A sunny Friday in the Twin Towns and Marty McDaid is painting a bicycle onto the striking pink facade of Conkers in Ballybofey.
By Chris McNulty in Ballybofey
He lays on the ground, carefully colouring the spokes of the Navenny Street sandwich bar and restaurant.
Customers stop briefly to admire his ongoing work and across the street, a team of painters are also refurbishing the exterior of The Doghouse pub.
There are upgrades everywhere, including on Donegal Street where the first part of a major roadworks project in Ballybofey and Stranorlar has begun in recent days.
Its people were irked recently at a negative depiction in The Irish Times. In case you have missed it, the Twin Towns has 33.6% of commercial properties vacant – more than twice the national rate.
Look a little deeper, though, and it is a place and a people full of positive energy and belief in itself.
McElhinney’s stands as the pièce de résistance on Ballybofey’s Main Street. The iconic window displays of the department store are known across the world.
McElhinney’s was founded by John McElhinney in 1968, initially operating door-to-door from a van. The current premises have been in existence since 1979.
At Christmas, it is McElhinney’s that sprinkles the initial droplets of magic; young, bright eyes glow as their festive window reveal coincides with the switching on of the town’s lights.
“We have almost 5,000 who come in on that day,” General Manager Sandra Devenney tells Donegal Daily. “This year, there are plans to make a weekend of it. “At McElhinney’s, we feel that we have a responsibility to promote great things about Donegal and about Ballybofey and Stranorlar. People come to McElhinney’s as a destination, but they stay in the town.
“We all, the businesses, try to keep things as local as we can. We work with each other and we back each other on community projects. There is such a community.”
Sandra Devenney, General Manager at McElhinney’s
Not too many years ago, the local Chamber of Commerce had membership numbering not much more than 30 businesses. Of late, there has been a real resurgence and they now employ a part-time manager to oversee its affairs.
Membership is now in the mid-80s and they are aiming to have 100 members by the end of the year, their reach now stretching across the entire Finn Valley region. Within the catchment area of Ballybofey and Stranorlar, there are around 250 businesses.
“A lot of people are toiling away here and making a major contribution,” says Martin McGowan, the Chairperson of the Ballybofey and Stranorlar Chamber of Commerce. “Look at our members and the businesses around, that is a brave litmus test. The growth is there, the momentum is there and the positivity is certainly there.”
McGowan feels as if the dereliction table has been used “like a stick to beat us” on an annual basis, but groups like BASICC (Ballybofey and Stranorlar Integrated Community Company) and the Town Team are all aiding in positive promotion.
Martin McGowan, Chairperson of the Ballybofey and Stranorlar Chamber of Commerce
“We aren’t delusional,” McGowan adds. “We know that people are getting it tough, but we have come through so much here: We’ve got through Covid; we came through the situation of being a border town when the stroke of a pen for a budget could have closed a filling station.
“There are a lot of large multi-generational businesses in the area and then there are the young guns too that are creating significant employment.”
Patsy McGonagle has been around the world in his time. Over two decades in his reign as the Irish athletics team manager, McGonagle was everywhere from Stranorlar to Sydney and Ballybofey to Beijing.
“There is no better place for facilities and opportunities – and people,” says McGonagle of his hometown.
The bustling Finn Valley campus in Stranorlar – his brainchild that followed his formation of the Finn Valley Athletics Club in the early 1970s – is a daily hive of activity. A fire drill was called this week and a few dozen people were in the car park at that one snapshot in time.
“We have certainly 60 people who are either in employment here who or are getting revenue via activities being delivered from the centre, for example Tiny Tunes, Pilates, music classes and so on,” he says.
“I often wondered if Ballybofey would have been too small or too rural to support the overall type of development that we were doing here, the children’s parties, food and what not. The community backed the facility and the community responded. It has been a great example of building something, providing something and essentially making an effort and people responding.
“I mean, it is a world class facility, most certainly. It would compare very favourably with facilities in major cities and regions throughout Europe, but the standout aspect of it is that it is a community-owned facility as distinct from a municipal facility, which would generally be the case.
“That in itself is a positive, although there are a lot of demands and needs in order to stay ahead.
“Active in the community has been our tagline all the way – and that has been a key. I basically believed in the community. I thought that my community was the greatest in the world. They were my people from where I also grew up.”
