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Irish Times
20 hours ago
- Business
- Irish Times
‘This is our home town, but we can't afford to live here': Westport housing crisis leaves no room for ‘coveys'
Shannon Sweeney is an elite Irish boxer with her eyes on the 2028 Olympics and lives in her neighbour's spare room in Westport , Co Mayo. 'I'm very, very appreciative that they're there, because without them I don't know where I'd be. Times are tough,' the 26-year-old says outside the ring at St Anne's boxing club in the town. The housing crisis in Westport hit the headlines last month after a Mayo County Council official proposed a boycott on holiday homeowners to free up housing for locals . There is one Airbnb listing for every three private rental properties in Westport, an ESRI report in April found. READ MORE Legislation aimed at cracking down on short-term letting and freeing up more long-term rental accommodation across the country is due to come into effect next summer. It will apply to towns in Rent Pressure Zones and with a population of more than 10,000 people. Although Westport is in a Rent Pressure Zone, its population was 6,872 at the last census, meaning it would be exempt from the new legislation. As the debate around these short-term lets in the town heated up last month, The Irish Times visited to get local residents' take on the housing crisis there. Shannon Sweeney: 'Cost of renting a house in Westport at the moment is extortionate.' Photograph: Conor McKeown Sweeney is what locals affectionately call a 'covey' – a Westport-local, born and bred in the town. She has been part of the Irish boxing high-performance squad based in Adamstown, Dublin, for the last three years and she trains there four days a week. While in Dublin, she is provided accommodation on campus, but when she comes home she faces a much different situation. She trains full-time so she can compete at boxing's highest level and she earned €12,000 last year, which is nowhere near enough to buy or rent in her hometown. She is on the local social housing list, but does not see herself having a home of her own in her near future. 'I'm giving up everything to pursue something that I love, but it's unfortunate that I can't work and get, like, a certain income in order for me to buy a house. I suppose I'm trying to follow a dream, but then at the same time there's obviously all the stress with the housing situation,' she says. Sweeney fights at 50kg and won gold at the European Championships last year, carving out a path for herself to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. While her vision for the career ahead of her is clear, she doesn't see any path to owning or renting a home of her own in her near future. 'The cost of renting a house [in Westport] at the moment is just extortionate. There's no way, unless you give up everything, go working seven days a week or move to Australia, I can't see any other way,' Sweeney says. 'But you kind of just have to push that to the side and just focus on what you can control, because they're just some things you can control and some things you can't.' Graham Byrne, owner of Krem, says: 'We need to make sure there's enough accommodation for staff.' Photograph: Conor McKeown Graham Byrne, who owns the Krem ice cream shop on Bridge Street in the centre of Westport, says that while the town needs short-term rentals to keep its tourism sector going it also needs more accommodation for the staff providing those services. 'We need it for tourism. We are a tourist town and we love seeing people come through, but we need to make sure that there's enough accommodation for the staff otherwise there's nothing for the people to do,' he says. Some hoteliers in town are building staff accommodation or they're buying houses just to house their staff Byrne has witnessed first hand the struggles of Westport's housing crisis through his staff. 'I'm very lucky with the staff I have. I trust them so much. I have a couple of staff that are very fortunate to live close by, but I also have staff with huge commutes,' he says. 'One guy gets the train or the bus from Claremorris, an hour-long journey, and I have another guy who has to walk over an hour to get here.' While he has provided an e-scooter for the man with an hour's walk, he sees providing accommodation himself for staff as the only way forward. 