Heritage Day shows Ballina at its very best

The first time I went to Ballina Heritage Day, I was over on holiday from England, visiting my family in Foxford.

I’d just finished university, though I wasn’t due to graduate until the following spring, and like many people at that stage, I was wondering what came next.

My Dad had suggested timing my visit to coincide with Ballina's Heritage Day.

"There's something on in town," he said. 

It sounded like a nice way to spend an afternoon.

I remember walking around Ballina in 2022, taking in the crowds that filled the streets, learning about crafts that have largely vanished from everyday life, and enjoying a pint or two of Guinness along the way.

There were people dressed in costumes, vintage machinery on display, and the sound of traditional music could be heard inside and outside the pubs. The town felt somewhat like a living museum.

Everywhere you looked, another conversation was unfolding. It seemed everyone had stopped to chat with someone. That struck me the most. I remember thinking this is what a community feels like.

That afternoon, Heritage Day unexpectedly taught me something about my own family.

Walking down Tone Street with my Dad, we stopped at a display of vintage tractors. One of them had belonged to my late grandad Paddy.

Standing beside it, my Dad told me a story I hadn’t heard before, and it has since become one of my favourite stories about my grandad.

On New Year's Eve 1977, he had driven the tractor from Wakefield to Liverpool, hopped on the overnight ferry to Dublin, and then drove it all the way to Foxford on New Year's Day.

It became the first tractor to be used on my great-grandparents' farm, replacing the horses and donkeys that had done the work before it.

It felt fitting to learn about that story on Heritage Day. A celebration of Mayo's past had taught me something about my family's history.

A few months later, in October 2022, I moved to Ireland. It was supposed to be a temporary move.

My plan was to stay for a couple of months, enjoy the slower pace of life in Mayo, return home for my graduation ceremony and then move to London to begin some sort of a career.

Life had other ideas.

By the following Heritage Day, I had been living in Mayo for nine months and had just started working in a café in Ballina.

While everyone wandered through the streets enjoying the best that Heritage Day has to offer, I spent most of the day carrying coffees and clearing tables. It was one of the busiest shifts I'd ever worked, but also one of the most enjoyable.

Customers chatted, people were patient despite the queues, and more than once someone offered to help when they saw my arms full of plates and cups.

After work, I met up with some friends and headed into the town. Music was still playing, and the streets were just as lively as I remembered from the year before.

The following summer was different again. I'd started my first full-time office job, and work commitments meant I missed Heritage Day altogether.

Last summer, I made sure I wouldn’t miss it.

By then, I was working as a journalist. I took a half-day's annual leave to meet my partner and a friend of his who was visiting from Canada.

As we wandered around the town, I watched her stop to take photographs, admire the vintage machinery and ask questions about a town that had become familiar to me.

Without really thinking about it, I found myself pointing out what was happening, leading us from one street to the next and answering some of her questions about Ballina.

Three years earlier, I'd been the one asking those same questions to my Dad.

For me, what makes Heritage Day is that it never feels like a performance put on for tourists. Visitors are welcome, of course, but the day feels first and foremost like Ballina celebrating Ballina.

Craftspeople, volunteers, musicians and local groups come together to keep traditions alive and share stories from years ago because they genuinely care about the town and its heritage.

Looking back now, each Heritage Day marks a different chapter for me. From the uncertain university graduate on holiday in Mayo, to the café worker finding her feet and getting to know the place, to the almost local showing a visitor around the town.

This year's Heritage Day will mark another chapter. I'll be reporting on it for the Western People, covering a festival I first attended in 2022.

Heritage Day itself hasn't changed too much over those four summers, and it remains the cornerstone event of the Ballina Salmon Festival.

History still echoes through the streets, children still run between stalls with ice creams and candyfloss, and familiar faces still stop to chat and have the craic with one another.