Local Notes: All the latest news from Ballyhaunis
Prize winners in the Winter League at Ballyhaunis Golf Club, sponsored by Lis Walsh Dental, Retired Society, Ballyhaunis Credit Union, Dillon Family and Connacht Rigging. The winners are pictured with club captains David Doherty and Marina Coyne and president Eileen Jordan. Picture: Glynn's Photography
Ballyhaunis businessman Dinal Swaris, who operates the Supermac’s franchise in the town, is hoping the re-opening of the Dome at the GAA Connacht Centre of Excellence will draw new footfall to his store after what he describes as a Christmas trade in Ballyhaunis that was quieter than the previous year.
“Some days it was busy, in patches,” said Dinal who welcomed an indication from Connacht GAA that the Dome will be re-instated in April. The facility brought much business to Supermacs before it was destroyed by Storm Éoywn in early 2025.
The fast food outlet’s sales in 2025 were up 5% on 2024 revenue but this increase was due to a rise in prices rather than increased customer footfall, Dinal believes.
Dinal feels the hollowing out of retail in Ballyhaunis has hurt sales and believes that people were leaving Ballyhaunis to shop during the Christmas period.
“I also saw younger locals taking the train to Castlerea and Claremorris to do the 12 pubs of Christmas,” he said.
Dinal has set his store the target of increasing sales by 10% year-on-year in 2026 - a goal he thinks is more feasible with a reopening of the Dome. Likewise, seasonal events and festivals that draw people to town are good for sales.
“They can significantly improve the performance of a quarter.”
Dinal is not expecting increases in raw materials, which ran to 10% in 2025, to be repeated this year, but he sees other challenges ahead.
“Finding workers is hard and we have to cover an increase to the minimum wage as well as pension auto-enrollment which kicked in from January 1.”
Ballyhaunis Cricket Club is pursuing Mayo County Council and local politicians to help source a playing ground for the club.
“We are playing our home matches in Galway which causes a lot of extra expense in travel and catering,” said Hamza Yousaf, public relations officer of Ballyhaunis Cricket Club. “Currently, we don’t have a ground but we’ve been in talks with councillors and politicians.”
The cricket club is seeking a site of six to eight acres to incorporate proper playing grounds, said Hamza.
“If we got the site we could do a lot of the works on it ourselves,” he said. “We’ve been in contact with Mayo County Council but the feedback we get is that they are looking but nothing has been found,” he added.
The club is able to conduct limited training on the astroturf at the Maples housing estate, explained the 29-year-old, who works at Dawn Meats as a manufacturing technician.
Long a powerhouse of the game in Connacht, Ballyhaunis faces more competition across the region with a new team emerging in Roscommon this year.
New clubs are being developed by an increase in the south Asian population in the West of Ireland, including a large increase in Indians working in medical and care roles.
“The club in Ballina also has a large number of Irish lads,” said Hamza.
Finding a playing grounds is a challenge for newer clubs too but some have improvised. Ballaghaderreen plays on a ground in between two soccer pitches, explains Hamza, while Ballina plays next to a walking track.
Ballyhaunis Cricket Club recently congratulated Asaf Abbas on winning the Connacht Senior League Wicket Keeper of the Year 2025.
“Asaf is really good both in wicket keeping and bowling,” said Hamza. “He made some catches for us this past season that won us games. He also played a crucial role in the Connacht provincial side that played Munster.”
The Ballyhaunis club in 2025 had two teams in competitions across Connacht: a premier league team and a division one team, which is equivalent to a junior league.
The club isn’t facing any new games until April, but in the meantime it’s doing some training sessions indoors at the sports facility in Aghamore. Hamza said the club is especially grateful to the range of local businesses that have sponsored it.
Retired Ballyhaunis politician Jim Higgins has added his voice to support an exiled Iranian resistance movement as protests gripped Iranian cities in the past week.