'I know some of the hoteliers in the town are building staff accommodation or they're buying houses just to house their staff. They just can't get the staff if they can't accommodate them,' Byrne says. Mayo Councillor Peter Flynn warns that crisis will worsen without reforms. Photograph: Conor McKeown Westport Fine Gael councillor Peter Flynn says he has 'never encountered so many working people who are either homeless or living at home with their parents or living in remote parts of the county away from their jobs and families'. He says: 'My 20-plus years as a councillor includes going through the worst recession ever and a bleak period back in the 1990s, but nothing compares to where we are now when it comes to housing.' He believes many homeowners are turning to Airbnb rather than long-term rentals because it makes more sense for them financially. The Rent Pressure Zone rules 'have actually made the situation worse' while the tax system is 'wholly in favour of short-term letting'. There is a transient community in the town now, with many housing estates in the dark from Monday to Thursday due to the dominance of holiday homes. We have created an absolute mess and if serious reform doesn't happen then this crisis will only get worse Flynn says that while supply needs to be increased, councils also need to focus on returning derelict properties into use as residential units in the town centre. 'The council executive has lost sight of what their powers are in terms of dealing with derelict and vacant homes in our town centres,' Flynn says, citing an estate of 22 new homes in Newport which are lying vacant in the midst of a housing crisis. 'We have created an absolute mess and if serious reform doesn't happen soon with senior people in our councils, Approved Housing Bodies, this crisis will only get worse,' he says. Danny Coughlan: 'You would be lucky to come across a one-bed apartment for under €1,400.' Photograph: Conor McKeown Danny Coughlan (35) is another Westport native. He works in pharmaceutical plant AbbVie in the town and is living in his mother's house with his partner, who is a preschool teacher, and their three-year-old daughter. The couple began looking for a place of their own to rent in the town about five years ago, but there was nothing they could afford. 'You would be lucky to come across a one-bed apartment for under €1,400,' he says. They were approved for the help-to-buy scheme, which would give them tax back on a new-build house purchase, but finding a new-build home in Westport within their budget proved impossible. An affordable purchase scheme of five homes was launched in the town last year, but there were so many other applicants the couple failed to secure one. 'We missed out on that, which was very disappointing. We kind of had to go back to the drawing board thinking what do we do now? We can't stay in my mother's forever.' The couple have recently gone sale agreed on a new-build home in Ballyvary, a town 30km east of Westport. Westport relies on tourism, but locals say their accommodation needs must be addressed too. Photograph: Conor McKeown While Coughlan says they were 'very lucky' to get the last house in that development, it will mean a lot of driving in and out of his hometown where the couple work and their daughter goes to creche. 'It's very frustrating. The price of renting and buying [in Westport] is just ridiculous. This is our hometown, it's where we've grown up for the last 35 years. But we just know now there's no way we can stay in it,' he says. 'It's great to see the tourists in the town. But at the same time, it'd be nicer to see the local people be able to afford to live in the town.' Music filled the streets of Westport on Sunday, with people with backpacks down from Croagh Patrick mixing with young pubgoers out on a bank holiday weekend, as far flung accents ordered ice cream across the road. While part of Westport's charm is the warmth of its coveys, it appears many of them are beginning to wonder if their days are numbered, Byrne says. 'A lot of the older stock who live in the area are wondering now what about my son and my daughter? Will they be able to live in Westport?'
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Mayo GAA finances Q&A: Why were the GAA's top officials in Westport?