Next door, hopes are high that Freddy Gonzalez, a Filipino entrepreneur who wants to buy the club, will be able to deliver Finn Harps’ new stadium. Sport is a real centrepiece as the home of Donegal GAA in Sean MacCumhaill Park as well as a raft of clubs and organisations much too numerous to list.
McGonagle’s mother operated a chemist shop from where the Hatter Express – one of the area’s many coffee emporiums now exists.
A month ago, Louise Patton and her team at The Igloo on Trusk Road launched the latest, Minnie & Jean’s Coffee – including a drive-thru. The Patton Frozen Foods business has been serving the north west for over 40 years and The Igloo, a retail store selling fresh and frozen foods, opened 13 years ago.
The latest spin-off was something different, though. An old house that was in the Patton family and hadn’t been lived in for 22 years is now home to the town’s newest business.
“This town has so much to offer,” the former chamber of commerce secretary says. “I know only too well the effort that goes into this town. We are a business who keep trying – and trying hard – the negative headlines aren’t what you want and it’s sad that we are seen like that nationally. People in Dublin or wherever have never been to Ballybofey and have this impression on it.”
Louise Patton and some of her staff and Minnie & Jean’s Coffee
The queues outside tell the story of a thriving outlet.
“It has been really rewarding,” she says. “We wanted to bring something new to Ballybofey through good coffee and connection.”
There are plans for Christmas wreath making events, painting nights and a chef’s supper club in a building that was all-but derelict until recently.
“The place is about so much more than derelict buildings,” Patton says.
Like McElhinney’s, O’Reilly Sports also began out of modest beginnings. From distributing gloves for Gaelic footballers to flogging bobble hats, brothers Steven and Martin O’Reilly have developed a business of real stature.
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Last year, they invested around €2million into transforming a disused facility in Sessiaghoneill and moved their operation into the site of the former Herdman’s Factory. Employing around 40 people across the country, two-dozen of whom are based in the Ballybofey plant, O’Reilly’s have also brought clothing manufacturing to the area.
“This was the natural next step for us to control all of our elements in Ballybofey” says Steven O’Reilly, a European schoolboys boxing champion and a 13-time Irish champion.
“The only worry or concern was getting the fabric and materials. We were lucky to get a very good seamstress. This now was the best step that we could do for our business for a level of control: We could scale 4-500 pieces a day when and if we need them now in Ballybofey.”
Steven and Martin O’Reilly with family members at their official opening earlier this year
Like McGonagle five decades ago, O’Reilly points out that the local support was key in getting their idea off the ground.
“We have gone from strength to strength, but that has come from the confidence the clubs locally initially placed in us,” he says. “Further afield clubs are now placing the same trust in us, but when we started doing clothes, it could have started or ended right there and then. One of the first clubs we did was Raphoe Boxing Club and now we have business abroad because of Donegal people.”
Martin Harley was working as a postman in Rathmines in the 1980s and was seeking a transfer to Donegal Town when the chance to come to Ballybofey arose.
He knew little of the place, outside of Jackson’s Hotel and Finn Harps – his brother was an ardent Harps fan at the time – but his sister, Margaret, had worked in Ballybofey and ‘loved it’. Harley arrived in Ballybofey on April 24, 1985 and has been there ever since.
In early ’86, Harley was offered a spot in Donegal Town.
“I didn’t take it because I was as happy as Larry in Ballybofey,” he says. “Ballybofey was so welcoming as a place. I look at it now and it has so much going for it. In the Twin Towns, you have so much sport – it is the centre of sport in Donegal, no question – you have three of the best hotels in the county, several supermarkets. People often mention Drumboe Woods to me and how lucky we are to have a place like that in the middle of the towns. Other towns would cry out for an amenity like it.”
A Fine Gael Councillor since 2000 and a businessman for decades as a publican of Cheers Bar, Harley knows all about the challenges of life and business in the place.
“I do believe if the bypass was up and running, there would be very little units left in the town,” he says. “At the minute, at times all we see is traffic going through it and traffic jams and people can’t wait to just get through it. If they had that time to look around them, they could see the opportunity. A lot of those units would soon fill up if that was the case.”
The bypass has been talked about for generations now in the area. The planned bypass is a part of the Donegal TEN-T project and will cost up to €180m. It is now at planning phase and the compulsory purchase orders were recently published for the roads, while a part of the SEED project could see the old Ritz cinema transformed into an enterprise hub as part of a €10m regeneration of the towns.
“Hopefully they can drive ahead,” Harley says. “If they could get a section of that started, it would be brilliant, just for people to see that moving forward. They (Council) do want to drive on and get a contractor appointed for that work.
