A spike in population suggests the county is thriving – but in towns and villages there are countless stories of emigration and loss
ON PAPER, the latest census figures for Co Roscommon look as if the county is robust and thriving, with a population up to 64,065 from 58,768 in 2006.
Yet the stories of recent emigration that people relate suggest quite a different reality. It’s a year since the data was collected and many people spoke of recently departed friends, relatives, customers and colleagues. It would appear things have changed significantly in the last year.
Co Roscommon hasn’t experienced a high-profile multinational company suddenly closing or drastically reducing its workforce by several hundred, as has happened elsewhere in the State in recent years. But nonetheless, the steady loss of employment over recent years has been brutal for morale.
In 2007, 85 jobs went in the closure of the Glanbia meat-canning business in Rooskey. In 2008, both Dawn Meats in Ballaghaderreen and Hannon’s Poultry in Roscommon town closed, with job losses numbering 80 and 55 respectively. Last July saw the controversial closure of the emergency department in Roscommon County Hospital. And jobs in the construction sector have entirely vanished.
Claire Carty is the rural development officer at the Roscommon Leader Partnership, and has a listening ear to what’s happening in the county.
“There was a certain amount of construction still going on, keeping bits going, filling a gap,” she says. “These would all be the smaller contractors, employing five or six lads at a time, not big numbers. They would mostly have been doing the first fit-outs on housing estates. About 12 months ago, the contractors realised things weren’t going to get better, and they let everyone go. So these lads never got the call back for the second fit-outs, or any other jobs.”
Carty herself has several male cousins who were previously working throughout the county as electricians, plumbers, painters and decorators. They have all lost their jobs within the last year, and most have now gone to Australia, “and taken their girlfriends with them”, Carty reports.
Two of her cousins had built a house together before they left, one to London and one to Australia. Their sister, who is living in the house, has just lost her job as a legal secretary. “And if she hasn’t got another job by May, she’s going too.”
Australia is a place-name that is repeated over and over again. Edward Donnellan runs a long-established men’s clothing shop on Roscommon’s Main Street. In November, Donnellan noticed a large number of women coming into the shop to buy clothes as presents, weeks before the traditional Christmas surge. “They all told me they were sending the clothes to Australia to their sons for Christmas.”
John Earley of Roscommon town, who owns Earley Property Partners, has been in the business of selling land and property throughout the county since 1979. In the last year, he has noticed a new trend in land sales.
“Roscommon people out in Australia are sending back money to buy land. They’ve also bought farms through me that they’re not running themselves, but family members are. That indicates to me people have an intention of eventually returning. What people are not doing is choosing to stay here without jobs and remain poor.”
In Athleague, two of the village’s four pubs have closed in the last three years. The one that closed in January had been in the same family “for more than 150 years”, reports Bernard Keane, owner of the village’s Centra. “The Celtic Tiger never roared that loud in Roscommon, but there were a lot of people involved in the building industry, and they’re gone now,” he says. “I’m told there are 100 empty units for sale or let in Roscommon town.”
Keane says the area has lost many young people between 18 and 30, other than “those who are still in college. People are going to Australia. There’s a tendency to go to where their friends go.”
“People are emigrating. How do I know? Because I’ve lost most of my clientele in the last year,” explains Michael Conneely, owner of Athleague’s Bridge Bar. “The youth between 18 and 25. They’ve gone to Australia. They all follow each other out. There’s a lot from here gone out to the mines.”
“There are two hurling clubs in Athleague and there wouldn’t be one decent club between them now,” says Tom O’Toole, one of only two customers in Hamrock’s Bar at the other end of the village.
Until recently, the village of Knockcroghery, like Athleague, also had four pubs. One is now closed, and John Murray, who owns a landmark bar and grocery, says he is “seriously considering” closing the shop which has been in his family for three generations. The shop shelves are currently only a third stocked. Knockcroghery is a village of only 100 people, but Australia has also claimed two of Murray’s former employees.
“Two lads who are electricians and who used to work for me in the bar part-time are gone to Australia,” he says. “There’s no work around here any more.”
People are emigrating. How do I know? Because I’ve lost most of my clientele in the last year