Even by Mayo's standards, it was an eventful few days. As the county came to terms with their footballers' unexpected home defeat by Cavan on the first weekend of the All-Ireland series , word emerged on the Friday of last week that GAA president Jarlath Burns and director general Tom Ryan would be arriving in Westport's Knockranny House Hotel the following Monday to attend an extraordinary meeting of the Mayo county committee. Speculation was that they would be addressing financial issues, believed to centre on allegations that included a charge that Croke Park had not passed a reduction negotiated with the bank after it had assumed responsibility for loans taken out by Mayo. By then football manager Kevin McStay had suffered a medical episode at training last Saturday and it was announced just before Monday's meeting that he would be stepping back from his involvement with the team, leaving assistant and coach Stephen Rochford in charge of affairs for this weekend's critical group match against Tyrone in Omagh . How did we get here? The problem began with the redevelopment of MacHale Park in Castlebar, which was completed at a cost of €18 million and opened in 2009, not great timing in financial terms. READ MORE By 2014, Croke Park had loaned Mayo €5 million and taken over an additional, consolidated €5 million as part of a scheme to alleviate distressed loans to GAA units. Last Monday, the GAA's most senior officials were attending the meeting in Westport to deal, inter alia, with allegations that a debt 'haircut' of 50 per cent had not been passed on to the county. What happened? GAA director general (DG) Tom Ryan dealt with the matter of the loan – eventually – after the meeting had opened with condemnation of the intimidatory treatment suffered on social media by county officers and others in the GAA. Ryan, previously the association's director of finance, explained that the outstanding loan, confirmed at €7.8 million, was based on the original total of €10 million – two loans at €5 million each, the second, Loan B, of which had been taken over from Ulster Bank. He strenuously denied that Croke Park had failed to extend the whole reduction to Mayo, saying that it in fact represented 'one of the highest single-value discounts' obtained by any GAA unit. But what does that mean? Ryan outlined that a €1 million reduction on Loan B had been secured, in other words 20 per cent, as opposed to the alleged 50 per cent. The €1 million remains on the balance sheet but reduces as the rest of the loan is paid. Repayments have been brought down over the past 10 years from €46,000 per month to the current €25,000, now payable over 32 years at 1.9 per cent. The DG has a reputation for measured presentation and was very effective, for instance, when the GAA were before the Oireachtas committee on sport and media for its hearings on the 'future of sports broadcasting' and more specifically the GAAGO streaming service. Those present were largely convinced by what he had to say on the loan and the passing on of the discount. Everyone is happy, so? GAA president Jarlath Burns with GAA director general Tom Ryan. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho Although there was no counting of hands, there is believed to have been more or less unanimous support for the officers at a vote taken afterwards. Delegates, who were looking for dissent, report that they didn't see hands not raised and no objections were raised. There is a difference of opinion though between those who attended the meeting, who were impressed and persuaded by Ryan's presentation, and those who weren't present, some of whom felt unconvinced by what they heard back and viewed as vague details. As one said, the priority should have been to equip members with the tools to refute the rumours, which they felt hadn't been done. One delegate acknowledged that financial details can be hard for delegates. 'They come from clubs, which have a different approach. You fundraise – you build. You're not dealing with balance sheets. You're dealing with a set of accounts,' the delegate said. This isn't peculiar to Mayo but a fact of life in a voluntary organisation where there is a growing list of demands on the time of officers given the expanding governance requirement. To cope with this, counties are now required to have an audit and risk committee to advise the treasurer on governance matters and to report back at least annually to provincial and national equivalents. How did abusive social media activity become an issue? After this year's league final in which Kerry beat Mayo, Burns in his presentation speech expressed support for and solidarity with Mayo officers, who had been under fire because of these allegations. At Monday night's meeting, this online hostility was highlighted with examples shown to delegates in an unexpected presentation by county secretary Ronan Kirrane. County chairman Seamus Tuohy said: 'The nature of this campaign includes threatening and abusive emails targeted at individual members of the county board, social media posts making a raft of false accusations about officers of the county board as well as inaccurate and defamatory articles that were published online.' Burns added that the communications had 'gone way beyond' anything that could be 'considered acceptable.' Was the initial emphasis on the abuse of officers counterproductive? Even by Mayo's standards, it was an eventful few days. Photograph: Donall Farmer/Inpho For some outside the meeting it was unhelpful, generating too much smoke and giving the opportunity to depict it as deflection. For others in attendance, it was of sufficient scale and gravity to merit being raised. Not everyone would have been familiar with what had happened. 'It was shocking,' according to one of those present. What about the five players? A strange addendum to the presentation on abuse of officers came from Burns. 'I'll tell you one example of toxic activity,' he said. 'I received an email saying 'are you aware that there are five members of the Mayo senior football panel living in Dublin in an area where it is not laid out for residential use? I am reporting those five players to Dublin City Council .'' The players under threat left what is believed to have been a customised warehouse space but for some of those present, it was an odd line to take. After all, in this case the whistle-blowing appeared to be justified. 'If I were Mayo GAA, I'd be ashamed that our players were living in those conditions,' said one, 'and not drawing attention to it.' What now? Nobody is quite sure whether enough has been done to quell any disquiet but delegates and officers clearly want to move on. There have been recent suggestions that the county might commit €15 million to a centre of excellence, the lack of which former Mayo manager James Horan recently lamented on the Examiner football podcast. Presumably, with a legacy debt hanging around – albeit with flattened repayments – for another three decades, a major infrastructural project would have to be funded in advance.