“In fairness to the Council, Patricia McIntyre and her team have done a lot of work and dropped letters in about the empty buildings to see if they can they help the owners do something with them.
“Even now, there are a lot of good businesses in the town. This year has been difficult and people obviously have less spending power, but you can see that Ballybofey is busy – and I do believe there is an exciting future in the town.”
The O’Reilly brothers bought a “shell” of a building and transformed it into a 21st century base. It is as much a pointer to their own future as it is a reminder of the past productions on the same site.
Their journey from shell to home wasn’t without its hiccups, but they got there.
“We had a clear vision,” O’Reilly says. “If you had asked me 18 months to two years ago what it would look like – this is exactly what it would have looked like.”
O’Reilly points out what might seem like the obvious since their expansion last year.
“We have up to 30 people a day buying lunches in the area,” he says. “They are going into the shops and restaurants. We do social events every few weeks as well.
There is, though, local frustration at some decisions that come from the authorities. Just last week, for example, a Deirdre Quinn saw a planning application for a new apartment block on Glenfin Street rejected due, among other things, to flooding concerns.
“The subject site is located on low-lying lands in close proximity to the River Finn and it is a policy of the council to only permit development where flood or surface water management issues can be successfully addressed,” planners stated.
“There is the question of common sense,” McGonagle says. “There are a lot of vacant places and yet there are people crying out for places to live. I mean, if you stand at the corner of Navenny Street and look across, there isn’t anything in an upper storey bar Alexanders’ coffee place.
“We know that there are a lot of vacant properties and we can see that it is a serious problem. There is a big job ahead, no question, but the dereliction is linked to ownership and it will need the backing – the proper backing – of the Council and the Government to sort that aspect out. It is complicated because it has gone so far now.
“There really is no good in people saying ‘we need to do this and that’; basically now we need people to do it. There is far too much red tape and kicking of things down the road.”
McGowan, an estate agent, has a ‘for sale’ sign on a historic building on the Main Street. The former ‘Arcade’ building, which is one of the oldest buildings in the town, has fallen into disrepair in recent years, but has planning permission granted for six apartments.
During the early part of the last century, it was used as a ‘market house’ and its distinctive arched window was said to have been the main entrance for horses and carts to pass through.
McGowan says: “I counted up recently that there is about €200m in investment associated with the Twin Towns and then you have the new Greenway as well. Things are starting to hot up now. The crux of it, I believe, is that this should be used as an opportunity.
“The Government have rolled out funding for tier 1 towns in terms of dereliction. We need that rolled out for tier 2 towns. Give us the funding and give us the backing to see what can we do. We really need regional investment.
“We also have to ask: Why is there dereliction? Each answer is important because each answer might need a different solution.”
At the Balor Arts Centre, a variety of posters show an eclectic mix of upcoming shows: Pump Up The Volume, a house music journey, is on this weekend; Conal Gallen will be in next week with ‘How’s Your Father?’; the Ghostlight Sessions and Rude Boy Revolution are on the menu next month.
People weave and zig-zag their way across the Main Street, where its crossing points have been a bone of contention, as the music blares from the speakers at McElhinney’s. Inside, the staff – which numbers over 200 now – are trained to promote the local area and its amenities.
“There is so much goodness about Ballybofey,” Devenney says. “We are proud of being local. We tell people about what is available in the area. It is a part of us future-proofing McElhinney’s and helping the other businesses to do the same. This is a culture for us. It is so important that we get these people to stay in Ballybofey. In order to do that, we need to make it an exciting place and how we live in breathe is by keeping it local and talking about Donegal.”
Costs have rocketed and McElhinney’s have noticed the spike. Rates are an ever-worrying headache for businesses, the traffic too. Minimum wage rises and pension costs have added further layers of challenge – without government support coming the other way.
“We need to keep moving,” Devenney says. “People can see that we are authentic here. It’s very exciting and for the town as a whole, there is a young chamber now with energetic business people running it; young people with fresh ideas. The word I use for the future is ‘hope’.”
O’Reilly, who knows all about punching above his weight, is certainly hopeful as he plans for the future, long-term and short.
“We took a chance and took an opportunity,” he says. “Only for the people of this town, we wouldn’t have a business.
“Ballybofey is as good a place as you want to make it.”
Down its variety of historical streets, there are plenty who will nod in agreement.
They certainly aren’t ready to pull the shutters down.