Rural decline laid bare in Mayo tourist town

Members of Westport-Belmullet Municipal District have highlighted the decline of Louisburgh town which has seen hotels and businesses close one after another in recent years.

Raising the topic at last week's district meeting, Fine Gael Cllr Peter Flynn said Mayo County Council needed to help the West Mayo tourist town to "get back on its feet".

“Three hotels in Louisburgh town centre have closed over the last 10 to 15 years, also the one in Old Head and now the one in Killadoon is gone as well. There are no hostels in Louisburgh anymore, no direct guest houses of any size, and now there is a situation where the last local butcher shop went.

"The whole retail core of Louisburgh has been ripped out of it and we need to figure out where we are going wrong in a town like this, which has lost all its key providers. There is any amount of quality houses out there but yet they don’t have a living vibrant community that allows business and hotels to thrive. 

How do we get a town like Louisburgh back on its feet? We need to help because all the key retail shops on the Main Street have shut down. Somebody needs to figure this out because Louisburgh is a beautiful town with a great community. But something is wrong and we have to fix it. 

"The butcher shop going is nearly the last nail in the coffin. We can no longer bury our heads on this and not recognise there is a significant problem in the town core.” 

Louisburgh councillor Chris Maxwell thanked Cllr Flynn for bringing up the subject, noting that the butcher's shop was closing later this month. 

“Hopefully, somebody might come in and take it over because we desperately need it.” 

Cllr Maxwell said Cllr Flynn had correctly depicted the current status of Louisburgh, saying: 

"That is the situation and it is concerning. This is one of the finest tourism areas in County Mayo. I don’t need to tell you, we have the beaches, there is Delphi, Croagh Patrick, the islands, I could list on and on, but the town itself, the business people, we just don’t know what’s wrong.

“We’re down now to two pubs as well where we had 10. Thankfully, we still have the post office, the garda barracks and the chemist, but yes, definitely, help is needed and we will take it where we can get it.

“Tourism is one of the significant factors that will make a difference and we are hopeful a lot of things will happen around that and I will be pushing for them.” 

Cllr John O’Malley said he hated to see a small town going down as it takes away completely from the wider community.

“We see how Newport got built up although the fact there is no sewerage scheme is still an awful drawback and that is why we keep pushing for it.

“I would love to see Louisburgh come on. I used to play music out there, there were several pubs we could go to, but now there are only two.

"These places closing down take away from the social fabric of an area. I would be sad to see the butcher shop go, that will be an awful blow. I would like to see more shops in Louisburgh so that people could shop in their own town.” 

Erris councillor Gerry Coyle said he was not surprised to hear that businesses are closing.

“First of all, they are hit with rates, then you have people who are looking for a soft place to fall and make a claim, so they are scourged with insurance. Then you have electricity costs."

Cllr Coyle said the system of charging commercial rates was also wrong because it was based on the physical size of a premises instead of profit.

"Somebody with a property a quarter of the size in Ballina would sell 10 times as much [as a business in Belmullet], but the rates are the very same. So we have to look at these in the broad. The amount of profit you make should be what your rates are based on.” 

The Erris councillor added that if the last shop in the North Mayo village of Carrowteigue was to close its doors, people could end up having to travel 42km for a litre of milk.