Retired schoolteacher begins hunger strike over post office closure

An east Galway retired schoolteacher has initiated a hunger strike to try to save his local post office from closure. Michael J Kilgannon (74) began his action on Saturday in protest over the imminent closure of Cappataggle post office near Ballinasloe.

He says he will continue to refuse food until Friday, and says others will continue with the action if An Post does not change its plan. The Cappataggle post office is due to close on Friday.

Mr Kilgannon and others have formed the Post Office Users Association to campaign for retention of postal services in rural Ireland. He says that equal services are a constitutional right.

A former county councillor, Mr Kilgannon chained himself to the railings of Woodlawn railway station on the Galway-Dublin line in protest at the downgrading of the station in the 1980s.

“We’re asking An Post to keep Cappataggle open for a year,” he said, stating he believed it to be more viable than the post office in Barnaderg, near Tuam, which was also the subject of a recent campaign. Barnaderg has been given a year’s extension.

An Post said that it had carried out a full community consultation and had taken its decision to close Cappataggle’s post office at the end of this year on the basis of this.

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for An Post said the organisation welcomed the decision by Minister for Communications Alex White to appoint businessman Bobby Kerr as chair of the new Post Office network business development group. It has been set up to examine the "potential and opportunities for new government and commercial business that could be transacted through the post office network".