Community fights back with a DIY approach

Judy Murphy meets the people behind a Gort-based initiative to help overcome years of tourism neglect

God helps those who helps themselves might have been a motto coined for the Gort-based Burren Lowlands community group, which kicked into action just over a year ago.

The Burren Lowlands covers a geographical area around South Galway taking in Ardrahan and Kinvara, stretching as far as Crusheen in Co Clare, and ranging from the Burren uplands to the Sliabh Aughties.

But despite its rich heritage and associations with some of Ireland’s best-known literary figures, including WB Yeats and Lady Gregory, this place has been neglected by State organisations, especially those tasked with promoting tourism.

South-East Galway was hard hit by the recession and by the closure of Duffy’s meat plant which had been a major employer in Gort and South Galway. Many of the Brazilians who had settled there during the boom, moved home and local young people emigrated, so the population plummeted.

However, the community decided to take matters into their own hands to ensure the area recovered and was not completely forgotten by tourists in the excitement of the Government-backed Wild Atlantic Way.

Last year, without a penny of State funding, despite having made several submissions, a community-run tourist office opened in Gort’s town’s square, in a premises donated by businessman Mike Mullins of nearby O’Grady’s Bar and Restaurant.

The day it opened, there were tourists outside the door waiting to get in, says businesswoman Fiona O’Driscoll of the Burren Lowlands group. Staffed by volunteers and via a Tús Scheme, the Burren Lowlands tourist office hasn’t looked back since.

While there are definite signs of an upturn in Gort on a busy Friday afternoon, the last few years have been hard, according to Fiona.

A new motorway led to Gort being bypassed during one of the worst recessions Ireland has ever endured, while Galway County Council also introduced parking charges, something that made no sense in a market town, she feels.

But people have joined forces to create change, and it’s working, adds Fiona, for whom “the possibilities here are endless”.

The Burren Lowlands group is all about promoting local events and focusing on “education, business, tourism and heritage,” she explains over coffee in O’Grady’s, which is filled with lunchtime customers.

The people involved in its establishment included representatives of community and business groups as well as Teagasc Professor Cathal O’Donoghue, the co-author of the Burren Lowlands Economic Development Study.

“From that main group, we set up about 10 other little groups to look at education, business, tourism, culture and heritage,” outlines Fiona.

However, they felt that establishing new businesses was too big a challenge because of the start-up costs and payment of Rates to the County Council.

“So we said, ‘let’s work with what we have and we know we have tourism’,” she says.  They decided on a tourist office.

With attractions such as Coole Park, Thoor Ballylee and Kilmacduagh all within shouting distance of Gort, it was just a question of making visitors aware that these places existed and that they were major tourism sites. Gort is fortunate in that it gets a lot of visitors but most are passing through, she adds, so they needed a place to find information.

“We are so near Shannon Airport and so near the Wild Atlantic Way. We are just 10 minutes from the coast and half of the visitors we got last year came from there.”

The others came mostly from Shannon.

“Most of them wanted to see the Cliffs of Moher, Galway and Westport. They didn’t know what was here,” Fiona remarks. “The Government hasn’t spent a penny on this town.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.