Local Notes: Clock Bar wins Ballyhaunis Interpub Quiz
The team from The Clock Bar won the Interpub Quiz organised recently by the Ballyhaunis Summer Festival.
The exodus of British-owned betting company Ladbrokes from the traditional model of bookmaker shops in favour of online gambling has left one more vacancy on Main Street in Ballyhaunis. The recent closure of the local Ladbrokes was one of 41 closures by the betting company which had operated 200 betting shops around Ireland up to the end of 2024.
The betting industry has blamed a doubling of government taxes in 2019 for the closures but the sharp fall in betting shop numbers since 2008 – well before the tax increase – suggests that other factors are at play, not least online gambling and opportunities elsewhere.
“The retail sector has been in decline since the betting duty doubled in 2019,” a spokesperson for the Irish Bookmakers' Association told this column, pointing to a nearly 50% decline in the number of betting offices across Ireland between 2008 and 2023.
Entain, the group which owns Ladbrokes, has meanwhile focused on expanding its online activities while also expanding in Brazil and the United States. In publishing its latest earnings report, the London-listed Entain said its strategy involves banking on a booming US market amid tightening regulations elsewhere.
A new regulator, introduced as part of new legislation enacted last year, will oversee gambling in Ireland, restricting for instance advertising in a bid to curb gambling addiction.
“The new regulations have not really had much of an effect on us yet, as the Regulator's office and teams are just being set up,” said the spokesperson for the Irish Bookmakers' Association.
Remarkably, Ballyhaunis and nearby Castlerea remain the most affordable Eircodes in the country according to the latest Central Statistics Office (CSO) research.
Property sales data collated by the CSO shows the least expensive Eircode area nationwide over the 12 months to the end of March was F45 (Castlerea), with a median price of €150,000. The second least expensive Eircode area was F35 - Ballyhaunis - where the median price was €154,000. The third least expensive Eircode area was F93 – Lifford in County Donegal - which had a median price of €162,500.
Local estate agent Kevin Kirrane sees deeper roots for the pricing trend.
“The F35 postcode that covers Cloonfad and parts of Roscommon where in 2004 the tax incentive was introduced and a lot of houses were built when there was no requirement for housing.
“There was a 90% tax break for investors who could write it off against any rental property they had. So we essentially had social affordable housing done through investors.
“If you take Castlerea where they built maybe 120 apartments on the river - they hit rock bottom and the estate has never been finished or taken over. People buy and sell them as prices improve.”
Mr Kirrane believes a surge in local prices may be lifting the Ballyhaunis properties out of the low price bracket.
“It’s only very recently we have started to achieve over €200,000 for semi-detached houses here in Ballyhaunis so that should get us out of being cheapest in Ireland.”
A recent visitor to Ballyhaunis from the US, Edward Bachmann, is already planning a return trip.
“I will be back again. I would like to find some of the Garvey family,” he said.
From New York but California based, Edward spent a week in Ireland recently looking for family.
“My grandparents, Bernie Healy and Annie Garvey, left Ballyhaunis in 1915. I met several second cousins, and I saw the houses, now empty, in which both of my grandparents were born in the 1880s. My cousins are all lovely people.
"I found Ireland in general to be a very friendly place. I was also able to meet, for the first time in 20 years, my Canadian nephew, James. It was sunny almost every day, something that everyone told me was very unusual.
“My mother's first cousin, Frank Healy, a great guy, who helped James and I find my grandmother's birthplace. This was down many narrow country lanes, and he hadn't been there for 30 years, but he found it. I found my grandfather's sister's gravesite at the 14th century Abbey [the Friary] in the middle of town.”
Farmers taking cattle to local marts have seen prices in some cases double over the past decade. The at the time described prices in 2015 at a historical high with the average 500kg heifer selling for €1,210 in the first half of 2015, up €119/head on the same period in 2014.
Yet sales data from a mid-May sale at Castlerea Mart (the nearest mart to many farmers in the Ballyhaunis area) shows a 500kg Limousin heifer sold for €2,600 while a Belgian Blue 505kg heifer made €2,570. A 455 kilo Aberdeen Angus heifer made €1,930. At Ballinrobe Mart in mid-May, 500 kilo-plus heifers averaged €1,930 per head.
In 2015, the average 550kg steer sold for €1,258, up €135/head on 2014 figures. Yet in 2025, a 500-kilo Limousin bullock sold for €2,350 in Castlerea mart in mid-May. A Charolais bullock weighing 480 kilos made €2,340 at the same sale. In Ballinrobe, prices for bullocks weighing 500 kilo-plus averaged €2,514 – double the average price in 2015 according to the figures.
Farmers have pointed to significant increases in business costs over the past decade, with construction and maintenance costs for farm buildings one of the key drivers of inflation.
Ballyhaunis has a dereliction issue which if solved would add commercial vibrancy to the town, according to local businessman who brought two major properties in the town centre back to life.
Commenting on a recent debate in these pages over the conversion of commercial space in the town to residential use, Tomás Murphy said he thinks the revival of town-centre living spaces is key for commercial activity but he thinks the notion of opening new businesses lacks reality.
“These premises have closed for a reason, one because they weren’t viable, more than likely. It’s extremely expensive and difficult to manage a business.
"People often step back and romanticise and make the argument that we should have more retail space on our high streets yet when we put it out there for people to take up the challenge, and it is a challenge, we don’t’ see people queuing up.”
Mr Murphy said that while he appreciates the argument made by local councillor Alma Gallagher for retaining commercial spaces, he doesn’t see much appetite among would-be retailers.
“Dillon’s on the Square was vacant for 20 years and the properties we bought on the Main Street that were an eyesore were vacant for 20 years, one of them, Cribbin’s, with crows flying through it. The other building was vacant for ten years with no one residing in it.
“We don’t have a housing issue, we have a dereliction issue above all our retail space in all our small towns in the west of Ireland. That is where the council needs to put its energy and focus in relation to the regulations around this.
“I believe all our main streets should be occupied for residential use as it was when I was growing up in Ballyhaunis. When we have people living on the street that will create more commercial activity and interest.
“But the notion that you are going to open up a commercial premises and that is going to bring people into the town, I think that is flawed because shopping has changed completely. I think there has been a huge increase in online shopping.
“People seek a comparative shopping experience where they come and check your price and then do a comparative analysis online. That is difficult to do. Online retailers often don’t have to pay the minimum wage or pay rates. Often people have no idea what it costs to open and run your business on an hourly rate and I can tell you some of our businesses which operate on an hourly rate on the Main Street in Ballyhaunis are probably costing the business with your wages and your rates and your expenses, probably in the region of €500 an hour.
“So I beg anyone who’s interested in getting into business to consider the costs and remove themselves from the romantic notion of opening a business or what they perceive is a need for Ballyhaunis for five or six customers who may have difficulty in getting some of the goods that they need...but their shopping experience and their need isn’t going to sustain or make the proprietor of the business viable...”
A successful Gaeilge for beginners and improvers class completed its spring-summer run at the Community Hall last week and will return in the Autumn.
“Múinteoir Colm had us interviewing each other in the Irish language at our last lesson - it was truly a fun exercise,” explained one of the students, Merrilyn Finn.
“It gave us a bit of courage as we got to know each other, with our different levels of fluency, from true beginner to those accessing a skill from years before, and a few skilled speakers. We had the craic with ‘tae no caife’.
Drawing students from a wide area – from Aghamore to Cloonfad, Knock and Tooreen - the classes were started two years ago by Ballyhaunis Community Council in conjunction with Ballyhaunis Language Café. More details can be had from ballyhauniscommunitycouncil@gmail.com or 087-9777899.