Drawing parallels between Ireland’s fight for freedom with the anti-government protests in Iran, Mr Higgins said “We know the price of resistance. We know what it means to bury our martyrs while the powerful look away.”
Noting that he has supported the Iranian resistance for many years, Mr Higgins said as a member of the European Parliament, he “worked with colleagues across the political spectrum to challenge the regime's impunity and support the democratic alternative". Mr Higgins has supported Maryam Rajavi, the French-based president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a coalition of groups seeking to replace the clerical regime that has run Iran since 1979.
“I have met Mrs Maryam Rajavi, whose leadership has united a movement spanning continents... I have heard testimony from survivors of the regime's torture chambers - stories that would move the coldest heart.”
While denouncing the clerical powers that control Iran, Mr Higgins also rejected the country’s former royals, which “some outside observers promote with unseemly enthusiasm".
“Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed Shah, presents himself as a democrat-in-waiting. His father made similar noises before presiding over SAVAK and its torture chambers. His grandfather was installed by the British, ruled by decree, and was removed by the British when his Nazi sympathies became inconvenient.”
Mr Higgins said Rajavi’s movement by contrast has a plan for a secular democratic republic with gender equality.
The use of undocumented workers in some businesses in Ballyhaunis is creating unfair competition but also hurting the local community, according to a local businessman in the catering trade.
“These workers are being paid cash whereas I have to pay the increases in minimum wage, it’s unfair,” he said.
“If my competitor is selling at a price lower than mine that impacts my ability to expand or to sponsor a local team,” said the businessman. “Black money is killing small businesses.”
In early 2025, officers from the Workplace Relations Commission and the Department of Social Protection joined Gardaí and Revenue Commissioners staff on a multi-agency raid of several businesses in Ballyhaunis.
A popular farm shop in Barnacougue, near Ireland West Airport, has switched fully to solar power for its reopening on January 31st.
Sue McMillan, proprietor of the Farm Shop, said after damage caused by Storm Éowyn forced her to close the Farm Shop last January, she switched to solar power, “a decision we have not regretted and therefore it is now completely off the grid”.
Located four kilometres from Ireland West Airport, the Ballagh Farm Shop had built up a loyal base of customers who pre-ordered boxes of local produce for collection on weekends.
“People are really beginning to understand the need of clean food,” said Ms McMillan, who runs the farm shop with her husband John.
They count among their local suppliers Duffy Butchers, Kilkelly; June's Bakery, Kilkelly; Organic Veg Supplier and Ballymore Organic Farm.
“Customers require much more organic food since reopening and therefore we have a fully certified, organic, locally-sourced veg box every week... 80% plus of our shop products are now either organic or chemical free/reduced.”
The Farm Shop is planning to sell local cheese this year and will also run a seed swap day in February and more planting and preparing courses during summer.
Ms McMillan is also involved in a new Mayo Indoor Market commencing every second Sunday in the month at Julian's of Midfield.
"Since the markets of Strandhill and Achonry closed in 2025, I felt a strong need to bring an indoor market to Mayo and with the partnership with Sean at Julian's we started on January 11th.”
Some well-known local acts will perform alongside popular musician Mark Finn on a St Brigid’s Eve night out at the Community Hall in Ballyhaunis.
Doors open at 7.30pm for the show on January 31st with popular local singer Noel Lyons also taking to the stage alongside John Morley while popular actor Pat Doyle has some recitations prepared for the night.
Donations for the local branch of St Vincent de Paul will be collected at the door in lieu of an entry fee. Anyone who would like to perform can contact ballyhauniscommunitycouncil@gmail.com.
Historian Billy Lyons, a fountain of knowledge on the wider Ballyhaunis area, will speak at a workshop on local genealogy and heritage at the Community Hall on Tuesday January 20.
A member of the Mayo Geneaology Group, Billy is the first speaker of 2026 for the popular monthly heritage club convened at the hall by Ballyhaunis Community Council. The evening gets underway at 7.30pm.
