Drimnagh is Good from Athena Media on Vimeo.

Pauline Sargent contacted Talk About Local in early 2010 when she was looking to create a community website for her home town of Drimnagh, a residential area on the outskirts of Dublin. Talk About Local gave Pauline remote training and ongoing support as she was getting started with Drimnagh is Good – a site based on the Digbeth is Good model used by Nicky.

Over the past year and a half Drimnagh is Good has become a strong voice ‘to help Drimnagh shout about the good things more often’. It talks positively about local people, initiatives and events and helps connect local politics with the neighbourhood.

Following the lead of Pits n Pots, Drimnagh is Good gave all 12 candidates running for a seat in the last Dublin South Central election 500 words to talk about about their campaigns, policies and reasons for standing. Eight of them responded, giving local people good, in-depth introductions to candidates before polling day.

Ranking very highly in a google search for Drimnagh, Pauline now finds she has the power to alter external perceptions of the area as well as inform and link up local residents. She has used this power to try and give the wider world a different picture of Drimnagh than it usually gets from the mainstream media, which served to bring the website to their attention. Earlier this year Pauline and fellow residents featured in RTE One’s Capital D programme, talking about their take on Drimnagh (see above video).

Drimnagh is Good has more recently been busy raising awareness and publishing coverage of the Drimnagh Festival in late September. Pauline also works hard to share her new skills by leading local social media surgeries and strengthens the Irish hyperlocal network on twitter as @hyperlocalie.