Laois residents can breathe easy after scientists find 'lovely Laois air'

Laois residents take a deep breath, because the air is good and clean.

A new study on air quality at a rural Laois location has found it is safely below European limits for pollutants.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has praised the "lovely Laois air" after it conducted a study in conjunction with University College Cork and Laois County Council.

The organisations this week gathered on top of Cullohill Mountain in Laois to unveil a new information board on local air quality.

A study was done at Bunlacken on the mountain, to check the levels of particulate matter, an air pollutant that can have harmful effects on the heart and lungs. It has many sources including transport, residential heating, construction, sea salt and Saharan dust.

Particulate matter concentrations were measured for a 4-week period in September and October 2022 with measured levels found to be low.

As part of the unveiling of the information boards, the EPA and UCC gave a talk on air quality to Scoil Tighearnach Naofa, Cullohill (pictured below) and at Our Lady’s Meadow National School, Durrow.

Kevin Delaney, EPA, pictured speaking to students about air quality

Prof John Wenger and Rósín Byrne (UCC) speaking to students about air quality

It is part of the LIFE Emerald project, with similar monitoring campaigns in Edenderry, Co Offaly and Dungarvan, Co Waterford.

The LIFE Emerald project aims to improve Ireland’s understanding of air quality by providing an air quality forecast and detailed historical maps of air pollutants.

The purpose of the campaign was to measure background concentrations of particulate matter (PM10) at the rural site and compare to other Irish and EU locations for the same time period.

EPA Scientific Officer is Kevin Delaney.

“The results of the four-week assessment on Cullohill Mountain reveal air quality generally in line with other rural background sites in the Irish air monitoring network, which are used for EU reporting.

“We also compared Cullohill to sites in Europe for the same time period including rural Norway, Switzerland and France and what we see are PM10 levels on a par with the levels measured in these countries. Overall the levels we have seen are low and below any relevant EU limit values for the timeframe considered,” he said.

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More information on the current air quality in Laois (Emo, Portlaoise and Mountrath) and Ireland (110 ambient air monitoring stations located across the country) can be accessed at www.airquality.ie.