Local notes: Insurance issues delay repair of Ballyhaunis building
Breege and John Halpin, parents of Bridann in whose memory a Walk, Run and Family Day will take place next Saturday, September 14, in aid of the Irish Kidney Association, receiving the donation of a hamper from the staff of Ave Maria Nursing Home in Tooreen where John is a resident. The 3.4k walk/run will get underway from Friary Field in Ballyhaunis at 2pm, although shorter routes are available. Family Fun will be had afterwards in the Friary Field.
Four months on from the vandalism of a Mayo County Council-owned building on Main Street Upper, the structure remains boarded up. Repair of the windows, broken by an individual in late April, has been delayed by insurance issues, according to Padraic Flanagan, chief administrator of the Claremorris/Swinford Municipal District.
“There are unavoidable procedures that have to be gone through involving the council’s insurers and the other parties involved. As soon as they are complete the council are ready to have the work done.”
During the April incident, onlookers watched as a bearded man in his 30s, covered in grey and white paint, repeatedly threw a brick through the newly-installed windows at the information hub (formerly home to the DH Burke’s supermarket) before proceeding down Main Street and engaging in verbal confrontations as he went. He also uprooted plants from the flower beds outside the Community Hall as he proceeded down Main Street before being arrested nearly an hour after the window-smashing incident.
Best of luck to two Ukrainian residents of Ballyhaunis, Natalya Litovchenko and Yulia Babak, who have commenced study in business courses at the Atlantic Technology University in Castlebar. Babak, a refugee from Kremenchuk, and Ms Litovchenko credit free English language lessons provided by Ballyhaunis Family Resource Centre as well as the local Education Training Board for their success and say they have developed confidence in their language skills by attending the Thursday night meetings of Ballyhaunis Language Café. The two ladies take the train to and from college daily.
Knock-based councillor Paul Lawless has backed a proposal by Ballyhaunis-based businessman Tomas Murphy to introduce grants to encourage the retention and refurbishment of commercial premises in local towns. The proprietor of the Old Butchers and the adjacent James Lyons building on Main Street, Mr Murphy proposed in a recent edition of the that commercial entities like coffee shops could be encouraged to open in refurbished town-centre buildings, with a resultant pay-back to the public purse in rates and VAT. Similar grants are payable to property owners wishing to refurbish derelict commercial buildings for residential use.
“I agree,” said Councillor Lawless. “I think the vacant residential grant coupled with the huge demand for accommodation is driving a lot of commercial to residential conversion. It is important that town centres maintain commercial activity and become economic drivers in our region. A commercial grant similar to the vacant residential grant would provide the necessary counterbalance and help to maintain economic activity in our towns.”
A new government proposal to halt the worsening of water quality in local rivers has been welcomed by a local group conducting water quality monitoring in the Dalgan River running through Ballyhaunis.
Minister of State for Nature, Heritage and Electoral Reform, Malcom Noonan issued a new national plan last week to reduce and prevent pollution and to let more rivers run free and restore their natural ecosystem functions after a report this summer from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) showed no overall improvement in the water quality of rivers, lakes and other water bodies in 2023.
“This change in governmental policy to reduce and prevent pollution, to let more rivers run free and restore their natural ecosystem functions is good news, and we now hope to see results and enforcement across the country,” said Laura Dinraths, a trained marine biologist and leader of a water quality monitoring project run by Ballyhaunis Tidy Towns.
“Our monitoring results agree with the EPA's assessment that we saw no overall improvement in water quality in rivers, lakes and groundwaters in 2023 – to the contrary,” said Ms Dinraths.
A June sampling of the Dalgan by the Citizen Science group which continues to monitor the quality of the Dalgan in the town centre and in the Cave area, suggested worse results in terms of water quality than earlier testing. The group samples for the presence of wildlife which indicate water quality – with good quality suggested by the presence of species like mayflies that are less tolerant of pollutants.
“They showed the worst results in terms of biodiversity – meaning decreasing water quality – in more than a year of such samples based on species indicating good quality, like mayflies and stoneflies, or bad water quality, like snails and leeches.
