the peninsula and a second caption.
WELCOME TO THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
A series of tabs then drifted onto the screen from left and right. Ferdia clicked the touchpad again, producing a line-drawn map of the peninsula with a series of hyperlinks in green.
Conor couldn’t contain himself. “See what it is? A bunch of us got together and Ferdia’s building this website. It’s going to have every business and every place to go along the whole peninsula with links to people’s own sites or scans of their publicity. Posters, stuff about their services, everything.”
Fidelma leaned over and nudged Ferdia. “Show her the EcoTours bit.”
Beginning with one of Dan’s photos of the meteor shower, the Marine EcoTours section included a video of whale watching, descriptions of the various packages Dan offered, and links to local bed-and-breakfasts that did special rates for his clients. They were all small places that specialized in organic food, Fidelma explained to Hanna, and one was a farm that offered lessons in dry-stone walling for people who preferred to remain on land while their partners were out on the ocean.
Ferdia clicked on tab after tab, revealing everything from graphic designers who did banners and wedding stationery to local shops, beauty spots, jumping castle and bike rental companies, massage courses, and restaurants. There was a gallery of gorgeous photographs by a local photographer you could hire to drive you around on your vacation, showing you all the best views and how to capture them.
“And it’s not just about selling the peninsula to tourists. It’s about allowing people who live here to network.”
Everyone around the table nodded in agreement. That was the big thing, Conor told Hanna. There was a forum where local people could post messages and everyone who was featured on the site could upload stuff to their own pages and flag it to each other if they wanted to.
“So, like, if HabberDashery did something new like Bríd’s chocolates, yer man who’s doing the wedding stationery might be interested because people might want them as favors in little boxes. Or, say, a hairdresser might do special haircuts for a debs’ dance. Or we could stick up the dates when the lads with the machines would be coming round to cut silage.
“Or let each other know if there was a bunch of people on bikes likely to be looking for lunch on a particular route.” According to Fidelma Cafferky, people running small shops and cafés were always driven mad by food waste. As soon as she’d said so, she clicked her fingers and grabbed a memo pad. “We could organize local food-waste delivery systems for people who wanted feed for pigs and hens.”
Ferdia clicked through a couple of half-empty screens and opened a page that listed Finfarran’s wildflowers. The website was nowhere near being finished, he told Hanna, both in terms of its content and how it worked. But he was getting there. He wanted to add sections on Finfarran’s past and notable events in its history. Someone had suggested that the publishers of A Long Way to LA might be up for reissuing it as an e-book that could be downloaded from a page about Ballyfin. And Ferdia had wondered about the nineteenth-century photos in the de Lancy collection; did Hanna know who owned the copyright?
Before Hanna could reply one of the older members of the group said firmly that paying out money for content was out of the question. Eventually they’d have to work out how to make the website self-funding, but right now Ferdia was building it for free. Other volunteers were collecting and collating the material and everyone was chipping in with development ideas. And of course everyone was grateful to Miss Casey and Conor for letting them use the library as a hub. Knowing that if it hadn’t been for Sister Michael she’d have done nothing of the sort, Hanna blushed. To her astonishment, she received a ripple of applause.
“And, like I said, Miss Casey, it all started with something that Aideen said ages ago.”
Conor was always eager to give credit where it was due. But maybe this time, thought Hanna, it was more than that. He and Aideen with their unassertive enthusiasms and capacity for hard work could almost have been made for each other. It would be nice to think that they might have a chance of a life together on the peninsula without either or both of them having to leave to get work.
As she returned to her desk Hanna glanced at the poster on the notice board, realizing that it was only a few weeks before the county councillors’ vote. The night before, sipping sherry with Sister Michael, she had said again that she thought it might be time to go public about preparing a submission. There were meetings to be had, papers to be filled in. There was a rigorous time frame. But the nun remained quietly adamant. There was big money to be made from a new marina in Ballyfin, she said, and everyone in the council was dying for their new offices. Let them get wind of the word of resistance and anything might happen. This was a time for growth, she told Hanna, and what was needed was patience. The shoots from the seeds they had planted were already increasing in strength.