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Health
- Irish Times
For Valerie by David French: A very personal study of femicide that is ‘dedicated to the silenced women'
For Valerie Author : David French ISBN-13 : 978-1804583296 Publisher : Gill Books Guideline Price : €18.99 Valerie French , a mother of three very young boys, was 'savagely slaughtered' by her husband, the Central Criminal Court in Dublin was told last year. In a victim impact statement read in court, her brother David also said that her murder in June 2019 'was violent and prolonged, with multiple assaults and several major injuries ... She died in terror for her own life and the lives of her children.' He added that the fatal stroke suffered by their mother, also named Valerie, five months later, was 'a direct consequence' of Valerie's murder. James Kilroy, originally from Oldcastle, Co Meath, inflicted 57 wounds on Valerie when he murdered her outside their home near Islandeady, close to Westport, Co Mayo. She was the third Irish woman whose partner was charged with murder in the first half of 2019, a year in which 14 children lost their mother through domestic homicide. She was one of more than 274 women killed violently by a man in Ireland over the past 30 years, an average of more than nine a year. [ People convicted of killing their spouse face losing guardianship rights Opens in new window ] Kilroy, who is serving a life sentence for Valerie's murder, retains legal guardianship of the three boys that he abandoned when he fled on the night of the murder. He also has full ownership of their former home, whose mortgage Valerie's salary paid and which is mortgage-free under a life assurance policy, David French writes. READ MORE As godfather to Valerie's sons, he attended all of the preliminary court and inquest hearings and every day of the trials. He wants Irish laws changed to ensure that men who kill their partners are automatically prevented from having a say in the children's lives. His distressing and important book is 'dedicated to the silenced women'. It distils much of David French's extensive reading about femicide and domestic abuse in Ireland and abroad. It will not ease the shock and horror of the family and friends of the next women to be murdered by a male partner, but it will give them valuable advice and it will show them that they are not alone in their suffering and loss.
The Guardian
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Paul Durcan obituary
Running through the work of the poet Paul Durcan, who has died aged 80, was a strong ironic engagement with contemporary Irish mores and manners, and much else besides. With his first full-length collection, O Westport in the Light of Asia Minor (1975), Durcan showed himself to be a poet of many gifts, and a complete original. He resembled no one else. His poetry is oblique, exhilarating, unsettling and diverting all at once, and never hesitated to take off into a realm of the surreal. The 22 collections that followed Westport between 1978 and 2016 are a testimony to the poet's inventive powers and his distinctive style, and established him among his contemporaries as a force for enlightenment, an artful riddler and rhymer, or the joker in the pack. Among the outstanding collections are Sam's Cross (1978), Going Home to Russia (1987) and A Snail in My Prime (1993); but certain key poems scattered throughout his body of work continue to make an impact. Six Nuns Die in Convent Inferno, for example, The Beckett at the Gate, Going Home to Russia, and Making Love Outside Áras an Uachtaráin (which cocks a snook at De Valera's Ireland with its pieties and prohibitions). Some are filled with erotic affirmation (Teresa's Bar), or are geared to repudiate misogyny, cruelty, bigotry and so on. The Troubles get a showing, with poems such as the beautiful and mysterious Riding School illuminating the conflict. And some of his poems are simply caustically hilarious: What Shall I Wear, Darling, to the Great Hunger? Incidentally, at one point he pokes amiable fun at the poetry reading (tedious, boring) – but his own readings brought him additional acclaim, with audiences mesmerised by the hypnotic timbre of his voice. The route by which anyone becomes a poet is a mystery, and with Durcan it is even more so. His talent was seemingly not inherited from any of his relatives, and before it burst into full bloom, the young Paul had a number of traumas to overcome, despite – or perhaps because of – being born into a Dublin family of legal high-flyers. His father, John Durcan, was a barrister and circuit court judge. His mother, Sheila (nee MacBride), had practised as a solicitor before marriage. Both his younger siblings became