The Boyle’d Pot 9/2/’18
Good quality schools are highly important for Boyle
The late Fergus Ahern was a great believer in the importance of having a high quality educational system in place if a town like Boyle was to attract new residents. Fergus would have had a broad grin on his face at the news recently, as reported here on Boyletoday.com, that 100% of the class of 2017 in Abbey College went onto third level education. Add to the success of our secondary school, the high quality primary schools in and around the town and Boyle is indeed an area where you would move to if you take your son or daughters education seriously. The added bonus, as Fergus believed, was that those who got a good education in Boyle would remember this and return to Boyle at some stage in their career and perhaps give something back to their town. Hopefully we will see the benefit of our good schooling in years to come.
No many houses to buy in Boyle
If you decide to move to Boyle, where would you live? It would seem there is a shortage of residential stock in the town and area if you listen to young couples who are on the house hunt. Boyle is no different to many other towns in the county. In some towns it is understood a waiting list is in place for those who want to buy a detached house in a nice area, close to town in the €150,000 – €230,000 bracket. Currently on daft.ie there are 13 properties for sale in Boyle in that price range with only four close to the town centre. It is hard to believe but we do have an acute shortage of mid level houses for sale in Boyle and that does not help in attracting people into our town.
Getting the town ready for Spring and Summer
Even thought the weather says otherwise, you know Spring is just around the corner when you see the public areas of Boyle being power hosed for the bright days ahead. Roscommon Co Co are to the fore once again, as they were last year, in getting the winter coat of algae and moss off the footpaths and public spaces. It was heartening to see this work being undertaken on the Plaza area of the Crescent yesterday as the road sweeper passed up the town. Two further examples of the support and interest in the town by the local authority.
Plans continue for town centre accomodation
Elsewhere on this website this morning you can read the full, unedited statement from Boyle Town Team on the results of the pre development study for the Albergo Diffuso project for Boyle. The study shows that the project, as initally envisaged, is not financial viable, but it does identify another avenue of development for a similar type accomodation project for the town. This is being investigated at present by the Town Team with the property owners. A very productive meeting with the property owners, consultants and Town Team took place yesterday and despite the negativity that you may read elsewhere (not on this website), the project is very much alive, albeit in a different but more achievable form.
Drumanilra running @IrelandFarmers
The progressive folk at Drumanilra Farm and Farm Kitchen took over the curating of the Irelands Farmers Twitter account (@IrelandsFarmers) for the past week. Justina and Liam Gavin gave an interesting insight to the 13,800 followers of the journey their food takes from their organic farm to their cafe in Boyle, why they started the project and the highs and lows of organic farming and producing food to sell directly to customers. Drumanilra Farm Kitchen is one of Boyle’s more recent success stories. Running the twitter account was a great way of gaining positive publicity for the business and in turn the town of Boyle. Well done to all.
Getting park visitors into Boyle
Not a week goes by but Boyle’s Lough Key Forest Park gets a mention in a national newspaper. Last weekend the Park was listed in “Ireland’s Best 20 Walks”. The previous weekend Trinity Island got a mention in “Six Irish Islands to Explore”. The Park is big news nationally and is projected to attract even more visitors in 2018 than the 270,000 that visited in 2017. But it is vitally important that Boyle gets a percentage of those visitors. The Town Team proposed Greenway is a crucial piece of infrastructure in attracting visitors from the Park into Boyle, but with Roscommon Co Co and the Town Team involved, rest assured there will be one if not two in the local media scene here in Boyle (not Boyletoday.com) who will try and find fault with the project and stymie the development. But it won’t succeed and work is and will continue behind the scenes to make the Greenway a reality, sooner rather than later – all for the betterment of Boyle.
The retail mix and regularised business opening hours are also important in attracting park visitors to the town. Sunday opening, 7 day per week restaurant opening in summer and special tourist promotions in the shops, bars and restaurants will go a long way to ensuring Boyle reaps the benefit from the success of it’s national Park in 2018.
And Finally…!
On a beautiful summer’s day, two tourists were driving through Wales.
At Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogoch,they stopped for lunch, and one of the tourists asked the waitress:
‘Before we order, I wonder if you could settle an argument for us.
Can you pronounce where we are, very, very, very slowly?’……….
The girl leaned over and said,
‘Burrr … gurrr … king’