In late August the group participated in a country-wide sampling of rivers for heavy, persistent and toxic chemicals in freshwater, with results due shortly. The group’s next monitoring is scheduled in October and will incorporate testing for land runoff chemicals such as nitrates, ammonia and phosphate. Members of the public are invited to participate.
Ballyhaunis Tidy Towns queried the Office of Public Works following a routine river maintenance involving a heavy digger channelling the Dalgan river bed and banks, which according to Ms Dinraths goes against the advice of mainstream ecologists at other government departments who suggest the planting of trees and shrubs on the river banks and the presence of vegetation can help with water quality.
“Recent research shows that instream vegetation can slow the flow in flash flood events and prevent drought. Additionally, instream vegetation is important in filtering out nutrients and pollutants in the water and creating habitat diversity which has a knock on positive impact on species diversity and overall abundance.”
Local food producers have a new way to market thanks an innovative food shop serving customers around Ballyhaunis with local produce. Sue McMillan runs a farm shop from her home farm in Barnacogue near the airport in Kilkelly which has become a popular calling point for locals seeking locally produced food.
The Ballagh Farm Shop, which operates as the Ballyhaunis Farmers Market page on Facebook, allows customers to pre-order a variety of local produce. Customers pre-order boxes of meat and vegetables and other produce to collect on Saturdays from 10am to 4pm in Barnacogue.
A barn on the farm also serves as a meeting point and coffee stop, explained Ms McMillan who has a week day job as a litigation secretary.
“Customers drop in to buy meat and vegetables but also to talk. Sometimes people arrange to meet there, we offer free tea and coffee. We talk about gardening and the weather. People ask me how to preserve vegetables.”
Business has been “quiet” in recent weeks but McMillan expects it to pick up in the Autumn as hobby gardeners run out of vegetable produce from their home growing. April to September is traditionally a quiet time but then it gets busy from September to March.
Ballyhaunis Farm Market gets its bread and meat from suppliers in Kilkelly. Another supplier is Larganboy-based market garden Mannin Farms, run by Sebastian Dmilanowski under the ‘Mannin Lake Farm’ brand. Dmilanowski, who sells from his home and supplies local retailers, told this column the early September spell of fine weather has enabled him to prolong the growing season in his polytunnels. “Finally the sunshine has arrived,” he said.
Having run the market over several years in Ballyhaunis during her tenure as president of the local chamber of commerce Ms McMillan has an extensive knowledge of the local producers scene and local trading conditions. She thinks a surge in the cost of living has made consumers more wary of seeking out vendors of quality local produce over low-cost retailers like Aldi.
“There is a recession,” she explained. “Not officially, but in reality there is. Money is tight and people have to shop where they need to shop.”
The quality of locally, organically produced vegetables sold in the Ballyhaunis Farmers Market shop is however “very different” to the mass-produced supermarket variety. “It’s of a far higher quality,” she explained.
Ballyhaunis Community Garden has secured €2,000 from the first round of funding in the First Choice Credit Union Community Fund and will use the money to build a drystone wall composting area.
The Community Fund supports projects in the areas of Achill, Balla, Ballyhaunis, Castlebar, Kiltimagh, Swinford and surrounding areas. The fund is separate from other sponsorships that the Castlebar-based Credit Union gives to various charities and groups across the county.
Ballyhaunis Credit Union has grown since merging with its Castlebar counterpart in 2015 in a tie-up facilitated by the state’s facilitated by the State's Credit Union Restructuring Board. The building recently rented its upper-floor meeting room space to a local Brazilian church on a long-term lease.
A popular bike repair clinic returns to the Community Hall on September 15. Scheduled for 10am until 12.30pm, the clinic is run by volunteers assembled by Ballyhaunis Community Council. Quality adult and children’s bicycles will also be on sale on the day. The bicycle repair clinic was one of two Community Council projects – the other being a solar panel system for the Community Hall – to be selected for grant aid under Mayo County Council’s climate action fund. The fund will be discussed at the monthly meeting of Ballyhaunis Community Council on Wednesday, September 11 at 8pm in the Community Hall. Queries can be directed to ballyhauniscommunitycouncil@gmail.com and 087 -9777899.
