Gaeltacht village fights to keep post office

JOBS could be at risk if a Gaeltacht village loses its post office.

That was the stark warning from the people of Ballingeary in Co Cork last night as they launched a campaign to save the facility. Village postmaster Aidan Twomey is due to retire at the end of January. The post office has been in his family for generations.

An Post said, arising from the retirement, it decided to advertise for a contractor to provide a postal agency service in the village because it felt the level of business did not warrant a full post office service. An agency would provide the same range of services, with the exception of banking and parcels, over the counter of a shop. However, a spokesman for An Post said it had received no applications by last Friday’s deadline.

Coiste Forbartha Béal Áthan Ghaorthaidh, the village’s development agency, said it fears the village will be left without a post office. Spokesperson Tadhg Ó Duinnín said they are planning a major campaign to save it.

The Gaeltacht minister has been contacted and campaigners are planning to meet local politicians early in the new year.

Mr Ó Duinnín said they also plan to increase the numbers of locals making use of the post office over the coming weeks, and if needed, they will take their campaign on to the streets of Cork.

He said the post office provides a vital service to all parts of the community, including 35 local businesses like award-winning information-management company Bárd na nGleann, which has a subsidiary Bárd na nGleann International located in San Jose, California.

The company runs Bardwrite, which provides technical writing and project management services for IT companies; Freastal, which provides translation services in the Irish language, including translation services for government documents and reports; Gaeltalk, which provides Irish language training online for personal or business use along with Litríocht which provides a state-of-art online eCommerce website making it easy to buy Irish language publications and music.

Bard was named Cork SME Company of the Year by Cork Chamber of Commerce in 2004; was ranked as the fifth fastest growing technology company in Ireland in the Deloitte Fast 50 in 2005, and ranked 80th fastest growing technology company in the Deloitte Fast 500 EMEA.

The company was also named as Cork’s leading employer in 2006 and the leading employer in Munster in 2007 while Litriocht.com won a Golden Spider Award in November for the best e-commerce site in Ireland.

Freastal project manager Julia Uí Chriodáin said a full post office service was vital for the company which has just launched a new mail order business, localbooks.ie.