Time for Longford to stand up for itself

Community activist and former RTE broadcaster Ciaran Mullooly has written a new book with a central theme on the need for local community groups and volunteers to roll up their sleeves and decide their own fate on the future development of their area.

At a time of huge change after the closure of Bord na Mona and ESB peat operations in Lanesboro, and the launch of the new European Union Just Transition Fund programme, up to €17 million will soon be available for tourism projects alone in this region and we are delighted to include an excerpt from Ciaran's book ‘The Future is Now’ in the Longford Leader this week.

This is from the chapter entitled; ‘The beginners guide to community funding’.
It begins, as happens so often, with a poorly attended annual general meeting of the local club or development organisation. You came along only because a friend or a neighbour absolutely plagued you to attend with them in the first place and within an hour there’s the deeply alarming prospect of the sophisticated title of vice chairperson or assistant secretary being cast in your direction. Welcome to the world of community development!

For decades, it’s always been this way. There never was a formal guide book that I am aware of on how to join a community development group (or indeed avoid one!) or how to train up as a volunteer activist in this country so we all became targets or enthusiasts from time to time because we had “a weakness for that sort of thing” or actually felt we could make a difference if we tried hard enough. Honourable objectives indeed – but tough ones to implement some times!

A friend of mine who has been a successful community development chairman for years told me once there were two types of people in the community development field in Ireland: a) the volunteers and activists who took the jobs, did the work and made projects happen and b) the ‘hurlers on the ditch’ who repeatedly sat on the bar stool and talked about how it would be “great for the town” and needed to be done but never really did anything except give out yards about the failures of those who were trying.

For forty years, I would like to think I have been a member of the former group – working diligently as part of a team of volunteers around the island of Ireland who have set out to achieve something substantial and worthwhile in our community, county and country and I am proud to say I have enjoyed almost every moment of it too.

The beginning point for anybody reading this book who either wants to join such a group or perhaps strengthen the operations of the one they’re in has to be in the sharp focus on the membership around you and specifically the team leaders.

“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” John F Kennedy said famously, and in truth, this has to be the starting point for any community group setting up in life or indeed embarking on a new project.

It takes a certain type of person with a certain civic sense of responsibility and a certain frame of mind to get involved in this stuff and there has to be a common cause too. Let’s not be foolish about the make-up of any such group. Let’s look at the hard and fast rules. The people around you at the first meeting or those who have come in to join you on a new project MUST be stakeholders in what you’re setting out to achieve. They MUST care just as passionately as you about the cause you’re fighting for and they must be cut from the same cloth as yourself in so far as possible.

Let’s focus on a few basic but good working examples of what I’m talking about here. In the years 2010-2018 the old soccer and gaelic pitch at Lanesboro Community college in county Longford was repeatedly flooded and unplayable. Dozens of parents like my wife and myself faced the weekly ritual of having to drive their precious children to the away grounds of the opponents with the news delivered by text – week after week that our pitch was unplayable.

The community development principles that went into play here were pretty straight forward and entirely effective: a body of over 100 parents came together and worked with the local school to develop a new astro pitch and re-drain the old sports field. The result: the stakeholders (parents, children and school authorities) quickly organised planning and grant aid, threw in a bit of great community fun with an Oscar night fundraiser and, hey presto, a new state of the art facility was opened for all of the community to enjoy.

In between, of course, there were endless committee meetings, fundraisers and community events – but the end product was a triumph – the communities of Lanesborough, Ballyleague, Killashee, Cashel, Kilgefin and nearby got their new astro. Home games are now always at HOME and everyone is happy.