*Luke Ashton. Photograph: Tom Micks
COMMUNITY STRENGTH has come to the fore in Carrigaholt with fundraising efforts seeing €50,000 raised in three and a half days to retain and create new facilities in the locality.
At the end of February, an online campaign was launched by the Carrigaholt Development Association (CDA) to raise funds to ensure the reopening of the post office in Carrigaholt following a robbery that shook the entire Loop Head Peninsula.
Within three and a half days, the fundraiser met the target of €50,000 and to date has brought in over €61,000. It has led to the installation of upgraded security systems and protective measures, repairing damage caused during the robbery, fitting out a small convenience store to make the post office financially sustainable and covering necessary reopening costs.
CDA members that drove the fundraiser included Luke Ashton, Mags Keane, Aideen Day, Tony Lynch and Mark Carmody.
Reflecting on their conversations in February, Luke recalled, “We had a target of €50,000, we thought we might have to do a bit of pushing, we said we would set a target of €50,000 and we are lucky as a CDA that we have a bit of funding left over so we will spend it, do the job, do two or three years of fundraising and eventually get it back, that was the exact conversation but then we were messaging each other the night after the GoFundMe was launched saying ‘it’s up to €20,000 and €30,000’. That was exciting in itself and we went from there to realising we had to get in touch with tradesmen, Niall McGrath came in very early on, he has been a brilliant contact for a lot of the work, he went over and above anything we could pay him for, he’s been a very important part of putting this together and Maura stood with us, all those things came together”.
He told The Clare Echo, “I think we hit the target in three and a half or four days, it just goes to show the appetite there is for rural facilities and the post office being one of the really important parts of that, it is collecting pensions and doing all that stuff but also because banks have disappeared, it is the bank for a lot of people who can do AIB or Bank of Ireland banking in An Post which is a big part of what works for us”.
By adding the new element of the shop, they had the goal of creating a community space. “It was also the idea of setting up the shop to foster that, we were never looking to make the shop pay but it is modelled on community shops around other parts of Ireland and what they found is that it becomes a focus for a community coming together and that is very much the focus of the shop”.
This community shop will be ran by volunteers, Luke explained. “We put a call out and had twenty to thirty people sign up already, we’re hoping it will develop into a hub for activity in the village. We hope it becomes a hub for the village, it will get people talking to each other and the community will run the shop”.
Addressing the crowd of fifty plus in The Square on Monday morning, Luke stated, “this has happened because of this community, it started with a tragedy with Maura getting robbed by the sort of people that seem to think that is necessary in this life but it moved us forward into developing a state of the art new post office and giving new lift for Carrigaholt and to see the strength of the community of Carrigaholt and Loop Head and the willingness they have to be able to come out, put their hands in their pocket and despite politicians coming around the place, the community here do these things, get things done and prove if you really want to get things done you get the community to do it and have the politicians support us, that is a very important message we have going forward from here today. It wouldn’t have happened without all the community, without Maura being willing to stay here and get over what happened and look forward to this happening and opening again, it wouldn’t have happened without a committee, the few people who got stuck in and put in lots of hours”.
