The West has lost one of its great champions

The sudden death of Dr John Bradley last week has robbed the West of Ireland of one of its most powerful and brilliant advocates.

Though he was in his late 70s, I felt John was only just starting his journey of seeking justice and fairness for the West.

In all the many conversations I have had with so many people about regional development and the way the West has systemically been left behind for so long, John was among the very best.

Though born in Dublin, John’s grá for the West was a big part of him and one that grew as he aged. His father was a native of Murrisk who, like so many before and since, had to leave home for work. John lived between Dublin and Murrisk, living in the family cottage, on the lower trail to Croagh Patrick. He and his beloved wife Mary loved spending as much time as possible in Mayo.

John was a serious operator. A former research professor with the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), John had what I would fondly refer to as a big brain and loved debates. If you wanted to argue the toss with him on any subject, you would need to make sure you had your Weetabix!

He joined the ESRI in 1981 and retired from there as a research professor in 2006. He went on to become an international consultant in economic development and EU cohesion policy.

His clients included the European Commission, the World Bank and other international organisations and governments. I recall visiting him in 2021, and he was in the midst of a regional policy evaluation for Ukraine. That would be the least of their worries within a year, but it showed the level he was operating at.

So I consider it a gift that someone with such a knowledge of the European Union, its institutions, with a particular insight into regional development and EU Cohesion Policy lived in Mayo and was willing to bring his considerable insight to bear on matters pertaining to our county and our region.

Almost one-third of the total EU budget has been set aside for its Cohesion Policy, the bulk of which is concentrated on less developed European countries and regions in order to help them to catch up and to reduce the economic, social and territorial disparities that still exist within the EU.

Our region – the Northern and Western Region, which incorporates Connacht and the three Ulster counties in the Republic of Ireland – has been categorised as a ‘lagging region’, considerably behind the other two regions in Ireland (the Southern, and Eastern and Midland) who have a GDP per capita almost three times that of our region.

Incredibly, we rank 218th out of 234 European regions for transport infrastructure development, that is to say, in the bottom seven per cent. The need for the expertise and insight of someone like John Bradley was abundantly clear!

In 2019, John Bradley and John Caulfield, from Breaffy, Castlebar, produced a seminal study of County Mayo, a case study as part of the wider Atlantic Economic Corridor. The report was heavily critical of the centralised Irish governance system, arguing cogently for more functional autonomy in the regions as well as being very critical of regional development strategies over the preceding decades.

It was forensic in exploring the strengths and weaknesses of our county’s economy, how we solidify those strengths and address the challenges. For instance, the report highlighted cogently the north-south divide in Mayo with towns in the south thriving because of proximity to Galway and Castlebar while Ballina and Sligo just did not have the same impact for areas in north Mayo.

It is something anyone invested in the future of this county and region should study. You can find it on the Westport Chamber website (Google ‘John Bradley economy of county Mayo’ and it should come up).

John was subsequently very critical (and rightly so in this writer’s view) of Project Ireland 2040 for failing to learn the mistakes of previous spatial strategies and became a very strong voice in such discussions.

He had a great knack for taking complex issues, simplifying them and making them much more accessible to the reader. He had a clear vision for Mayo and the West and how they could prosper.

As mentioned, I first met John in 2020 and I knew straight away this was someone who could offer so much on the topic of regional development. He was a wonderful mentor too for this writer in navigating often complex topics.

In the Mayo News in 2020, I wrote a series called ‘What’s Best for the West’ where regional challenges and opportunities were explored. I had John riding shotgun in the background, advising and not afraid to pull me up where he felt I had erred.

It led to him commencing a fortnightly column in the Mayo News entitled ‘Notes from the Western Periphery’. The topics were varied – his love of sailing in Clew Bay and learning to play the guitar with his great friends in Westport Men’s Shed came up for mention – but fundamentally it looked at political and economic issues in our region.

John was passionate about speaking truth to power, regularly criticising local and national politicians and bureaucrats when appropriate. He abhorred clientelism and how people would step carefully around criticism of the powers-that-be for fear they might suffer because of it.

Regional development and how the West has been left to languish is not a topic that always drew people in. There is surface-level anger every so often if Mayo or the region at large is left short-changed at the Cabinet table, but most people do not tend to wish to scratch below the surface much at all.

One could argue that such a malaise has been a contributing factor to a continuous refusal by successive governments to address the manifest problems in this region. It has been somewhat heartening to see a steady improvement in engagement levels on this topic in the past year or two. John Bradley’s fortnightly columns in the Mayo News certainly have played a part.

In recent years, he devoted a lot of time to assessing the arguments for and against the Western Rail Corridor’s extension from Galway into Mayo and Sligo. Given what we know about the lack of infrastructural development in this region and given how all rail routes radiate in and out of Dublin, a railway in Connacht that runs north to south rather than just east to west was always something John would be positively predisposed to.

But that would never be enough for someone as diligent and forensic as he was. He brought his economist’s brain to bear on the issue and studied the arguments deeply before casting his verdict in favour of the railway.

I recall how incandescent with rage he was after reading the Government-commissioned EY Report into the railway, which argued there was not a business case for the railway from Galway to Claremorris. That report, released in 2020, was ‘deeply flawed’, he said. He absolutely eviscerated it in print and carried out his own substantial appraisal into the viability of the Galway-Mayo link, correcting a lot of erroneous details in the EY report. It was an outstanding piece of work and generated considerable momentum for the extension of the railway to Claremorris, a situation which now appears to be imminent.

He dedicated that study to the since deceased Fr Micheál Mac Gréil, who fought for decades for the restoration of the railway.

When – and that appears to be the case rather than if – the first train from Tuam to Claremorris in 50 years rolls into Claremorris Train Station, Fr Micheál Mac Gréil will be to the forefront of many people’s minds and so too will Dr John Bradley, two great champions of the west.