solicitors in due course, and it was expected that Paul would do likewise. He was educated at a Jesuit school, Gonzaga college, in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh, and went on to University College Dublin to study, among other things, theology. But he never completed his degree. One of Durcan's characteristic practices is to start a poem by concocting an imaginary newspaper headline, or parodying an actual one, such as Cardinal Dies of Heart Attack in Dublin Brothel, for instance. By a singular irony, a comparable headline in the Irish Independent in 2007 alluded to an actual incident in Durcan's own past. Kidnapped by his Family and Put in a Mental Home, it read, referring to a time when things had turned dark for the 19-year-old student. Largely at the instigation of his father, Paul was forcibly removed to a psychiatric hospital in south Dublin, where he received a diagnosis of clinical depression. Worse was to follow: transferred to an asylum near Epsom, in Surrey, he underwent 27 crippling rounds of electroconvulsive therapy. (Durcan always maintained that whatever mental health problems he encountered throughout his life were created, not alleviated, by this awful treatment.) After it was over he returned to Dublin, chastened but not annihilated. He began to enjoy the company of fellow poets, including Michael Hartnett, Anthony Cronin and Derek Mahon, and became something of a protege of the normally aloof Patrick Kavanagh, in whose company at a wedding reception he met Nessa O'Neill. They married in 1969, and she remained an inspiration, a friend and an object of adulation for the rest of his life – even after the pair separated in 1984. They lived for a while in London, where Durcan worked for the gas board, and spent time studying paintings in the Tate gallery (painting was a lasting obsession – in 1991 he brought out a collection of poems about paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland, Crazy About Women). There was also an interlude in Barcelona, and a longer sojourn in Cork, from 1970, where Durcan took a degree in archaeology and medieval history at the university, and wrote a column for the Cork Examiner, while Nessa taught in a prison. But poetry, and life in Dublin, remained his principal resources. From the mid-1970s on, both his literary reputation and his idiosyncratic modus operandi were building up. He wrote extensively about his complicated relationship with his father. In the poem The Company of the White Drinking Cauldrons, from his collection Daddy, Daddy (which won the Whitbread award in 1990), Durcan wrote: I was the only creature in the world Daddy trusted,Which is why in later years he conspired to murder me. From a couple of poems, Going Home to Mayo, Winter 1949, and Crinkle, Near Birr, you get the essence of the story – one minute idyllic, in the former: … And in the eveningsI walked with my father in the high grass down by the river … And then a sour note entering in the latter, with the father calling his son a sissy and urging him to be a man. Then the beatings start – but in the end, a kind of reconciliation is effected. 'Estranged as we were,' he recalled in Hymn to My Father (1987), 'I am glad that it was in this life, / That I loved you.' It is significant that Mayo is the place where father and son are most vividly in accord in his work. Both of Durcan's parents were Mayo-born, and he remembers his paternal grandmother's house, 'all oil-lamps and women, / And my bedroom over the public bar below'. His mother was a niece of Maj John MacBride, who married Maud Gonne and was executed by the British in 1916 for his part in the Easter Rising. Durcan acknowledged his ancestral ties, but resisted the lure of ultra-nationalism. Parodying the 1916 visionaries' prescription for the country – 'Not only free but Gaelic as well, / Not only Gaelic but free as well' – in the two-line poem At the Grave of O'Donovan Rossa (1989), he states: Not Irish merely but English as well;Not English merely but Irish as well. Durcan was the recipient of many honours and accolades, including a lifetime achievement award at the 2014 Irish book awards. He was elected a member of the Irish artists association Aosdána, and was Ireland professor of poetry from 2004 to 2007. A selection of his poems, edited by Edna Longley, was published in 1982, and in 1996 Colm Tóibín edited a collection of essays on the Durcan oeuvre, called The Kilfenora Teaboy. In his last years, Durcan suffered from ill health, but he never relinquished his spirit or his formidable wit. Like his mother, Sheila – as he reported in 2003 in his prose collection Paul Durcan's Diary – he 'always had the keenest sense of the black joke of life'. He is survived by his daughters with Nessa, Sarah and Síabhra, by his son, Michael, from another relationship, and by nine grandchildren. Paul Durcan, poet, born 16 October 1944; died 17 May 2025
