Is the earth flat after all?
Repaymaster, the coriolis effect would be negated by the string which constrains the bead from moving off its longtitudinal course.
Michael poses a more difficult issue with the experiment. Because of the supposed curvature of the Earth the taut string would in fact be at its lowest above sea level around Dundalk. A bead released from Belfast would indeed fall towards Dundalk and then have enough momentum, bomb scares notwithstanding, to reach Dublin so that from a Belfast perspective Dublin is "down". But if a Dublin woman released a bead from her end the exact opposite would happen and she would see Belfast as being down from Dublin - so we see, ala Einstein, that "down" is relative.
Of course, to both the Belfast and Dublin observers Dundalk would be very down, but we don't need this experiment to tell us that!
Then it occured to me that what is so special about a 100 miles. I set up two poles in my garden a few metres apart with a taut string stretched from equal heights on each pole. Because of this supposed earth curvature the middle of the string should be slighlty lower than the the two ends. I released the bead - and what do you know - it didn't move.
This appears to be convincing evidence, first produced here on AAM, that the Earth is after all flat and that feckless heathen Galileo was wrong after all.
BTW I think Joe should have got life but never released.