Irish Times
27-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Mayo GAA deny claims of financial mismanagement and reveal threats to county board members
Mayo GAA has denied claims of financial mismanagement while revealing An Garda Síochána have been informed of 'threatening and abusive' emails sent to county board officers. Monday night's special county board meeting in Westport was attended by GAA president Jarlath Burns and association director general Tom Ryan. During the meeting Burns condemned what he labelled as 'toxic activity' targeted towards Mayo County Board officers while delegates unanimously passed a motion condemning such abuse and also supported a motion of confidence in current county board officers. Mayo GAA released a statement afterwards saying the meeting had been called to 'address a very serious adult safety issue that is facing the Co Board, due to an ongoing campaign of harassment and intimidation that has been targeted at its officers over the past number of years.' READ MORE The statement continued: 'At the special meeting of more than 100 club delegates, Mayo Co Board outlined the nature of the threatening and abusive email correspondence that its officers continue to receive. Given the seriousness of the situation, a decision was taken to inform club delegates of the nature of the campaign against Mayo GAA, which constitutes an adult safety issue for all Co Board officers. 'The Co Board confirmed it has reported the matter to An Garda Síochána and that it intends to seek legal advice on the matter in the next week. 'Mayo GAA delegates unanimously passed two special motions, which were proposed from the floor. The first was a motion to unequivocally condemn the campaign of abuse and intimidation that is continues to be targeted at Mayo Co Board officers. 'The second motion was a unanimous vote of confidence in the current officers of Mayo Co Board to continue their work and seek to bring an end to this campaign.' The presence of both Burns and Ryan highlighted the seriousness of the situation. Burns said: 'Mayo is a proud county with incredible GAA pedigree. It's a county that is respected by the entire GAA family across the island of Ireland. But without unity there can be no progression. 'The GAA has a duty of care to the officers in every club and county, not only under adult safeguarding policies, but also to promote and value the selfless work of the volunteers that make our Association what it is. 'I've been very concerned about the threats, intimidation and toxic activity that has been directed against the officers of Mayo Co Board, which is bound to have a negative impact on all aspects of the administration of Mayo GAA. It's now time for this to stop.' Financial issues were also discussed during the gathering, including the board's explanation on details of the repayment rate for Mayo GAA in relation to a €5 million loan taken on by Croke Park in 2015. Mayo GAA stated the meeting had also been called to address 'a series of false allegations and inaccurate claims that have been published online and on social platforms over recent weeks relating to the financial management of Mayo GAA, and the wider GAA organisation.' Ryan made a presentation to the meeting, outlining how Croke Park had acquired the €5 million bank loan relating to Mayo GAA. Mayo GAA added: 'Under the terms of the agreement, the GAA secured a €1 million reduction in the capital value of Mayo GAA's loan, extended the repayment schedule to 29 years and reduced the loan interest rate from 3.2% to 1.9%. 'This arrangement helped reduce Mayo GAA's monthly loan repayments from more than €46,000 per month down to €34,000 per month – a change that resulted in a cash saving of €150,000 per annum for Mayo GAA. This renegotiated loan arrangement greatly improved the Co Boards cashflows, and helped direct more funding towards the preparation of County Teams each year. 'Tom Ryan outlined to club delegates how the loan arrangement has been reorganised further in recent years, with the loan term extended out to 32 years and repayments reduced further to €25,000 per month. In total, the new loan arrangement has saved Mayo GAA over €100,000 in loan repayments to date. 'The figures outlining these reductions in loan repayments and the amortisation of the loan has been fully disclosed in the accounts of Mayo GAA for the past several years.' The meeting took place just hours after Kevin McStay stepped away from managing the Mayo senior football team indefinitely due to health reasons.
